Miam Miam

This is Fari - 3 years old - closely examining her dinner. (The rice I'm eating every day all looks the same to me...) She comes round to her great grandmother's, Mimi, everyday to eat. The three of us sit around the table, and get served by the housemaids, who then eat afterwards, outside.

Fari is incredibly lively - and runs in circles with delight after each dinner - and she's got a bright future ahead. Her family is dedicated to her education. She is already going to prep school to learn how to read, and her great grandmother hopes that one day she'll be a pharmacist like her grandfather and father.

Tomorrow I'm off for a week to the region of Fatick in the south (which is currently a mere 30 degrees at night), visiting schools where 100 children start at 5 and only 9 finish at 16. I'll be finding out that one of the reasons is because of the violence of the teachers. This is also a place where if they're lucky, people have 3 decent meals a week (I've stocked up on biscuits). It's not because their harvests are failing due to climate change - it's because their land has been 'grabbed' by foreign companies for biofuel production.

It will be an interesting trip...