Tuesday, March 28, 2006

A word about our peace corps friends

A few weeks ago Peace Corps West Africa descended on Dakar for a four-day weekend of softball, beer, hot dogs, and a little taste of the America we all get a yearning for being so far away from home. I purposely saddled up to the Mauritanians in hopes I could make some contacts for our trip. What I didn't expect was that I would like them so much and I ended up spending a good part of the weekend cheering them in softball, going out to dinner, dancing, and drinking. Once word got around that I was from South Dakota, I was immediately paired up with the only other South Dakotan in the group, Dan from Sioux Falls. Before he left Dakar, we exchanged emails and numbers and started texting even before I left for Mauritania. Zach, who is from a small town near Okoboji in Iowa, I met by coincidence when were laughing about some red neck, hick joke and he was like, "You MUST be from like Montana Sate University or something." And I was like, "Better yet, South Dakota State University." And he said, "No Way! Sioux Falls! I go to your mall!" It's not every day that you find someone who knows South Dakota much less the Sioux Empire Mall.

So the evening we all sat down to dinner, we couldn't help but recount the familiar--street names, places, midwestern mannerisms "how do you give directions in the midwest?", the way the old guys at the coffee shop talk about wheat prices, fields, weather. It was sad and funny and falling asleep that night I felt empty and full at the same time. It seems the more you try to fill the hole of stuff you miss with replicas of the real, the hole just gets bigger and deeper. It was a strange state to be in: homesick in Mauritania, eating Pad Thai, and talking about shopping at the Sioux Empire Mall.

Me, Zach, and Dan

1 Comments:

At 1/4/06 00:06, Anonymous Anonymous said...

yeah baby mom

 

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