Tanalaa tun? / Jam tun.

Just a few words in the murmering song of the Pulaar dialect that is spoken in southern Senegal. Basically 'How are you?' and 'I'm fine,' though 'Jamm tune' seems to be an appropriate response to just about any question in Pulaar. No, this post is not in fact going to explain much of anything about the week long trip from which I returned, one day early, last night. It's actually just intended to let anyone who is desperately worried (sorry to single you out Mum and Dad) know that I am still alive.

Its second slightly more devious purpose, in classic Ewan style, is to plead for an extension on the trip report. My excuses? I'm still trying to comprehend my week in traditional, remote, and dare-I-say-it mountainous southeast Senegal as I navigate the newly unfamiliar landscape of urban, Westernized Dakar. It's surprising how easily round thatched rooves, the sound of millet being pounded, and a horizon of acacias replaced in my memory the mounds of half-finished apartments, the filth of traffic jams, and the flashing colours of the boubous worn by wealthy Dakaroise.

(waking up in the campment of Abduhl, a Peul boy watching his family's herd of goats and cows) I can say that the South wasn't nearly as hot as constant comments had led us to believe. In fact, our sweat-habituated bodies sometimes shivered on their mats when cool night winds blew down from the Fouta Djaloum mountains in Guinea. I've posted these photos either stave off your demands or to whet your appetites, depending on how you see it. For my own sake as well as yours, I'm going to put aside time to write up some of the trip's important stories later this week.

(Jenise and Maren with Doba Diallo, our guide and friend [at right in white T-shirt] and some of the younger members of the village of Dandé)