Dakar and Zoo

Just a quick post as we've got the next week packed full of ambitious plans which will hopefully make blogging pretty difficult.

This week has been a productive and enjoyable one. On Monday we organised a trip to the zoo for the talibes and caught up with some supplementary medical visits. Then at night we had a difficult meeting with the guys from the NGO, about money, what else? Anyway, that went really well for us so, feeling good, we spontaneously jumped on a bus to Dakar. Here's Rhona sticking out of the window while speeding along on a balmy African evening.

Having already described the ensuing events in an email to Joanna, I'll paste it here out of pure laziness.

"On Monday night we went in to Dakar for some drinks, found a Chinese restaurant where the people were actually Chinese but spoke French and lived in Africa. After that confusion we bought some cigars and found my favourite bar in the world yet, bought some whisky and beer before the old dude behind the bar slapped on some techno and turned it up to the max. He even let me behind the bar to get photos with him. Then at 2.30 Rhona and Marie wanted to go swimming so we went down to a hotel on the sea and jumped over the fence. I was pulling SAS moves as we snuck through a closed cafe, only to come up right beside a sleeping security guard in his plastic chair and military hat. I stopped and stayed still but Rhona and Marie ran/giggled their way up behind me, waking him up. He and I both shat ourselves; I put my hands up and he said wow wow wow. I was ready to go to jail but Rhona then popped out 'can we go to the beach' in French and he thought we were guests so said oui oui oui. I was still on all fours from the crawling! But I just got up and bit my tongue hard not to laugh as I walked past him. So then we jumped off the pier, swam a bit, then said goodbye to the guard before snaking behind a bush and jumping over the fence again......."

As a disclaimer, all fun is counter weighted by hard work and, again, the views expressed above are not representative bla bla bla.......

Tuesday saw more medical visits in the morning (ouch) and more planning for our trip. By Thursday the zoo was upon us. We gathered up 50 talibes, packed them into a bus and set off. The zoo itself was a pretty depressing place (small cages and enclosures were full of stale water and litter), not to mention slightly disconcerting. The two pictures below couple to give you an idea of my apprehension.

After the zoo we all got in a big circle and sang Senegalese songs, clapped and danced, they even made me go in the middle to laugh at my interpretation of Senegalese dancing. Later we played various games before catching the bus again. The kids all seemed to enjoy it, and it gave them a day off from begging, which can't be a bad thing. Here's one guy ready to go home.

So tonight we have another meeting to verify our big plans. Firstly going to Saint Louis in the North for the weekend, visiting an area called Kaolack, where we hope to have some schools built and learn alot more about the Talibe situation, on Monday to Wednesday. From there we plan to return to Dakar for a day or two before heading of to some more villages we're involved with for a few days. And then! Holding a ten day summer school. Busy busy. I'll leave you with testament to the fact that after a tiring day at the zoo, Peter can sleep anywhere.