I came back to Linguere yesterday after a week and a half of meetings, topped off by the West African Invitational Softball Tournament (WAIST), which is the stuff of legend.

We headed to Thies for the Gender and Development summit- 2 days of seminars on gender-related projects from Senegal and a few of our neighbors. Next came all-volunteer conference, another 2 days of seminars about all kinds of PCV work going on in Senegal. There's a lot of great work happening, and it was inspiring to see what everyone's been up to.

We all got bussed to Dakar for WAIST when the all-volunteer conference was over, and the chaos ensued. Lots of teams from Peace Corps, the International School of Dakar, and other organizations came to play 2 days of softball, followed by championships. While many of these teams had coaches, scheduled practices throughout the year, uniforms, gloves, bats, tennis shoes, and other seemingly necessary items, us PCVs showed up in style with none of the above. We didn't win many games, but we did it in style.

Team Linguere- pure style in our custom-tailored suits.

Ann Marie, Emily, Kim, and Justin lookin' classy

Lunch break with Mac

Team Kolda- south of the border

The north- under the sea

The north, and the garbage man on his horse cart

LaRocha and Andrew at the 7th inning stretch

Emcee Ann Marie

Jenn and Mac ready to take on the world, or at least team Gambia

 Once WAIST wrapped up, and we had a day to recover, a few of us stayed behind to train as peer counselors, and the 2nd-year volunteers had their close-of-service conference. It was a great time, but it's nice to get back to the village.