Changing weather and broken camera

The weather has begun to change over the last few days, with a storm on Wednesday night (wind and thunder, but not much rain) and to-day, Sunday, being the first really overcast day since I arrived, with some rain this morning. However most days have still been hot, sunny and humid, so I’ve been trying out a couple of places to cool off. On Friday I went to the Club Atlantique in Mermoz. It’s a short taxi ride from my apartment, has a nice pool, tennis courts and a small bar with a TV which was, as I had hoped, showing tennis from Wimbledon. So I ordered a beer and settled in front of the TV to watch Andy Murray’s semi-final against Roddick. He lost of course - oh well, there’s always next year – but console myself with a dip in the pool which was lovely. Yesterday I tried out the Olympic pool – this is a large (50m) public pool in the Point E area, with a huge grandstand and full set of diving boards – all very impressive and again a lovely chance to cool off.
On the way to the Olympic pool I went through the campus of the main Dakar university (Cheikh Anta Diop University), with Cyrille and Carole – she’s studying medicine there and is waiting for her 3rd year results – good luck Carole! The university campus is large and modern looking and rather impressive.
Yesterday morning I was taking some pictures along the corniche, when I realised there was a problem with my camera, which I don’t think will be easy to fix, so I’m not going to be able to post as many pictures of life here in Dakar as I’d hoped. However to give you some more of a flavour I’ve included a couple of pics of the colourful local fishing boats (pirogues) taken before the camera gave up the ghost. I will also try and get some using my phone, but not so easy to use!