After a short stint in Joal with all the Heath and Environment volunteers in Senegal, I zipped to Dakar to help out with English Camp for a week.  The camp was located at a high school in the Dakar suburbs, and we had 150 teenagers and 12 PCV camp counselors.  It was a really fun and rewarding experience and I was so impressed with the students’ enthusiasm and knowledge of America.

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Throughout the week, we played American games and had discussions about the culture, history, geography, and politics of America.  I thought it was funny that during our cultural discussion, we had two vocabulary words written on the board:  competitive and competition.  While explaining the branches of government, we hesitated while thinking of the number of members in the House of Representatives.  We finally gave up and just said that there were over 300, and almost in unison the kids told us there were 435 members, putting us to shame.  Because all of us PCVs were given Senegalese names upon moving into our villages, we decided to have all the students give themselves American names on the first day of camp, and it was amusing to see what they came up with.

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In Jeopardy, they knew our current vice president and what the stars and stripes represent on our flag, but they did not know about Starbucks or the Super Bowl.  The highlight of the week was the day we held the Olympics, in which my team, The Winners, won.

Apart from English Camp, I have been having a lot fun in Dakar, staying with an American host family, eating cereal for breakfast, watching American tv on the Armed Forces Network, and sleeping in a real bed.  Today, Marisa and I are off to the beach in Popenguine for a couple days, before I go back to my village.  Below is a photo from Isle de Madeleine, off the Dakar coast.  Check out more pictures of Dakar and Joal on the right.

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