CPW, Beach, Dakar

So last week we traveled every morning into Thies and returned every night to our villages. It was very tiring. We did this because of Counterpart Workshop (CPW). This is a 3-4 day event where our counterparts, people in our permanent village that we will work closely with, came to visit. They came to meet us, to learn about what we should be doing, and for facilitated discussion about possible problems. Since I have only middle level language skills we didn't have too much to say to each other. We didn't have a whole lot of time either as we had almost constant sessions. The sessions were all in Wolof. This made it hard to stay awake. After the third morning of driving into Thies I was pretty exhausted, but there is no rest for the wicked. We had a night at the beach planned. There will be few pictures of this on my facebook but most of the pictures and stories are meant to be remembered by those present only. One cool thing though was the bio-luminescent plankton. As I moved around in the water at night I could see the water glowing! It was sooo sweet!!! After swimming all day Sunday we returned to relax for the night at the training center. I was righteously hung over and it turned out I was actually sick too. Today we went into the capitol city of Senegal, Dakar. The PCMO there told me my ear is bleeding internally and I'll be on medicine for my birthday. No big deal. I love how something that would have totally freaked me out at home is like, please girl that ain't nothin' here. The city is very westernized. You can get all kinds of American type things so if I'm ever homesick a trip to the city can satisfy my needs for things like ice cream, a swimming pool in the american club, and stores with American brand foods. The roads are still not great even in the city and there is a big threat of pick-pockets. It's a cool place but we didn't really have all that much time to explore so I'll have to do that another time when I don't have to spend an hour in the med hut and multiple hours in security sessions. The American Embassy is there, and it's good to know that. They will mail in my absentee ballot. Well I think thats enough rambling of Dakar.