The Foundation of Wisdom

I started the following post on Sunday 09/02/14 in a hotel room in Seoul, S. Korea. I've since attempted to draw some conclusions from the string of thoughts which comprised my original writings, resulting in the somewhat rambling and rather unrefined offering you'll find below. Comments welcome - particularly if I've missed the mark!

This morning I had planned to go to church here in Seoul and, after some research, had selected Seoul Grace Community (SGC) as an option which looked like a good geographical, horological and theological fit.

Plans change and as I was on skype with Lesley last night I realised just how tired I still was and just how full today was looking with the combination of church at 11:15 and a tour of Changdeokgung palace at 15:30, requiring meeting my colleague Isaac here at the hotel at 14:00. So, confirmed in my mind by Lesley's unprompted suggestion, I decided to give up my church plans and opt for an online sermon instead.

Having noticed that SGC post their sermons on YouTube I thought I'd give this a try. They're currently doing a series from Proverbs on wisdom and the most recent one was called 'Wisdom - Our Plans' - fitting!

The preacher had chosen a handful of proverbs from several chapters talking about plans and decisions from which he made three points, which I agreed with, although the way he expressed them threw up some issues for me.

Anyway, this got me looking at Proverbs and the subject of wisdom and I came across the familiar verse of Proverbs 9:10 - "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". This stood out for me as the idea of 'the fear of the Lord' has been a recurring theme for me lately.

It struck me that a synonym for 'beginning' might be 'foundation' - I've not looked at the original text and whether or not the Hebrew word translated 'beginning' in my bible has any sense of the foundation idea in it so for now this is just speculation (that's the great thing about blogs - they come with pre-made caveats that excuse you from the duty of research and fact checking).

This resonated for me with Jesus' parable about the two builders with their houses on the rock or the sand.

Perhaps we are drawn to ideas presented to us by those around us or from society in general which seem wise, and perhaps they are. But even truly wise ideas, when built on the wrong foundations, will ultimately collapse.

Contrary to the illustrations in the popular story book by Mick Inkpen & Nick Butterworth, 'Stories Jesus Told', the man who built his house on the sand is not described as building with inferior materials or with more haste or with less skill or care. In fact the only thing that Jesus makes any comment on is the surface on which they build.

Perhaps we can say the same about wisdom. We all know that many true words of wisdom have come from the lips of those who don't know Christ. Just because my boss doesn't share my faith doesn't mean I shouldn't listen to his advice about how to be better at my job.

But at the same time, Jesus called those whose foundations are not "on the rock" fools.

What does all this mean?

Firstly, it's a call to repentance. A word to the wise: it's possible for a man to possess wisdom and yet be a fool in God's eyes.

But what about those whose foundations are already in the right place? Well, let's not be too quick to dismiss the warning of Jesus' parable because we consider ourselves Christians.

I've often considered the parable of the two builders to be primarily about salvation; those who build on rock are those who have put their trust in Christ, those who build on sand are those who will not. But looking again at the accounts in Matthew and Luke, Jesus starts with the phrase "everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice". It's not just about our response to the gospel, it's about the way we live our lives. And what are "these words of mine" to which Jesus is referring? If we look at the wider context of the story, it appears, in both accounts, at the end of a long period of teaching (in Matthew we refer to it as the sermon on the mount - the Luke account has much of the same teaching but is considerably reduced). Perhaps you could even consider it as Jesus closing remarks, concluding all that he'd said on so many topics. Considering the breadth of the words to which Jesus is referring then it seems this is a general claim concerning the whole of his teaching.

So, attempting to collect my threads of rambling thought into some kind of conclusion: true wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord and works itself out in obedience to and application of the teachings of Christ.

What about application then? How should this affect my response to the worldly wisdom I'm offered by my boss or anyone else?

Firstly - Test everything: does it fit with the teachings of Christ and Scripture as a whole? If it is not contrary to Scripture then I can accept it as potentially useful and valuable. Let's be open hearted and open minded to those we meet on our Frontlines, not retreating to a Christian intellectual ghetto, dismissing the opinions of unbelievers out of hand, but taking every God-given opportunity to engage the teaching of Christ with the 'wisdom' of the world that needs him.

Secondly - Fear the Lord: remember in all things the supremacy of Christ "for whom and by whom all things exist". When it comes to wisdom, no-one is better able to understand the workings of the human heart or the universe we inhabit than The Word through whom all things were made; The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us.

Thirdly - Take time to reflect on the house you're building and its foundations. Does the life I live and do the decisions I make testify of 'the fear of the Lord'? Are there areas of my life where I have unquestioningly accepted the wisdom of the world? In what areas is the Spirit convicting me that I have been only a 'hearer of the word' (James 1:22-25) and have not yet put it into practice.

Fourthly - Get into shape: where we have not formed an opinion on a subject we are prone to allow ourselves to be unwittingly shaped by the first sensible explanation that comes our way. Let's make sure that Scripture gets there first by being disciplined in reading it and allowing God to form us through it into his image, inviting him also to remould those bits of us that have already been moulded in an image other than His own.

Breaking The Blog Silence... with an urgent request

Here follows an e-mail I received today for what feels like the hundredth time. Finally I've realised I ought to pass it on:

Hi friends of BCS!


We have an URGENT prayer request and encourage you to pray and also take
action by sharing our needs with as many others as possible this week.

We are facing a huge teaching staff shortage and are praying hard for
people to come to Bourofaye Christian School in Senegal. BCS has classes
from Reception to Year 11. Next year there will be 87 students from over
16 different missions organizations. Their families are reaching out
with the gospel to hundreds of people in West Africa.

BCS urgently needs 5 more full-time teachers. Currently we have 6
full-time teachers for September 2010. Normally by this time the staff
applications have been processed and staff are well on the way to come
in late August.

People don't need to be qualified teachers to work here -just willing to
teach.

BCS also needs a male dorm helper, caterer and nurse.

I have attached an information sheet and it would be great if you can
send this to all your contacts, put up the sheet in churches, spread the
news wherever you are this week and promote the needs in any way you
can.

People can take a look at our school website to see more about the
school. www.bcs-senegal.org

Also, if a nurse or secretary were to come this would enable some
existing staff members to teach more. We are looking for willing people
to ask how they can serve.


If you believe that mission is important and know the value of education
then please act now on our behalf.

In anticipation of miracles!

Jonno Turk
BCS school principal

A Quarter Century

Today seems an appropriate day to break the blogging silence. It's been so long that it's not worth me commenting on all that has passed except to mention that today is, as well as being my birthday, the four month 'un-iversary' of the start of my relationship with Lesley. That perhaps goes some way to explaining the demise of my blogging (or at least the initial cessation).

The rains started here on Friday and it's rained again today. The smell is great, it reminds me of the start of the year and makes me want to stay on longer here. I am at peace about coming home though. It has been great to be here but I know it's right now for me to go back to the UK and begin the next phase of my life (whatever that may be). I'll be based, initially at least, at home with my family in Rothwell. I don't know yet what's in store but I know I'll need some kind of employment soonish to tide me over. As for the longer term I don't want to start anything new until October so that I can take proper time out to recover and process all that God has been doing these past two years.

