Kai lek! (Come and eat!). OK, so it's not your typical greeting, but it's pretty frequently used as such here! Food and hospitality are very much part of the culture here, and absolutely everyone here tries to feed you, especially if you happen to be around at lunchtime. This is the case to such an extent that when we went to the coast last weekend, we dropped in at an art shop and weren't allowed to leave until we'd eaten lunch! We've also had the cyber cafe...

Salut !(I'm realising that I'm soon going to run out of local greetings, I'm going to have to get more creative…)The state schools here are still on strike, so my temporary move to the private school has become permanent.My thursdays and fridays have been consecrated to giving computer lessons in small groups, which all the children are very excited about, and I spend the rest of my time helping out with one of the older classes and taking the odd maths or gram...

Bonjour! Hope you are all well. I had to laugh last week when I saw on the bbc website that UK teachers were on strike.....for all of one day. Over here we have just finished our 3rd week of strikes, and no-one knows if they are going to continue into next week or not! In the meantime I have been temporarily transferred to a small private school. After spending the first few days with the preschool (who all spoke better french than the few primary classes ...

Salamalekum!Na nga def?Firstly, thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes!(Kieran, I assume you mean you're looking forward to me getting home…although read on, hope might be more fitting!)To celebrate I went out to lunch with another volunteer, Rebecca, at a very posh restaurant (which cost us less than a tenner each…).Well, I have almost survived my two weeks in Senegal and am just about settled in.The first week was taken up with our orient...

Salaama!Hope you all had a great Easter.I am now safely installed in my host family in Dakar, Senegal, where I'll be spending the next 2 months.But more about that later...I had an awesome time in Mozambique and was very sad to leave.As well as meeting some brilliant people (as always) I had great fun interacting with all the kids and helping out where I could.The 3 main activities I got involved in were... the horses, the village feeding and the clinic.By far my...