Fritter and WAIST the hours...

Kolda's WAIST team - 'Space Corps'
Avatars, storm troopers, Jedi, Lady Gaga....you name it

I just got back from a simultaneously fun, crazy, exhausting, and productive several weeks in Dakar. First on the agenda was to take the GRE. Predictably, I did well on the English and essay sections, and terribly on the math ones.  I had the company of a few other peace corps volunteers, both for study sessions and at the actual test, which was nice.

Next came the agroforestry summit, in Thies.  We got to see a fish farm and a chicken farm, learn about fruit tree pests and trench some young mango plants to be grafted next season for the master farmers. We also exchanged seeds, which is always to be looked forward to.  I got a huge rice sack full of sisal starts for the Kolda region, which I'd been hoping for since last year.  Sisal is such an easy and great live fencing shrub; everyone's been asking for it, because there's no seed source near here that I'm aware of.

From Thies we all got PC vehicle ride to Dakar for a day of inter-regional and other non-governmental organizations networking with volunteers.  It didn't really turn out to be very useful for me, personally.  We got to meet several new Kolda volunteers, though, who have been relocated from Niger after the program was shut down there.  Minnie and Dan - agfo and health, respectively, I believe - are awesome, and we all think our region's volunteer group just keeps getting better and better (and bigger and bigger).

Palpatine and Vader are just like the rest of us, really

Leia up to bat

Han, Leia, Obi-wan, Yoda, and...
somehow Vader snuck into the Good Guys photo

Finally, after this networking day came the event that we daydream about all year - the West African invitational softball tournament (forgive me if I explained all about WAIST last year already). Volunteers from Senegal, the Gambia, Mali, Cape Verde, and Niger, as well as American expat and Senegalese leagues came together for three days of softball. Some teams are competetive; some are complete slapstick spectacles of rowdy indifference to the rules. Each team comes up with a theme and dresses up for games, so as you can imagine, attempts at outrageous costumery are often more spirited than shows of athletic ability.  When we're not playing, we're enjoying American food and beer, and generally having a great time in the pool and on the dance floor (there's a party at a different venue every night).

Kolda won two games - two more than our region has ever won in the history of being a region!

I've spent the past few days recuperating in the Kolda house, and getting some agfo seed collection and other work done. It's nice to be back in a city where I can bike everywhere, or pay a $1 cab fare, unlike Dakar's outrageous traffic and prices. The only downside is the 100F-106F weather....it was still nice and cool in Dakar.  But good to be home!

Shelling moringa oleifera seed at the Kolda house