One of the things that has surprised me most on this trip to Ziguinchor is how desperately dull life is. The days drag by unmarked by the usual routines of work, so that any day could be Saturday, or Wednesday. Mealtimes are the only thing that bring any sense of time into the day, although dinner is now a kind of spawn-like porridge that is nothing if not monotonous. At night I can not sleep; I simply haven’t done enough during the day.

It was very different for me when I lived and worked here, and I was constantly busy, interviewing peanut traders, writing articles, going on trips to visit remote villages. When I look around the place now, when I have none of that going on, I can’t understand how this was ever my life. It seems so foreign.

A couple of days of not working- and I even have books and writing to keep me company- and my will to do anything has been sapped. I can’t think of anything to set my alarm for in the morning, and the afternoon is too hot to do anything but sleep. The evening is just a long downhill run to dinner time, and beyond that to the moment when sleep might just catch me. It’s no wonder that nothing ever happens here; nothing comes of nothing.