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Taking opportunity of the internet room at the lycée which has both power and internet at the same time for once to write this so lets hope it holds out. It seemed the Senegalese government had been being true to their word after christmas and paying the salaries of all the teachers until this last week when strikes have begun again and many of the classes are desperately behind. Compositions are being done at the moment to count towards end of year grades but many have been cancelled or postponed however Ive still not managed to avoid supervising a good few hours worth! Far less interesting than teaching is wandering around the classroom getting achey legs and toasting.
As for my latest activites we returned from Thies on Wednesday where we'd been for the Gamou to stay in Aicha's family home again. The Gamou is an Islamic celebration for the birth of the prophet and many people head to Thies or Tivaoune to stay up all night singing about the prophet at the mosque and of course the usual eating and socialising which accompanies every similar event. We stayed for 5days with the Gamou being on Tuesday night and spent the vast majority of the time cooking. The house is huge and houses virtually all of the extended family so one of the sisters owns a fast food shop and another a small patisserie which meant that we spent one night making donuts until the early hours and another making spring rolls before even getting to Tuesday. Tuesday we made mini pizzas and salads, bruschetta and begnets, donuts and rice and lots of other tasty treats. To top it all off they killed 2 gigantic cows and a camel to eat. Apparently it was a good thing I didn't watch the camel's slaughter as there was a lot of writhing and blood and screaming children. Anyway needless to say the whole experience was incredible and sitting outside under a marquee outside the mosque witha huge video camera screen, wrapped in blankets and drinking coffee to the sound of very impressive Arabic chanting was something else altogether! The whole 5 days though were so, so much fun. There must have been more than 100 people from infants to elders and everyone was so welcoming, I really didn't want to leave. Hopefully we can go and visit again soon.
Other happenings... Louise lost her purse and Amadou took her to a marabout to quiz him as to the whereabouts. I wasn't there but she reported back with details of him writing in the sand, handling his prayer beads and concluding that it had been stolen by a boy. The result was, as people believe in Marabouts so much as part of their religion, that she had to go and questions a neighbour about whether he was involved. She was also told that she'd know the culprit as they would come down with a bad bout of diarrhoea although I'm not quite sure how she was supposed to know the culprit's bowel movements. Anyway the purse didn't turn up so we took a trip to an old man on Fadiouth who told Louise that she had lots of worries although she was a lucky person and that she should make some porridge with milk and feed it to children in the street to find her purse. She hasn't yet carried this out. Another of her entertaining mistakes of late was ripping the kitchen tap out of the wall by mistake. So the water started spurting everywhere and making a bit of a mess really. Thankfully we managed to turn off the water supply which also cut off the occasional running water we do get to the tap in the bathroom so that in the dead of night we had to haul buckets to the tap outside to fill up. I really shouldn't be complaining though as we're the only house in the quartier with a tap and the fishermen nextdoor have a big well we can use.
I had quite an evenful morning the other day when I woke up to find Amadou in the kitchen with a knife aimed at the sink and a mallet in his other hand having just killed a rat which proceeded to stink out the house then get chewed up by goats. Aicha wasn't too happy either as it was her best kitchen knife but now it's been bleached it's in regular use again. The same evening we took a trip to a big church fundraiser called the Kermesse at a local primary school. The atmosphere was really nice and it was a bit like a funfair with a raffle, spin the wheel, hit the stack down and plenty of snacks to buy. I won an oversized blouse and a plastic dolly. Very useful. There were even fairy lights and a good deal of drums and singing. The only slight mishap was a cheeky wee boy who nicked the bag of prizes off Mouhamed but he was pretty heroic ans chased the kid to win them back again.
Not much else to report. My 4e class are as lovely as ever and still clap whenever I finish the register without too many blips. At the CEM English club we taught the British national anthem for the visitors coming mid-March and I felt very patriotic when they all stood up and belted it out very tunefully and good enough to bring lots of other kids to peek in and see what we were up to. Louise and I are currently planning banners to decorate the schools and welcome flags too. I finally got to see the doctor after many trips to the hospital and start helping out there on Tuesday so things will only get busier!
That's all for now, tired out and ready for dinner. Hope all is well,
Kirsty x
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