Later Tassete…Its Been Real

It’s been two months already? Really? And now they expect us to go off on our own and survive without anyone to hold our hands?? Sounds crazy, but its true…pre-service training is officially at an end!

After my birthday we had one last day of class and then it was time for the dreaded final language test. In order to be sworn-in as an official volunteer, we all had to reach the level of Intermediate-Mid in our languages. Since I had already met and surpassed that level in French, I had hoped that I could just start learning Wolof without having to reach some specific level to swear-in. False. Those of us who transitioned from French to Wolof had the lucky distinction of needing to test at a certain level in two different languages. So our last day in Tassete, Jackie and I had a language test in Wolof and we needed to reach Novice-Mid.

Now to put it into perspective…some of the people who learned Wolof from the start of training were at the Novice-Mid level during the second language test. Which was at the 4-week mark in training. We had to get that level after 6 days. Yeah…talk about pressure. While I’m sure I would have benefited from another week of formal instruction in Wolof, I did NOT want to be held back and have to stay in Tassete instead of going to install (aka move to my permanent site).

The boys did their French interviews first and then it was my turn. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my biggest problem with Wolof right now is being quick on the uptake when someone asks me a question. So right off the bat, Sakhir asked me something like, “What did you do yesterday?” Totally blanked. Took me at least 30 seconds to remember that “demb” means yesterday in Wolof. Bad news Bears. The interview did go uphill from there, but when I finished I was pretty seriously worried that Novice-Mid wasn’t going to happen.

After the fun interview, I practiced my speech for swear-in (which I’d finally gotten around to writing the night before) with Sakhir and my classmates. They seemed to think it was pretty good and I got a few laughs, which is what I was hoping for. So here’s hoping it goes over well with everyone else. Then it was time to finish packing up my room, have one last lunch with my family and say our goodbyes…

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been living with this family since AUGUST already. For most of training it felt like time was crawling by, but looking back now…I feel like I stepped off the plane yesterday. And yet the fact that I just finished grad school in May totally blows my mind. College seriously feels like another lifetime.

I’m looking forward to getting to Nioro and finally being able to unpack my suitcases and feel settled. But at the same time, I’m going to miss Tassete. I was talking with Jackie the other night and she mentioned something about how our lives will never again be as simple as they were in Tassete, and its true. It will be nice to have a shower again and access to the Internet and all those luxuries. However, there is definitely something to be said about living, even for a small amount of time, without all of those things. Frankly, it’s a lot less stressful and you really do appreciate the simple things like rain and the moon. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but seriously, its true…we all noticed that even after the first 5 days in village. So while I wouldn’t want to do it forever, I will miss the steady pace and the routine of life in a village.

[Oh and spoiler alert: I did pass my Wolof exam…Novice-High! So yay…there is officially nothing left between me and becoming a full-fledged PCV!]

A Thoroughly African Birthday

Well if somebody had asked me two years ago what I’d be doing on my 24^th birthday, I’m pretty sure living in Senegal wouldn’t have been anywhere on my list of possibilities. And yet my birthday has come and gone, and that’s exactly what happened. So here’s how my birthday, Africa-style, went…

We still had to have language class (even though I swear the schedule said that the whole day was free), but at least Jackie and I played the “but it’s my birthday!” card on Sakhir and got ourselves the late morning session. I had hoped to use that extra time to sleep in, but tin roofs heat up pretty quickly around here and by 8 AM it was getting a little too hot in my room to sleep. So I got up and set about getting ready for the day. Then Jackie came over and brought me a birthday card and some Biskrems (which are a delicious shortbread type cookie with chocolate filling that we are all addicted to) as a present. As evidenced by the wish list I made on the side of the blog, food is very high on my list of “Awesome Things to Receive” these days, so it was a pretty great gift.

Then it was time for Wolof class. During class Senegal said “Happy Birthday!” to me in a way only it can… And by that I mean, we were having class under the big tree at my house and I got pooped on not once, but TWICE by birds. Thanks, Senegal!

