10/12

So today was quite a bit less interesting htne yesterday as no riots or international soccer games. We wake up around 8/9 and chill in the regional house for most of the morning. Jenn and Aaron go and get everyone bean sandwiches. As bad as that sounds its actually a great meal. jared shows up while we are waiting for jenn and Aaron to get back. I talk to him for a bit and relive the events of the previous night. Evidently another PCv got jumped while trying to leave the stadium and got roughed up pretty good. As the story was told it seemed like they thought that he was a gambia supporter and as they were trying to take his shirt realized he had a senegal jersey on underneath, and apologized for beating the crap out of him and stealing all his shit. But he lost about what i did and was significantly less off then i was. I guess i could have relied on that happening had i put up a fight and i feel a little less guilty for not putting up a bigger fight.
So Jenn and Aaron get back and we dig in as everyone else has gotten up as well. Everyone was really nice about the whole being skint bit and we were all taken care of for the rest of the day. We decided that we would go to the beach or the american club so as to change our interpretations of Dakar around. Jared had to go back to his house to get some things and seeing as he lived right next to where everything happened the previous night i decided i wanted to go with him to put to rest some demons about that area.
We caught a jeginjy(local bus type thing) from liberty 6, the are where the regional house is in Dakar over to the stadium side of town. We had to walk from there to Jared's house. We literally walked right past where we had been cowering from rocks the previous day. Not only that but Jared lives like 2 secs away from where we were. We could have gone straight there and been fine. Good to know now right! But i was glad i got to go back and walk around as it was life as usual, it was like nothing had happened the night before, minus the busted ass Senelac building and the remnants of burnt up tires in the roads. Everyone had lives to get on with so life went on. Jared and I hung out at his house for a while and headed out when Jenn txted jared to say they were going to the American Club.
So we started our journey back across Dakar to the american club, which PCV's get into free incidentally. It took us a while to get across town and two jeginjy rides. We had to take the firs one from the Stadium, basically right where everything was all crazy the night before with tire on fire and tear gas flying around. It was neat to see the north side of the peninsula though. We got to drive past a monument that president wade is having built kinda as a monument to be remembered by. Its pissed alot of people off as he cant do a lot of other things but is blowing all this money on a huge monument. Evidently it'll be as big as the jesus in Rio.
We eventually get over the Atlantic Club, which is really the American Club. A little slice of america in Dakar. A nice pool, tennis courts, volleyball court, and lots of americans and other ex-pats. When jared and I got there everyone else was there as well as the country director and his family. They were all hanging out by the pool in their swim trunks. Luckily for me i was ready for the beach the other day with my trunks on under my jeans. Chris Hendrick was chilling with us and just going over the events of the previous night. He was calm about it and didnt regret anything about it. It was a cultural event and we were going with experienced PCV's, shit just hit the fan. Nothing could have been done too differently so its was all good all things considered. We all hang out there for the rest of the afternoon, swimming and playing ping pong, evidently Chris is a competitor! We got to meet his kids and wife which was neat as both his wife and him were volunteers in Kedougou region. He breaks the news to us that we have to head back to Thies that night as we have class the next day. The security officer had told us to stay in Dakar till monday to get our police paperwork sorted out, but since we'll be going to Dakar next weekend, we can just do it then. Since about 2/3rds of us had all our money stolen he spotted us 10,000Cfa to get back to Thies which was really nice.
But we head back to liberty 6 to get our stuff and get ready to head back to thies. We take a sept place, which we were all really excited to be getting back into. After about 20min though we were all pretty much asleep as i think the events of the two days took their tole. We get back after getting the sept place driver to take us to the peace corps building instead of the gare for an extra mil. When we get back the story telling begins again, both form the beach party, which sounded like it was rather fun and us retelling our little adventure. After a while Kevin and I decide to go into town to do some internet-ing, and he wanted to get money, as his credit cards were very intelligently left here in Thies. We have a couple of beers and i typed up our adventure and check up on the world. All in all a much tamer day!