2 months (and a half)

So first of all apologies for the lateness of this latest blog post. The advantage of this, however, is that I have lots to relate.

Where I left off oh so long ago was just before my trip to the Desert de Lompoul. Every few weeks the assistant manager from Projects Abroad (Nicole, another fake-Scott with larger-than-average hair) organises a trip somewhere in the St Louis region for the volunteers. So a month or so ago a group of us set out in a giant monster truck to explore the sahel region about 4 hours south of "home". En route we visited a Mor village, which are the people of Mauritanian descent living in Senegal, and saw the different styles of living there - tents as opposed to thatched-roofed huts. We then arrived at our camp in the sahel which was spectacular but irritatingly difficult to capture in a photo - just miles and miles of sand dunes, landscape unbroken by buildings or any real vegetation. We stayed in mauritanian style tents and slept on mats on the floor, although we spent most of the night running and jumping off sanddunes and rolling down the sheer sand slopes. The highlight of the trip was a camel ride across the sanddunes which was fairly painful but worth it for the amazingness of having actually ridden a camel across the Sahel (only slightly ruined by the photos capturing ever-present hair-issues . . . hair = practically same size as camel).

Spurred on by that successful voyage into "African Africa" a group of us decided to spend our easter holidays (yes, they celebrate it here in a muslim country - any excuse for a day off School, work etc) travelling to South East Senegal, Bassari Country. This was pretty much my favourite thing I've done here so far. We travelled down for 18 hours (one stop for breakfast, 3 stops for road-side squatting, 2 stops because we drove off the road into a ditch and had to push ourselves out) in 2 sept-place taxis. These are cruelly uncomfortable Peugot 307's which someone has stuck 3 seats in the boot of, to make it 7 seat . . . needless to say knees-round-your-chin, crouched-over to fit your head, one cheek off the seat to make space for the other 2 people in the row. Nonetheless the journey was remarkably fun with all 7 of us the same age, from Britain, generally similar people we got on really really well.

On arriving in Bassari in 45degree heat and oppressive humidity we took several showers before heading with our guide to his village for the night. We then selected our sheep, "Natasha", and watched while it's throat was slit and it was skinned and disected for dinner - soooo tasty. Natasha having done us proud we set off up a bloody huge mountain, practically collapsing in the heat to meet the Bedik tribe. The Bediks lived genuinely like the type of story-book African tribe that I was too "liberal" and "non-simplistic" in my perception of culture to believe existed. But at the top of this hill, isolated from any big village or town by about 25km, the women walked around naked and they all prayed and sacrificed to the spirit of a tree under which twin babies reportedly experienced some miracle many milleniums ago.

We then moved on for the next night to another village where we heard about the initiation practices that young boys go through of fighting the "masqué". That night we slept outside on the ground and saw more stars than I have ever seen, 4 of them shooting, and 1 guy brought his guitar so we sang a mixture of Jeff Buckley and Britney Spears under the stars all lying together - it was very "trankill" as the Senegalese say.

The next day we visited the best waterfall in Senegal (apparently) which was beautiful. 100ft drop into this little pool perfect for swimming. We all stood underneath and recreated the Herbal Essences advert - very unsuccessfully; "ow, ow it's in my eyes, it hurts! Get it out, get it out!"

That being the end of our holiday we set back off for the further 18 hours home; many highlights, only lowlights = getting all the pool money stolen on day 1, and getting locked in the "Best Burger" toilets (no flush - the results 14 peoples visits all piled on top of each other) for half an hour before someone came and "steak-knifed" me out!

Back in St LOuis I am doing more teaching than ever before. I take several classes on my own for 4 hours which is a bit stressful, especially with the 11-13 year olds, but really fun. We sing wheels on the bus and hips don't lie and learn about modal auxilliaries, yesterday one of the girls told me that I was their most "gentil" (nice) teacher :)

I continue to spend more time eating than almost any other activity. So much so that it has become like a kind of science experiment to see how much weight it is physically possible to put on in 5 months . . . hypothesis: a lot, conclusion: yet to be reached.

Now I am preoccupied trying to organise more travelling for a month after school ends in May/June, but it is proving difficult . . . coups, hijacks, assassinations, stabbings, terrorism - nowhere in West Africa seems a viable option. So if anyone has a good suggested route, I would love to hear it. I am thinking at the moment about risking Guinea-Bissau and South Senegal's Casamance region rather then head inland where it will just be too hot, as these seem relatively safe.