Insanity

The last few days have featured me cancelling, rescheduling, and then reverting back to the orginal plan for the artisan formation next week. It involved quite a bit more running around than one would think.

Today I...

- Met Tamar at a random government office so she could renew her residency card.
- Went to the bank where I almost had a nervous breakdown due to incredible inefficiency and ineptitude (this was compounded by the fact that it took Tamar FOREVER to renew her papers).
- Ran back to the Peace Corps center to go back and forth about the artisan formation
- Made a trip out of Thies to Pout to pick up some very important things that Jackie had forgotten at home. Her family now thinks we're both crazy since her brother had to pick me up on the side of the road, walk me to her house, watch me rummage through her things, and then take me back to the main road. The best part of this interaction was her toddler aged host brother whose name just happens to be Ahmed. This is the conversation he had with his mom about me:

Ahmed: Jackie? (Looking quizzically at me)
Ahmed's Mom: No Ahmed, that's Jackie's friend.
Ahmed: Jackie!
Ahmed's Mom: No, that's Jackie's friend. It's not Jackie.
Ahmed: Toubab.
Ahmed's Mom: Yes, that is a toubab.
Ahmed: JACKIE!!!

He was really cute and can't tell the toubabs apart which makes him even cuter.

- Back in Thies I ran to see Madame Ly to confirm everything for selling at WAIST this weekend.
- Taxi back to my house where I packed my bags for WAIST. My bag weighs at least as much as I do mostly due to all of the delicious snacks that my mom has sent over for our gorging pleasure. But, this isn't my problem...
- Because then I took my bag back to Peace Corps so that Katherine and Tamar could take it to Dakar for me so that I can travel light/ quickly tomorrow since I have a JA meeting tomorrow morning.
- This was followed by breaking, but uninteresting news to all of you, Peace Corps news.

I did this while constantly talking and texting on my phone. Furthering my family's belief that I'm completely insane and there's just nothing they can do about it.

I'm really, really looking forward to WAIST. It's definitely going to be amazingly fun and I'm excited to see my friends who live in different regions. To get all of you excited I will reveal the Dakar region's theme: lederhosen. Yes, I brought hats from America from the entire team.