First thing is first, I know you said I would complain about it when I got here (Mum) but it is HOT! (:

For the first couple of days we stayed in Dakar with Mr T. We arrived during a power cut, so that means no airconditioning. It was not the best idea to travel in jeans. We then found out that powercuts happen all the time here, something to do with the government not having enough money. But I could be wrong. In Dakar we went to the beach and had a look around the town. Mostly it is too hot to do anything during the day. Then yesterday we travelled to Karolack. It hotter here then in Dakar but as it is the rainy season, so that cools the place down a little bit. Although, I'm being eaten alive by mosquitos. There are a lot more here then in Dakar.

Today we started our Wolof Lessons. We have been learning how to respond when people greet us. We also get a lot of shouts of Toubab! (Bascially means white person). We have a joke going about how funny it would be if back home, we went around shouting Blackman! everytime we saw a person of different colour. They do it in a kind of friendly way, if that makes sense...? Just a way of acknowleding us. It's great when you meet someone here because you have to shake their hands and accompanied by Ca va? or Salaam Alekoum. I want to be able to speak Wolof fluently because it is a little frustrating not being able to be part of the conversations that happen all the time. We spend a lot of time sitting in groups outside, chatting. It's really living the hard life! Everything in Senegal takes ages to get done, I have a theory that because it is so hot people don't want to get any where quickly, it saves them sweating unnessisarily.

We have been eating lots of rice and fish, and a little couscous as well. The food here is amazing and surprisingly not to spicy for me! (I've tried everything I've been offered!) I even helped Mr T's wife cook chibouchen! (rice and fish!) the national dish here. I'm constantly thirsty, people here don't seem to need to drink as much as I do. They don't even have a drink with meals. So I walk around with my Platapus! (thanks again Mum!) We also ate an amazing pasta dish in Dakar. Every meal is served in a giant dish and every one kneals around it on the floor with a spoon eating from their "patch". When you have finished eating you just leave you spoon on the side of the dish and say "lerna" Means it was good! and then you get up and go back to what you where doing before the meal started. We have had tea here and coffee! All yummy. The coffee and tea is all made with a lot of sugar so it tastes amazing.

We went to the market yesterday, it's a little like Fes, Morocco. All the stands and packed quite close together and its a little dark. You have to weave yourway through all the different stalls. I would have got lost it I wasn't able to follow the others. It was a lot of people coming up to us trying to get us to buy things. They see our skin colour and then they automatically think we are rich! We got a lift back from the market on mini motorbikes scooters, but they have a different name. They are crazy drivers, i don't understand how it works, to me they just seem to honk their hornes a lot and drive and weave in and out of the other cars and holes in the road. A couple of times i thought we were going to slip of the kirb, which would have meant that i would have landed in the puddle that appeared after a heavy rain earlier in the morning. They literarly drive on a 10cm ledge and dodge in and out of other things in the way. It was amazing fun though!

That's all for now, I can't wait until I get to my own project, although it will be sad to leave the others behind. I meet my host, Amadou, in Dakar (he lives there in the summer to avoid the rainy season in Joal). So I am excited to see where I will live in Joal. He is lovely! Even phone me up yesterday to see how I was doing. I wasn't feeling well when we went to his house on Sunday night for dinner. That made me feel really welcome. He also found out that I speak German and he said straight away that I would be teaching German in Joal as there is only one fluent German teacher there and they are in desperate need of another one! I hope it is only conversational German because I don't know if my writing is up to scratch. Now, I think I have said everything I can think of!

Until Next time, leggie,leggie!

Julia x