WAIST

This post is a little overdue but I’ll try my hardest to remember everything important… all the same, it’ll be worth checking Alyssa’s, Jackie’s, and other’s blogs to get more stories.
WAIST aka West African Invitational Softball Tournament has different meanings to different people. For some of the teams it’s a time to hang out with other ex-pats and play competitive or social softball. For the Senegalese teams it’s a time to show their softball skills. For us Peace Corps volunteers it’s a time to get out of site, hang out, drink, eat amazing food, wear costumes… and maybe play softball… let’s just say we put the “social” in “social league.”
Everyone had been assigned to live with ex-pats in Dakar and I was with Alyssa, Tamar, and Jackie in my boss’ basement. Upstairs were Aaron and Christine a young married couple who started their service in Mauritania who are generally awesome. Nicole, our boss/host, made us lasagna Friday night and we had a really cute family dinner. After dinner we headed to the Viking, one of the only bars in our Dakar radius. Afterwards we went to another bar and danced the nice away.
Games started Saturday morning. I met another volunteer at 8am to ump The Gambia v. Mali Peace Corps teams. No one gets as costume serious as the 5 PCSenegal teams but both Mali and The Gambia had matching shirts. My team, based on where my site is, had our first game at 10am and we showed up in full force. Our theme was “Wrestlers” or “Corps de la PAIN.” Alyssa, Tamar, Jackie, and I had decided to be sort of American Gladiator-esque with stylish black capes and names based on bad things that can happen in Senegal (Jackie = The Fever, Alyssa = The Rains, Tamar = The Sandstorm, KO = The Heatwave). Our game was against the PCSenegal team from Kolda who had a great showing in their “country club” costumes. By the end we won the game and moved on to our second game. We played Mali that afternoon and the game got a little heated with Mali’s heckling but we ended up coming back in the last half inning to end the game in a tie (we play based on time).
One win and one tie down, the rest of day 1 was hanging out by the pool. That night the Marines hosted a party at their house and SeneGAD (gender and development) had a date auction and we raised quite a fair chunk of money and ended fairly early.
Day two we started with a game against Kolda again in the morning and, by that time, we were the only PCSenegal team with any hope of advancing to the final rounds, so Kolda forfeited to give us more points. Instead of playing a real game we did a mix of softball/football/wrestling/general running and had an AMAZING time. The second game was against a Senegalese team that was WAY too serious. They ended up beating us by just a few points and it was a bummer to end on that note. After games were over everyone took over the pool. Not ones to miss our afternoon naps, Jackie, Alyssa, Tamar, and I set dinner plans with Elizabeth (a friend at another homestay) and went back to get our beauty sleep. After about an hour of internet/napping time, we started getting ready. With the music playing and everyone figuring out what they were going to wear it was like being home… except for the fact it’s February and I wore jeans and a tank top without a jacket. That night was the Oceana party which, from what I’ve heard, sounded pretty infamous. Oceana is a scuba school that hosts a monthly party (go figure?) but for this one night a few PCVs plan a big party for everyone at WAIST… but mostly the other PCVs (less so the embassy workers).
But! Not to skip ahead…. Before Oceana we met downtown at Caesar’s the only place (that I know of) in this country you can get fried chicken. Modeling itself as a knock-off KFC, they serve pretty good food and we all enjoyed our “Kentucky wraps” aka fried chicken wraps. Happy stomachs full we left to meet other friends and head to Oceana. The party itself was fairly tame, even though we all have seemed to pick up the Senegalese habit of staying out until the earlyish hours of the morning (one of my friends said he got to his homestay as the cook was starting breakfast, another said there was coffee already made when they got home). My homestay friends and I left early for the group at 4am but I stayed up talking to people online until morning prayer call (around 530).
Monday was a good day to hang around from the night before but we eventually made it to the fields to watch PCVs from The Gambia beat an Embassy team (I think) to win the Social League Championship. After softball… back to the pool then another afternoon internet/nap/get ready session. Monday night was the final “WAIST Banquet” put on by the official planners of WAIST (from the Embassy). We had Indian food and there was a raffle (in addition to unlimited drinks which, in a country where a Coke is expensive and you’re not supposed to drink the tap water, unlimited is AMAZING). After the banquet there was a screening of an incomplete short documentary about the ongoing competition between a Senegalese team and the Mauritania PCV team (which, unfortunately, only showed up as a handful of “refugees” because their program has been shut down due to safety reasons). Post-Banquet we had the “after party” that was an adventure in cultural exchange! The Senegalese team that won the competitive league opened up the dance floor with some really stellar moves including the macarana and LOTS of hip thrusting. As one volunteer pointed out it was completely the opposite of what you see in America, instead of a whole bunch of girls and one guy it was about 13 guys and 1 girl (and no one was dancing with her she was on the edge). After the Senegalese team really broke it down (look for the pictures) we decided it was time to reclaim what was ours (the dance floor… not softball talent) and eventually won the dance off. After a few hours of dancing and talking about (but never) jumping in the pool we all said our final goodbyes to WAIST 2010 and went back to Nicole’s for the last time.
Tuesday morning we did a final load of laundry (in a machine! It’s amazing how much cleaner your clothes get) and had sushi (so good!) before getting on a bus with everyone else from my stage to come to Thies. Training started Tuesday night and will continue until March 3rd/4th (I’m not sure which day I’ll be able to get back to Bambey).
WAIST was so much fun and such a great stress reliever (I’m sure especially for the village volunteers who live ROUGH). Even better, I still get to hang out with all of the people that came with me… at least until the Agriculture kids return to site next week and the SED kids go back to site on the 4th. I’ve uploaded WAIST pictures (they should be in a new slideshow) and you can see how well my friends and I dress up (in costume) as well as clean up (or try to).
KO