Mostly this was funny because the first time it landed on my arm, which is easy to clean off, and the second time it only got my notes. It would have been an entirely different story if it had landed on my freshly washed hair. (You grow to appreciate the effort that goes into washing your hair more when you are trying to do it out of a bucket. Trust me.) Wanting to avoid how angry I’d become if it happened a third time and did land in my hair, this finally prompted me to break out “the hat.” I call it “the hat” because I hadn’t yet worn it in country, due mostly to the fact that it absolutely guarantees people laughing at me. Why? Because while the huge floppy brim and UVB-proof material make it great for protecting one from the sun, it tends to look a little out of place here. Also, buying the hat in pink was, in retrospect, a bit of an error in judgment on my part. Nevertheless, I decided that compared with bird poop in my hair on my birthday, it was the lesser of two evils; and so I broke it out…much to the amusement of Jackie, Sakhir and my family.

Thankfully, I made it through the rest of class without any bird issues and we had the rest of the day free. I wanted to go into Thies and have some American food so we made plans to meet a few people from other training villages and headed out. Which is another way in which it was a thoroughly African birthday…10 people crammed into a car roughly the size of a circa-1992 Dodge Caravan on the way to Thies. Fun times, as always. But we made it in one piece so no worries.

We met everyone for lunch at a restaurant called “Big Faim,” and pretty much proceeded to wile away the rest of the afternoon eating too much, using the free wireless, enjoying the A/C and catching up on all the latest PC Senegal news. Definitely not as exciting as birthdays I’ve had in past years, but it was fun and I really appreciated the fact that people endured the sept-place ride to Thies to hang out.

After exhausting nearly 5 hours sitting around the restaurant (and making yet another failed attempt at finding handheld fans called ubukais at the market), we headed back to Tassete for dinner. When we got back it was time for another thoroughly African experience to remember the day by…popping the blister Jackie got from a blister beetle. Blister beetles are lovely little creatures that essentially pee acid on you, causing blisters to form on your skin (not fun, as I have since experienced for myself). With most blisters you just wait and let them pop on their own, but with these you have to do it right away and under water, otherwise the acid will just get all over you skin again. Lucky Jackie, one of the little buggers got her right near her collarbone…a place that is difficult to submerge without being indecent and definitely hard to reach to pop oneself. And so we dragged out her med kit and I got the lucky task of popping it while sitting on the mat in my frontyard. Again, fun times, haha.

After that the day pretty much wound down…I finished reading Into Thin Air (which if you haven’t already read, I’d highly recommend it), hung out with my family for a little bit, had a little birthday-related meltdown that prompted screaming at children who tried to grab me and demand money while I was freaking out…you know, the usual. Let’s just say that while it was definitely a good birthday overall, seeing as it was the first birthday I’ve ever spent that far away from home (and the only one in 24 years I haven’t seen my Mom on)…it was hard and my emotions were on a bit of a roller coaster. Sometimes you stop and wonder what you’re doing with your life and I feel like birthdays are a prime day for doing that. Without going into the gory details, I’ll just say that while I’m happy in my decision to join the Peace Corps and I know that we’re doing important work…sometimes it scares me to think about the fact that this is a totally temporary life. Even if I decide to extend longer than two years, at some point I HAVE to pick-up and start all over again somewhere else. But that’s life, right?

Thankfully, Jackie is well accustomed to dealing with my minor breakdowns at this point and was able to calm me down in pretty short order. Plus I got a few phone calls from people back home, including my parents, which certainly helped.

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes! I very much appreciated them all :) Looks like 24 is going to be a very interesting year…

I suppose you could say I’m tri-lingual now…

The morning after we got back from Dakar, it was time to pack-up and head out to Tassete for one last time. Which of course meant, only one more week of training, final language tests, swear-in and then that’s it…training’s over and I’m off to Nioro on my own. YIKES! But first, the last week of training…

Right before we went to the beach, we had our third language placement interview. I had passed out of the required level of French during the second interview, but they wouldn’t let me start learning a local language just yet because the other people in my class still needed to get the required level in French and we only have one LCF in Tassete. But the good news is, A – I went up in my French level between the second and third interview, so while it was frustrating not to be able to move on, at least I learned something. And B – Jackie passed out of French during the third interview and we got Simone (the language coordinator) to agree to split our classes. So this time when we went back to Tassete, we had two separate language classes. Jackie and I started learning Wolof, while Alex and Josh worked on perfecting their French.

