Friday, February 12, 2010

All Volunteer Conference

The past two days I have been in Dakar attending that All Volunteer Conference. The All-Vol Conference is for all the volunteers in Senegal and some volunteers from other West African countries to get together and share experiences and best practices. It also means that there are a couple of hundred people running through the office, waiting for long periods of time in order for sessions to actually start, and staying in Dakar with ex-pats and taking hot showers.

The Highlights

1. The other two volunteers who are staying at our house made delicious fajitas for us the first night in Dakar!

2. Last night there was an Open Mic Night for all the volunteers to showcase their talents. It was fairly entertaining to watch and I especially loved a female volunteer who wrote an entire song about cheese. Me and my home stay friends have bought and consumed a lot of cheese since arriving in Dakar.

3. I potentially learned how to create an air conditioner out of buckets, coal, random pipe like things, and other materials. This will most definitely be a hilarious video of me attempting to make myself an AC unit.

4. Hours into being in Dakar Jackie and Tamar realize they have forgotten swimsuits and my ancien (the boy who lived in Thies before me and extended in Dakar) took us on a three hour shopping trip to find bikinis. He actually picked the winning bathing suits and provided me with endless entertaining and he had a running commentary on our shopping expedition.

5. General Shananigans. WAIST starts tomorrow.

Stayed tuned.

2 comments:

  1. Regardless of how wasted you get at WAIST please do not forget your readership. Do not be selfish with the posts! Oh and don't forget the photos we would like to decide for ourselves if your ancien chose the right suits for Jackie and Tamar!

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  2. Watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I didn't see Senegal's team enter. I must have dozed off.
    Fajitas sound good. Have a great time at the softball tournement. I too am looking forward to all the photos - bathing suit and WAIST costume -- oh, sorry, uniform. Not to mention the AC video!

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