Day 51

Part of the job involves running activities for the kids, and some of those activities have been pretty sweet and have been good times for everyone (i.e. we had a big water balloon fight), but others were rushed and although they were good times for some, they weren’t the best times for all. The picture below shows the winners of a quick relay race activity that we had, the kids sitting off to the right in the shade are two of the many kids that did not win. We took a group picture of the winners, and then we wanted to take a group picture of everyone (aka participation photo). But that didn’t end up happening. This group of kids, that otherwise is completely fascinated by cameras and would love to be photographed and photographed again until the battery dies, just sat there and said ‘’no.’’ That’s pretty typical of losers though, I’m sure the winners would have acted differently in that situation.

In the background of the above photo there is a soccer game going on. I played in a game a couple of days ago and it was a pleasant experience. It was true African football. As you can see, it was played completely in the sand, because all they have around here is sand. I also played barefoot, there was no water bottle in sight, and I was the only white guy which means everyone thought I was the worst (debatable). There were also no real boundaries or lines; everything was sort of dependent on the honour system. When I first asked if I could play they talked it over amongst themselves for about 5 minutes right in front of me in their language of Wolof. Once they decided which team would mind having me the least, the game started. They kept telling me what to do and giving me tips but it was all in Wolof and for some reason I was saying things to them in Spanish, I guess my brain just thought that since I was playing soccer I must be with Spaniards. Anyways it was 2-0 for the other team and then I did something that put an end to my teammates telling me what to do -- I scored a goal. Rebound just came right to me sort of thing and I blasted it though the crowd and between the misshapen and warped goal posts. We ended up with a tie (stupid sport) but It was quite fun and I enjoyed myself and look forward to playing again.

The Daara school received letters from kids in France a couple of months ago. So we took it upon ourselves to get the Daara kids to write the French kids back. So we helped the 10-11 year old kids write short descriptions of themselves and drawings of themselves. Below is a picture of me helping some of the kids. As you can see from the photo there was a lot of variety in the physical self-descriptions.

A couple of the volunteers and I went to the town of Lompoul which is 160 or so kilometers away and is interesting because it has a desert. It isn’t a particularly large desert, but it has about 3 square kilometers of nothing but great big sand dunes and while you’re in the middle of it, it looks as though you’re in the middle of a great big desert. It was a really cool experience walking around in the desert. The wind provided a nice breeze and although the sand was extremely hot at times it was a great two-day one-night trip and well worth it. We also partook in a short camel ride. Camels are bigger and cooler than I had expected. The next picture wasn’t picked because it was a good representation of the desert or of the camels. It was picked because it gives you guys a good idea of what you really care about; how my beard is progressing.

I wrote this blog post on Microsoft Word, and I wrote it in the couch room with a bunch of the kids sitting beside me and looking at the photos. Anyways the MSWord program has an advertisement on the side and it shows a random white guy with short brown hair smiling. I was asked on no less than 3 occasions whether the kid was me or whether he was my brother. This may confirm that they think all white people look the same. I don’t remember which kids asked me about the photo of the MSWord white guy though, they all look the same.