Volleyball Match

It's a while since I last wrote so apologies if that distressed you although I doubt anyone looks at this regularly enough to care. It's Monday again, my usual blog writing day (my day off!). It's been a great weekend. On Saturday morning we had a visit from the Dakar Academy (DA) senior volleyball team (our main rivals) and we played a friendly match against them in our sports hall. DA is a much bigger school than BCS and some ex-BCS-pupils go there for post-GCSE studies; as a result, their senior team is made up of year 12 and 13 boys who are quite tall. In contrast, our senior volleyball team usually has two year 11s, a boy and a girl (one of which is currently ill), two year 10s (one currently recovering form illness) and a bunch of younger kids some as young as year 8. DA practice daily for several hours, BCS practice weekly and play very little outside of that. Despite this obvious disparity we put up a good fight and in the first game we went several points ahead early on. Unfortunately this didn't last and we were quite well beaten by the end, although we put up a good fight. Most of the school was in the hall to support our side. There are some crude stands on one side of the hall which were well packed with spectators of all ages and we made a lot of noise (I took a drum in with me which was fun!).

The afternoon's activities were meant to take place at the beach in Popenguine (including the birthday of Immanuella, a Nigerian girl in my dorm), however the weather was pretty dismal which meant we spent the afternoon in the dorms playing games which was great fun. In the evening we played hide and seek in the dark which the kids really enjoyed. The boys from the Korean dorm joined us and the youngest attached himself to me whilst searching for the other kids as he was afraid of the dark. On Sunday we had our usual whole school meeting in the chapel for which I was able to play the Djembe and then my team was on Sunday lunch prep and Lesley and Franziska made stew and mashed potato (very tasty) whilst Margrith made a delicious yoghurt and stewed apple flan/pie/cake thing for pudding. After siesta we had the first adult intermediate level French lesson which was fun (although rather basic, being the first lesson), after which we had a big football game outside, Aunties and boys vs. Uncles and girls (school staff are referred to as Auntie or Uncle, so I'm Uncle Andrew). We won 4-3 even though Uncle Adam became an Auntie half way through to even things up a little. In the evening we had FIX which is a monthly-ish worship event which this time was based around the opening of the new prayer room which was set up over the summer. The kids had spent most of the afternoon decorating it and it looks really cool. Hopefully they'll take ownership of it and it will be a really great focal point for prayer for many of the kids (and staff too). I've probably written enough I think, off to the beach later hopefully...

Roller disco?

It's Monday again and my day off which means I have more time than usual to do emails and stuff. This week I've stayed on the compound for my day off. I was planning to cycle to Popenguine (the beach!) with a couple of friends but decided that it was stupidity to attempt to cycle several kilometres in the midday sun and tried to persuade them we should go at 4pm instead. Unfortunately they wanted to go into the village (our nieghbours Kinniabour) at 5pm so they decided to go ahead and cycle. They're not back yet so I hope they're still alive and well! A new school timetable came into effect this morning as there were several problems with the old one so this week's teaching schedule is looking quite different. Hopefully I'll find it better in terms of the lesson prep load but it doesn't look too friendly on paper!

The weekend was fun. Chris (our dorm 'dad') and I set up a roller-disco in the sports hall; we carted the school PA system across and I turned up the amp full (still wasn't load enough though - only 200W RMS I think). The playlist was a mixture of child friendly metal and 80s nostalgia (Chris used to be a professional metal drummer and spent some of his formative years in the 1980s) and the kids loved skating round and round the hall in their roller-blades. Chris also enjoyed being a very cheesy and very bad (and therefore perfect for the atmosphere) DJ.

Trip to Dakar

Today was my second day off and this week we went to Dakar! This was my second visit to the capital (excluding my initial arrival) and it was great fun. The Senegalese are a very friendly people (although often in the towns it's because they want your money). We got a ride in with the father of two of our weekly boarders on his way home from dropping off his sons. Unfortunately his car was having problems and he had to stop in Keur Massar (spelling??) on the outskirts of Dakar to see a mechanic so we got a bus from there to the town centre. Buses are one of the more normal forms of transport from a western point of view but they are still very African. After quite a wait to get on it we couldn't find any seats and had to stand up for what should have been maybe a half an hour journey on a good day. This was ok at first as the bus was no more full than your average English service bus on a busy school route, however as time went on more and more people quickly joined us and soon I was literally cheek to cheek (of the lower variety) with my fellow passengers. The sweat was dripping from my elbow onto the poor guy sat below me and I was growing steadily weaker and more tired as I had to refrain from drinking the ice cold water in my bag I so sorely needed out of care and respect for the bus full of Muslims around me who are now fasting for Ramadan. The journey took nearly two hours and after an hour and I half I seriously thought I could faint but I found my strength renewed as I contemplated the free gift of salvation I have in Jesus and the fact that he has paid the ultimate price so that I don't need to fast for a month and pray four times a day to earn salvation because it cannot be earnt. I spent the rest of the journey singing to myself and proclaiming this truth to myself in song (I couldn't muster the courage to proclaim it to a bus full of fasting Muslims and they wouldn't have understood the words anyway!). It's been a long but great day, one which has refreshed me, if not physically, at least spiritually, for the week ahead.

