Well, Happy February!

So I was gone for most of the month of February. I started in Segou, which is Corinna’s site, for Le Festival Sur le Niger, which is a nearly week-long music and cultural festival on the banks of the Niger river. It was really fun. Aside from there being a soft serve ice cream machine (!!), there was lots of music and dancing, traditional masks, Touaregs and all their jewelry and other wares, an awesome keke lady, cheap beer, fried egg pockets and plates upon plates of delicious, fresh seafood…or…riverfood as it may be. Oh, did I mention the swimming pool? That, too.

My favorite stuff had to be the various mask exhibitions, where dancers would wear the masks (and full-length costumes) from their region of Mali and do a traditional dance, often with women singing traditional songs. One had a giant monkey costume. It was crazy! Also the Touareg dancing was really cool. I didn’t really buy anything because festival prices are so inflated and there were TONS of toubab tourists around who are willing to pay those prices, but there was lots of awesome hand-woven fabric, jewelry, pre-sewn clothes, bags, carvings, art…you name it, somebody was selling it. I did get hosed on one bracelet I bought from a Touareg that I thought was pure silver but turns my wrist green and that was pretty much what turned me off from trying to buy anything else. So I spent my money on fish and beer. I’ll get to carry that around on my hips for weeks, at least!!

So after a fun week in Segou with Corinna and Mark (and the couple dozen other volunteers who filtered in and out), we headed to Bamako to catch the bus to Dakar, Senegal for WAIST (West African International Softball Tournament). The bus ride there really wasn’t that bad. I was on a bus that we had completely bought out, so it was all volunteers and shockingly it was a tame ride! Phil came from Burkina which was awesome. They ran out of homestays this year so we didn’t get to have a nice relaxing expat house to stay in, but we did get to sleep on foam mattresses on the floor of an empty Peace Corps-owned house with about 50 other Mali volunteers. Definitely better than paying for a hotel.

So I played on the Refugees, which was a team made up of Guinea and Mauritania evacuees and one orphan volunteer from Togo. So I got to see most of the Guinea transfers who stayed in West Africa (Benin – Mary and Scott, Senegal – Katie and Ian, The Gambia – Kris, Burkina Faso – Phil and John). We lost our first two games on the first day and then the second day we were playing one of the Mali teams and we decided to jettison the softball thing and play kickball with a volleyball instead. Most. Epic. Game. Ever! I’ve never laughed so hard. Between our water gun sniper shooting people getting to first base, the no-shoe rule, Mary on one of our teammate’s shoulders rounding bases while eating a hotdog and drinking a beer (they fell down on the way to third, but managed to save their drinks – the hot dog was an unfortunate casualty), kidnapping the other team’s runner on third, throwing a giant inflatable softball at the first base-man to prevent him catching the kickball for an out, running the wrong way around the bases, rushing the pitcher’s mound when somebody got a kick, yelling our rally cry (“we’re here, we’re homeless, get used to us!”), kidnapping the Mali team’s (Desert Kawboys) horse-on-a-broomstick mascot, and the real brilliance – our game opener – releasing a cage full of birds on the pitchers mound hoping that maybe some of them would make it back to our original Peace Corps homes, it was insanity.

We won rock to scissors. No one knew the score but the WAIST officials needed to say who won the game so the coaches went to the mound and played rock-paper-scissors for the win. At the end, the Mali team said it was the best game they could have asked for. Us, too.

Sports aside, I spent a lot of time at the American Club pool, taking hot showers, eating more soft serve ice cream, cheering on other teams (The Gambia won the tournament for the social league), eating nachos (!! With jalapenos!!!!), going out for dinners and attending all the WAIST-sponsored parties. Most nights I only got like 3 hours of sleep. But it was worth it!!

After WAIST we (me, Corinna, Mark, Danielle and Scotty) stayed in Dakar an extra day to go out to Goree Island which is an island right off the coast that was once a waypoint in the slave trade. The Maison du Esclave (where they kept the slaves before putting them on the slave ships) was a haunting place, but the rest of the island is really touristy and I didn’t feel much like sticking around. But if you want to have a nice dinner on the water and buy some cool African art, Goree Island is the place for you.

The next day we headed out to Toubab Djialah. Best decision I’ve ever made in my life. It’s just this small village on the beach about an hour or so outside of Dakar, but it was AMAZING. We stayed at this hotel called Sobo Bade. It is run by this old French lady who speaks English and costs $8 a night for dormitory-style accommodations (but since the dorm was full, me, Scotty and Danielle got a private three-bed room for the same price). It was right on the beach, had a quaint little restaurant, tons of cats (owner must like cats), an awesome deck that looked out to the water with nice lounge chairs, a good, cheap restaurant right down the beach where we ate several times (Chez Baby’s), and great seashell hunting. I spent most of my time lounging and eating. The shrimp was AWESOME at Chez Baby’s and so was the calamari we had there the first night. I am becoming quite the seafood connoisseur. The only bad things that happened were I lost my iPod Nano on the beach and the ocean stole my sunglasses. Oh, and I gave myself second degree burns by unwittingly pouring a bucket of scalding hot water over my head (don’t ask). But I was so happy I didn’t even care. It was a great way to end the vacation.

So then came the epic journey back to Mali. We left Sobo Bade at 1pm on Friday. We got to Bamako at 6am on Sunday. It was AWFUL. We will not be getting back on any long distance buses anytime soon. Most of the reason it took so long was that we blew a tire at 3am Friday night in the middle of NOWHERE and wouldn’t you know it, the spare didn’t work. So we were stuck there for SIX AND A HALF HOURS waiting for someone to bring us a tire. Ugh. And then once we were on the road again, for the next 24 hours we stopped at LEAST once an hour for various things, mostly people having to go to the bathroom. I was eventually like, “ok, we’re stopped – EVERYONE off the bus, squeeze out what you got because this is ridiculous we are NOT stopping again in 45 minutes!” But I said it in English so no one understood me.

But we made it back in one piece. So after getting in at 6am Sunday morning, we had to be at Amy’s wedding by 10am. It was at the mayor’s office in some quartier on the other side of the river. It was a PAGAILLE and it was HOT. Amy and Daffe got married along with this other Malian couple (they do it two at a time). I watched standing on the top of a bench. After the ceremony, we went to the party at Daffe’s uncle’s house down the road. Lots of music, dancing, food and traditional stuff. Amy looked GORGEOUS and we were all so happy for her and Daffe. The whole Guinea staff came up to see the wedding so it was awesome to see all of them, too. They brought us pineapples and grapefruits from Guinea.

The real party was that night at the club across the street. We danced it up, had some cake, ate more beef. We left not long after Amy and Daffe did because we were EXHAUSTED. We went back to Raven’s and CRASHED.

And now I’m back to site. Which is great because I get lots of sleep here. But hot season is definitely upon us so I sweat A LOT. I’m sweating right now! I wish I had a fan. And, like, electricity to run the fan. That would be sweet. Everybody’s doing good here and I got my table today (YAY!!!). One note of bad news, though, the petite who does my laundry, Setu, is in Bamako. I’m not sure if it’s temporary or not but sadface I will have to do my own laundry tomorrow. Although in all likelihood when they see me doing it they will laugh and assign me a new petite.

C’est la vie.