Sen Regal, Indy and MJ

Just to get you in the mood, here's a link to the most popular Senegalese jingle of the moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb3OOUC5KAE

Everytime I even mention it to Jeannet, one of the other volunteers, she actually laughs for about 3 minutes. I guess that means it's good. Also, as I sat down to write this, the song have a merry little Christmas came on, wierd but.... nice!

So bonjour again. This week has gone quickly without yeilding much time or energy to write about it. Here goes anyway. Following on from the evaluation week before, we've started covering areas which our project covers every year.
Firstly, medical visits for all the daaras, consisting of a short consultation for the sick kids, and then buying their prescriptions. Two days of hospital was followed by disinfection of said daaras, which involved driving around town at speed, on the sand roads, in the back of a pick up truck with 4 guys in boiler suits, trying to miss goats, the angry boss dude with full military gear on (?), stopping every 5 minutes for 1 guy with a ghostbuster pack to spray white smoke everywhere, sometimes too impatient to wait for the children to even get out, then speeding away as the kids fell out of the door with 'no permanent damage'. I missed out but that's the picture I got from Peter, the views expressed in this bla bla bla..... Definitely worthwhile as the rainy season is approaching, if a bit bewildering/scary.
Next up we played a game of football and went to a mat factory to check up on the going rate for mats, obviously. After we got a quote at one factory we got a little tour of the it, yep I asked, here's a couple of mildly interesting pics to boot. I didn't take many photos this week, will do better.
















































Other than that, this week has been a bit of a difficult one for team morale. Which had to happen sometime. We haven't fallen out or anything, just each shown signs of discontent. I only mention it for the fact that it's revealed some endearing character traits. If anyone's suffering from the heat or food; missing boyfriends/girlfriends; got a really, really sore knee; frustrated by Africa or discovered they have 7 British Pounds for the rest of the summer, someone is always on hand to help them out of it. And now we're all better and feeling positive for next week. Safe!
For me some small things started to annoy a little, and I'll highlight them now for their amusing triviality.

Firstly, being the centre of attention on any street is originally quaint, then disconcerting, then normal. It's mostly harmless and I've obviously experienced it elsewhere, but here it is everyone, sometimes they ask for money, not just obviously desperate people, but every now and again apparently well to do people take a chance. Understandably a white guy complaining about being identified as such won't get much mileage, but it's the assumption that I'm rich as a result which gripes. Even my clothes with holes in them won't convince anyone otherwise. Anyway, the most difficult part is that they're right, and to assume, as briefly as I did, that I am not rich is more probably the king of naiveties. This point was physically represented the other day when, after our football match, one of us went to get some coins to buy water for the kids, and had the misfortune to bring out a CFA10,000 note (about 13 Pounds) to get to the bottom. At that point about 15 Talibes buzzed towards the purse like flies around a freshly cut mango, and had to be shouted back, like someone might wave a towel over the fruit. Just a complete accident which showed the uncomfortable reality.

It was ten minutes serious thought on questions relating to said avarice, which is a little more serious thought than I can usually muster, before my thoughts naturally turned towards Indiana Jones. His attempts to resist avarice are examplary. His badassness is hidden by a modest, academic alter ego. Most people see the guy on the left, at his day job, studious, tweedy, uninteresting. Whereas the select few (usually cult-crazy, child-stealing Indians) see the guy below, a picture of fearful masculinity. Im not sure how this analogy works, or if it's even related, but the upshot is, firstly; that Indiana Jones is great, and secondly; that if I ever acquire a talent, some money, or arms like Indiana Jones, I'll endeavoor to hide it. Such were the workings of my mind on a (very very very) hot afternoon. Problem solved!

Since I'm on pop culture..... The headline 'Michael Joins Bob Marley' gives a pretty telling indication of the West African perspective on the former man's last event. A music video homage was well attended at my house last night, with much foot tapping and smiling. One of my brothers turned around after every two videos, just to say 'Michael', with scrunced up lips and a shake of the head. 7 year old Assan sat stuck to the floor with his mouth open, 1 metre from the TV, memories of a similar obsession made me much more sad than I had expected.

Managed to squeeze in a few shots around Dakar; ducking to get petrol, dirt and the barber where I got a dodgy designer beard.























































Yesterday we took a trip out of town to see some rural daaras which we may work with. More on that later, here are some pics below in the meantime.

OK, stream of conciousness over, I need bed. There's more than a few issues to be ironed out with the NGO this week so again, we'll be busy. But feeling positive and reckon I'll even slip in a couple extra more blog posts, so keep your eyes peeled. Night night.