My birthday celebrations have been great. I started the day with the sunrise in the pavillion (a gazebo type structure built as the result of a yr8 DT project). This was followed by bacon, eggs & beans cooked for me by Lesley. It has been a normal school day and so I was teaching this morning but it was quite fun, especially when it started raining at about nine o'clock. BCS birthdays are celebrated after siesta with a cake and an opportunity for people to give gifts and cards. As usual the collection of gifts was quite random but it's the thought that counts and many of the thoughts were very encouraging as they confirmed the quality of some of my relationships with the kids. It'll be very hard to say goodbye at the end of the year.

This evening I'm celebrating privately by hosting a three course meal for selected friends from the staff team. Lesley and I went shopping in Saly on Saturday both for inspiration and ingredients. I need to go home now and continue cooking and preparing the house.

Please pester me if this post is becoming lonely.

WEC Senegal Field Conference 2008

Sorry for not blogging much over Christmas and New Year. My evenings
have been filled with socialising so I've not had time.
Term starts on Tuesday and the kids arrive back on Monday afternoon. I'm
feeling incredibly unprepared having not realised how little time there
was between the end of conference and the start of term and not being as
productive as I'd hoped during my time set aside for lesson prep.
Conference has been great. I've been able to get to much more of the
sessions this year (although I've still had to miss some in order to do
school work). It's been a real privilege to lead the field in sung
worship and God has been at work amongst us. The first few days were
focussed on prayer and listening to God after which we moved into
business and the formal side of things. One thing which has been
constant throughout the week has been the sharing of short testimonies
from each field member at the start of meetings. Across the week we've
heard two minutes from each person about what God has been doing in
their life over the past year. It's been very interesting to listen to
all the stories. One thing which struck me through these testimony times
was a common theme of brokenness, disappointment, weariness and
weakness. But, at the same time, there was also a sense of faith and
perseverance and many people spoke of God's faithfulness in provision of
needs: spiritual, emotional and physical.
Over the week we've been seeking, as a field, to hear God's voice; in
particular regarding our vision and direction for the future. His
response has been a difficult one for a field in such dire personnel
difficulty and with ministries considering shutting down: 'Keep praying,
keep seeking my face...'. We have to trust in his promise that one day
Senegalese believers from every people group and language will stand
before the throne of God in heaven, made right with him through the
blood of Jesus. (Revelation 7:9-10)
There was also much encouragement. As a field we were blessed to hear
feedback from the 'Alliance d'Eglises Evangelique au Senegal', the group
of churches that has been already planted by various WEC missionaries
and is now growing and beginning to take up the baton of sharing the
good news with their own people. We have also, after much recent
anticipation, seen the conversion, this week, of one of our guards here
at the school from the local village. After many conversations with
staff here and having listened to some cassettes in Wolof explaining the
history of Jesus and God's people in the bible we were able to introduce
him to one of our Senegalese AEES pastors who was representing the
church at conference who was able to really challenge him about what he
had been hearing. On Monday night this man accepted Jesus as his lord
and saviour and gave his life to him. This was a real joy for all of us
to hear and very exciting. He is the first convert from our neighbouring
village and maybe also from his people group (although I'm not sure
about that one).
I've also been encouraged personally by comments of others, spending
time in the 24/7 prayer room and by our guest speaker, Young-Choon Lee,
who's been speaking on the four pillars of WEC: holiness, faith,
fellowship and sacrifice.
Unfortunately there's been some illness going around this week and after
fighting it off for two days my body's finally given in. I've spent this
morning in bed and am writing from there. I'm disappointed to miss the
last two meetings, especially as I was supposed to lead worship in them
both, but I've been able to hear much of the singing from my room which
has been nice. I was hoping someone would come and visit so I could
request to take part in our closing communion ceremony by long distance
but no-one's come yet and they didn't think to bring the bread and wine
to the sick people. I've not taken part in communion since the start of
last term as it's not done here during term time due to the complication
of the many denominational backgrounds of families using the school.
The lunch bell went a few minutes ago, later than I thought it would, I
think my only meal today will be a packet of biscuits this evening if
I'm up to getting up and moving about by then.

Saint-Louis

It's over a week into the Christmas break and I'm just starting to get
down to work. Yesterday I arrived back at BCS after four days away in
Saint-Louis in the north of Senegal.

Saint-Louis is a unique place in many ways. The French developed it
heavily as one of their major centres of business due to its position at
the mouth of the Senegal river and close to the border between Senegal
and Mauritania. It's a very odd place geographically. It is split into
three parts, two of which are islands. From the first part of the town
on the mainland you cross a bridge onto the first of the two islands,
long and thin running parallel to the coast. This first island is the
main tourist centre and retains the most of the old French colonial
style. The second island is parallel to the first and a similar shape
but further out to sea. It is this island which was once joined to the
long strip of land where I stayed a few weeks ago for the men's weekend.

We travelled up on Monday, walking the 2km from the school to Sindia and
catching a minibus into Thies for just 60p each plus £1 for our
collective baggage. From Thies we sought similar transport up to
Saint-Louis. A group of white people in the gare-routiere soon attracts
a crowd and we had many people offering ridiculous fares to Saint-Louis
in their taxis. Eventually a guy came and asked where we were going and
offered us seats in his minibus at £2.50 each plus the usual £1 baggage
charge. We took it and soon found ourselves seated in a fairly empty
medium sized minibus waiting for it to fill up with other passengers.
When we eventually set off, after not too long a wait, the journey was a
fairly comfortable one considering the circumstances and we arrived in
Saint-Louis somewhere between one and two o'clock in the afternoon. A
taxi took us from Saint-Louis gare-routiere to our hotel without any
problems.

The hotel was a nice one. We were in the cheapest rooms which were dingy
but adequate including en-suite facilities and a continental breakfast
in the mornings at the bar/restaurant. After getting thoroughly confused
with the hostess about what board we were on and the price we would end
up paying we settled ourselves in the restaurant for a late lunch. We
all had the hotel's speciality omlette which was very tasty and very
filling and subsequently retired to our rooms for a siesta.

In general the week included lots of siestas, walking around the town
looking for restaurants, and eating great food. It was great to get away
and do nothing! On Wednesday morning we made an excursion to Parc de
Dioudj, one of the national parks, where they've created a wetland
habitat to attract all kinds of native West-African birds. We were
picked up by our guide at 7am from the hotel and made the 70km trip to
Dioudj by taxi where we drove into the heart of the park and took a one
hour cruise on the main lake in a pirogue (narrow wooden boat). Tracey
and I took about 300 photo between us. We saw loads of birds and even
some baby crocodiles. Hopefully I'll get on ADSL again before the end of
the holidays and upload some of the pictures.

We decided to cut our break short due to the Muslim festival of Tabaski
today which would have made travelling impossible so we paid up at the
hotel yesterday morning and made our way again to the gare-routiere.
This time we caught a proper car-rapide. If you don't know what one is
then imagine an old mercedes sprinter minibus, older than me, which
looks like it will fall apart after ten metres. The interior is fitted
with bench seats and it is crammed full with over fourty people. The
roof is often laden with luggage piled high, including at this time of
year sheep and goats (live). We were the only white people on the
vehicle, not surprisingly, and doubtless quite a novelty to many of our
fellow passengers as you don't get many 'toubabs' on car-rapides. Public
transport was very busy yesterday as everyone was travelling home for
tabaski. The guy next to me was trying out his English and I found out
he lives in Dakar and was going home for tabaski too.