Not Autumn

Friday week 2, term 1. I nearly wrote Autumn term there but of course there's no such thing as Autumn here. We're curently in the wet season and in a few weeks it'll get less wet and cool off a bit for what we would call the Winter months. I've just come from the dorm where I had to put David to bed; there's only one boy in our dorm at the weekends (at least for now). The power went out at the exact moment I tried to turn his ceiling fan on (I thought I'd done something for a second), I had to make my way allong the corridor walls back to the lounge where I managed to knock my tourch of the table and ended up scrabbling around on the floor in the pitch black trying to find it. Quite fun really. I'm still enjoying the teaching although sometimes a little more prep wouldn't go amiss and I feel a little bad at making the older kids write so much; the IGCSE Computer Studies course is really theoretical, they never get to use the computers, it's all talking and writing. I'm really enjoying the younger years ICT classes, we're just getting into some fairly interesting projects which is more fun for the kids and less lesson prep for me which is great all round! It's been a tough week in some ways. There are a lot of staff ill and many of the kids in our dorm have been having trouble sleeping and some pretty nasty nightmares. As a staff we feel there may be a spiritual element to all this (which has been going on since the leadership change over last month) and we've been spending a lot of time praying with and comforting the kids. We can be confident that when we call on God he will help us as Christ defeated evil once and for all by his death and ressurrection therefore evil powers must flee when we call on His name. That is a great comfort to the kids and we've been looking together at encouraging passages from the bible which the kids can use when they're afraid. I had a great day off on Monday. I went to Thies with Franziska and Jacqui, two other general helpers, and we went shopping and generally wandered around town before eating lunch at Les Delices, a local restaurant with nice food that's dirt cheap compared to eating out at home. We travelled back in an old Peugot 7 seater which was falling apart, inside and out, the three of us squished on the back seat (made for two) with three africans in front of us and the driver and another passenger in front of them. It was great to get off the school compound and relax and to experience some more authentic transportation too.

A tough first week

I've just come to the end of my first week of school. It's been tough. It was great on Tuesday to see all the kids arrive; the whole site atmosphere completely changed and I started to realise more fully what I'm doing here. I'm helping in the youngest dorm, Eagle, which has been great so far. The kids there are really lovely and the house parents, Chris and Brianna, are great. There are only two boys in the dorm (and eight girls) which makes life easier for Chris and I at bed time because the two boys share one room so there's much less chasing to do than in most dorms. Being the youngest they go to bed fairly early which is a help too. I'm usually back in my house by 8:30 in the evening. The teaching is going fairly well (after a slightly dissatisfactory first lesson) and I'm enjoying it. I am finding the prep hard though and have found that I've been flat out this week trying to squeeze in time to prepare for lessons at the last minute. I had four periods first thing this morning and was up 'til 2am last night preparing them. I hope that's a one off and I can do things a little more in advance from now on (hopefully I'll get quicker as time goes on too). What I'd love to do now is crash out for the weekend but unfortunately, being a general helper, I'm in the dorm all weekend with the kids so I'll have to wait 'til my day off on Monday but I'm not planning any more super late nights in the meantime.

Computer died today...

Computer died today, luckily this was all on USB stick. There was another entry ready to roll but it'll have to be rewritten. In the meantime enjoy what you'll find below (this is my first time of internet access since arrival!)

Beginning to settle in

I've been here nearly four days now and I feel like I'm starting to settle in. The last of our staff arrived this morning but we're still not a complete team as one girl has been in hospital in Thies since I arrived; the doctors have decided it's definitely not Malaria which is good and they think it's probably an infection of some kind. Yesterday a native came in to teach some of the new staff some basic Wolof which is the native language used for communication among nationals of different tribes (French is the national language but Wolof seems to be preferred by the Africans). I can now ask you how you slept, how your day was, what you are doing, how your family is and what your name is in Wolof.

Last night we had a team building evening of fun and games run by Jens and Conni, the Heads of House (responsible for the dorms) which involved pulling the school minibus up a slope, hitting each other with newspaper and traversing the sports hall without touching the floor. It was an enjoyable evening, if a little bizzarre at times.

This afternoon we're going to the beach at Popenguine for the first time. At the moment it's dull and it just rained briefly so hopefully it'll brighten up for the beach (although rain is good, it brings the temperature down).

The heat is not so bad anymore as long as you stay indoors. I'm not sure if the temperature is changing or if I'm just getting used to it. I had four showers on my first day here! Now I'm just getting used to being a bit sweaty ocasionally, it soon dries off so as long as I don't smell then it doesn't bother me too much, I'm not the only one anyway.

The phone line has been down for a few days so now that it's back I can upload all I've written so far and finally let my parents know I've arrived safely.