The West African Softball Tournament (WAIST). It happens once a year. Every February Peace Corps volunteers and American Ex-pats from around West Africa converge on Dakar for a weekend filled with American-style food, drink, dancing, and general debauchery. Oh and there is a softball tournament.

The regions of Tambacounda and Kedougou combined to form a single softball team. As a team we decided that our costumes were more important than actually being able to play softball. We picked Peace Corps B.C. (P.C.B.C.) as our theme which meant lots of ripped clothes, scraggly beards and various animal bones and teeth used as jewelry. We didn’t win a single game… but then again we did forfeit at the beginning of every game so that we could bat with a giant club (a la the Flintstones). We also called “timeouts” which was code for “dance party on the pitcher’s mound.”

The nights were filled with parties at clubs around Dakar. This was perhaps the one weekend all year, where us volunteers could live and act like Americans. It was wonderful. WAIST is talked up a lot in Peace Corps circles, and I have to admit it lived up to all the hype. I had the time of my life.

 
Great fielding (notice the beers in their hands)

My “uniform”

 
Pre-game warmup