When we got to Thies we stopped at Les Delices for a bite to eat and a
seat with a little more leg and bottom room which didn't vibrate. I
nipped in to the little supermarket for some groceries and left Ruth and
Tracey to relax with a soft drink. Being so close to home we were able
to relax a little and look forward to putting our feet up. Little did we
know what our next leg of the journey would bring.

Outside Les Delices we tried to hail a taxi. The drivers never know
Kiniabour but I tried it anyway and explained where it was. The first
guy wouldn't go lower than 11,000 and we were aiming for 6,000 so we let
him go. The guard outside the restaurant politely inquired where we
wanted to go and ho much the previous driver had asked for. He then
offered to negotiate a taxi for us for the price we wanted so we took up
his kind offer. The next car he stopped bargained hard and wouldn't come
down except when another taxi pulled-in in front of him ready to offer
us a ride. They settled on 7,000 and we shrugged our shoulders and said
OK, thinking of getting home. As the guy pulled away he asked what price
the guard had told us and I confirmed the 7,000 which he didn't seem too
happy about. At the end of the road there's a junction; this is where
things went funny. The driver took an unusual turning and proceeded in
what felt to me like the wrong direction. I tried to quiet my misgivings
and decided to wait and see where he went next. A little up the road he
pulled in at a petrol station to top up, at which I thought 'ok, maybe
he just knows the guy at this station or something, now he'll turn
round'. He didn't turn. The next junction approached and I saw a
signpost for Dakar to the right which confirmed my internal compass,
'please turn here' I thought... he didn't. According to signs we were
now headed towards Diourbel and I knew that wasn't right so, encouraged
by noises from behind me, I tried to subtly hint at our destination but
unsure of how to go about this, both linguistically and culturally, all
I could say was "Do you know Kiniabour?" and "I've never taken this
route to Kiniabour before!", neither of which provoked a response. Time
went on and we all grew more and more tense and eventually we arrived at
a village called Thienaba at which point the driver made a comment about
there being two places called Thienaba and this was one of them and the
other was just up the road. I was a little puzzled but didn't know what
to say other than to agree with him. When he reached the second Thienaba
he pulled over and asked where we wanted to be set down. Finally we
realised what was going on. Somewhere between our communication with the
guard and the guard's communication with our driver some wires had got
crossed and our driver thought we wanted to go to Thienaba, a place we'd
never heard of before and a region we'd never visited. A long and
draining discussion ensued between myself and our driver which I don't
have the energy to recount but, in short, we realised the error made and
spent some time despairing and asking each other what would happen next.
We settled that he would have to drive us to Kiniabour (should we be
able to find it - he had no idea even how to get to Popenguine) and we
would have to pay him extra for the trouble. Most unsatisfactory for us
who had hoped to be home by then recovering from a long day on the road.
He made protestations all the way back to Thies and seemed to be in a
foul mood for the remainder of our journey which also affected his
driving. The extra price negotiation was awkward. There were long
periods of silence where he would ask how much we would pay him and we
would sit there thinking it over and lamenting our situation. He wanted
too much, of course, and came up with all the reasons under the sun why
we should give him more than we wanted to. Ruth wanted to get home,
Tracey felt he was taking advantage of us and I felt sorry for him (and
vastly inadequate to communicate effectively in response to his
arguments). Eventually we paid him 14,000 which no-one was really happy
with but I don't think anyone could be happy after that experience. We
stopped and unloaded at the gate just so that the school guard was
around should we need someone on our side and walked back down the track
we started off on three days earlier.

Two Wives In Three Days

Term is finally over and I'm currently in Dakar for a couple of days, chilling out at the guesthouse.

Wednesday was the end of term and it started in the morning with the Christmas production, 'Are We Nearly There Yet?'. After lots of last minute stress and anxiety radiating from Alison and Ruth, the key players in the whole affair, it went off very well and the kids gave one of their best performances yet. It was a very full morning with not just the play but also some carol singing, the new school choir, two mini-plays written by the top-seniors and a performance by newly named 'Linko', a band formed by the Kingfisher dorm boys. I played drums for
the band which I enjoyed very much. The drum kit had been borrowed from someone in Dakar, a friend of the Gomez boys who are the main musical force behind the band. The name came from the drum kit. They thought they'd look more professional if the name matched the kit and seeing as
the bass drum skin says 'linko' on the front then that had to be the band name (at least for that one gig anyway). I've never heard of linko as a drum kit manufacturer, probably because it was a nasty drum kit (the bass drum pedal was particularly bizarre).

I also finally bought a djembe (african drum) on Wednesday. The guys from Malika Monkeys were there with their wide selection of wood and metal craft (http://malikamonkeys.blogspot.com/) and after trying all the drums they had with them I settled on one of the middle sized models. While I was browsing the stall there were others too looking at the various products and I was chatting to Michelle, the woman I was filling in for last year as ICT teacher, about the pens which she was
considering buying. When I then went to Herma, the stall owner, to enquire about the drum she asked me about what I do at the school and for some reason made the assumption that Michelle (38) and I were married, that was wife number one. To add to the amusement I then had to borrow some cash from my new wife to pay for the drum.

On Wednesday evening we went out for our end of term staff meal. It was really nice especially to have more kids around this time. The MacLaren
family have just joined the staff, the kids having been boarders for the past few years. They had been working in the Gambia but now they felt that God was directing them to move to BCS as staff members. We also had a few other school families around who had been unable to get flights home that day and so we were a very large group. I think the staff kids especially appreciated having more kids around.

On Thursday I came into Dakar with Michelle, Alison and her son Josh.
They were wanting to do some shopping and I wanted to go to the British embassy Christmas party and use the Internet. Yesterday morning we went to the airport to pick up a Christmas parcel for Josh which had got stuck in customs. It was quite an ordeal. First we had to meet a man who
would take us through the whole process, he would charge a fee of £25 but we couldn't do it without him. Finding him was not easy. We were told to go to the customs area and give him a call. When we got there we tried to follow the instructions but couldn't quite work out where we
were supposed to be. We called the guy and he said to look for Air France. Not fully understanding his instructions we headed back to the arrivals area where there was an Air France booth and waited there for a few minutes. He subsequently called us again and we both got thoroughly confused as we were evidently both at Air France bit couldn't find each other. Eventually the guy worked out where we were and told us to ask for 'fret baggage'. We asked a guard outside and he sent someone with us to show us the way. It was in the same directio we'd initially tried but further along. When we finally met Matar, our contact, he led us round
the back of a warehouse to some very cramped offices where we had to get some paperwork. The first papers cost us £22 each and there were two of them. After this we were led back outside to one of many little containers which was converted into a small office. Here Matar proceeded
to calculate the next charges payable. It was at this point we realised something was wrong. The two papers we had just paid for described different packages, one of which was Josh's Christmas presents, worth £130, the other was something entirely different, worth £611! On closer
inspection we realised it was the school order placed at the end of last term which, due to some administrative error, had been shipped out to Senegal instead of to the WEC UK headquarters as usual. Who knows how long this stuff had been sat there as it had no contact telephone number
on it so they couldn't let us know it was waiting for collection. Not knowing what to do next we called the administrators at the guesthouse to ask for advice. They suggested we pick up the school order while we were there, saving another trip at a later date however the fees for
this package would come to over £300 (44% customs plus a standard charge of £110 for a large package). As we didn't have this kind of money on us it was suggested that one of the guards from the guesthouse come out to meet us on his scooter with the extra cash and so I, as the only bloke, was given the task of waiting outside for him. It took him about half an hour to reach the airport however once he got there he was in the same situation as we had been. He had no clue where we were and my French was inadequate to accurately explain to him how to find us and so after 20 minutes of phone calls between him, me and the guesthouse I eventually had to go and find him at arrivals. He was very good humoured about it all and I didn't get sunburnt so I can now look back on it and smile. We exchanged the money in a very shady and secretive way (much to my amusement) and he headed off back to his scooter. When the others got back with Matar they told me of what they'd witnessed in the caged room where the parcels were held. They'd been simply told to 'find their parcels' in a room stacked full of all sorts of packages and luggage
with no apparent order to anything and the packages had then been subsequently hacked open by an over enthusiastic knife wielding customs worker who then suggested he might receive some cash for taping them back together so well.

