Dear Mrs Rayner and Bill

We loved looking at your website and finding out about your interesting journey. We are glad that your are well and enjoying yourselves in Africa.

We are all busy making christmas hats, cards, place mats and calendars! Today is St. Lucia in Sweden and Jacob,Edward and Alfred visited all the classes and gave out biscuits and cakes.

We also have our christmas party tomorrow and we are all very excited!

What is the most interesting animal that you have seen?
Is it very hot?
Are you missing England?Pluckley? We are missing you!
Do you know what you are doing for christmas?

Merry Christmas from Mrs Roberts, and class 3.

Dear Chris, Tom, Daniel and Class 3
It was really lovely to find a message from you all and I am glad that you are enjoying our web site.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas , great parties and enjoyed the snow!
We were in Mopti in Mali for Xmas with other travellers.
It is very hot still during the day but the early mornings and evenings are much cooler now.

I miss England when I talk to my family and I certainly think of you all at Pluckley School and all the fun we had!
We have not seen any large African animals in West Africa so I think the most interesting creatures that we have seen so far have to be the pelicans at the National Parc at Senegal. There were hundreds of them and we were able to get really close and the huge crabs also in Senegal.
I am sending some photos with an email to Mrs Gibbons , I hope you enjoy them and learn more about our travels.
I do hope you have got and seen all my postcards from each country that we have visited so far.
My very special wishes for 2006 to Mrs Roberts, Mrs Desai and all of you in Class 3.
Love from Mrs Rayner

Dear Rosemary & Bill,

Just heard you should be in Mopti and visiting Bandiagara. Fantastic, one of my favourite places in all of Africa. Hope you both have a wonderful Christmas out there and the New Year unfolds wonderful safe, happy and special adventures.Much love, Verona

Dear Verona
Visited Timbuktu for a few days which we really enjoyed and have just returned from Dogon Country for 3 days where we visited the villages of Djiguibombo, Kani Kombole, Tele, Ende and Yabatalou, a real highlight and I am sure you are familiar with them! We are spending 25th and 26th back in Mopti before heading down to Burkina Faso.
Our very best wishes to you for Christmas and a great New Year in your new home!

Dear Mrs Rayner,
We really miss you, but are glad to hear about your exciting travels. We think your website is really fascinating. Class2 teacher Madame Josee is French-Canadian and is teaching us "Christmas Tree" in french!!! Last week was our christmas play and bazaar. Both went very well. We are posting pictures of our art work on a website www.artsonia.com. You will soon be able to look up our work on there. We had an Art teacher from Homewood in school for a day. We made 3D African vases out of card and tissue. In January we are getting tablet pcs for eveyone in our class. We will be able to take them home. We are all very excited about this! We have our Christmas Party on Wednesday and Christmas lunch on Thursday, then Carol Concert on Friday. WE LOVE CHRISTMAS!! Merry Christmas to you both. We look forward to hearing more about your journey in the new year.
love Mrs Penfold, Mrs Smith and Class 4 xxxx
ps e-mail us back soon please

Dear Class 4
It was great to hear from you all and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.
I was really interested to hear that you were learning a Christmas Song in French.
In West Africa nearly everyone speaks French and so it really helps if you can speak this language.
I would love to have seen your 3D African vases and am sure you did some exciting work with the art teacher from Homewood. I will certainly be looking at your website.
Do hope you have all shared the postcards from Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal and Mali. We have got to update our website for Mali now so do keep following as we will be doing this shortly. I have sent an email to Mrs Gibbons with some photographs. I hope they will help you learn more about our travels.
We are leaving Mali for Burkina Faso in the next few days and then on to Ghana.
I often think of you all at Pluckley and all the great things that we did there and so my very special wishes are sent to Mrs Penfold and Mrs Smith and all of you in CLass 4 for 2006.
With love from Mrs Rayner

Updates from Mali : RoseMary & Bill experienced some trouble with this site but they have been in touch with OFF EXLORING and they will update asap (E-net Cafés in Mali offer very slow service). They have just given us a call from the Mankanté Bed and Breakfast in Sévaré near Mopti, 2morrow they'll visit Mopti and then they'll go to Dogon country to see the Falaise de Bandiangara from close. I myself will be off to Namibia on the 12DEC and back on the 30DEC. They are maybe staying with us over Xmas & NewYears, we look forward 2. Mark from Ségou

