[Paddlewise] Starting a Kayaking Center in Senegal

I live in Dakar, Senegal and have been working with a fellow paddler,  
Ousmane Fall, who is a member of Senegal's national kayak team (they have 6 team  
members) to start a small kayaking center in Dakar. 
 
Ousmane has conducted a few training classes for expatriates using  my Impex 
Montauk and folding Kahuna and two small plastic kayaks  (old and not very 
good) we rent from a local dive club.  Ousmane is  not a certified instructor 
(there are none in Senegal) and the training is  still pretty rudimentary, but 
there is a lot of interest in learning to kayak  given the wonderful coastline 
here and the rivers that are all over  the country.  The classes (we give 3 2 
hour classes for 4 students per  class about once every 3 weeks) fill up within 
a few days and there are always  people we turn away, regretfully.  
 
Now that Ousmane has realized the amount of interest in learning to kayak,  
renting kayaks to play around in the cove, and going on day trips, he is  
really anxious to set up a small kayaking center on the beach that  his village 
uses for fishing and swimming.  The center would be  for profit since in Africa, 
a non-profit would probably have all of its  money stolen.  Ousmane hopes the 
center will help supplement  the fairly low income the Lebu fisherman in his 
village earn fishing the  coast of Senegal, and he hopes it will increase the 
interest in  kayaking among Senegalese.  He also wants to start training 
younger boys  and girls so that the Senegalese team will one day be as good as the 
South  Africa team.  
 
I've decided to try to help Ousmane get this started -- I also  like the idea 
of getting people interested in the sport and his beach  is just begging to 
be a kayaking center.  But, I'm not so much of  an expert myself.
 
We have one major problem which is that there are practically no kayaks in  
Senegal (only a few sit-on-tops at the hotels) and shipping costs to  Senegal 
are outrageous.  We found one man who can make very simple  fiberglass kayaks 
-- 14" with no hatches or anything else really -- even the  foot pedals are 
just an iron bar that fits in holes in the fiberglass.  He  has 4 molds and they 
must be dozens of years old.  We'd probably buy 2  small sit-on-tops (for 
kids) from him and 4 of the 14" sea kayaks to start with  since they are better 
than nothing.  
 
The other issue is gear.  I'll be home for vacation in May/June and  hope to 
buy some used gear to bring back with me -- paddles, skirts, PFDs,  safety 
gear -- again, shipping this type of gear would be really expensive so I  hoping 
to buy what I need and carry it back with me on the plane.
 
So, I'm in search of people who are much more experienced paddlers  than I am 
to answer the follow questions and provide their advice on the  project:
 
- Do any of you know of any good training materials in French for Ousmane  to 
improve his teaching skills?  
- Do you have any suggestions on where we could direct this kayak maker to  
update his molds for his kayaks to possibly get better kayaks from  him?
- Do you have any suggestions on where I can buy used paddling gear?
- Do you any pointers on getting something like this  started?  Commons 
problems, mistakes?  Things we should watch out  for?  What works?
 
I'd be very happy to for everyone's advise on this -- please  don't be shy!  
 
Thanks!
 
Beth Payne
Impex Montauk
Dakar, Senegal  
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