The ordeal ended with a farcical attempt to find a taxi to get the stuff back to the guesthouse. The first two taxi drivers Matar found for us wouldn't go below 10,000 cfa when the normal price from the airport to the guesthouse with baggage is only 4,000. Eventually Matar convinced one of the customs guys to take us in his van for 5,000 cfa (~£5) and somehow I managed to direct him to the right place.

I didn't gain any wives at the airport but goodness knows the assumptions which the people there made about me with two women and one child.

Last night we went to the British embassy. Michelle managed to sneak in despite being a yank. It was a lovely evening and most of it was spent as a BCS clique in a corner with Lesley and her parents and the Rodda family whose son Charlton is a weekly boarder. We sang carols and the Roddas gave a performance of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas - Senegalese
style' which they'd written the day before. It included, in order, a goat on a bush taxi, two mangos, three guinea hens, four ballophones, five Biskrem, six cobras spitting, seven donkeys braying, eight vendors walking, nine parrots squawking, ten ... (I can't remember the rest but
it was very amusing if you've lived in rural Senegal). Somehow Charlton and Josh were persuaded to sing the first verse of 'Once In Royal David's City' on their own and Josh, rather amusingly, started singing the tune for 'Hark The Herald Angels Sing' by mistake (a mistake I'd made the other way round a few weeks earlier). After the singing the ambassadors wife came over to us BCS people and thanked us for singing so loudly and participating so well and in particular commented on my son's contribution. So now I am also apparently married to Alison and have a twelve year old son!

Today's a lazy day at the guesthouse. We go back to BCS this evening at six o'clock. In the meantime I plan to look up some recipes for things I want to cook this holiday.

G.O.R.

It's a week ago now but I've been meaning to write about it all week so
here it is.

Last weekend I went up north to near Saint-Louis for G.O.R. (Guys On
Retreat a.k.a. the hairy men's weekend). On Friday morning a small group
of us left the school in Jens's Renault estate. We were 6: Jens,
Johannes, Tobi, Josh, myself and Jonathan, parent of some of our day
students. We were sent off with a tupperware box full of burgers and
chips by Jonathan's wife Wendy and Jens's wife Coni after morning break.
I should have been teaching period four but I had scheduled a test and
so it was simple enough to get someone to cover for me, although I got
complaints on Monday when the kids complained I hadn't warned them about
it (it was supposed to be a surprise test but word had got out when some
of them started questioning me one lesson so they suspected it was
coming but weren't sure when).

The drive up to Saint-Louis is about four hours and we stopped en-route
in Louga to meet up with some of the other guys who were meeting for
lunch in a restaurant there. We had of course already enjoyed our
burgers and chips, precariously passed between the three rows of seating
in the car. The school kitchen had been very gracious to us in starting
lunch preparation early so that we wouldn't miss out on what the rest of
the school were getting for lunch (burgers and chips is very rare, it's
rice 75% of the time).

We arrived at our final meeting point mid afternoon where we had to get
a small boat (a pirogue) out to the island where we were staying. It
took too boat loads to get all of us and our luggage across, there were
about 34 of us from all over Senegal. At Saint-Louis the Senegal river
meets the sea but just before it does it makes a bit of a dog leg which
has created a kind of peninsula about 15km long and probably between
300m and 1km wide for the majority of its length. Due to problems with
flooding the river was engineered to go straight out to sea by basically
cutting through this peninsula at the end and making it into an island.
It is this island on which the campement is situated where we spent our
weekend.

I was a little apprehensive before the weekend about spending a weekend
with so many Americans. I've never had any male American friends and
have a bit of a stereotype about them, especially Christians. I was very
glad to have my stereotype shattered as I realised they were actually
quite normal and I was able to get on very well with them.

The actual retreat started with putting us in teams for a competition
which would last the rest of Friday and most of Saturday. At this point
I was again worried by the thought of macho Americans in competition,
especially when I heard the first event would be a group tally of
sit-ups, press-ups and pull-ups. My fears were however allayed when I
met my team who were half from the UK and nearly all geeks in some way
or other. Despite this we did manage to get ourselves into the
competitive mindset and soon set to work on the physical challenge and
also the mental challenge of a sudoku, word search and anagrams.
Strangely enough we actually came out with a massive lead after the
first events, mainly due to a lot of sit-ups. One member, Jonathan,
happened to be a strange breed of athletic geek and did 150 sit-ups, the
most done by anyone, and I somehow managed to push myself to 100,
although I felt it for the next four days every time I got up, sat down
or walked anywhere.

Each team was given a flag which they had to decorate. Our flag was
white and so we decided to call ourselves 'No Surrender!' and decorated
our white flag with a variation on the no-smoking sign containing an
upturned dove of peace holding an olive branch.

As guys on retreat we mainly indulged in two things, competition and
meat. The food at the campement was excellent. Each evening we dined on
a three course meal followed by attaya (Senegalese tea), according to
our waiters, who announced so very dramatically after each meal, the tea
was as follows: "le premier est amer comme la mort, le deuxieme est doux
comme la vie et le troisieme est mielleux comme l'amour" (trans. - "the
first is bitter like death, the second, sweet like life, the third,
honeyed like love"). In fact the attaya was weak compared to what it
should be, probably for the tourists' palate (toubab-attaya). On
Saturday they prepared a barbeque for us with prawns, beef, chicken,
fish, sausages and baked potatoes and on Sunday they roasted two sheep
over a fire and made a broth from it served with couscous.

The other parts of the competition were frisbee cricket, golf and
rubbish collecting (I nearly wrote 'trash' there...). We did well with
the frisbee and not so well at the golf whilst being middle of the road
in trash collecting (some groups picked up concrete and scrap metal
giving them an unfair advantage weight-wise). At the end of the Saturday
afternoon we were still in the lead but only by one point and so it all
came down to the last event, the team song. There were fifty bonus
points on offer for the best team song and we didn't want to lose.
Thankfully we had some very talented lyricists and musicians on our team
and after three hours of brainstorming we had a song to beat all songs
(Eurovision here we come). The songs were performed after tea that night
and I was worried that people wouldn't vote for us, seeing as we were
winning, but people were fair and we ran away with it by a large margin.

