Rings

digital travelogue: hiking, fresh grilled fish and sunset on a dune

Variety and Flavor on Vacation

Captions to follow...

photo melange

These are all out of order from the last month and a half..

You will find a few edibles, the cofounders of the socks and sandals club, good-looking co-workers, and friends of mine...

"There is something about open air that I just can't get enough of", you may have read in my previous blog. That's all very well and dreamy, all-natural and flowery...but on the other hand, let's be honest. It may just be that I am a bit lazy and simply find very little desire to go inside the office to work. I turn out to be very creative in ways of procrastination and avoidance when it comes to that on a beautiful day. In many ways I think I was made to live outdoors more than I do, but I was also made quite human and humans like to get out of things they aren't motivated to do...

okay, enough blogging. off to the office. (case in point :)

Fruit

(a view from on top of big rocks in Zinder)

We eat very well around here. The daily allotment we are given and that we pool collectively for food is far above what one can spend in a rural town like this. A large portion of our food is brought from the city and we enjoy the luxury of fresh vegetables almost daily. So I can't stomach it when I hear complaints or bickering over food. Especially when we have paid cooks who prepare our meals and wash dishes.

But fruit is another thing. That is a very limited luxury and a recent trip to Zinder, a lovely historical town 6 hours from here, reminded me of it. Fruit there can be found in carts and on street corners, sold from basins on children's heads, and found sliced on the table at every meal! It's not completely tropical there either, but they are much closer to Nigeria, where fruit is abundant.

Fruit! brings gladness, sweetness, refreshment to life. I never realized it before, in this tangible, physical way. Yes, food has biological properties that nourish and construct our bodies, but there is undeniably another aspect that is furnishes: delight!

The trip to Zinder was enjoyable and helpful for our work, but I remember mostly …the fruit. Today I munched a precious banana that I had squirrled away in my room; I let its perfect ripeness please my tongue and awaken my tastes and fill me with some physical joy.

Sanctuary

(one corner of the table on Christmas evening: Italian, Congolese, French, Belge...)

You might be surprised where a sanctuary pops up, just when you need it. It was Christmas evening here in Niger, I had spent much of the day preparing food for our dinner together, darkness had fallen and time was past to be at the other house with my dishes. A teammate said she'd wait for me while I got showered and ready (what fun to have something to get dressed for and go to!). My part of the house was blessedly empty…and in a flash, those four cement walls of my bathroom became a sanctuary that rang with the carols of Christmas. I belted them in breathless freedom, relieved to recognize my own voice singing from the heart, careless if anyone heard me- life is too short to worry about that. So I sang and sang and joined the rest of the world giving back the song that the angels sang.

The following day, my bed, canopied with mosquito netting, became a sanctuary. A guitar, a hymnal and solitude eased my voice into song and I celebrated the Advent. It has been a good Noel here in Niger.

Knees

Knees are used a lot here. Five times a day they bend to the ground in prayer, facing east. Knees suspend the squatting cook by her fire and cradle an infant in the back of a bouncing vehicle. Knees conjoin the walking leg bones that travel formidable distances across the Sahel. I know of no one who has had ACL surgery here. I think I'm with Hippocrates when he said "walking is man's best medicine". Knees also sport an array of colors. Here is a landcuiser full of knees. You can probably guess which ones are mine…