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 not-too-grey day. In Joal lingo it means we WENT for it. Midday sun, fast-paced, through the dirt and dust we marched, and with the majority of Christians fasting for Easter, it was a somewhat sombre occasion of solidarity and prayer. Not once, not twice, but THREE times (Yes Mum, I DID wear suncream). We also put ourselves through a couple of all-night vigils at the church, at one of which Katie and I made our Katie/Amee/guitar ensemble debut at prime singing hour of 3am in the morning.

Just before Easter we also welcomed Katie's family to Joal, which was really great. Easter Sunday, we all boubou-ed up, (myself in an interesting sort of gold combination), and went and had a blast. I was playing keyboard for the choir, and with the wild shouts of "Alleuia!", stamping, singing and dancing I'm surprised the roof didn't fall in. As you can imagine, after putting ourselves through it for Lent, we weren't about to let Easter Sunday get away easily; enjoying a nice, slow-paced, FOUR hour mass. After lunching, Katie and her family headed to Saint Louis to continue their holiday, whilst I made the trip overland (via Kaolack, hey Tom and Ben!) to the Gambia to meet with my own. In true Thwaites fashion we'd gone for an interesting eco-place in the middle of a small Mandinka village. We had a cool time chilling and being tourists for a few days, and I also managed to meet up with some of the other volunteers from the south of Senegal, on a CRAZY school exchange with their amazing English club.

My Dad joined me on the return journey to Joal (a big congratulations on making it through a ferry and THREE sept-places) and came to follow me round Joal for a few days which was really awesome. We enjoyed an evening at the local burger joint (complete with neon lights) visits to schools and church and MANY handshakes. Not one to take a back seat, Dad gave a talk in one of my classes - All 60 students of my lycee class now have a full knowledge of the mechanics of a submarine, and are all very keen to join the Royal Navy.

With no rest for the wicked, the following week the English teachers of Joal and surrounding villages descended on the small village of Ngueniene just outside Joal for a cell meeting. This followed a conference earlier in the year hosted by our school, CEM Lamine Senghor in Joal. Meeting number two and I was signed up to teach a demonstration lesson at the local middle school; only 20 kids compared to my usual 40 but also about 20 teachers behind them, observing, writing and as ready as ever with plenty of feedback. Luckily I wasn't pounded too much in the following (extremely exhaustive) 'feedback discussion' though by the time we got to giving feedback on feedback….zzz…..it was luckily time for lunch - a classically Senegalese affair with plenty of chicken, rice, and Fanta…delicious!! It's always really really great to meet the other English teachers - they are SO enthusiastic and their English is exceptionally amazing, despite the fact that 99% of them have never even been out of Senegal. Teaching up to 6hrs solid per day with classes of up to 80 is NOT easy, and their energy and perseverance is incredibly admirable.

Something I hadn't mentioned before was that a month or so ago I went to visit a small Catholic island in the nearby Sine-Saloum, called Mar Lodj. The first time I went I just stayed one night with some friends, but it was BEAUTIFUL! The island doesn't have electricity, roads or motorised vehicles - Joal isn't particularly busy but it felt like a world away. They have a brilliant women's group which produces all sorts of lovely crafts to support the local community, and I also met a number of teenagers from a big church event I'd been to (see paragraph below). Given the success of my short stay Katie and I took a leap and decided to take our host brothers and sister there for the day (13, 11 and 5, not an easy task…), and we had a really great day in the village and on the beach, where we enjoyed a bit of touch rugby and kite-flying. Mohammed (13) is sitting next to me right now and he says 'Mar Lodj is so nice and the people are Serer. Clintandra [a friend who very kindly hosted us] is very kind.' That's what I call SUCCESS! (we even managed to get them all home in one piece).

