Weekend Back Home

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Well, it is the end of another short weekend during IST, but what a good one it was. The original plan was to head to Mbour for the weekend with a few folks to try and finalize a few things for the At The Hamptons party, hosted by the Dakar Region, next weekend. It was decided that the trip was unnessecary, so a few of us headed to Dakar. Actually, it turned out a lot of people headed to Dakar, but everyone had different agendas for the most part.

The trip started off a little bumpy. I got in a cab in Thies from my house with a buddy. Half way to the garage, I realized that I had forgotten my key to my houyse in Dakar, so we had to turn around. Not a big deal, just a little stupidity on my part.

On the way to Dakar, a few of our instructors passed us in the sept-place. It was kinda cool, but only reaffirming that it is a small world.

once in dakar, my buddy Russ and I stopped by my house so I could drop some stuff off, then headed to the transient house in Liberte VI. Here, we got to work. We decided to have a good, old fashioned American Cook-Out...Burgers, Fries, and Beer. It turned out to be awesome.

With evening casting down on us, we decided to hail a cab and head to a party at the American Club. It turned out to be a guys night out, so 5 of us got in a cab, only to realize half - way to our destination, that the cab had no brakes. We realized this when we were forced to to a doughnut in the median of an intersection. Also, our lives flashed before us later in the ride when an ambulance was utilizing our lane in the road, but was coming in our direction. Always excitement here in the big city.

At the party, it turned out that we were pretty much the only ones there. Actually, we were mostly the only ones there the whole night. Fortunatly, it wasnt such a big deal. We had a good time anyways and a few other Volunteers met up.

One of the reasons I wanted to head to Dakar for the weekend was because I wanted to sleep in my own bed and utilize my fan. So, that is what I did. I jumped into a cab, with two others, so they could be dropped off at VI, and then I could continue home. Our cab driver turned out to be a riot. He ended up knowing pretty good english, but suprisingly, the words he knew best were explicatives. It turned out to be pretty funny and one of the more memorable cab rides in my life...actually two in one night.

When I got to my house, my key to the coumpound door for some reason would not work. After trying for about 10 minutes, I utilized my MacGyver skills and broke into the compound in stealth mode, because I wasnt gonna ring the doorbell at 3am. As a result, I carefully and quielty lifted the rickety garage door and slid under. I made it undetected.

Today, I headed to VI and relaxed a bit with everyone else...nothing too exciting...and then headed back to Thies.