I was excited to finally start Wolof, but man…I’d forgotten how incredibly frustrating starting a new language is. Jackie and I had class for about an hour and a half to two hours every morning, after which we’d work on our homework while the boys had French. Then we’d break for lunch, and repeat the same class/homework schedule in the afternoons. Roughly 3-4 hours of class a day might not sound like a lot, but it was completely exhausting. At least when I first started French there were common grammar structures and even some of the same words to fall back on. However, that is definitely not the case with Wolof.

Everyone keeps telling me that Wolof is easier to learn than French because it doesn’t really have much grammar and rules, but starting out…that is really hard to get used to. Especially when trying to switch to that from French, which has its own academy for regulating the language (L’Academie Française), it loves rules so much! Basically, for the first three days of Wolof I felt like someone had taken an eggbeater to my brain by the time I collapsed into bed each night. Plus, I’ve never been very good at being patient with myself when I don’t understand things, so at times; it was hard not to scream in frustration.

Thankfully though, we started classes on Tuesday and by about midway through class on Friday I had a bit of an epiphany and things started to make more sense. And not a moment too soon, let me tell you. I can now form a fair amount of necessary sentences in Wolof such as “I’m hungry.” “I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.” “I can’t marry you because I already have a husband.” (oh the fun of daily marriage proposals…) etc. It might not seem like much, but after a mere 6 days of Wolof classes…I’ll take it.

For some reason what is hardest for me right now is understanding people’s questions, not so much formulating responses to them. I find that a little weird since at the beginning of training, I could understand more of what people said in French than I could articulate myself. Oh well…I suppose it will all come with time.

Aside from learning Wolof instead of French, the last week of community-based training (CBT) was pretty much the same as all the rest. I had hoped that the cold season would immediately follow the end of the rainy season, but no dice. It didn’t rain all week so it was hotter than ever in Tassete. Which of course meant that we spent most of our time at my house enjoying the shade of the big trees (trees that provide shade really are the best thing ever in this climate) and either having class, studying or lounging around. We also went and cheered Tassete on to victory in the semi-final match of the local soccer tournament. Jackie’s brother even scored the winning goal! (We had already left town by the time they played the final, but they won that too. Yeah Tassete!)

Oh and the other big theme of the last week in Tassete was procrastination. I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that I was asked to give a speech in French for our swearing-in ceremony. I was definitely honored to be one of the ones chosen (there are PCTs giving speeches in Mandinka, Pulaar and Wolof too), but I’m not so much a fan of public speaking. Plus, I’ve never had to give a commencement type speech before. So naturally my reaction (surprise surprise) was to procrastinate writing it for as long as possible in the hopes that something brilliant would come to me eventually, lol. (Don’t worry, I didn’t wait until the night before the ceremony before I wrote it, but more on that later).

Well I think that about covers it… Ba beneen yoon! (which means until next time in Wolof)

Dakar Weekend!

[Just to clarify…this refers to the weekend of October 3 & 4. I’m a little behind on writing, but I promise to catch everyone up to the present soon!]

After our defeat to the LCFs in soccer Friday night (October 2), we had to do some language classes the following morning and then we got the rest of the weekend free to do as we pleased. Hurrah! While some of the PCTs stayed at the training center in Thies, I decided that it was a good opportunity to check out more of Dakar (since all I’d seen so far was the airport). So Saturday afternoon about 16 of us hopped on an Alham and headed to the regional house for a couple of nights. This might not have been the responsible decision given how tired I was at this point, but hey…you only live once, right? Plus, I knew I had a whole week of village life and lots of sleep ahead of me in Tassete.

After being caught in the inevitable Dakar traffic for several hours, we arrived at the regional house…or Liberté 6 as we call it (because that is the name of the quartier where its located). Some people went out to a Korean BBQ place for dinner, but being both lazy and short on funds, I opted to go with the neighborhood egg sandwich vendor. After all, you can’t go wrong with a meal that only costs 300 CFA (roughly 75¢). I’ve never really been a fan of hard-boiled eggs (the yolks…YUCK), but that doesn’t seem to stop me from eating them here. Of course that’s not really surprise since most of the things I eat on a daily basis here, I refused to touch back in America. For example: fish, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. are staples of my diet these days. I suppose it’s about time that I stopped being as picky as a three-year old with my food though, haha.

Anywho, after dinner everyone regrouped at the house for a couple of drinks and then we headed out to a party at the Oceanium, a club on the water. The first Saturday of every month they hold a big all night party, so naturally, when we heard that there was dancing and a good chance of awesomely-bad American music (this is Africa after all), we wanted to check it out. The party was a blast and it was nice to go dancing for the first time in a while.