I'm still surprised that I was part of a winning team on a weekend for
hairy men.

The Sunday was a more reflective time and we sang together in the
morning and shared communion. One of the guys shared with us about a
part of what biblical manhood is about. We also had a very encouraging
time together on Saturday night after the songs when we had a bonfire
and people shared testimony of what God had been doing in them over the
weekend and over the year. It was great to spend time with other
Christian men, enjoying being men together and enjoying being Christians
together. The fact that we were all missionaries was an extra bonus.

I'm sad that I shall not be here next year for the next one.

A Full Week

There have been several days this week about which I might have written
a fairly interesting blog but unfortunately it seems to be only now, on
a quieter less interesting day, that I find the time.

I guess I should start with last weekend. Last weekend was the 2nd
annual BCS Olympics, this time the Winter Olympics. For those who've
been following the blog for a while you my remember my comments about
last year's and how successful it was. I think there are still photos on
Flickr from last year. This years was very different. In an attempt to
keep it fresh it was themed a winter games and the events were all
changed in some form, most being completely new. The changes worked and
those kids who'd been a bit skeptical about a second olympics were, by
the end of the weekend, enjoying themselves along with the rest. For me
it was a very different weekend from last year, what with Saturday now
being my day off. Last year I'd spent the whole weekend behind my camera
and taken hundreds of photos. This year I had a lie in and leisurely
made my way along to a few events throughout the course of the Saturday.
On Sunday we went to the beach as a whole school where we had the final
event of the olympics, a tug-o-war, and we ate burgers and homemade
crisps for tea. It was a great beach trip; the tug-o-war was a lot of
fun and the staff got to join in too, making mincemeat of the students,
the water was refreshing but not too cold and the food was great. Upon
our return from the beach the weekend was finished with the official
closing ceremony in the chapel together with the awards and medals for
each event and the whole competition.

After the olympic closing ceremony I spent the rest of the evening
seting up the chapel for my assembly the next morning. It took quite
some time due to the complicated nature of my plans (which can be read
about in my last entry).

Tuesday night was one of those on which I would have liked to write.
Having been wanting to get a haircut ever since crazy hair day and
wanting someone different to try this time I had, in a moment of
madness, agreed to let our two year 9 girls do it. After some badgering
they finally made time for me and it was agreed that I would go to
Falcon dorm early Tuesday evening to meet my hairdressers. When I got
there Maartje was busy playing cards and didn't want to leave so it was
left up to Nolly to do the deed. I took a stool out to the veranda
whilst Nolly went to Auntie Lucie, the dorm-mum, for scissors and a
comb. Nolly, who had previously been all confidence and excitement now
seemed to be a little apprehensive and even nervous about the task at
hand. After some reassurance that her life was not at risk if it didn't
turn out well she decided to get on with it and made the first snip.
After a very short while she started to enjoy herself and was back to
her previous excitement. Unfortunately for me her excitement seemed to
have blinded her as to the goal of the haircut and her actions started
to get increasingly erratic and giggly. At the first point at which she
thought she might have finished I went inside to find a mirror, getting
some rather shocked looks from those in the dorm lounge. When I found
the mirror I realised why. She had made a reasonable start on the sides
but the top was untouched and the fringe had been cut to a rather
ridiculous length making me look, as Adam put it, like a monk. We
returned outside and I instructed Nolly to get rid of the fringe and cut
the top to a reasonable length to match the sides. Unfortunately she
didn't manage this very well and now one side of my fringe looks like
someone attacked me with some clippers whilst the other is still a
little long. The top is actually ok but there's a curly tuft at the
back. The worst part however was when she suddenly decided that the
areas at the sides of my forehead were not in keeping with my receding
hairline and consequentially attempted to erase them; needless to say it
didn't work and looks ridiculous. So now I'm stuck with hair 'a la
Noelle' until further notice. I wore a hat to French class that night
and a wig to breakfast the next morning.

Yesterday I twisted my ankle playing football (for the third time at BCS
- twisting an ankle that is, I play football regularly) so today I've
been hobbling around and trying to keep my foot up as much as possible
to stop the swelling. It's getting better and I spent the afternoon in
the workshop making a second attempt at a bass drum pedal for the
scrap-drum-kit I've been intending to make for over year. It went very
well and once the glue dries I should be able to see if it will work;
then I need to find an old bicycle wheel for the drum.

The dorm late night activity tonight is one of those
run-around-in-the-dark wide games so I think I'll be watching a movie
with some other teachers, my ankle being as it is. I should go and send
these e-mails now as I'm getting hungry.

An Ambitious Assembly

It's Monday morning period three. This morning was the morning of my
first ever school assembly, something I've been preparing for for a
number of weeks now.

Having completely forgotten to prepare a prayer meeting I was supposed
to lead earlier in the term I was determined not to have the same
embarrassment with my slot on the assembly rota. So much so that I
timetabled a whole week of year 7 classes to prepare it. Year 7 were
very pleased to be involved as they'd not done an assembly yet this year
and used to get lots of chances to do them as juniors.

We tried to do a TV game show style science quiz where the audience had
to answer questions to gain points for their team. The stage was set up
like a TV studio with fancy lighting and we'd made a slide show
presentation on the computer with all the questions on. We had a host, a
glamorous assistant, a camera man, an interrupting furry animal, a sound
effects and computer operator and a correspondent to interview the
audience. I was the voice-over man hiding at the back and controlling
the sound desk (well used with a music bed, four microphones, the sound
effects and, my favourite invention, the buzzer.

The buzzer was a 2D cutout in the shape of the interrupting furry animal
which, when hit, would play music. It was a simple push-to-make switch
in the signal path of my mp3 player which was playing snippits of such
music as YMCA, Song 2 (Blur), Dance of The Sugar Plumb Fairy, The
Beegees, and guitar solos from Pink Floyd and Dave Skipper.
Unfortunately I couldn't get the swiss yodelling or the Top Gun theme
from Adam in time.

Well it was all going swimmingly until my computer crashed.
Unfortunately it struggles to run slide show presentations and decided
that along with playing the music bed too this was a bit too much effort
so early in the morning. I was very disappointed and we had to improvise
a little and cut things short but it seems everyone enjoyed themselves
and several teachers commented on the concept and the work which had
gone into it. All the kids want to take the buzzer home!

I need to go and teach year 8 now, less fun.

A Long Day

This blog entry is dedicated to Tammy Nicholson (Nolly will be
pleased...), sorry for taking away your lifeline for so long :o)

Today has been a long one, I knew it would be before it started. In fact
this week so far has had that kind of feel about it. It seems that no
matter how well prepared I thought I was for this week's lessons, when
it comes to the night before and I give my plans the once-over I
invariably end up kicking myself for my stupidity in forgetting to do
some major thing needed for the next day's lesson.

