After the excitement of Christmas and New Year, Zoe and I had the daunting task of preparing for our desk officer visit - cue frantic house cleaning and the re-arrangement of our timetables so as Gill could actually see us at work.

However, before our visit we had the English Club Bottle party to help organise. This event marks the beginning of the club's activities and involves speeches, singing, dancing and, of course, eating and drinking but no alcohol! Zoe and I were looking forward to having some time to prepare for this; unfortunately though we attended an English teachers convention which, although interesting at points, over-ran by at least two hours, the norm for these meetings as EVERYONE must have their say(even if it has already been said...).This meant a mad dash to the shower to get ready for the party. We provided the entertainment for the other teachers when lunch was served and there were not enough spoons to go round so Zoe and I ate with our hands. There is quite an art to eating with your hands which basically involves rolling the rice into a ball and not dropping it all down the front of your dress, your chin, etc... Some people actually found it so funny that they took a 'sly' picture.

The Bottle party is difficult to describe. Members from other English clubs in Ziguinchor were invited and the teachers and representatives from the other clubs were all give their own introduction. All of them were eager to assure us that they would not take long with the microphone, but they would like to mention one more thing...

Zoe and I had volunteered to teach a ceilidh dance to those who were interested when one of the presenters came up to us mid-way through the speeches and told us that it would take too long to re-arrange the tables so would we mind demonstrating the dance ourselves? We were too stunned to say no. That is how Zoe and I found ourselves up on the stage, desperately counting the beats, demonstrating the Gay Gordons to a room of over 100 friends, students, teachers and complete strangers. Judging by the screams, clapping and what seemed like everyone in the room taking a photograph, it certainly added something to the evening's entertainment.

In the weeks leading up to the bottle party we had been rehearsing a sketch with the Club, ready to present at the party. The sketch, titled 'Gender Parity', went well, much to our relief; bar the unexpected flinging of a microphone across the stage, it went remarkably smoothly.

Gill arrived for her visit on the following Monday and Zoe, Bass and I remained true to the senegalese attitude to time, arriving at the airport just as Gill was walking out. Just immersing ourselves in the culture, Gill! Gill came to an English Club meeting and, still obsessed with teaching them to ceilidh, we attempted to teach about 50 kids what we considered to be the easiest dance - the Gay Gordons. Carnage. I will admit, I assumed they would pick it up fairly easily, being senegalese and therefore fairly keen dancers anyway. We considered it to be a major achievement when, an hour later, most of them could turn the right way and dance the majority of the dance in a circle. At points I did fear for my life; they were so incredibly excited by the polka step that they just could not contain themselves to the circle pattern and there were couples flinging themselves all about the room.

Later on, when Gill produced a present of a box of Heroes and a copy of Grazia, we were convinced that she was the best desk officer that we could have hoped for. Then when she took us out to dinner and bought us ICE CREAM, we could not believe our luck. We might request a second desk officer visit.

From ice cream to rats the size of cats. Really. When we received an invitation from a friend to eat rat at his house, we assumed he was joking. When we arrived at the house and they were still insisting that we would be eating rat, we began to have our doubts. However, it was not until we sat down at the table and saw the unmistakeably rodent looking legs on a bed of spaghetti, that we realised the truth. I don't know what I imagined giant rat would be served with, but it definitely wasn't spaghetti. Once I had become accustomed to the feet, I discovered that I actually really like kagna(rat), and that it tastes like chicken.

Last week Zoe and I took a trip up to Kaolack to visit the volunteers there. However, this trip requires an entry all to itself so will be the subject of my next entry.

I am now off to plan a test for my classes, yaay!