On Sunday, a bunch more people from our stage came up from Thies and we headed to the Atlantic Club. The Atlantic Club (or American Club, as we call it) is pretty much exactly like a country club back in the States (minus the golf course) and its members are generally American ex-patriots or French nationals living in Dakar. And lucky for us the owners are fans of Peace Corps so they let us all come and use the pool/tennis courts/etc. for free! It’s a pretty sweet deal.

So we spent the day lounging around by the pool, eating American food (they have Snickers!) and chatting…just another typical day in the life of a hard-working Peace Corps volunteer. It was almost hard to go back to the daily village life after that…hanging out there, it’s really easy to forget that you’re still in Senegal, haha. Eventually though we had to face the music and everyone headed back to the regional house for the night.

Then on Monday, we all headed to the Peace Corps office in Dakar for a fun filled day of meetings. We started off with a briefing from the head of security at the U.S. Embassy, who did his best to put a little fear into us…particularly those living around the Mali/Mauritania/Guinea borders (don’t worry, that’s not me). I think he was a little more keyed up than usual having spent the whole weekend helping to coordinate the evacuation of Embassy personnel and other U.S. citizens from Guinea. So after he talked, Etienne (the head of security for PC Senegal) got up and calmed everyone down, haha. Have no fear…Etienne assures us that he’s not worried about anything and if there ever were a need to worry he’d definitely be the first to know.

After security, we had the requisite signing of papers slash talk on the process of obtaining a U.S. Visa from the director of U.S. Citizen Affairs at the Embassy. This was mostly just to prepare us for the inevitable barrage of questions we will be getting over the next two years from people wanting to move to the States. Oh, as well as the process of obtaining a Visa if we want to marry a host country national and bring them home with us. She assures us that there’s almost always someone in every stage that ends up wanting to do this. I for one am extremely curious to see who it’s going to be from our group, haha.

Next on the agenda was a brief bus tour of Dakar, followed by lunch in the city. I went to the French Cultural Center because I was told that they’ve got amazing burgers (man do I miss burgers!) and it definitely lived up to the billing. Delicious! After lunch we went back to the office to meet the administrative staff and talk about exciting things like money and vacation policies. Then it was a mad rush to see who’d get the bus with the A/C and who’d be stuck with the Alham for the ride back to Thies. I definitely made it a priority to get a spot with A/C, haha.

Ok, I realize that this entry is approaching the length of a book so I promise I’m almost done, but one other piece of news…our stage lost its first person that night :( We were all eating dinner in the refectoire when one of the girls from our stage got up and announced that she was early terminating (ET-ing) and heading back to America. She had been sick and stuck at the med hut in Dakar a lot, so while I don’t know if that factored into her decision, I can’t really say that I blame her. I’m not sure I’d still be here if I’d been having persistent health issues for the past two months. Thankfully though, I’ve been pretty healthy so far (KNOCK ON WOOD). I wasn’t particularly close to this girl, but it was still sad to see her go. Especially so close to swear-in…we were only a week and a half away from the whole stage making it through training! Oh well, such is life I suppose…

And on that slightly depressing note (sorry, but I figured I should share the news), I’ll end this post…bye!!

America vs. Senegal...PC style

As I’m sure everyone well knows, soccer (our football as we call it on this side of the Atlantic) is a favorite past time in Africa, and Senegal is no exception. So after months of trash talking, when CPW was over it was time for the big PST match-up…PCTs vs. LCFs (our language trainers). Reports vary and its hard to trust the sources, but the story goes that over the last 10 years or so, the Americans have only succeeded in beating the Senegalese once. Nevertheless, we adopted the Cubs' favorite mantra (BAHAHA) and proclaimed, "This is going to be our year!" And so we went into the match determined to take them down a peg.

Well I decided that six years of soccer experience back at St. Thomas Grade School, plus a brief stint (aka two practices) on the Queen Mary Women’s football team in London, meant that I should give it a go. Good news: I successfully made it through the match without falling (I think) or embarrassing myself too much (its rare, but it does happen). Bad news: we definitely did not win. I place part of the blame on bad officiating. Mostly though I think it can be put down to lack of adjustment to the climate and two months of all of us sitting on our butts and eating rice all day. Because goodness knows I was in tip-top physical shape before I came to Senegal. HAAAA.

