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Not having been able to get on the internet or on a computer at all for quite a long time due to bad powercuts means I have quite a lot to write this time! Hopefully it will last long enough to get a bit of news out to you all. It's been dinner by candlelight and breakfast by candlelight as they sun doesn't rise until I'm cycling to school these days which is a bit of a pain for the shower but it means sometimes there is a stunning sunrise on my way to school which doesn't make a half bad start to the day.
I've just returned from spending the weekend in Touba, Senegal,s second largest city, east of Dakar, for the annual 'Grand Magal.' This is a pilgrimage which about 2 million Muslims attend, primarily those who are members of the Mouride brotherhood, a prominent sect of Islam. The pilgrimage celebrates the exile of The Mouride founder, Cheikh Amadou Bamba, by French colonists, to Gabon as they believe that as everyone's destiny is chosen by Allah it was an exile which would show him as an extremely worthy person - one who was capable of passing many difficult trials. There are pictures of Bamba all around Senegal, wearing his signature large white turban. Louise and I travelled with one of the teachers from the middle school, M. Fall and his family to experience a bit of what went on.
Unfortunately we ended up waiting 10 hours for the bus on the way there and then after half an hour it broke down for another 3 hours so we arrived in the morning a little dishevelled and fairly exhausted. Overall it was an absolutely exhausting experience. There were people everywhere and I mean, everywhere. Every bed in every house was taken full advantage of so that we ended up sleeping in a bed of 6 with 8 of us in the room. I estimated around 60 people stayed in the house where we were. Fortunately the Senegalese are always prepared to feed a few extra mouths so there was plenty of food to go round and although we didn't taste the slightly infamous camel meat some people talked of in Touba the beef did the job just fine! Sunday, the day of the Magal, we dressed up in our finest and most modest clothes and put on our headscarves. I have no idea how women here manage to look so stunning in their headscarves because I can safely say that Louise and I looked hideous. At least it was entertaining for everyone else. The mosque was so, so beautiful. And so, so big. The detail in everything was amazing. I had a little trouble seeing some things as I seemed to spend a lot of time panicking that my scarf might fall off and offend everyone and trying to walk properly but I took a few snaps and did a sufficient amount of 'ooh'ing and 'ah'ing and complimenting the Senegalese on their exquisite taste. Although it was an incredible experience I was certainly glad to arrive home after a trek through very busy, very dusty streets, a very bumpy donkey cart ride and a 7 hour wait for the bus before arriving back in Joal.
Needless to say the exhaustion was yet again too much for my horrendous immune system and I spent the next day in bed asleep. Aicha suggested I cover myself in minty moisturiser, wrap up warm in 6 duvets, have a hot, salty shower, put some aloe vera on my legs (I now have a pot plant of aloe vera beside my bed) and sleep. I wasn't entirely sure what this was supposed to achieve but I quite liked the idea of some homeopathic remedy of some sort so just went with it. I moght try it again sometime because I feel 100% better now!
The weekend before we also had quite an adventure. The King of Senegalese wrestling, Yekini, has gone undefeated for 20 matches now, the most recent of which happened on January 2nd in Dakar. As he hails from the wonderful town of Joal-Fadiouth he arrived home to crowds of excited fans lining the main street. Definitely worth it for the faithful fans as they received free t-shirts and crowns sponsered by Orange. Sadly Louise and I got the time wrong and were 2 hours late to see his grand entrance but as it turned out it takes him so long to get to his house due to the sheer number of people that we got there in time accompanied by Oumouka and Jolie, to see him enter his home. It was good, but not quite good enough for us. Somehow we managed to get through the crowd, around the police batons, past the guards scowling at the door and meet some of Yekini's faimly. We had to wait a while to see the King himself as there was a press conference going on in the living room but we did see him and got a free poster (now turned into a near Yekini shrine next to my potted aloe vera) and yet again managed to be shown as a member of the crowd on TV; always in the right place at the right time it seems!
As for other celebrations we attended an evening of dance and donations to the less fortunate kids in the neighbourhood. The dancing was very impressive and it's so amusing how they get up and dance with no inhibitions and then run shyly back to their seats and all the kida receiving prsents and prizes had little shiny party hats on. We weren't quite prepared for having to present a couple of prizes to the children and pose for a photo with them which was fine except that one little boy took one look at Louise and began to cry. Bless. It certainly made a change from the usual confrontational attitude younger children usually take with us in the street - either screaming at the to of their lungs 'toubab' (which seems more and more to be followed by 'eh!' 'donne-moi un cadeau' or 'donne-moi le vélo') or sometimes throwing stones, rubbish of bits of dead and rotting fish at us.
They're not all like that of course though. Mariam gets sweeter and sweeter everyday. I was busy planning a lesson for the 5è class on feelings and she came in and started smacking my tam-tam with considerable vigour. It might have been a little annoying had she not started listening to my discussion with Louise about how to plan it when she started repeating 'happyyyyyyyy' and ' angwy' with a frown. I got a bit carried away and so now she says 'tired' a lot and pretends to yawn and sometimes bounces around the house screaming 'happy, happy, happy.' Last night she insisted I make her a little chocolate milk (a wish which I happily indulged) and she announced that I was her biggest sister. I'm not sure she realised that she doesn't actually have any real sister so the comparative wasn't really nessecary but it was sweet all the same! The lesson ended up going very well too and I got perhaps a little too enthusiastic in front of the class but I think they enjoyed it as the girls all came to fight to help me pack up my things.
School's keeping me busy as usual and strangely it's already time to give another test to all classes before the composition in February. Sometimes it is all taken seriously but at others I question the priority of education at all! Classes stopped a day just so the teachers could have a meeting. To be fair the meeting did end up lasting 4 very tiresome hours but in my mind it would usually be done out of class-time?! I also had 2 hours worth of a class taken up with a survey one of the supervisors wanted to do. It was a survey on the background of the children - who they lived with, how many in their house to feed, how many wives their father's had, the jobs of their parents etc, etc. It was to deterlimine which children might find it difficult to work at home or might have difficulty getting enough food so the direction could assess their grades accordingly. Very sadly I had several children in tears leaving class or heads on desks due to parents who had died or who lived in diffuclt circumstanes and found the whole survey very distressing. After that lesson I certainly vowed to look a little harder into why a child hadn't done their homework or something similar rather than jumping to conclusions.
Plans for the next few weeks aren't too complicated really. I've asked at the hospital to see if I can help out for a couple of free afternoons a week and they suggested I may be able to in paediatrics although it's been a nightmare to try and organise as the Doctor always seems to be elsewhere and an elsewhere that nobody knows about. I've got 4 sets of brownies to bake for a girl who wants to be president of the Young Catholics of Joal Association on Saturday and a lot of clothes washing to do which I won't look forward to. I think I've written enough for now, I must have done as my back is aching and my wrists are sore!
Hope all is well and Happy Burns Night - sometime around now isn't it? Take care,
Kirsty x
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