Today is the close of January 19, 2012. I have now been in the Gambia for over a year (our plane touched down on January 6, 2012), and given the way that time flies here, I will soon have been a year at site, actually doing Peace Corps Volunteer work, come March.
In this last week I traveled to Dakar, Senegal with about 30 Gambia volunteers to compete in the yearly West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST). PC Gambia had two teams competing in the Social League and i played on the B team. In this tournament were teams from local high schools, a number of teams from Peace Corps Senegal, a marines team, university staff teams and U.S. Embassy staff teams. There were 20 teams in our social league.
I took time to enjoy my vacation. It was the first time that I had ever been outside of the Gambia since coming here a year ago. I strolled around the shoreline, a mall, took lots of cabs, ate as much ice cream as I could at a legendary spot called N'Ice Cream, drank sometimes in excess, and played softball. This was a vacation after all. It was very nice to have the anonymity of a city person again. I felt like a strange tourist because I was also a peace corps volunteer and could almost comprehend enough to have conversations with people in Wollof. I met a few Fula cab drivers of food sellers, but the majority of people spoke French and Wollof. It was nice to have that anonymity, that ability to garble out where i wanted to go in a cab, settle on a price, and then enjoy the ride in silence. In upcountry Gambia where i spend most of my time, I don't have that option.
What I liked about this trip is that it feels good to come back to Gambia. This familiar ground along a river feels like home. I haven't yet set foot in my hut (I will travel back tomorrow) but I like to think that this enjoyment and appreciation for coming home will last for a little while.
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