Pictures from Senegal

Peace Corps 50th Anniversary, 1961–2011

Sunday, March 14

Ode to Christine

I've actually spent the last month away from Mboro. I have enough obsessive compulsive disorder in me to have created blogs in advance of my departure and schedule them to post at a specific time each week, so as not to interrupt the entertaining stream of blog fun.

But in actuality I was gallivanting Senegal for a month partaking of a variety of activities such as: cool graoul (monthly ex-pat party), super bowl party (and somehow I didn't actually watch it!), learning how to create a perma-garden, All Volunteer Conference- for all Peace Corps volunteers in West Africa, WAIST (West African International Softball Tournament), and almost 3 weeks of IST (or in-service training). While I didn't always have internet, I did have a plethora of free time to spend getting to know and enjoying my fellow volunteers. I made some new friends (I hope) and began to really appreciate my current ones.

The culmination of this extravaganza was the long car ride home tonight with my neighbor and best friend in country, Christine. Between conversation topics, it dawned on me that we're making amazing memories daily... and we're doing it together. Some days Christine gets on my nerves and me on hers or the Senegalese get on both our nerves, but thus far we've weathered it together and are closer because of that. At some point we'll leave Senegal, but we'll be friends for a very long time. One could even have a Mefloquine dream about what she’d say to my wedding videographer’s candid camera.

So here’s to freak-out text messages, hysterical phone calls, PC crushes, club 84, tequila on the grave or that actually is Patron, gravy mishaps, “AM,” steps that trip you out of no-where, Christmas in paradise, wrestler shopping trips, bunk sharing, and all of my future favorite memories. Here’s to my partner in the sand box, Christine.

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