26 January 2007 - 11:47
My home leave in the US was awesome. It was great visiting friends, spending time with family, watching American TV and movies, enjoying the comforts of the US, going to a football game, finally visiting DC, and interviewing for State. Thank you to everyone that gave me a bed or a couch, shelter, a shower, food, a football game ticket, a ride, a hotel room, a cell phone, a car, Christmas presents, and especially your company while I was visiting. You guys made the excruciating travel (two days traveling by car and airplane to get to the US, four days by car and airplane to get back home, nine flights, stops in four countries on three continents) totally worth the effort. Thank you.
Mom and Dad and Anita and Bryan – your hospitality was endless, and you deserve a special thank you. Thanks for being great.
On my return trip, I stopped for a few days in St. Louis, Senegal, to meet up with friends for New Year’s, as per the ritual. St. Louis, as always, was nice and relaxing, and retains its position as my favorite vacation spot in the world.
Back in Mauritania, I hit the ground running. My first four days back in the office were spent presenting and facilitating training sessions for our newest group of volunteers. The next two weeks I spent preparing our new office building for the office move and packing up the old office building. Then we moved, while I tried to arrange meetings and site visits for a guy who will be visiting Mauritania in a couple weeks from the PC office in DC, as well as working towards final preparations for the grand departure of almost 90 volunteers to Dakar for a softball tournament. It’s been a little hectic.
Today is the first really clear day that we’ve had since we moved into the new office. On one side of the building, I can see all the way to the ocean. One the other side, I can see the edge of the endless dunes of the Sahara desert. Amazing.
Yesterday, I was having lunch in a restaurant downstairs. As I was eating my chicken sandwich, a man walked into the restaurant, holding a used cement bag with a slaughtered goat in it, legs sticking out of the top, blood dripping out of the bottom, all the way across the floor. Mmm.
This next month is going to be insane – I will be accompanying the guest from the DC PC office during his visit, as well as aiding some other visitors around the same time. Then we have the West African Invitational Softball Tournament mid-February, for which I am coordinating the logistics for our three teams making the trip. Then I go on vacation to Guinea-Bissau. I’ll write more in March though, I promise…
