WAIST 2011

I have so much to say about WAIST so I'll try and get it all in. For those of you that don't know WAIST aka West African Invitational Softball Tournament is an annual softball tournament that the US Embassy puts on. For the USO team, Senegalese teams, high school team, and almost everyone else - WAIST is both fun and competitive.... for Peace Corps volunteers costumes are the most important part. Let's be honest - I still don't know who won but I know who had my favorite costumes (well, who had the second best costumes to our lederhosen).

The festivities kicked off Friday night with a Peace Corps talent show that was great but WAY more importantly, that my sub-region and I rocked these shirts:

We live in the "Thies Region" of Senegal - pronounced like "chess" so, as an entire region of girls (with Oliver and Thomas as honorary members) we got shirts - pretty clever, no?

After seeing our talented friends sing, dance, juggle, act out a puppet show, and more - we headed to a Peace Corps standard bar. No first night of WAIST is complete without 100 volunteers packing a club and that's how we ended the night.

Our first game was bright and early Saturday so we got up, dressed in lederhosen, and met our team mates (for WAIST we all play in regional teams, so I played with Dakar because Thies is my sub-region). Our first game was against Tambagou (a combination team of the Kedougou and Tamba regions) who were cops and robbers (including several ladies in jump suits, a couple of guys in SHORT shorts and cut off shirts, and the hamburgerler). Tambagou is notorious for forfeiting every game and that's what they did. Instead of playing real softball there was a little of this:

Followed by some of this (leap frog between 1st and 2nd and more awesome batting):

Not to mention, the robbers kept charging the field to steal the bases - yes actually pick them up off the ground - while the cops chased them down.

Our second game followed immediately and was a little bit of a buzz kill as we played the Mali team that was more about softball and less about costumes. It was still fun and we put up a really good showing (in our defense, we make an effort to let everyone play not just our people who will hit home runs).

That ended softball for day one. Everyone hung around the American club (where there's a pool) for a bit until going home to nap, ice sun burn, and (in the case of my homestay) make AWESOME bacon mac and cheese. The second night of WAIST is a date auction (raising money for Gender and Development projects) but I decided to take an easy night so I could be ready for the last full day of WAIST.

Sunday started with a game against CapeGerLi aka Cape Verde, Mali, and Niger volunteers (the Cape Verde volunteers were on vacation, the Mali team was mostly visiting Dakar so only a few people played, and the Niger volunteers had just transfered to Senegal after their program got shut down). Our second and final game was against Kaolack - our closest neighboring PCSenegal region who was dress like ballerinas. Though we started serious at the beginning (and I got a base hit and eventually scored a run) we started playing 3-ball softball which like if 2 softballs had a kickball for a child. That game ended, somewhat surprisingly, without injury, and everyone headed back to the pool. Sunday afternoon was for swimming, volleyball, and admiring everyone's costumes. In case you were wondering:
The North was Jersey Shore
Dakar was Lederhosen

Linguere was Cows and Cowboys
Kaolack was Ballerinas
Tambagou was Cops and Robbers

Kolda was Star Corps (like Star Wars - and they had some impressive storm trooper and Princess Leia costumes)

Sunday night two of the Cape Verde volunteers came over for a pasta dinner and we all headed to the defining WAIST party. During the day Oceanuim is a hotel/scuba school and by night can be rented for open air parties. The third year volunteers did an amazing job of planning, bar-tending, and generally supervising the party (while wearing matching white suits) while everyone else danced the night away. I can't think of a perfect way to describe the Oceanuim party other than to say imagine having all of your friends and their friends over (about 200 of them) and dancing until 5am. One of the great things about PCVs is that, in a situation like that, we've all had WAY more embarrassing things happen to us (getting sick, being peed on by a sheep, you name it) so no one cares about how they look when dancing - we just enjoy ourselves.

Unfortunately Alyssa got really sick pretty much the second we got to the party, so she went home early. I was the second person home and went to use the bathroom then to hang out with Alyssa. My first question was about how she was feeling and then my second question was whether or not she had seen the dead scorpion on the stairs next to the bathroom. She pretty much called me crazy until we went to look. I tried to prove it was dead by throwing a shoe at it and was proven HORRIBLY wrong when the 3-inch scorpion started skittering all over. We beat the crap out of it and quickly flushed it. My feet had been danced on all night (the nail polish on my toes chipped off and they were coated in dirt) so I couldn't really feel them. After doing significant Google research and being reassured by Alyssa and I would have felt a scorpion sting, I finally went to bed.

Monday was all about recovering, sleeping, and doing laundry. Monday evening we went back to the American club for one last hurrah. Like last year, the party started a little slowly. It was supposed to be a pool party but most people were either dancing or sitting and talking. While I was sitting by the pool with my legs dangling in I noticed 2 people from my training group looking suspicious and I heard one of them say, "I think she heard us, we can't do it now!" I moved away from the pool but took my phone out of my jean pocket instead. As a joke I then offered another volunteer $1 to throw Oliver - the volunteer who had planned the entire party and made a HUGE deal about it being a pool party - in. Like a good business volunteer, Oliver upped the offer to $4 to throw me in... eventually we ended up agreeing to jump in together (after taking our shoes off). We quickly became a pool gang: we would pick a target, then the guys would jump out and throw that person into the pool. Sure it sounds a little childish and maybe a little reckless but we all knew we would be returning to site the next day and back to our normal American-less lives of work. After finding some dry clothes I played some volleyball and joined the dance party.

Today, with WAIST actually over, I ran some errands and headed to Thies for an Artisan training. It ends tomorrow afternoon and I'll be back at site by dinner.

Summing up WAIST is fairly difficult (hence the long post) and I'll have more pictures in an album over the next few days. Overall, I had an amazing, amazing time - it was an awesome WAIST to be my last (then again I think WAIST is always great).

KO

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