Due to my complete inability to regularly blog, it's been a WHILE. And I've done a LOT. So to fully fill you in I've got to go back to the week before Easter, a week filled with church, church, and a bit more church. We completed a record three Stations of the Cross marches (a big walk on which we mark the different points of Jesus' journey leading up to crucifixion), which in Cookham Dean terms means a jolly stroll and chat through the village, on a hopefully no...

Well we're HALF WAY through the year! For the first time, I've got less time left in Senegal than that which I've already spent here…wild. Katie and I celebrated appropriately last night with Fanta and chicken yassa baguettes, and I thought I'd mark the occasion by giving a slightly more thorough round up of my official duties here and chat a bit about 'everyday life', as has been requested (though one could say ordered), by one particularly zealous reader. I...

Christmas au Senegal was an interesting one. In fact it wasn't in Senegal at all. Once the school term finished we headed to Thies with the famalam for a big wedding. It was pretty damn exciting, involving plenty of costume changes, cooking, eating, chit-chatting and ataya brewing. We enjoyed a day whiled away at the house with lots of coming and goings, then headed downtown for the reception. The best of efforts had been made with decor and refreshments, with...

I've just got back from another late night watermelon run with Marieme (complete with renditions of Jingle Bells and If you're happy and you know it) and I've got to declare that Joal is just a pretty damn awesome place. We may not have a single car that would pass an MOT, any working streetlamps, or indeed, any form of rubbish disposal at all, but who's complaining? What we do have is a load of pretty handshake-happy people and camaraderie to go along with it ...

After more than two months of form-filling, back-and-forthing, grass cutting and anticipative discussion involving 2 meetings of 4+ hours EACH, SCHOOLS HAVE FINALLY STARTED! I am now a proud teacher of two 4m (3rd year of middle school) and two 6m classes at the CEM, one premiere (penultimate year) class at the lycee, and one 5m (2nd year of middle school) at a local teacher-owned school called Kangame. On top of this, Katie and I are jointly running English an...