Talent Show

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Tonight is the eve before leaving for a day in Dakar. Because we are to leave at 6:30 from the training center in Thies, some of the trainees convinced the training center staff to let us sleep at the center. They agreed, but we had some rules to follow.

After class ended at 6:30, I played some boules with some other trainees prior to dinner. Normally we don’t eat dinner at the center, but because we were spending the night, tonight was an exception. We had a pretty good meal of salad, chicken, potato wedges, oranges, and bread.

After dinner, we had a talent shoe. Normally I’m not a big fan of these things unless I’m involved in it some sort of way. I mean, this past summer up at Westmont, a few of us got pretty crazy during a few of them. Well, because I figured I couldn’t be one of the masters of the ceremony, I decided to do a comedy act. My original plan was to do a talk about nothing, almost like a Seinfeld episode or anything I’ve written on this site. That was my plan. I was gonna have everyone write a topic they wanted talked about and then draw from the hat. In the past when giving presentations, I have worked my public speaking abilities and dazzled the audience by turning uninteresting topics into entertaining ones.

Unfortunately, my plan didn’t pan through. It wasn’t because the topics were probably gonna be to scandalous but I ended up doing an improv act with another trainee. It was set up kinda like an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyways. Earlier in the day, we had everyone write a one line sentence. During our performance, we were told who we had to be and where we were. For example, during one of the scenarios, I played the role of a drug dealer working at a candy factory. At random moments, we would pull out the sentences written by the trainees and read it. It sounds more complicated and unhumorous than I’m giving it justice, but it went somewhat well. It could have gone a lot better in certain areas.

The show produced some really good performances. One of the acts involved two trainees playing the guitar and violin. They played some bluegrassish type music which was absolutely incredible. Another trainees did standup, making a parody about being a female Peace Corps volunteer here in Africa. She wasn’t afraid to show her leg and arm pit hair during the act. It was quite funny. Some of the girl trainees did a fashion show of Senegalese clothing, which was interesting.

In the end, it was a good evening. It was nice to hang out and relax at the training center with other trainees and our trainers.