On Tuesdays I normally just teach for three periods in the morning but
today some of the staff had to go to Thies for health checks (something
to do with ID cards I think) and I was expecting to teach double DT with
year 8 this afternoon. Thankfully some lessons were rearranged and I
only had them for period six but it was still a drag. After school I had
two half hour music lessons, one of which was particularly trying and
then this evening we had adult French class.

After tea I tried to crack on with the last bits for tomorrow before
French. Having satisfied myself that I was fairly ready apart from one
class I decided to evaluate some possible teaching videos on 'energy'
for the IGCSE class, five minutes into which I was disrupted by Coralie
who had come to ask if I was coming to French. I hadn't fully heard the
announcement at lunch time and therefore was unaware of the earlier than
usual start and didn't have a clue as to the location. It was good that
she came looking for me.

We watched 'Les Choristes', a French film, at the Moltons house. It's a
very good film and highly recommended although the English subtitles
distracted me, I would have preferred them in French but the disc didn't
have them. I wasn't expecting to watch the whole thing in one sitting
but we did, hence the very late night now. After the film finished I
returned to the video room to continue watching my science videos. I had
to stop at 10:15ish for fear that I would get locked in and so went to
do a bit of photocopying before coming home.

Having done my photocopying and arrived home I realised that I'd been
looking at the wrong lesson plan all along and I didn't need to copy
those pages for tomorrow's lesson. Actually I should have copied a
different book and I should also have tried and prepared three short
demonstrations on pressure in liquids and hydraulics. At this point I'm
in sore need of something to release the building tension and so I
decided to eat a piece of flapjack, only to discover that I should have
finished it last week as it's now dry and not very nice!

Thankfully I have now done all that desperately needs doing tonight
(save putting two documents on memory stick to be printed first thing
tomorrow - I write that by way of a reminder to myself) and I can relax
a little by venting my frustrations at my computer keyboard whilst
listening to music at fairly loud volume on my headphones (it's late and
Johannes has turned in, otherwise it'd be the speakers and maybe lights
out too).

Just yesterday I read a devotional thought based on Matthew 6:34. I've
found it so true so far this week that God gives us just enough
resources for our daily requirements. Often it's tempting to try to do
things in our own strength but I've seen this week just how lost I'd be
if I did. Let's hope I can put it into practice as I prepare for leading
this Sunday's service, an area where I find it all too easy to rest on
my own experience and abilities.

Now I need to sleep (after this song...)

Mid-Term Break

It's a pleasantly cool early evening as I sit here in the setting sun of
Dakar on the roof of the WEC guesthouse.

Half a term has passed but it seems like more. It's been lots of fun and
lots of changes. I feel like I've been really busy so far this term. The
new job definitely has a higher workload at the moment and it's been
taking its toll recently.

It's been great today to be able to relax here in Dakar and do very
little. We went out to the supermarket this morning, the most European
part of Senegal, a moderately sized supermarket with air conditioning
recently rebranded under the French chain 'Casino'. The rest of the day
I've been reading and using the Internet.

Work's been going fairly well recently and I'm feeling on top of things
as far as the preparation goes although I'm aware of many areas in which
I need to improve in the classroom. I had a meeting with Bob & Dee the
other day, the school coordinators, to check up on how things are going.
Bob's my teaching mentor and he came in to observe me during period two
yesterday. Rather amusingly I had booked the school video room for the
wrong day thinking that it must be Friday seeing as it as the last day
of school for the week and there was another class already in there when
we trooped off half way through the lesson to watch something.

It's just a small group of us in Dakar this time round. Adam, Jaclyn and
Tracey are here with me. Adam and Jaclyn are spending most of their time
wedding planning online and Tracey is similarly making the most of the
ADSL with hours of skype and chat to friends and family.

We're going out for some food in a minute so I should probably pack up
and get ready. I uploaded some photos last night and will be putting out
my next monthly update in the next few days: http://andrewdavies.ls26.org.uk

Hopefully I'll find more time and inspiration for blogging in the coming
weeks after the recent lull.

A Happy Planning Coincidence

This must be the first blog entry I've written in over three weeks.
Life's been very busy here. At the moment I'm working every evening from
Monday to Thursday as well as a French class and my staff fellowship
group once a week.

I've been constantly chasing my ideal lesson planning target of being a
whole week ahead of myself i.e. working on lesson plans for the
following week whilst teaching lessons prepared the previous week. It's
been tiring and often unenjoyable but this week I've found myself int he
very happy position of having all of my lessons planned for this current
week and being a substantial way into next week's planning. This is
through no merit of my own but by sheer coincidence as this week's
lesson have been mainly end-of-unit summaries/questions and tests,
requiring less preparation, and next week I have three fewer lessons to
teach due to the Friday being part of the mid-term break.

All the tests have now been sat and marked and I've subsequently
realised a few gaps in my teaching which is a little discouraging. I
have however been making very good progress time-wise and am ahead of
schedule in all the year groups so I can afford to take time later in
the term to fill in the gaps.

I've been making flapjack tonight whilst doing lesson prep. In the
process I realised my kitchen scales are completely useless when I
placed a 200g pack of butter on them only to read a value of 10g back.
It's a good job I weighed the sugar exactly when I bought it from the
school kitchen and the oats came in handily sized and weighted packs. I
had to guess the golden syrup but I've made it enough times before to
make a reasonable estimate I think. It feels strange talking about
'weight' in such an inexact and incorrect manner now that I'm a science
teacher, especially having just taught a unit on gravity to year 9.

Hopefully my planning will continue to go well and I'll be able to take
the whole weekend off work. I could do with some real rest and I'm not
down to perform any duties on Sunday. Even more than that I hope that
I'll be in a position in a week's time to be able to go away for
mid-term break without having to worry at all about the next week's
lessons. I still need to book accommodation for the weekend off; I think
I'll be going to the WEC guesthouse in Dakar as it's cheap and has ADSL.
I'm not a big fan of Dakar shopping so I'll probably just chill at the
guesthouse and enjoy ice cream and fast Internet access.

A Long Monday

Mondays used to go so quickly when it was my day off. Today's been
unusually long though. I've been on lock-up and generator duty today
which means I had to unlock the main school buildings at six o'clock
this morning and I have to lock up again at about 10:30 tonight.

Having got up so early I went to the 6:15 prayer meeting and then came
home again to finish the getting up process and brew a pot of tea before
breakfast in the dining hall.

I used my grapefruit marmalade. It tastes fantastic but unfortunately
didn't even remotely set and therefore eating it is a balancing act
trying to stop it running of the bread. There are 30 jars of it so I
think I might need to buy some pectin or gelatine and try to rectify the
problem or else find another use for it (an interesting dessert for
Sunday lunch maybe!?)

School was good this morning. My problem class, year 8, has been going
much better for the last two lessons.

Afternoons are a bit funny at the moment. My day's very disjointed as my
teaching's usually over by lunch and then siesta onwards is spent at
home trying to plan and prepare lessons. The afternoons can be very long
and not always productive and there's no clear finishing time at the end
of school when you're at home.

The good news is that by staying in tonight I've bought myself time for
the rest of the week. I have only two more lessons to prepare for the
coming week (both on Friday) and so I can hopefully much make bigger
inroads into next week's planning before the weekend. I should also be
able to start devoting more time to the maintenance side of my
responsibilities in the afternoons.

