Is this why they have mirrors in elevators?

I'm not even sure what to say about this. Caboolture High French lessons did not equip me for Senegalese hotels with a penchant for dermatological correctness.

French lessons are a priority this year - most of my work is in Francophone countries and I'm tired of not being able to ask questions. And even when I know the right words, my pronunciation lets me down.

Recently I was asked for my order by a waiter in a restaurant in Dakar. I ordered soup and told him I wasn't particularly hungry ("je n'ai pas beaucoup de faim"). What came out was "I'm not much of a woman" (faim, femme - tomayto, tomato).

After a startled moment, he asked if I'd like wine. I'm still not sure if this was to drown my sorrows or rekindle my appetite.

Recycling at its beautiful best

Happy 2013 and happy almost-year-of-the-snake! It's been a while since my last post (thanks to David, Mike and Paul for pointing this out - you guys are so bossy), so I'll kick off the new year with something very close to my heart.

At the end of last year I visited a wonderful bead 'production plant' - hard to describe because it was a lovely outdoor affair along a dusty dirt road, with a riot of bottles, kilns and paints combining to make the most amazing beads.

Most Ghana beads are actually made from old bottles, windows and broken beads that have been ground up and re-fired in home-made pottery moulds with a cassava tree 'wick' for a hole.

Once the beads are cool, they're rolled by hand to perfect the shape and then polished in these shallow stone dishes with sand and water.

Needless to say, I'm doing what I can for the Ghanaian bead economy.