Chicks still following the mother hen, out of an original 16: 5
Approximate total paid to my village’s farmers for their cotton harvest (the primary cash inflow for about 120 people for a year): $9000
Approximate price paid by Mali (through Aadama and Sori, since Mali’s still in Spain) for a second wife: $200
Number of African Cup of Nations quarterfinals watched on the village TV: 3
Freak out-of-season rain showers in the village: 2
WAIST games that Team Tamba lost, out of five played: 5
Number of those games ended early under the “mercy rule” (teams up by 15+ runs after four innings declared the winner): 2
Number of batters walked by the Guinea pitcher in our last game, thereby giving me my only home run of the tournament: 8
Injuries sustained by Team Tamba: 5
Pulaar, by the way, has a word for out-of-season rain: bowte.
WAIST, the annual West African Invitational Softball Tournament, was once again a blast. The softball itself was fairly shoddy (particularly at our games), but the company was good. One of two Mauritanian PCV teams won the social league for the second year in a row (they supposedly have softball practice during PST). Team Tamba blazed our way to a 0-5 record, but we so would have won the “Most Team Spirit”—or perhaps the “Best Dressed”—trophy, if there’d been one.
We probably also could have earned honorable mention for imbibition, if anyone had been keeping track. For those of you curious as to what you’re missing, check out ratebeer.com‘s reviews of Senegal’s three ubiquitous beers, Flag, Castel, and Gazelle, described respectively as “no obvious flaws, but also no obvious qualities,” “a touch of herbaceous hops and unobtrusive rotten cabbage,” and “about what you would expect from Senegal.”
