Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Hot Season

For those of you who didn't know I just spent some time in Senegal. a group of us went over to Dakar for what is known as W.A.I.S.T. That stands for the West Africa International Softball Tournament. Any expat, Government, Peace Corps, or NGO group working in West Africa can put a team together and compete, but mostly its just to have fun and hang out and meet people. It was good though. Dakar is a real city...with paved streets, and garbage collection, and good food. Its busy though, especially in certain parts of town. You can't walk 5 feet without someone trying to get you to buy some "authentic" Ray Bans or Dolce & Gabbana clothes. Makes it tough to really enjoy walking around those parts of the city. It was kinda nice to get outta there after a few days. We ended up renting a beach house a few hours outside of the city and that was really nice. Very sleepy little town where we all could just relax and shake off our crushing defeat by a team of high schoolers who looked liked they belonged on the chess team. But those kids could play.
It was a nice vacation.
On the way home we had typical Africa troubles. We rented this little minibus to take from the beach all the way to Kayes which is about 2 hours over the border. So we spend over 24 hours on this thing just to get to the border and they try and drop us off there. We make a bunch of noise and yell at them that they still have to take us another 2 hours. Well this draws a crowd and luckily they are on our side. So we end up at the police station and the police make them give us money back and we get new transport to Kaye. Well there are already 14 of us in a van built for 12, but being Africa they cram another 3 people in. So that was a fun 2 hours.
From Kayes we took a bus to Bamako and I have never been so glad to see that city. It felt familiar and felt like I was back on my own turf.
But the next morning I was outta Bamako by 8:00 on PC transport to head back to Sevare then on to Bandiagara and finally my site. So it was a lot of traveling in a few days.
It was good to get back to site. It feels like between holiday traveling, training in Bamako, and W.A.S.T. I hadn't been spending much time there.
But coming back to site I found out what this hot season is all about. I had been back there 2 weeks and every day topped out at about 120 degrees. And this isn't the worst of it. We're just getting started.
But aside from the heat, village was good. I met a guy who lives in the next own over. He's an English teacher down in Korro and he would like me to ride down with him soon and talk to his class in English about America. He said he'd be more than willing to help me learn French and Dogon too so that is very exciting. Learning those two languages will be a lot easier if I have someone who speaks English teaching me. So that's been about it.
I was originally headed into Bandiagara and what I usually do is sit by the road until transport comes, I ask if they are going to Bandiagara, we work out the price and I'm on my way. This time a car came I asked we worked out a price and I was on my way, but 3 hours later we were somewhere way out in the bush. There are only a few ways to get to Bandiagara from my site and I know them all pretty well and this was not one of them. So we reach a main road and I ask what town it is. They tell me Somodugu and I get kinda pissed. Thats about 50 k on the wrong side of Sevare. So I tell the driver I'm gonna get off here and he asks me,"oh you're not going to Bandiagara anymore." To which I reply, "M%$#@& F%$#@$ You're not going to Bandiagara! Where the hell are you taking me? Bamako?"
So I caught a bus and here I am in Sevare and not Bandiagara. But it all worked because people had come up for another volunteers birthday so we had fun. And I got to see the new restaurant in town that sells BURGERS. that's right. I now have access to genuine delicious hamburgers among other things.

So that's about it for now. I think I have Amoebas, but that's pretty gross so I won't go into details.
I'm not sure if this is the most interesting post, but I'm kinda passed the honeymoon stage and so things are just day to day stuff for me now and things that seemed really different and interesting 7 months ago are pretty tame. Mostly I'm just hanging out getting some work started on a few projects and chit chattin with the guys in village or reading or something. Nothin too exciting. And the stuf that is exciting I can't put on here because if they read it they will send me home ;) Big Brother is everywhere.

So Hope everyone made it through the winter o.k. I heard it was a rough one.
Peace (Corps)
Brax