Hotel Mermoz Saint-Louis

I took my first trip away this weekend to a place called Desert de Lompoul. We left on Saturday morning in a 4x4 and stopped off at a few villages on the way...amazing to see how the rural people live! Such a slow and peaceful way to exist! Then we had a picnic on the beach and did some essential sunbathing while we waited for the tide to go down allowing us to drive along the seafront to ...

First few days here and everything is good...overwhelming at first but now I am settling in. my host family are lovely and luckily the dad speaks english!!!! starting my french lessons today so hopefully things will get easier in that respect:. Did my first load of laundry today...regretting taking white clothes...they will never be clean again! there is sand all over the place! as well as goats, street vendors, and children!!! almost out of time..will write again soon! AU REVOIR

Wow, I can't believe it has been over a month since I last wrote. I have just been so busy with work and then I organised a trip for 14 people (I know it's hard to believe) so I haven't had much time for checking e-mails etc. I have now finished my placement at the school and with the adults, had my last classes 2 weeks ago. It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone, I have loved teaching them and seeing the improvement in all of them. I am really going to ...

Have settled into my new job as teacher very well, I think. I am working at 2 high schools, one class of 11-14 year olds and another final year class; I also have an adult teaching class twice a week where I am teaching beginners; and hopefully sometime this week I will be going to the business school to teach Business English to 1st year uni students, probably between 22 and 24. This is the project I am most excited about, but also very scared at the same time ...

... any obvious stains off and making sure that you have a good strong detergent is always a good thing! I have also decided that my feet are going to be permanently dirty no matter how many cold showers I take or how much I wash them. Wearing flip-flops and walking through sand all the time does tend to have that effect on your feet. It seems that nearly all the volunteers have the same problem so I don't feel so ...

... be possible to transfer to Ghana. I would be gutted if she left but I understand completely her reasons for doing it. I have now learnt the best way of uploading photos to my blog so hopefully you should have photos of the kids and Mauritania in this entry and some of the other entries will have photos as well. The photos in other entries may not be anything to do with what I have said but at least you can all see where I am and the family I am staying with.

... supplies are running low and the rest is in her bag somewhere in the world. Hopefully though something will be able to be done so she can stay. Before we realised that her bag may never turn up, me and Lucy were discussing taking Wolof lessons, the local language. Although many people speak French here there are a few members of the family who don't and none of the kids speak French. I think it really would be a great investment and would make it easier ...

... of its members to write them. Since it was my first time my teammates thought I should take on of the places so I am now trying really hard to think of fun questions. Tomorrow I am going to one of the bird reserves here in Senegal, organised by the office. It is meant to be spectacular so I am really looking forward to it. Apart from that, nothing much else is happening here - still v hot and getting hotter each day!

Set smack bang in the middle of a stunning stretch of the Senegal River the island of St Louis is so striking. I will save you the history lesson(though i know Ames would appreciate it!)but basically it is French colonial city so steaped in a strangely French feeling echoed in every area from food to language and architecture too. The big, blue and white building on the banks of the island are in decay but this ...