So, WAIST (finally)

WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament) was a smashing good time. We travelled by bus for the 30+ hour drive there, which was definitely taxing. Luckily, I was surrounded by friends, and we were able to keep ourselves amused (when we weren’t sleeping).

Bus: Ready to Go

After the long, long bus ride, we found ourselves transported into a magical land of beaches, sidewalks, and cooler temperatures (also known as Dakar, Senegal). Destination #1: The American Club of Dakar, where there was a swimming pool, cold beer and….. HOT DOGS.

American Club

Maybe it was partly due to my own experiences here in Mali, but my first impression of Dakar was that it was, well, developed. I didn’t feel like I was in a developing country while there. The streets were well maintained, the food was great, and the sewers were actually covered (go figure). If anything, I’d say that Dakar felt like an internationally integrated big city. Granted, my experience was most certainly colored by the fact that I was surrounded by Peace Corps and expats the whole time I was in Dakar.

I will say that there were definite signs that Dakar is still a developing nation. The street vendors, the open air markets, the constant having to haggle on every single price of every single thing you need to buy... They all served to remind me of where I was.

The softball games were fun. Mali had a total of 3 softball teams: Team A (The Cowboys), Team B (The Wranglers), and Team C (The Buckaroos). The A Team was the most competitive, and they showed it (they only lost 1 game). B Team (my team), was the intermediate team. We put on a good show, but that turned out to not be quite enough. C Team, on the other hand, well, let’s just say that they showed up for things other than softball, but still enjoyed their time on the field.

Softball 1: Tinti proving some of us know how to play the game

Softball 2: Group Pic

Of the other teams, There were several PC Senegal teams, a couple of PC Gambia teams, one mixed PC group called The Refugees (made up of Peace Corps volunteers who’d been evacuated from their respective countries), and several non PC expat teams (including some missionary teams, and even a couple of high school teams).

I met a lot of amazing people while I was in Senegal. The time went by way too fast (and, unfortunately, so did the money).

After my time in Dakar, it became absolutely necessary for me to take a vacation from my, well vacation (Dakar was great, but we were constantly on the move and involved in one thing or another), so several of us made the trek to Toubab Dialaw, which is something of a beach resort town about three hours south of Dakar. There, we simply rested and relaxed on the beach while eating amazingly delicious and freshly caught shrimp (it was also there that we decided it was perfectly okay to eat the entire shrimp—head, tail, legs and all).

Toubab Dialaw: At our favorite restaurant