A few more stories and lots of love from West Africa!

1.My volunteer visit was amazing! Despite being dropped off a few hours south of my intended destination the guy who was hosting me managed to get us all the way back up to his community...with enough time to meet some other volunteers, have maffaay for lunch (mmmm I will make it for you all some day) and sip frozen drinks on a street corner. We shared a 5ft by 5ft hut for about a week while I got a chance to see what life will be like for the next two years.

2.In his village we hit up a party with VATS of coffee to commemorate a father's death the year before, a giant sand box style cleanup of the common area next to the mosque, an impromptu tour of the village fields/latrines, a few baby weighing and infant health causeries, annnnnnd most importantly a day trip to the town I'll call home starting in about two weeks! I was only able to stay for a few hours, but I did get to meet my new family talk to the directors of the Health Post and the middle school, drink sweet tea with a few of my soon-to-be neighbors..ooo and see a baby born! One of my 'older sisters' is a midwife and thought it only appropriate that I take a hands on approach to health education!

3.Also...to get to and from my town I ride on the back of a donkey cart...its awesome. This particular day was fish market funtime, meaning it was me, Risvik, ten women and their buckets of raw fish sharing space for a few miles of bumping acquaintance. Probably better than walking and maybe more fun than the T!

4.Senegalese Independence Day came and went without much incident, the elementary age children were pretty adorable in their matching purple outfits on parade. We might be planning a giant bike tour to commemorate another upcoming independence day...ending on the 4th in the southwest corner of Senegal with all the fireworks we can find! At least we won't get arrested here...or rather there is no enforcement, no neighbors to complain, and you probably can't accidentally set mud huts on fire!!

5.I spent my first night in my regional house on the way back into Thies. Each part of the country has a place to call home away from the hut...and my region's version comes complete with a kitchen, wi-fi, a HUGE library, rooftop horseshoe court and lots of friends to make mint juleps with! Kaolack is a big – read – dirty dirty dirty – city, but will probably make a nice change from village life every now and again. Plus...Dakar and the beach are only a few hours of minibus bush taxi craziness away!

6.The next day we had our first visit to Dakar. I'm so excited to explore the city and it seems like you really can get/do/see anything your heart desires. The beaches looked amazing and the waves are insane. We ended up spending most of the day in meetings, but hopefully I'll get a chance to grab a board soon and really check things out.

7.Almost the whole group of trainees finally got a chance to check out and we all headed down to Mburro for a few days of beach fun, catholic party time, and raging underwear only dance parties. It was great to get away from the center and really relax for the first time since stepping off that airplane! We rented almost an entire hotel out and were invited to a Catholic dance party in honor of Easter. After more than enough mojitos and a full day of beachness amazing we broke it down well into the night with the religious minority...switching between traditional African dance, club nasty grinding, salsa steps and eventually dissolving into jumping up and down with no regard for the beat. Awesome.

8.Tomorrow starts our counterpart workshop, two days of insanity as the center is invaded by two or three locals from each of our communities with the hopes of giving them a crash course in what its like to be a trainee, how to help us achieve our development goals, and hopefully start up really productive partnerships for the next two years. If nothing else it should be interesting...especially the part where we spend an hour teaching them Spanish, Russian, and Latin, maybe they'll be a bit more sympathetic to our inexpert indigenous languages if we start off with a Buenas Dias!

9.I got my swear-in outfit made...get excited for the pictures. So many sparkles absolutely dance party fabulous. My teacher Ouly put her foot down and called us red necks insisting on assisting throughout the design process, and ps. The ceremony will be broadcast on the national tv station...Ha!

10.Fingers crossed...I'm working at a HUGE women's soccer tournament on May 2nd in Dakar! They have been having qualifying matches all month and small events to promote this giant Soccer and women's leadership summit backed an NGO and the UN...and through some PC connections I might get to coach a clinic for young girls the morning before the championship game. It should be a great time, super inspiring, and hopefully lead to some serious contacts for getting programs up and running my soon to be region! I've just put in to delay my final site installation by about a week to stay in Dakar and help out at the summit...it seems like my ACPD is all for it and I can't imagine a better way to finish off two months of training!

I think that's how I'm going to leave it for today, email please...how is the homefront?!
Love and love!
Sophie