WAIST!!!

Party bus on the way to Dakar.



The Pirates scaring the competition.



Me and Josh doing our best to show Mauritania spirit.



Spectators watching the team.



Colleen and I cheering the Pirates on.



Practicing before the big game...



WE WON!!!



Hair party to take all of our braids out.

After our big fiasco in Nouakchott, going back to my tiny site was a welcome change. The vacation really motivated me to come back and integrate more with my family and community. I actually missed them, so I spent a lot of time at home and hanging out around town. I started going with my neighbors to the gardens picking beans and berries to munch on. One of my favorite days was going out to what villager's consider the country side to find a certain kind of tree because the seeds help with respiratory problems. In the cold season, everyone comes down with something, so a big chunk of my family got sick. We basically walked out past the town for about 30 minutes through small animal trails and sand dunes until we found them.

Everything was fine and dandy like sour candy until about two weeks in, I got pretty ill. We are all issued water filters, and especially in rural sites where we get our water from a well, they are life savers. After a couple days of multiple bathroom visits and throwing up, I realized my filter was not cleaning my water properly. I had been drinking untreated well water. Issues that are all too common in Peace Corps service. I had to cancel a week of class and go into the regional capital just to get access to drinkable water. But after a week of antibiotics, everything was back to normal.

However, in the middle of February in Dakar, Senegal, there is a soft ball tournament, WAIST. West African Invitational Softball Tournament. We go every year and dress up as pirates. So everyone at asks for pirate gear such as swords, eye patches, hats, etc in our packages from home. Since Pirates of the Caribbean, we're lucky that pirates have been a pretty popular costume. My sister even sent me a parrot. Mauritania usually has a pretty large turnout and this year was no exception. With three teams and about 50 spectators, we had over 120 people attend.

We chartered 2 buses from Rosso, our community based training site, to Dakar. I thought Nouakchott was amazing... Dakar is a real city. Huge markets, metropolitan, a history. Buildings stretch all the way to the shore line. You can see the ocean all around you, with people running in the sand and walking along cliffs, it is beautiful.

All of the softball games were held at Club Atlantique, right off of the coast. We had three days of softball ahead of us and lots of us to intimidate the competition. Apparently Peace Corp Mauritania has a reputation. You can always tell which Peace Corps kids live in a dry country because they go a little overboard with the alcohol. Then they tend to cheer a little too much for the team, even if we're not playing.

So we all showed up at the fields with full pirate gear on. Lots of girls braided their hair and boys grew out bears and shaved their heads into mohawks. I combined the two and braided my hair into a mohawk. A purple one. Our A team, The Pirates, had a good line up. After each game, the team gained more and more confidence. We won all the games the first day and by the middle of the second day, the championship was in sight. The third day, we did qualify to play in the final game and ahumdillilah, we ended up winning!

Needless to say, that night at the banquet we celebrated. And hopefully we managed to uphold our reputation. All in all, WAIST is definitely a nice vacation to see a great city and win softball tournament.