Taylor's Travels: WAISTed

Coming to Africa, I had a picture in my mind of how it would be: women in exotic dresses carrying buckets on their heads, barefooted kids playing soccer in dirt streets, and villagers gathering along the shoreline to view the day’s catch. You can imagine my surprise when, in addition to the aforementioned expectations, I found hundreds of American twenty-somethings, all night parties, and softball.

I met Mike Dvorjak surfing in front Dakar’s Club Med. Originally from Half Moon Bay, he is living in Senegal with his girlfriend Devon, teaching at the International School of Dakar (ISD). Before the session was over he told me about a softball tournament going on in Dakar, and invited me to check it out that afternoon. It sounded too weird not to have a look.

I didn’t know what to expect. After all, we were in Africa, not exactly known for its baseball fervor; how big could a softball tournament be? On the other hand, Mike said he was making a documentary on the event, and he had some serious looking cameras.

When we passed through the security gates at the ISD field, I thought I’d stumbled out of the corn and onto Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams; it was an oasis of America in West Africa. Coed teams played softball on green grass. Spectators in lawn chairs consumed hot dogs, peanuts, soft serve, and beer. Teammates exchanged high fives. Children chased foul balls. It was like home.

Turns out, my arrival in Senegal coincided with the West African Invitational Softball Tournament (WAIST). Half sporting event half spring break, the annual competition is held over a three-day weekend and is comprised mostly of Peace Corps volunteers from around West Africa, with local and expat teams rounding out the field. For three days the party doesn’t stop—it was a bandwagon I was happy to jump on.

The party’s nucleus was the American Club, which shares a fence with ISD. Like a country club without the golf course, the American Club boasts a swimming pool, tennis and volleyball courts, a lounge, a bar, and a snack shack. People came and went between the four softball fields to regroup with friends, take a dip in the pool, put some pink on their pale skin, and drink cold Flag (the local beer). The latter fueled the weekend

God knows these guys earned it. Peace Corps volunteers sign up for a two-year service, not knowing where in the world they will be placed, for the sake of helping others. They live with villagers, eat their food, and learn their local dialect. They each specialize in sectors like sustainable agriculture, women education/empowerment, and business development, and teach the topics to the locals. You can imagine how they look forward to WAIST, a trip to America without leaving the continent, after being stuck in a village for months on end. It made me feel silly that a few years ago I wanted to go somewhere for spring break to get away from “stressful” college life.

At WAIST, funky haircuts and costumes are not the exception but the rule. I doubt if anyone in West Africa has ever seen such a concentration of Mohawks and Mullets, and I know they haven’t seen sporting events where the players dress as pirates or play in their underwear (unless they attended WAIST any one of the last 36 years of its existence). The debauchery in the American Club extended onto the softball diamond, with outfielders setting down their beers to chase fly balls, and a girl with a boom box pacing the foul line, dancing to hip hop beats and riling up the players and fans. Never had the Peace Corps looked so appealing to me.

While WAIST is a diversion for most teams, some, like the Pirates of Mauritania, take the event seriously. This Peace Corps team spends months dispersed throughout the Sahara, and they see WAIST as an opportunity to reconnect with an American pastime and their love for competition.

“Most of us have athletic pasts. We played sports in high school and some of us in college, and we miss it,” said one Pirate. “Add to it that we’re alone in the desert most of the year and it makes WAIST that much more special. We want to win.”

Blocking their path to the tournament trophy was Senegal Three, a strong team of local Senegalese players who narrowly beat the Pirates in the finals last year, and looked likely to repeat. The Pirates, however, sought revenge.

It was around this drama that Mike focused his documentary. He filmed all of the Pirate and Senegal games, contrasting athletic and competitive Senegal Three with the Pirates, a team that practiced once a year and was relying more on heart and determination than softball skills. Mike lost sleep praying to the softball gods to put Senegal Three and the Pirates in the final.

It seems the gods were listening. In the semi-final match up between Senegal Three and The Gambia’s Peace Corps team, Senegal was trailing by three runs. In the final minutes of the hour long game, with the bases loaded, Senegal Three hit a Grand Slam to win it. The Pirates had already clinched their spot in the final, and the storybook match-up would unfold Monday afternoon on a legitimate baseball diamond that overlooked the rocky Atlantic coastline.

A wild Sunday night turned into Monday morning very quickly for most WAIST attendees, but sleep deprivation and hangovers hindered few from attending the game. Hundreds showed up, 95% of whom rooted for the Pirates, and it was standing room only along the foul line (except for one young volunteer, who was so hung over that she slept in the middle of the herd, but she did show up). Hats were removed when a player from Peace Corps Guinea tooted the national anthem on his trumpet, and the crowd sang along in near unity. The Pirates finished their final beers before the game, and Senegal Three was up to bat.

I’ve witnessed some exciting sporting events—overtime hockey shootouts, buzzer beater basketball wins, even Barry Bond’s 756th homerun—and I am dead serious when I tell you that the excitement that surrounded this game was up there with all of them. Double plays were made, leads were exchanged, and homeruns were hit. The game’s excitement was matched by that of the crowd, with girls dressed as pirates storming the crowd to announce the score after an inning, or dig their hooks in the dirt and yelling“AAARGGHHHH!” Music was blasted and chants were yelled. We jumped and screamed when the Pirates scored and nervously covered our moths when Senegal Three retook the lead. It was like being at a local team’s home game

After a rollercoaster forty-five minutes, it became clear the day belonged to the The Pirates. They beat Senegal Three 11-6. The crowd rushed the field. Beer was shook and sprayed. The MVP was named.

The elation on the faces of the players said it all—they were hometown heroes, and they managed to become so in West Africa. With the softball, the Peace Corps, the expats, and the food, America had reincarnated in Africa. If only for a few days. While it wasn’t what I expected when I arrived, WAIST provided fun, excitement, and a valuable lesson—home is where you make it.