To all : RoseMary & Bill just left us at 14:30 DEC09 from Ségou on their way to Djenne, Sévaré, Mopti, Bandiagara,most likely Tombouctou and maybe Gao. They've just stayed with us for four/five days, we went on Niger river tour, took them to the Markala waterdam and showed them around SégouCity by day and by night. We also had the chance to introduce them to Swiss cuisine and they very much enjoyed Swiss cheese fondue and Raclette. My 35 month old daughter Chayenne, her brasilian mother Glicia, my two Staffordshire Terrier Tsavo and Morgan and myself were very privileged to have come across these really special and unique two human beings fullfilling their dream to go around Africa. Now even though they have left, did we invite them to come and stay a little longer with us in Ségou once back from the North before hitting the road to Burkina Faso, we would so much enjoy spending Xmas and New Year together ! Should this however not be possible, well then we plan to meet again in Namibia and/or Kenya.
Happy landings, safe driving and the best possible trip ever from Chayenne, Glicia & Myself

Daer Rosemary & Bill
Sorry I have not contacted you before! Bit busy at school at the moment. St Nich tomorrow and end of term next week. I can;t believe you have been gone a whole term!! I have only just realised your web site is up and running as the last time I checked you had not posted much on it. What a difference now! I have e-mailed all the teaching staff so you might hear from everyone now.

It will take me a few minutes catching up with your travels but it sounds wonderful and exciting and words fail me.

Its not been dull here! Alan announced he is getting married and that Olga is pregnant - so we are to be grandparents in May. Never a dull moment. The wedding is at Chazring church on 21 January so I am very busy helping them organise everything.

Will send another message soon when I have read all yours.
Love
Christine

Hi Christine and Pete
Great to hear from you and your exciting news! Life will be even more hectic, if thats possible, with all the wedding preparations! We hope Alan and Olga have a Wonderful Day. At last you will be grandparents - Great news!
Our best wishes to you all for Christmas and the New Year from Mopti in Mali.
Keep in touch!

Hope all is well. I think you must be in Mali although the website describes your current location as Ouarzazate, Morocco! Seems to be a little glitch somewhere. Thank you for the postcard from Senegal received a couple of weeks back - you must by now be pretty much under the spell of the continent. Its a remarkable place, full of contrasts and extremes, whereas our life in UK seems pretty stable and bland in comparisom. I went out in 79 as a young man for a holiday, and stayed for eleven years. You are heading now into the tough part of west africa, probably some dodgy times ahead, be careful please. No doubt you will be longing for a good bath and decent bed! and wishing the mosquitoes weren't quite so persistent!!! By the time you get to central africa it will be coming into the dry season and feel much more comfortable on the high savannahs. I wonder where you will be spending Xmas in three weeks time??? keep your wits about you and be safe. - Mike.

I just saw your vehicle at the Centre de Secteur Prive building in Bamako. It is still outside. Your website address is wrtten on the side of the vehicle. Pretty neat this Internet thing! I feel like I am a small part of your journey. Two ships passing each other in the night. Have you seen the roundabout with an obelisk? It is not far from where I saw your vehicle - ACI 2000, Hamdallaye. The obelisk has inscriptions in different African scripts. I didn't even know these scripts existed. Good luck and enjoy Africa. We always welcome visitors with an open mind who see both the good and the bad and try to replace the bad with the good. The continent still turns up things that gladden and sadden me.
I apologize for not leaving my email but as neat as the Internet is, it is not very private. Be safe and thank you for sharing with us.
Hello TG, thanks for your message what a shame we could not meet. Good luck to you also and we will enjoy Africa, good and bad

Hi Bill & Rosemary, yes I am getting better still having ups and downs and still visiting docs & hospital but what the hell. Sounds like you are having an excellent time! As Al says Xmas dinner is this saturday sad you won't be there but I'm sure you are far happier where you are. I came 2nd at shooting last week(35 - 10 behind Peter of course but I beat Malcolm !) I suppose I ought to add that I did come last the previous fortnight.....
Look forward to reading your next instalment. Love Jenny & Malcolm XX

Glad to hear you are feeling better and shooting again, well done on beating Malc. Hope the Xmas dinner was good. I miss the shooting but this trip is an experience that we are enjoying most of the time so far but at times it is hard work living out of a vehicle. Love Bill/Rosemary
PS....Who won the cups this year.

A duck walks into a bar and asks the bar tender, "Got any 'grapes'?", and the bartender replies, "No, sorry I don't sell grapes here." So the duck leaves and goes home to rest and the next day he walks into the same bar and asks the bar tender, "Got any grapes?" The bartender replies, "No, sorry I don't sell grape here." The duck leaves and goes home to rest and the next day, he goes back to the bar and asks the bartender, "Got any grapes?" The bartender angrily replies, "I don't want to have to tell you again, I don't sell grapes here and if you ask me again I will nail your beak to the counter of the bar!" The duck leaves and goes home to rest. The next day the duck goes to the bar and asks, "Got any nails?" The bartender looks at him and screams, "No, we don't have any nails!" The duck then asks, "Got any grapes?"

Thanks for the joke ,it was very welcome to have a laugh after a long hard drive 200km along a track full of pot holes and orange dust.
Hope you are all well and are you working again yet?