St. Louis Jazz Festival

Just back from St. Louis (Senegal, not Missouri) where tere was a big internatioal jazz festival. Read all about it at www.saintlouisjazzfest.com. As Peace Corps Volunteers we couldnt afford to go to all of the formal shows which were kind of expensive to get in to, so we just played around on the beaches all day and then at night, after the official concerts were over, the bands headed out to the bars and EVERY bar in St. Louis had live music. Sometimes people in the bars would just step right up and join in on the guitar or drums. One drunken Mauritanian volunteer did some scat on the microphone and refused to give it back to the band, which was possibly the funniest thing about the whole weekend. Im not a huge jazz enthusiast but the music was really grea, there were loads of Peace Corps Volunteers from all over Senegal and from Mauritania, our friendly neighbors to the north, and it was a really great time. A great vacation.

I am now in Dakar where I am hanging out with my university student tha came to visit me last month and is headed back to America on Wednesday. Tomorrow I will head back to Pout, buy a big bag of mangoes, check in on my kitten who most likely has come down with cabin fever, and get back to work. I dont have any official work until Wednesday when I have a meeting at the middle school about my girls group and a computer course at the preschool. Then things will just kick back to the normal swing of things and it will probably feel like I never left.

In other exciting news, the new volunteers who got here in March swore in on Friday and are now in Dakar hanging out with us until they go to their sites next week. They are all pretty nervous about it. I remember those days. It appears that I am now a seasoned Peace Corps Volunteer and am expected to know stuff when the new kids ask about it. Hmmm.....didnt I just get here last week?

8 month anniversary in Senegal tomorrow, btw!! V. exciting