Tuesday 7 April – Day 15

I got through to Abdoulaye Diao this morning. He is the regional co-ordinator for Tostan in Ziguinchor. We have arranged to meet in Abene or Dianna next week, when he will be visiting Moussou’s Kariba Dianna class which his organisation funds.I will call Moussou to let her know. I am happy to be making a good start in gathering information for the assessment. I would like to find out how they operate as they may be a good model for other projects funded by Abene Karantaa.

I am also starting to think about people who could make up a management team for projects here. Depending on the results of the assessment it will probably be necessary to set up a charity registered here in Senegal to work in partnership with the UK based Abene Karantaa charity. I am gradually getting to know people and work out who might be able to commit to working on the project.

Mandinka is a cool language. I’ve learnt that there are several different dialects. The Mandinka spoken in Abene is Foñi Jabang. I have got to the end of the Mandinka course book Danko leant me, which has made a big difference to me. I think they may be interested in it at the SOAS library as I would have found it really useful when I was checking out their Mandinka materials, most of it produced at least fifty years ago.

I haven’t been studying French very much, concentrating on getting a good base in Mandinka first, as my mediocre French seems to be enough to get by at the moment with help from friends here who speak enough English. My French has been good enough to manage a few phone calls to Tostan, despite my ears nearly exploding with the strain of trying to understand on the phone. I’ve got a long way to go, but get a huge sense of achievement at the end of each phone call. Followed by high fives from whoever I tell. Lulu, ning lulu, tang. Five and five, ten!