Post Holiday Bender Update

Hey all,

Just a short update this time, but I wanted to write and let you know how my holiday adventures panned out. I went to Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, with three of my good friends from my "stage" where we stayed in a hotel for a few nights and basically concentrated on eating...a lot. We did find a lot of great restaurants to dine out in, and the place we found for our Christmas dinner was no exception. We were pleasantly surprised that they were all decorated for the holiday, with lights and a tree and the whole nine yards, and even had a guy playing Christmas carols on the piano...in English! And, of course, the food was amazing...though, then again, when youre used to cous-cous and leaf sauce for most of your meals, anything would have tasted good as long as it was different and not from a communal bowl. All in all, Dakar was a great place to spend the holiday, since a large population of its residents are Christian and it finally felt like the Christmas season walking around the city and seeing store windows all decked out and what not. Having guys walking around trying to hock full size artificial xmas trees helped bring a certain amount of cheer as well.

I then went with one of my friends, after the four of split up, to a place called Sally, which is a highly popular tourist town where a large amount of people from my stage had rented rooms. I only stayed for one night, but still got to visit the beach and, most importantly, see a lot of my old friends...and drink with them again. The next day, one of my friends and I got a sept-place to St. Louis, which is roughly the second biggest city next to Dakar, if I'm not mistaken, and also one of the largest tourist attractions. Another group of my friends had been there since Christmas, and I was going up to crash with them for New Years. It worked out well, as I got to stay for free in the apartment of a very generous 3rd year volunteer who loaned it out for the holidays while he was away visiting America. St. Louis, the old capital of Senegal, is very beautiful, and I got a lot of great pictures that I'll try to post on a day where I have a couple hours to spare to sit in the cyber while they load.

It was also a happening place to celebrate the new year, not only because there was a large conglomeration of Senegalese volunteers there, but roughly 70 volunteers from Mauritania travelled across the border to party there as well. See, unlike Senegal, alcohol is strictly prohibited in Mauritania, so needless to say they were all excited to get their drink on. Meeting them was very cool, though, and now I'll have more people to hang out with at the upcoming West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST).

All in all, despite my travel weariness and noticably lighter wallet, it was an awesome trip, if only for the sole chance to see almost all of the people I swore in with again, as well as the chance to meet a lot more of the volunteers from my country and beyond. Its also exciting to be able to see as much of Senegal as I can as early as I can, and I feel like I've gotten to explore quite a bit in my short time here. Im also actually getting more used to the public transportation system here, if you can call it that, and needless to say, my haggling has much improved as a result.

I probably wont be updating again for a while, as I'm looking at about a month in my village before coming back through Kedougou on my way back to Thies for our In-Service Training, but please feel free to email me and keep me updated on how you all are doing, and I'll look forward to reading them when I get back.

Thanks, and Happy New Year!


-Samba