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The summer holidays have arrived and Louise and I are preparing to leave Joal within the week, if all goes according the plan. I had my final classes and got lovely photos of each of them and finished up the art club. As much trouble and effort as they were I'll definitely miss them, or at least most of them! We got our paints for the art club and had a crazy time trying the watch the children paint sunsets and not each other and made masquerade masks which snet them round the bend on the last day and I've got a few very entertaining videos of masked dancing children wreaking havoc. I spent all of my Sunday yesterday marking (the bane of teaching if there ever was one) and now have only about 20 left of the 220 odd that I started with. Having large classes ain't so easy!
Although it seems a while ago now I've not written this since May so a fair few things have happened. The first of June brought the first rain during the night which upped the humidity immediately but we haven't had any more than a few drops since, apparently predicted for beginning of July here. Louise's Mum and sister came to visit so I also got the join them on a trip to Toubab Dialaw, a lovely village by the sea, and up to St Louis for the Jazz festival with Sinead, Orlando and Gareth. The festival itself didn't quite seem to be the internationally reknowned one it made itself out to be but it was good all the same and the town had a great atmosphere. One of the small bars even had a wee band that played a few Scottish ceilidh tunes and Louise's Mum certainly got into the spirit of things and did a bit of strutting her stuff. Unfortunately we had been planning on staying with a friend of Sinead's but there wasn't quite enough room so many hours each day were spent traipsing around asking for spare rooms like lost sheep and crashing out in patisseries, much to the dismay of the owners. Thankfully we did find somewhere every night but my feet ended up like balloons from lack of mosquito net and Gareth and Orlando had a fun time nursing very red skin in hot ill-ventilated rooms. We also squeezed in a trip to a wildlife reserve and saw a lot of crabs, pelicans and dried flat fish but the flamingos and turtles ahd already left and then we had taken the taxi man's number down wrong so ended up trekking through a few villages past pink salt lakes and acres of rubbish begging people to take us home. Once back in St Louis a tasty platter of watrhog was waiting for us and more not-very-jazzy jazz to enjoy; all in all a very fun trip!
Since being home, apart from marking, I seem to have done a lot of cooking for guests and dragging Mariam to the doctors for sirops and leaves and other strange medicines. On Friday Mariam's preschool had their end of year party and since Amadou and Aicha were called away to a funeral Louise and I stepped in as parents which was a little odd but the show was very sweet and as always, there were free begnets to make anything and everything even better. It was also Louise's birthday so we made some yummy tuna paste for our bread for breakfast and made a bit too much which got old and went off. Saturday we took a lot of the neighbours to the beach and had to lug a 10 litre bottle of sea water home for some unknown purpose and entertain the Mane twins and Mari for 3 days since their mother was away. Sounds suspiciously like babysitters...! Yesterday the most exciting thing was probably a quest to get rid of the reamins of the dead European cockeral, having eaten the best bits. This involved Louise with a huge bowl of blood, Salome with a container full of intestines and me at the rear with the chicken feet, running outside, trying not to spill or drop anything, no time for shoes and chucking the stuff into the dark, nearly hitting Salome's head with a stray claw and standing on some of the entrails which squelched unpleasently. At least there was water and a crum of soap left to wash it all off.
I though I had a lot to write but my mind's just gone blank so there you have it. I'll probably think of more as soon as I post this but what can you do?! I'll just have to do another update a bit sooner this time! Hope all is well,
Kirsty x
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