daily photo niger

not good at good-byes

Tomorrow I leave Niger, after two years of this being my home. I will miss the soft handshakes and the goats on the road, and my floor being mopped everyday by someone whose floor I should mopping, she is so gracious and wonderful. I will miss sunsets at the Grand Hotel and the giraffes and the hippos in the river. As a long-time resident of the Pacific Northwest, I will miss waking up to bright blue skies, day after day. The list of people I will miss, the best part of this place, is too long to start.

I keep thinking of the words to Eddie Vedder's song, from his new-ish Into the Wild CD:
Sure as I'm leaving
sure as I'm sad,
I leave this place knowing,
love has no ceiling.

You can visit me at place2place.blogs.com. I hope to join the ever-so-talented Irina and I will attempt a Moscow photo-a-day, (if the good people at City photo-a-day will allow me) after a summer in Northern California and Portland, Oregon, my homeland.

This website has been therapy for me, thank you for the love.

bracelets of hope

Between Typepad reconfiguring their end, and the wind blowing down the tower that provides my internet access on my end, I've really been falling down on the blog. Desole.

The other day I visted the fistula clinic at the National Hospital. Fistula injuries occur during protracted, obstructed childbirth. They result in incontinence, which in turn results in the affected women being shunned by their families. The injury is simple to repair, but requires some time to heal; currently there are only 6 doctors in Niger who perform the surgery. Fistulas would be simple to prevent if there were access to emergency medical services. The women undergoing the procedures often need more than one procedure and rather than travel back and forth to their villages, end up living in the courtyard at the clinic for months as they heal from their surgeries

Some ladies who currently are in residence make things to sell to make money. I'm sporting their handiwork on both arms as I write -- beaded bracelets. The money they earned will go directly to the women themselves, providing them with a bit of income to spend as they like, and by this I mean daily necessities like fabric and soap.

hot season vegies

backyard today

baskets

My SIL is visiting and she took this photo in Ouaga of a basket selling lady and her son.