But seriously, we lost (2-1…I think. There was some major debate about the scoring, haha) and probably due to their superior skill. Hopefully we will have a rematch during in-service training though and then…they’re going down!

Also, here’s an example of how my playing went: given my total lack of skill and the fact that I haven’t really played soccer since I was 13, I decided that the safest place on the field for me was at forward. This may seem counterintuitive, but in spite of all of our trash talking we knew the LCFs were better so chances were most of the action for us was going to be on the defensive end. Well at one point the ball was kicked towards one of the corners and instead of going after it (in my defense, I thought it was out of bounds…the field we played in doesn’t have fancy things like sidelines) I just stood there waiting for it to get thrown back into play. Brilliant, I know. When I finally wised up and realized it was still inbounds, I went after it and instead of getting the ball, I accidentally kicked Bamba (the LCF, not to be confused with the SED tech trainer) in the shins. I really can’t decide what he found funnier…the fact that I actually missed the ball enough to kick him. Or the fact that it probably didn’t even hurt enough to legitimately call it a kick.

What can I say, I’m gonna give Mia Hamm a run for her money…

Counterpart Workshop

Sorry for the long absence from blog posts…it’s been a pretty crazy couple of weeks! I believe the last time I posted anything we were getting ready for counterpart workshop, so I’ll start the updates with that…

All in all, counterpart workshop (CPW) wasn’t really much to talk about. It basically consisted of two days of sessions on such exciting topics as expectations, the relationship between counterparts and volunteers, the SED project plan, etc. Truthfully, the thing that sticks out most in my mind when I think about CPW is being exhausted. While some lucky PCTs got to stay at the center during CPW, we Tassete people enjoyed commuting to and from Thies everyday. Not only did we have to commute, but also we were the first of four villages being picked up all by the same van. So this meant that we had to wake up everyday at 5:30 AM in order to shower and get on the bus in time for breakfast before sessions started at 8:15; and we usually got back to village around 8 PM. That’s a long day even by American standards, but after two months of living at the village pace, it was practically unfathomable. Then add to that the fact that all of our sessions were being conducted in rapid-fire French, which required me to pay very close attention in order to understand what was being said. PLUS I’m pretty sure the last time I slept straight through the night was at the hotel in D.C. during staging…you could see why exhaustion was the main theme of the workshop, haha.

Aside from the exhaustion, CPW was beneficial for a couple of different reasons. The information presented in most of the sessions was really meant more for the counterparts and supervisors than for us, but it was helpful to see how Senegalese interact in a classroom style situation. For example, while in America we are taught to raise our hands and wait quietly to be called on if we have something to say, the Senegalese custom is to snap their fingers repeatedly until someone is recognized. The first time one of the counterparts did that during a session, I was completely taken aback. After all, I think most Americans would agree with me that snapping at someone like that is quite rude. Little did I know…that’s just the way things are done here. So it’s good that I learned that now rather than being caught off guard in the future while trying to run a meeting or teach a class.

Also, as my part of the workshop, I worked with Byron, Alex and Alys (three other SED PCTs) on creating a skit regarding the relationship between counterparts (homologues) and volunteers. We came up with the idea of “Homologue Homme,” a superhero version of the counterpart, to demonstrate our expectations. So we wrote the skit and put it on thinking we were being reasonably clever and that everyone would find it helpful, and hopefully a little bit funny. Well to sum it up in a few short words…epic fail! It would seem that the underlying sarcasm of the idea (and the humor in general) doesn’t translate across cultural borders. While we were trying to portray things like wanting our counterparts to introduce us to people and show us around town; they thought we were expecting our homologues to literally swoop in and save the day whenever we cry for help. I think one of the homologues actually even raised their hand to point out that they are incapable of flying…no joke, haha. Needless to say the superhero concept did not convey quite what we had hoped, but it was another good lesson in the difficulties of communicating across cultural borders. In the future, I’ll have to be a little bit more careful about how I try to explain things.

Last but not least…CPW was also a good opportunity for everyone, myself included, to meet his or her counterpart and supervisor. As SED volunteers, we are all assigned to work under a government agency; so the supervisor acts as our contact for whatever agency we are meant to work with. The counterpart/homologue on the other hand, is more the person that shows you around and works with you on a daily basis regarding your projects. So far both my supervisor and homologue seem like really good people. I think there’s a possibility that one might be a bit more difficult to work with, but hopefully I’m wrong…only time will tell.

