Happy Belated 4th of July

So Senegal's market for tacky Obama merchandise is giving the commemorative plate industry a run for its money. From flashlights with Obama's face on them to Obama brand cashews, everything exists. Because the 4th of July is a big holiday for Peace Corps, I wanted to try and find the tackiest, gaudiest Obama clothing I could. Somehow, as soon as I started looking for some, all of it disappeared. The closest thing I found (though it was an amazing find), was a child-sized American flag material t-shirt with the Obama visage on the front. I was disappointed, but luckily one of my fellow stagieres, Stanzi, was a fine arts and econ double major, and made me an even tackier Obama tshirt (artist and final product pictured above). It has Obama's face, or rather a caricature of his face, in front of an American flag with "Yes We Can" in Wolof underneath. On the back everyone signed it, and another stagiere, Casey, wrote "If you're from Africa, why are you white?" which has become one of the themes of our training. 

For our 4th celebrations, we all went back to the training center in Thies, cooked a pig (already dead by the time we got there, but not too late for us to have named it Babs), ate the pig, and also got burgers and ice cream for lunch. It was a pretty good time.

We do dmist, meaning demystification about where we will be serving (possibly my favorite useless acronym), in a few days. Many current volunteers know where we will be going, but are obligated not to tell us. We're all sort of excited to find out, though swearing in and going to our sites are still a long way out.

I'll leave you with another movie quote, because we sit around and quote Mean Girls and Clueless all day. "You guys talk like grown ups." "This is a very good school."