Holiday Rush

Wow. The last two weeks have been a blur! I left on the 23rd for the regional house in Kaolack and stayed there with a few other volunteers. Overall, it was relaxing and re-energizing to have a break.

By the afternoon on Christmas eve, everyone had shown up and sat down to decide what was on our menu for the holiday. We decided to plan out 3 meals: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day breakfast, and Christmas Day dinner.

For Christmas Eve, we decided to make cakes and cookies, and apple cider, which all turned out excellent due to the cooking abilities of the volunteers. Starvation is a big motivator! By 7pm had rolled out our spread, and everything prepared was delicious. Afterwards, we all dressed up and headed over to the Cathedral for 9;45 Midnight Mass, which was accompanied by a overly shiny nativity scene and the quintessential African black out (no pun intended), forcing us to sit in a dark church for 15 minutes while a few bald brothers scrambled for find a generator.

Christmas Day we made eggs, pancakes, and bacon for breakfast. And then we played games and one opened our white Santa gifts. Christmas Dinner was a ham, which was really expensive, accompanied by bread, mashed potatoes, and other nice items.

On the 28th, I left to go to Tivaouane, where I lived for 2 months while I was in training. I wanted to see my old host family and hang out with the volunteer who is stationed there as we are friends. I did much of nothing. The highlight was having chicken for dinner one evening.On the 30th, the other volunteer and I left for Dakar which has a regional house for volunteers.

New Years Eve in Dakar was amazing. A few of the volunteers who are station around Dakar have become friends with some of the Korean Peace Corps volunteers and so we meet up with them at one of their apartments, which was really a nice pad. I'm jealous. Afterwards, we migrated to an American Peace Corps volunteer's house and I think that is where we rang in the new year... yeah... I think that's where. Dakar is so different from the rest of the country. It's even different from the other major cities and at times, it seemed as if I wasn't in a third world country. But that is the allure of Dakar.

I left Dakar on the second and headed back to the village spending the night at the regional house on the night of the second.