Day 3 in Abene. Thursday 26 March

Im alive and well. Though I appear to have forgotten my punctuation.Im writing from an internet cafe witha very strange keyboard. Not querty. But azerty. Never seen it before.

I have lots to catch upon and the light is fading so will have to come back tomorrow. But i wanted to let friends and family back home know i am well and landed safely.

It is very African... a complete change from London, as expected. There have been lots of discussions around the land we want tobuild the Abene Karantaa school on. But it seems we will lose the land because the land owner wants to have it built on now, otherwise he needs to sell it. As we haven,t raised enough money yet to pay for all the building costs we are going to lose the land which is a realshame. Diappointing, but we still have his support and he is keen for us to succeed.

I can hardly see the keys to write now.
We still hqve lots of options and I willsoon be talking to local teachers about possibilities of using exisiting structures for classes. There is a lot of support for the project in the village.

I have a mobile nu,ber here in Senegal. I,ve sent a couple of texts which don,t seemto have got though. But for those who want to text or call, hopefully we will be in touch soon.

I hope to write more tomorrow withmore light and a better keyboard to speed upmy typing. sorry it;s a bit dry, no exclamation marks.

My love to all back homeand big thanks to all who were with me at my 30th birthday party on Saturday; and to those who couldn,t make ittoo.
C xx

One week to go...

I've set up this blog to keep a journal of my time in Senegal.

With one week to go before the flight, my bag is already packed and I've just added the last few items I think I'll need for the next three months. It's a bit hit and miss as I've only spent 8 days in West Africa before.

I know I won't have much access to electricity and that I'll be staying in a traditional round-house in a friend's compound. I've packed a candle holder for the evenings without electric lighting and a wind up torch that I'm hoping will also provide enough power to charge up my mobile phone more than for just 3 minutes.

I'm counting down now. Getting excited and a little bit nervous. But what's the worst that can happen?!

I'm looking forward to living in and experiencing a different culture from the inside. I know I'll have some tough times from my previous experience living in Spain for 5 years. There'll be times when I'll feel isolated and will want to go home.

But I'm also expecting good times and am hoping to learn a lot from the experience and become a trusted part of the community in order for the Abene Karantaa project to be a success. I strongly believe that where you live and how much money you have should not be a barrier to opportunity.