I spent a good half hour this evening just listening to music. I made
the mistake of choosing one of my favourite most relaxing and absorbing
tracks for the start of my evening's playlist and then spent the next 30
minutes just sitting in the soft glow of my lamp letting my favourite
tracks wash over me and enjoying some satisfying resonance somewhere
inside my gut from my little subwoofer.

Whilst enjoying the music I was dwelling on the pleasure which such
things can bring and the levels on which it satisfies. I had the joyous
revelation that even though I don't expect to see most of my favourite
bands and musicians in heaven I can look forward to a sound which
satisfies on an even deeper level, combining all that is so powerful
throughout the history of human music making and redeeming and
perfecting it in the presence of the perfect and glorious God who even
now I'm lost for words to describe as I'd like to.

Now the work is done for the night and I'm onto hot chocolate and Neil
Young. Probably a bit of a strum on the guitar too before I go lock up
and give the keys to Adam who will be on duty for the rest of the week.

Grapefruit Marmalade

The first full school week is over and it's finally my day off again.

It's been a very busy week this week. I've ended up working every
evening to keep up with lesson prep and I have a lot to do tomorrow
before next week starts.

My target at the moment is to get into a routine where all of the coming
week's lessons are prepared before the Monday morning and I can use the
bulk of my prep time during the week to prepare for the following week.
If I can achieve this I think it will lighten my load at the end of the
week, Friday night and Sunday afternoon. I still have to work out how
the maintenance side of things fits together though; theoretically I
should be using a fair amount of my afternoon time to work on
maintenance of electronic equipment, computers and the telephone system.

I had my old quiet time group round for tea last night, Tristan, Katie,
Immanuella and Deborah. We had lots of fun and ate Penguin bars an
played 'cheat'. It was lovely to have them here and they didn't want to
leave at the end and implored me to have them round again soon. I
definitely will but I need to be careful to invite other kids at other
times so as not to develop any sense of 'Uncle Andrew's favourites'.

Today I'm making grapefruit marmalade. It's something I planned to do
since the end of last year. We had grapefruit jam here at school at the
start of last year and I ate it every morning at breakfast but not
everyone liked it and when it ran out they didn't seem especially keen
to make any more any time soon as it had taken so long to finish that
last batch.

I know there were several people who were quite keen on the jam and I
thought that maybe if I made some myself I could use it as birthday
presents for quite a large number of people and also enjoy it myself.

I've never made marmalade from scratch before so I'm a little anxious to
see how it turns out. I'm working from quantities scribbled from my
mum's recipe book at home but I've not got any instructions. I made some
orange marmalade in the summer but that was from 'Mamade' where you are
given the fruit, already reduced down, and you just add water and sugar
and boil it up together.

One worry is that the sugar we get here in Senegal behaves very
different to that which I'm used to at home. Probably because it's from
cane and not beet and I'm not sure how refined it is. The main
difference I've noticed is that it's sweeter and it doesn't melt so
easily. Not a great combination for marmalade making.

It took me an hour and a half to cut the three kilos of grapefruit this
morning and my knife hand is still feeling a little numb nearly three
hours later. I realised later that I could have saved myself a lot of
time and discomfort when I spied the grater in the cupboard and thought
back to the never ending task of cutting the peel into fine strips. A
lesson learned for next time at least.

I bought twice as many grapefruit as I needed by mistake (I had the
wrong number in my head and didn't bother to check it) so I'm doubling
the quantities and shall probably end up with over twenty jars of
marmalade! I do hope it's edible :os

Must go stir it again!

First Day Off

It's been a busy first week and I'd intended to write much earlier than
this but at least now it's my first day off and I have a little time (or
at least I've taken a little time).

My first week teaching science has gone well. I've found that all my
lesson plans were a little too long so far. I probably forgot how long
it takes to do some things over the summer. Science lessons are very
different to teach from ICT ones too. Everyone tells me that's the
better way round for things to be though. I'm not worried about falling
behind schedule yet as the lessons planned would have finished the first
units ahead of schedule anyway.

I still have a lot of prep to do for next week but I think I'll be fine.
I'm trying to keep my Saturday day off as a work free day of rest as
Sundays here often involve duties which can take up a large part of the day.

The kids are settling in well and the new staff seem to be doing equally
well. I just went for a walk around the compound and dropped by the
dorms; Saturday was proceeding as normal, few kids in the dorm lounges,
some complaining of boredom but generally everyone's doing what they
normally would have done last year and is happy doing it.

It is a bit strange not being in the dorm. I do miss being there with
the kids and just enjoying their company and conversation. I could
easily go and hang out there but I think this is a very important time
for the kids' development of relationships with the new staff and to be
honest I've not really had much time to go and sit in a dorm lounge anyway.

Tomorrow's our first church service of the school year and I'm involved
in leading. Not too much pressure as I'm mainly playing bass but I might
be telling a short parable too if I can find something suitable.

It's rained a lot this week.

5:1 Senegal

I've just woken up from a little Sunday afternoon snooze on the couch to
find rain outside yet again. It seems to be raining more frequently now,
we had a really noisy storm yesterday morning with thunderclaps right
overhead.

Hopefully it'll clear up in 20 minutes or so as we are all s'posed to be
going to the beach this afternoon.

We were going to go yesterday but some other plans started to be made
for alternative uses of a Saturday afternoon. One of these plans
involved a trip to Dakar to watch Senegal play Burkina Faso in a
qualification match for the 'African Nations Cup', to be held early next
year.

A group of nine of us went in with the school minibus, picking up four
more at the WEC guesthouse in Dakar.

Tickets for Senegalese international football seem to be fairly easy to
get hold of in comparison to international football back home. We paid
£2 each for ours and sat on concrete steps with numbers to mark each
alloted space but we could have paid just £1 and stood in the terraces.
There aren't many proper seats but if we'd wanted them it would have
only set us back £10 a piece.

Getting into the ground was somewhat more difficult. Whilst we were
allocated gate numbers on our tickets we were still made to queue
outside the stadium walls regardless of where we were sat. After walking
around the stadium and hopping from queue to queue in the hope of
getting in quicker we finally settled on a fairly short looking queue by
the entrance for the terraces where we were assured we could enter with
our £2 tickets.

Eventually we got through the stadium walls and also through our proper
gate to our seating area where we settled down, just in time to see the
teams walking out onto the pitch.

We were sat next to a very large and noisy drum group and a guy with
dual air horns charged by a large metal lever which he was pumping away
on, also very noisy. The atmosphere was great but I was surprised not to
have ringing in my ears that night because it was so loud (for some
reason I chose to leave my earplugs in England for my second year here).

The pre-match crowd antics were fairly standard for a European game, a
mexican wave a few times round the stadium and the familiar chant of
'ole ole ole ole'.

We had a fairly decent view, looking out across a corner of the pitch.
For the first half Senegal were shooting towards us and it seemed like
the crowd's cheering always went up a notch when the ball came to
El-Hadj Diouf in the final third of the field.

Senegal were definitely in control for the first twenty minutes which
culminated in the first goal after about 15 minutes. For the rest of the
second half they seemed to lose the plot a little and Burkina got an
equaliser looking likely to score again if it weren't for the half time
whistle (which we had no chance of hearing thanks to the drum group
beside us).

