Travel Day

Well, I'm now sat in Rothwell, West Yorkshire, UK connected to luxurious broaband internet having consumed multiple cups of tea with REAL MILK!

It's been a long day but I'm finally home in England starting to contemplate the next five weeks without BCS.

Travel was a mixed bag. Yesterday's trip into Dakar was a long one, traffic was horrible and I got sunburn on my right arm from the sun coming through the open car window (my brother informs me it's known as 'trukker's arm'). When we finally arrived in Dakar it was nearly three o'clock and we were pretty hungry so we went for some food. A handy hint: when eating out with girls who are ordering big plates there is no need to buy one's own food, I couldn't finish all the leftovers I was offered.

Having tried and failed to fall asleep in front of a movie at the WEC guesthouse Lesley and I departed at 6:30 in a taxi to the airport. Departures at Dakar airport was new for me, although much less scary than arrivals had been ten months previously. We fought off people wanting to get us trolleys and carry our luggage and change our money and managed to check in quickly and easily despite technical problems with the link between the luggage scales and the luggage tag printing doodah (overcome using a walkie-talkie).

Free of our bags we retired upstairs to the restaurant where we decided we weren't hungry yet and shared a large bottle of mineral water over conversation themed with summer activities and reunions with friends and family.

Duty free shopping at Dakar airport is surprisingly (or maybe not so) like any other place in the world. The only difference being that the large perfume and alcohol shops are neighboured by small boutiques crammed full of every Senegalese craft item available on the streets of Dakar; dresses, shoes, drums, silverware, paintings, t-shirts, sculpture, the usual.

As we awaited boarding some suspicious looking Brits crept up behind us trying to frighten us. We thought we'd left Ruth and Tracey behind at the guesthouse but here they were, ready to check into their flight leaving an hour later. It sounded like they'd had an interesting taxi ride to the airport but we had all made it and were ready to leave the ground.

The flight was quite a good one, we made good time and had no disturbances. They fed us a main meal at about 11:00 GMT and breakfast at about 3:00 GMT, by which time we were nearly in Brussels. I joined Lesley after breakfast to enquire if she'd had any sleep and whether she'd been sick yet (she wasn't feeling too well) and we landed in Brussels shortly afterwards at 5:30 local time (GMT+2).

Brussels airport is nice and not too big. We killed some time walking the length of the terminal (a long straight building with departure/arrival gates along the edges), at the end of which was a beautiful view of the sunrise over some trees and a church spire (and a monstrous control tower).

We parted here as I continued on to Gatwick and Lesley caught a connecting flight to Brum.

The Gatwick flight also gave me breakfast to my surprise. In fact I was one of only two economy passengers served a complementary breakfast; the perks of a long journey I guess.

In a slight daze and trying to work out whether I needed my jumper, I eventually made it through gatwick airport to collect my bags and meet Mum at the arrivals point.

From there it was on to Ipswich to drop in on my granny recovering from a hip operation in hospital and then the long drive back to Leeds.

I slept for only an hour or so in the car. Waking up and wondering if I'd dreamt my year at BCS and realising that I was doing the classic gap-year returnee trick of talking continuosly at my mum about things she knew nothing about and meant nothing to her. It was good to get that out of the system a bit before I bore friends to death when we meet. It'll still be hard though.

Must go to bed now, I'll try and cover the emotional side of reentry in a few days time 'cos I need to gather my thoughts a bit or I'll ramble forever and say nothing worth reading.

A Twisted Ankle

It's Sunday night and I'm sat in my lounge with my left foot up on a pile of cushions. In my first proper game of football in weeks this afternoon I twisted my ankle badly trying to keep a lost cause ball from running out for a throw. I gained us roughly 4m defensively and put myself on the sidelines for the rest of the game.

I'm now bandaged up and I've got a crutch to help me get around. Hopefully it'll be better in a day or so.

We had a barbecue for tea tonight. One of the families from the Gambia had brought up the best part of a pig with them at mid term break as a gift for the school. Tonight we ate it in kebab form with a great Korean marinade.

It's been a nice weekend. Yesterday I went with one of the teams of kids to Kiniabour for 'Saturday jobs' where we did some more digging at the kindergarten project. When I returned to school I had my debriefing for the year with Bob & Dee and we went through the evaluation form they send off to WEC UK together. It was very encouraging. It was also good to chat a bit more about next year and my role.

On that subject, I found out this week that I'll definitely be teaching science next year. In the first term it'll be just key stage 4 (IGCSE - 14-16 yrs) and in terms two and three I'll teach KS3 too (11-14 yrs). I'll still be a general helper which means I'll have a full time dorm role too, probably in Eagle dorm again, especially as we'll have new inexperienced dorm parents for term one.

Last night was a 'dorm movie', we watched 'High School Musical' with just the Eagle kids in the dorm lounge. It was very cheesy but amusing in places (although utterly cringeworthy in others).

Church this morning was good and for the adult ministry time we heard from Jim & Paula Hanes, missionaries from Louga, up north, who are here on orientation with their kids, Amanda & Aaron who will be joining the school as full boarders from September. It was really interesting to hear first hand about how evangelism works amongst the Wolof people and the work that the team in Louga are doing.

Ulrike pointed out tonight that tomorrow is my last day off this year and asked how I'd spend it. I hadn't realised and doubt I'll do anything unusual. I'm actually very tired, I've not slept enough the last few nights.

Hopefully I'll be able to enjoy my day off despite my probable lack of mobility.

Writing about last night's film reminded me of Friday night when I watched 'Short Circuit' with some other staff. I can't have seen the film in the last ten years but I must have watched it tens of times as a child. It was great to see it again and similarly many of the other Brits have equally fond memories of the film. I saw much more adult humour which I'd missed as a child and some great malapropisms from Ben, the asian character. One of the most memorable lines though was one my brother and I would often quote after watching it: "Hey laser lips, your mother was a snow-blower"; I still don't
get it though. Now I need to track down the sequel, I remember that one being even cooler.