WAIST

WAIST stands for the West African International Softball Tournament. This year volunteers from Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, Cape Verde, and Niger (volunteers were evacuated from here very recently and live in new countries). Apparently we won the tournament though we only showed up for two of the five games and were in another town the last day of the tournament.
Rather than tell you everything I did on vacation I will give you a brief summary of what I did and then tell you everything I love about Dakar, which will highlight some of the things Mali lacks/ things about Mali I dislike.
First, if you don't know your West African geography, I would suggest you check out where Sikasso, Mali is on a map and then look where Dakar, Senegal is located. They are very far away. It takes 8 hours to get from Sikasso to Bamako. It took us another 24 hours to get from Bamako to Dakar. PC Mali were the only people on the bus going to Dakar. Traveling from Dakar back to Bamako on regular transportation took us 30 hours. Somewhere on the return trip my camera was stolen so the day I returned to Bamako I got to file incident reports, visit the police station, and file a claim with insurance, which put a damper on the trip because I had some great shots. The last leg of the trip was the trip from Bamako to Sikasso, which took another 8 hours. I am glad to be settled. One hour on bus and one hour on bike and I will be back to site.
Now onto the trip. I spent most days at the American Club, a place for volunteers and ex-pats to hang out at. I am going to skip ahead to the second part of my blog for a minute to tell you that I love the American Club in Senegal. There was a great pool, great lounging chairs, great food (ham and bacon club, hot dogs, and hamburgers eaten by me), softball fields, a large hanger, etc. I spent my time at the American Club lounging by the pool and one day I played a few rounds of kickball. I spent a lot of time at different places on the beach. We asked locals where the beach was our very first day and four different people pointed in every cardinal direction so the beach really was everywhere. We jumped on a great trampoline, visited Goree Island, and ate lots of food. This is the most important part. I ate pizza every single day in Senegal except for one day and at other meals ate sushi, Moroccan food (Moroccan tea is so good!), hamburger, hot dog, ice cream , croque monsieurs (hot ham and cheese), croque madames (hot ham and cheese with fried egg on top), lots of stuff from boulangeries, and a shrimp salad. I spent nearly an entire months salary on food, but it was so worth it. After Dakar, nearly 50 PC Mali volunteers went to Touba Diallo, a resort on the beach. I spent two days lounging by the beach, sitting in hammocks reading, and hanging out with other volunteers as the sun was setting.

Things I love about Dakar:
1. People do not stare at you for being white, black, brown, yellow, red because there is a lot of diversity and Dakar is a somewhat popular tourist destination these days. We weren't called toubabs (my least favorite word in any language), they didn't laugh when we spoke, etc.
2. Speaking French. Sometimes it's just easier to speak French and not Bambara. In fact, it was actually fun to speak Bambara because we so rarely met a Bambara speaker and it almost felt like we had an instant bond.
3. The beach. Being landlocked in West Africa is a real bummer now that I know what I'm missing out on. The ocean breeze makes things so much cooler.
4. Sidewalks. Mali does not have sidewalks and you risk being hit by people, donkey carts, motos, bikes, cars, trucks, etc. every time you go anywhere.
5. Paved roads. Again, Mali barely has any paved roads. Even in Bamako, many roads are not paved. There are even fewer painted lines on the road. Also, for some reason, whoever built the “highways;” meaning the paved roads leading from regional capital to another regional capital, seemed to have some trouble with tape measures. When two vehicles pass one another, it is almost impossible for both vehicles to stay on the paved road. Typically, they play a game of chicken to see who will stay on the road the longest while the chicken swerves off to the side and straddle the paved road and dirt road. All of this requires a great deal of honking and waving and nervous laughter once we have survived yet again.
6. Cars. Everyone drives cars in Senegal. Nobody drives motos in Senegal. I understand that this does not bode well for green people, including myself, but motos are so dangerous.
7. Literacy.
8. Working women. They were everywhere doing the same work the men were doing.
9. Restaurants, boulangeries, bars, malls, hotels. Basic things you expect in a capital city.
10. Trash cans. I rarely saw trash on the sidewalks because they have trash cans. Mali does not have trash cans on the streets. The world becomes a trash can as a result.

This isn't to say Dakar is perfect. Like Mali, the electricity goes out all of the time. Almost every day we lost power for several hours. Our hotel had poor showers so we all ended up taking cold bucket baths instead. People did occasionally act out towards us. One man grabbed my arm while walking down the road. I was expecting him to do something though and was prepared, quickly smacked his arm away, and yelled at him in English. Street vendors still gave us the tourist price for things and pickpockets followed us.
All in all it was a really great trip. It was a chance to get away and spend time with other volunteers just relaxing. I won't be going again next year because it is a lot of work and because I have new places to see!