After the half time break things were back as they should be, Senegal
dominant, scoring again after ten or fifteen minutes and continuing to
attack throughout the rest of the game giving us the final score of
Senegal five, Burina Faso one.

After the game we made our way through the jubilant crowds back to the
minibus and headed back the the guesthouse and then LGM for food and ice
cream.

We finally arrived back at school at around 11:30pm.

Rain

It's raining!

That's not so unusual for this time of year but this summer has been
quite a dry one so far. And it's not just raining, it's torrential, the
only kind which really counts here.

We've just had a talk from Wally Seck, on of the locals from Kinniabour
who has a little English and German too. He was talking to us about
Sereer culture and village life. It was very interesting.

I think I'm one of a very small number who braved the rain and ran to
check their windows. If you leave your windows open during heavy rain
you can end up with some very soggy belongings.

Johannes has just come home, also looking wet but not as wet as I was.

I've not got anything timetabled this afternoon so I think I'll continue
to work on the school amplifier in the chapel. It's been an ongoing
project since term one last year. I finally diagnosed the cause (I hope
correctly) last Easter and the parts needed were ordered then but have
only just found their way here to the school. I started on it yesterday
and initial signs were promising (at least the fuse didn't blow with the
new component as it did with the old).

Another reason for working in the school-block is that Ruth said she
would be doing a dance in the primary wing. Whether she was serious or
not remains to be seen but it's intriguing nonetheless.

My pot of tea looks nearly brewed. I'm taking advantage of the cool that
the rain brings to drink a hot drink in comfort. So far I've not drunk
tea in the dining room but only in people's houses, perhaps I'm still
affected mentally by my experiences of dining room tea this time last year.

Time for a spot of tea and maybe a ginger nut.

Full House

As predicted my house has changed in an instant; it's no longer 'mine',
it's 'ours'. My new housemate Johannes arrived yesterday night at about
11:30.

He's a year older than I thought (19) and seems a very nice chap. His
English is not great but he makes a good effort and can hold a
conversation fairly well.

He seems very happy to sit in the lounge and make small talk which has
been nice.

Not being the worlds greatest conversationalist myself I sometimes worry
about my own first impression on occasions such as this. Although
they're not so important in the long run they can have a big effect on
relationships for a good few months (depending on how memorable the
impression is).

I remember last year it took me quite some time to realise a
subconscious spirit of competition between myself and Adam (entirely one
way). Because we were the only single men on site I felt that everything
I did would be measured against him, especially with me being the new guy.

I hope I can avoid such silliness this year and develop healthy
relationships with all the new staff quickly, as well as improving
relationships with existing staff.

I'm conscious that even after just a few days I still feel a little like
Johannes is moving into 'my' house. I hope that he can feel at home and
make the house his own. I've deliberately tried not to move too much of
my stuff into the lounge and I've not done any decorating of any sort.
Hopefully we can find something to put up though as the lounge is quite
bare!

I'm also wondering how to approach ownership of food and other such
items. So far I've tried to communicate a freedom to use anything
Johannes finds in the kitchen but this may need adjusting once he's had
a chance to stock up and once we see how our lifestyles fit together.

We will be keeping very different hours once term starts anyway as he
will be in the dorms and I shan't be.

A Safe But Wet Arrival

I'm now very pleased to be writing from my new room here at BCS.

I'm not so pleased to say that I'm writing on battery power as we've
just had a power cut.

The plane finally landed in Dakar at about 1:45 local time last night.
We were delayed a total of 11 hours I think.

The good thing was that we met the De Souzas at Lisbon airport and there
was quite a crowd of us in the minibus on the way home.

I finally got to bed at 4:30 and slept surprisingly well considering the
new bed and the humidity.

The humidity was (and is) very noticeable but thankfully it's been
fairly cool so far.

It turns out the rains never properly started here over the summer.
There were only two storms of note. There's hope that things are really
kicking in now though as we drove through a very impressive storm last
night and there's been heavy rain this lunchtime followed by rumblings
and threatening skies right now.

Last night was a big one. I stepped out of the van to try and see how
wet Lesley's suitcase was getting on the roof-rack and when I got back
in the van it was like I'd jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed
(fun!). There was cool lightning too. Every so often our surroundings
would light up and we'd see the sillhouettes of baobabs on the horizon
against the bright white sky.

I've spent this morning trying to get my room into order but I'm finding
it very sweaty work. In fact I just broke into a forehead sweat brushing
my teeth! It's quite fun really, I'm enjoying the novelty at the moment
and I got used to it last year so it doesn't bother me (although Ruth
and Tracey were amused by my shininess at lunch).

I found out at lunch time that I'm now officially a full time teacher.
That will mean no dorm duties and a Saturday day off. I'm disappointed
in a sense that I won't be in the dorm officially but I'll definitely
hang out there when I can and I plan to be as available as possible in
the first few days to help the Eagle kids settle in with new dorm
parents and dorm helpers (whilst trying not to tread on their toes).

I had thought initially that I'd like to be a full time teacher this
year but as time went on I realised I really wanted to stay in the dorm
too. It'll be interesting to see how the two roles compare (although
comparison of jobs is impossible here really and a fairly fruitless and
even divisive exercise at times). It will mean I have the house to
myself a lot at times which will be nice.

I should go now before I use too much battery as I'm not sure when power
will return (it's too expensive to run the generator when so few people
are on site and no real work is being done).

Brussels Airport - again!

A year later and I'm back here again. For slightly longer than expected this time though.

All was running smoothly. Lesley and I had seats together from Birmingham to Brussels and were patiently awaiting boarding for our onward flight to Dakar when we heard the dreaded announcement (actually only Lesley heard it as I was in the toilets). Our flight had been cancelled!

Apparently they'd discovered problems with the landing gear on the plane that was to carry us and it was not safe to fly.

Passengers for Dakar and Monrovia were split up and taken away for further information, in three languages of course, English being the final with the smallest audience (us and one American man).

We were told that they had found a solution to take us all on to Dakar. We would be flying on to Lisbon and then from there on to Dakar with TAP. The connecting flight is at 1700, we received this information at 1000.

Boarding passes were taken in and meal vouchers were handed out with the instructions to meet again at 1300 so we trundled off to find something to amuse ourselves for two hours before eating lunch.

At 1300 we were given new boarding cards for our onward flights and told to proceed to terminal A where we could pick up another snack voucher at the Brussels Airlines desk.

As the day has gone on we've been gradually descending into some kind of state just above sleepwalking. I tried to wake Lesley up by challenging her to a sudoku race using a puzzle on the back of a freebie magazine but once I'd won she seemed to lose any wits she had gained by the exercise and quickly started to flag again.

Having just awoken from a short semi-snooze we're about to locate our new gate number where we'll be hopefully boarding in half an hour or so.

We should arrive in Dakar at 0100 tonight all being well. It's a shame not to arrive at school in the daylight but the upside is we no longer need to worry about fitting both our luggage into a taxi as Bob is coming in with the minibus to pick up the De Souzas (new staff) who will be on our TAP flight.

Should really move now, Lesley's looking bored/impatient.