Julia and I have attended a few meetings at the CEM since being back in Joal. The first of which did not go to well. Amadou told us that if we got bored, it would be fine for us to leave anytime. The meeting was to talk about the past year, results, the new term, etc. We understood a fair bit of what they were saying (it was all in French) but the Principal spoke very fast and it went on for a long time. So, we made our excuses and left just before mi...

I realised that Eid was around this time and asked Amadou whether they celebrated it, as I hadn't heard it mentioned at all. He was a bit puzzled at first, asking 'what is Eid?' but then realised that I was saying the Arabic word for Tabaski. You'd think I'd have realised that they were the same thing! This past week we've discovered that everything is more expensive around Tabaski, especially in Dakar. It took us a long time to bargain for the sept-places, whic...

16th October By five to ten in the morning, Julia and I had hand-washed our clothes, cleaned the bathroom, kitchen, done the dishes, showered, gotten dressed and eaten breakfast. I'd say that must be a new record of some sort. Last night we went to a different beach, which was closer to Fadiouth, with Oumou, Souleymane and their cousins. The sand was covered in crabs, but luckily they scuttled underground as soon as we started walking across it. It was drizzling...

8th October Julia and I made our way to Joal on Tuesday afternoon, after saying our goodbyes to everyone in Kaolack, we got on a sept-places to Mbour and then one to Joal. The journey was around three hours in total and cost us only about £6. Unfortunately we couldn't see much of Joal or Mbour as it was pretty dark when we drove through. However, we ended up going to Mbour the following day with our host Aïcha to buy boubous, one for Tabaski and another for ...

On Richard's birthday, we began the day by hand-washing our clothes, which was pretty tiring and a slight soapy residue was left on some of them, but I'm sure we'll get used to it soon. Julia and I helped with the cooking, and I don't think I've ever been so hot in my life, as I was in the tiny outdoor kitchen fanning a stove! We then had a Wolof lesson that lasted for two hours and seemed very complicated, as we looked at different tenses and realised that there...