Christmas comes early

Christmas comes early here at BCS. I don't know how much Christmas stuff is going on back home right now but it certainly seems early here. Our dorm kids started decorating their rooms two or three weeks back and Chris and Brianna started playing Christmas CDs in the lounge the weekend before last.

On Friday we took all the junior kids out to Thies to go Christmas shopping; the school has a 'secret santa' type of thing where each person buys a present for another person (student or staff) according to names drawn from a stocking and the kids are given 1000 cfa each towards their gift (~£1). We all piled in a car rapide (local public transport which we'd hired for the morning) and spent an hour or two in Thies' biggest supermarket (a large corner shop by UK standards) and 'New York 1000', a small shop which is a sort of pound shop but not everything is 1000 cfa. After a hard morning's shopping we all went to Les Delices for lunch and the kids were given 2500 each from the treat fund to buy lunch (the BCS treat fund is a fund set up to pay for special treats for the students, in particular weekend activities for those who are full time borders and don't see their parents for months at a time, donations are always welcome, enquire through the school office (see website) for details). The restaurant owners were very kind to us and put cartoon network on the TVs for us (in French of course). I was responsible for two 8 year old boys for the morning, Chan-Hwi, a Korean full border, and Daniel, an English day pupil whose parents live in Popenguine and work in Bible translation.

The journey home was filled with carol singing and trying to remember the words to 'the 12 days of Christmas'.

I need to try and write this month's update today so that I have a chance of getting it out vaguely on time this month.

Hope you're well and it's not too cold where you are.