I am getting ready right now to go to WAIST, which stands for West African Invitational Softball Tournament. It is held in Dakar each year, and a lot of Peace Corps countries in West Africa send teams. Mauritania sends three (A,B, and C); I am not actually playing though; hopefully just cheering and exploring Dakar.

Things are going well back in Kankossa-I was back for just three weeks after three weeks away for Christmas, which was an awkward amount of time. The biggest change in the past three weeks was that I moved. Typically I save major complaints for personal emails and my weekly chat with my mom, but I was extremely unhappy with the family I was living with for the past 5 months. I finally moved and found a room with a really nice woman and her two kids. I have only been living with them a week but already I am so much happier.

It was also strange coming back to Kankossa after three weeks away because I feel like it had modernized before my eyes. The town is three hours from a paved road, but recently got electricity. When I arrived 5 months ago it was on 4 hours a day, and now it is on from noon to midnight. The Education Inspection office just got two computers, so I have been giving them informal lessons on how to change their desktop backgrounds and not download viruses. I also came back to find that two of my neighbors had bought TV’s, which people here run off of electricity, gas generators, or car batteries. It changes the atmosphere so much. Instead of talking, people watch TV all day. I hesitate to pass judgment on this since a) it is still nothing compared to the sedentary habits of people in the U.S and b) it is not my place to tell people in a third world country that they should maintain a “traditional” lifestyle and forgo luxuries previously limited to wealthier nations. Still, it is interesting to see. The novelty has not worn off yet, although the consequences are beginning to show. One of the grade schools had a meeting last week with the APE (the parent-teacher association here) about how grades are dropping because the students watch TV all night instead of studying. Mauritania has not become the United States yet, though; a teacher in a tiny village 10 kilometers away told me they have a similar problem with kids not studying, but it is because they form drum circles into the wee hours of the morning instead of doing their homework.