So, this last week has been fun! I got to play with chickens during my In Service Training (IST). which was really great, except that one night a chicken got out of its coop. we never found it again. it was a great tragedy. After the chicken training we learned how to build nursery tables. It was cool. I did something stupid with some rusty nails and sliced open my finger. I might have needed stitches, but I just cleaned it out, and wrapped my finger in gauze and kept hammering. The day after that was probably the best day of IST, cause we got to dig holes. we dug holes all day! we dug trenches, and terraces, and swales and berms, and just had some good ole fashion fun in the dirt! Then the next day we got to graft mangos, which was also pretty cool, cause I love trees. the next day I think it was a friday, was quite the roller coaster ride. I had to go back to the bank. but on the way there I made my greatest discovery! a group of us were traveling to the bank and we passed by a european run market. we had to stop in and to my surprise they had the greatest ice-cream bar known to man. the Magnum bar. I am very well acquainted with the magnum bar. I ate them in israel quite often, and almost everyday when I was in china. It is the greatest ice-cream in the world. although it was expensive, I ate one, and it was the most delicious thing I had eaten in months, possibly even years. there is no ice cream that can beat a magnum bar, every flavor of magnum bar is more delicious than any other brand. But then there was the bank, my mortal foe (see posts "Training","Day at the Bank", and "Dakar"). I walk in to try my atm card. I check my balance (I have 6 digits). I press the button to withdraw. the screen says that it refuses my request. So I call pam, and go back to the training center. the next day I am on the phone all day with aziz, at the PC headquarters in Dakar trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with my account. He calls the bank a few times, and they don't know whats wrong. So then the next day he calls me and tells me that everything will work if I just go and cash a check. So I go back into the hell hole called CBAO, and sit for a half hour in line. then I go up to the cashier hoping that this guy doesn't think I am a terrorist like in Dakar, and he looks at my passport, and at my check, and prints out some paper, and tell me to go wait over by a pillar. I stand there for an hour. a full hour I stand as he calls people and sends e-mails to people. eventually he calls me back over and hands me my cash. I am not in a very good mood, so I go straight to the market and buy another magnum bar, this one was double chocolate. It really hit the spot. It is chocolate ice-cream surrounded by chocolate syrup, surrounded by a chocolate shell. its amazing. That night, I went to the club with everyone and had a pretty good time. I got to drag my friend into his bed, cause I found him sleeping on a bench.
So now I am back in Velingara. I have started working on my garden. I did a trash pickup and a rock removal. I am also making very good important friends. they run the pastry shop. its the best pastry shop this side of the Gambia. The shop is only going to get better because I told them about Bagels, and how white people will buy bagels. they are very excited about bagels, and so am I. The only problem is that they are all really horny, and they keep telling me about how they want white women. They keep dragging women over to talk to me, which is very nice of them, I am just not interested in African women. Other good news is that even though my friend ripped my pants one night cause he was really drunk and thought it would be fun to jump on my back without me knowing (yes it is the same one that I found on the bench passed out) my host mom took my pants and a Santana patch that I had brought with me to the tailor, and fixed my pants. of course I had to take them back to the tailor the next day because he had stitched it in upside down. I also found ninja turtle sheets at the market which are amazing.
So heres a funny story- my mother that I love so very much sent me a great package. it had bacon, and spam and candy and all sorts of great things. but it also had the two things that I eat most of here, peanuts and rice. The day after I got my package my host mom even made rice with peanut sauce. granted I do like rice and peanuts, please don't send me any.
-Mike
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