À la prochaine!

Mini Beach Vacation!!

So last Monday, the Peace Corps FINALLY made a little room in our schedule for us to have a day off when we weren't all separated in our training villages. Obviously, we jumped at the opportunity and all 50 of us decided to head to Popenguine, an eco-tourism site on the coast, for a little mini beach holiday. I volunteered to plan the trip, but being faced with the prospect of finding transportation, renting houses and procuring enough food and drinks was a little bit daunting. Thankfully though, there is a PCV in Popenguine who, when I called him to get the number of the guy we usually rent houses from, volunteered to take care of reserving the houses. Ankith also called ahead and warned the boutiques that 50 Toubabs were rolling into town, so they needed to stock up. A couple of relatively smooth phone calls in French to arrange Alhams and texts to all the PCTs letting them know the plan and we were ready to go...

So on Monday afternoon, PC cars came and got us from the 11 different training villages and brought everyone back to the center. Then we all ran around packing up stuff for the beach and borrowing foam mattresses to bring along. We got everything strapped onto the 2 Alhams and crammed ourselves in to head out, only an hour and a half later than intended...which is pretty much a miracle for the Peace Corps and Senegal in general. Of course travel in an Alham is always an adventure and the one I was in stalled and came to a complete stop while trying to go up a hill on the way. We were thinking we'd have to push it to the beach, but thankfully it started again after 5 or 10 minutes and we were on our way.

Once we got to Popenguine, I decided it was about time to pass the torch on being in charge and enjoy myself, haha. So we stopped at a boutique to get supplies and I handed all the money to Kathryn, another PCT, and let her take over. All 50 of us piled out of the Alhams at this point, which was total chaos. Everyone was in charge of getting their own snack and drinks, but we also had to get everything we needed for a communal dinner that night and breakfast in the AM. Plus, some of the PCTs were in charge of walking into random compounds looking for ice. In Senegal, you can't just walk to the gas station or grocery store and buy ice. You have to look for houses that have freezers. Frequently, the women that live there will fill up plastic bags with water and then freeze them to sell as ice; so that's what we were after. After about an hour of running around like chickens with their heads cut off, we finally piled back into the buses and drove the rest of the way to our houses.

That day was possibly the hottest day since we arrived in Senegal, so that plus 25 people packed into an Alham equals I've never been so sweaty in my life. So as soon as we got to the house, most of us dropped our stuff and headed straight for the ocean, while a few people got started on making spaghetti.

Everyone took a break from swimming to eat spaghetti Senegalese-style (aka 15 forks attacking each platter), but otherwise the entire night was spent enjoying the ocean. It was a gorgeous evening and the water was the perfect temperature, so it was pretty much amazing. It was nice to have a chance to unwind and hang out with everyone out from under the eyes of PC staff.

We rented 2 houses for the night, which sounds like a lot, but with 50 PCTs plus 6 or 7 PCVs who came down to join the party, things got rather crowded. So it was pretty much sleep wherever you could find enough space to lay down, haha. I, for example, ended up sharing a flimsy foam mattress with another PCV out on the porch of the big house. Thank goodness for mosquito coils preventing us from getting bitten to death, because there was definitely no where to hang a net. But I got to sleep right next to the beach and spent the night swimming in the Atlantic, so who am I to complain? Waking up there was definitely one of those moments where I have to pause and take a step back...it still seems surreal that this is my life now. And of course its not all fun times and parties on the beach, but its still an amazing opportunity to experience.

The next morning some of the girls cooked pancakes for everyone (which I slept through, wah wah) and then we spent the rest of the day hanging out in the water or around the house. Unfortunately, I missed putting sunscreen on my chest so I got my first major sunburn since getting to country...but frankly, it was worth it. It has been far too hot the past 2 weeks to even consider not staying in the water when I had the chance.

Around 5 it was time to pack up and head back to reality. I wish we could have had one more night to enjoy the beach, but oh well. Thankfully everything went off without a hitch planning-wise and everyone had an awesome time. Great trip!!

Right now we're in the middle of counter-part workshop so I'll let you know how that goes next time. Later!