We've had a few more big church events recently; one was World Youth Day/Journee Mondiale de la Jeunesse, declared so by Pope Jean Paul II. Every year in Senegal they have a nationwide event, this year it was in Palmarin, a village in the Sine-Saloum region not far from Joal. I went with the youth group from the church and had a fantastic time, with plenty of singing, dancing, praying, however not so much sleep… We also recently completed a national pilgrimage to Popenguine, a small town about 30 km from Joal; as part of the pilgrimage we marched with about 1000 others from Mbour (the biggest town near Joal) to Popenguine, (need I add?) singing and dancing the WHOLE way. I can't say I've got any better at dancing, but have definitely got the side-to-side swaying and clapping under my belt, there may be hope yet. On arrival we enjoyed a massive meal, then a night on gravel (both Katie and I being completely unaware we were supposed to be bringing sleeping mats) under canvas, and the joy that is outdoor communal washing. We then joined 10,000 Christians from all corners of Senegal for a mass of massive proportions in the stadium in Popenguine. It was amazing to be all celebrating together, thought I have no idea where all the communion wafers came from…I also got a call from Amadou halfway through saying he'd seen us on TV!!

At the end of May we made a group trip with the other Senegal volunteers to Saint Louis Jazz Festival, an event which I had been excitedly anticipating since BEFORE arrival in Senegal. It was my second visit to the place but Katie's third, so luckily for me I had an EXCELLENT tour guide around the city. The evening jazz was great, some interesting mixes of jazz choirs, traditional Senegalese instrument with modern jazz, and, as you'd all expect, the National Youth Jazz Band of Germany. Who, were, incidentally, jamming. We also caught glimpse of the stunningly historic cruise ship Boubou El Moctar which travels between the different cities in the north via the river. Definitely on the to-do list.

In between hopping around all over the place I have also managed to fit some teaching in...We are now actually close to the end of the school year which seems unreal, though the baccalaureate exam is not until July. My beginner classes are ticking along extremely nicely, since my last blog we've got clothes, telling the time, and THREE tenses under our belts, as well as a good repertoire of nursery rhymes. My lycee class is cool as ever, in fact I have been wanting to write a bit about them for a while…

The lycee is the only non-private high school in this area, so it contains kids from all around the surrounding villages, Fadiouth Island, and of course a huge number of Joaliens. My class is really interesting as the majority of students are from Fadiouth Island, which in itself is a really fascinating place; it is famous for its mixed Muslim and Christian cemetery, and for the co-habitation of Muslims and Christians on the neighbouring island. There are many mixed M/C families which makes for some wonderful results; in a place where names are usually very much indicative of religion, I have Christians named Ibrahima and Mohammed, and Muslims named Marie and Elizabeth. I have kids who wear a crucifix and a Muslim cap simultaneously and headscarves on Christians and Muslims alike. It makes for a striking group of kids with fantastic ideas and values concerning co-habitation, tolerance, community and religion, as have all been expressed over the course of the year. I've also got students who live out of Joal, and cycle up to 15km from their villages to come into class every day. If that's not enough, these heroes are also often back at school in the afternoons for English Club or extra lessons. It's amazing and a real privilege to be teaching some an awesome group, and I'm really going to miss them when lessons finish. That's not to say they don't talk too much in class.

We've also had a lot of school events, with each school in Joal hosting their own school day, or 'Fosco.' This involves many plastic chairs, speeches and bad quality microphones, but also dancing, eating, prize-giving and brilliant sketches and displays by different groups of students. Most recently we had the lycee Fosco, at which 12 of our English club students wrote and performed a sketch on the environment, and their own translation of the poem 'Joal, Je me rappelle,' written by Leopold Sedar Senghor, the first president of independent Senegal and the figure after whom the lycee is named. We also celebrated Bob Marley death day, an occasion equivalent to Christmas as far as these kids are concerned. We helped the English club at another of the schools where we work to organise an afternoon of activities, ending in prize-giving of rasta hats and schoolbooks.

Woweeee, I hope you feel updated. Will try to keep more on top of the blog in the FINAL THREE MONTHS before my return….

Have a great day!

Amee xx