the London Eye

The London Eye is actually a famous tourist attraction by the river that gives you a bird's eye view from an enormous ferris wheel type contraption. My London eye is more street level:

I walk or bus this street to get anywhere in central London.



If you take a seat on the upper level of the bus, it is a great way to see where you are going and get a view of the streets.



This is a corner I will see each week when I arrive at class.



And this view in the other direction.



I am back to the familiar (but still novel) black, loamy earth, color-brimming blooms...



and grass!

Parting images of Niger

My team of colleagues from Niger, Ivory Coast and Mali (L-R)- the supervision team for the health/nutrition centers, all four of us are nurses. This is a rare moment we are all together...on my last day. I am dressed in a gift from one my health center teams- of beautiful Tuareg garments. Many colleagues didn't recognize me! Most everyone we worked with were either Haoussa, Tuareg, or Peulh- each group distinct and beautiful. The tranquility and interdependence between the groups is notable.



I was part of an incredibly international team who struggled and succeeded to get along. This is after one of the Sunday brunches that we started



I held an outdoor party to say goodbye to friends there. We got the supplies there on donkey carts, flew kites, played petanque (bocci ball), listened to music, had traditional tea, stayed until dark and strung lights in the trees...





I spent one night at each of 'my' villages where I worked the most. Here we are relaxing after work- me and another nurse who had come to fill in at the clinic.



No, I am not going to buy a bed at the market! I would have to carry it on my head and I live too far away (is really what I told him!) We had a good laugh.



Another shot of the market in the town where our health center is.



This a most typical small community you will find if you get off the main road. This may be one large or several families. If you stop, they will generously host you or point you in the direction you are looking to go, over the next hill, past the well, beyond the big tree...

How to Get Exercise In London

10 great (and almost FREE) ways to stay healthy in the big city of London:

1) Defy the escalator out of the Tube (The Underground) and count the 172 stair steps to ground level before continuing up the hill to the street.

2)Walk to class. Only takes 2 hours and there is lots of diversion along the way.

3)Stay on the bus just to see where it goes...and then walk home anyway.

4)Follow an outdated flyer at the library to a new part of the city.

5)Go to the park for good cell reception and let yourself get lost.

6)Forget (several) things when you leave the house.

7)Live one floor from the bathroom

8)Make sure the room you rent is 72 stair steps away from your favorite housemates and make sure you forget something important when you go up there so that you can repeat the trip several times.

9)Make a friend who likes to meet at Hyde Park

10) Live on a hill...and then go anywhere!

since when...

some oddities of adjustment:

I still haven't had ice cream (too cold to want it) but I will soon find an occasion.

Haven't looked at a nutrition label for 6 months.

Haven't seen 40 degrees celsius (104 F) since I left Niger last week and swapped it for 1 Celcius in Europe.

Didn't miss billboards and commercials.

Haven't driven since I sold it to a friend last summer but I have gone a lot of places!

I forgot that mirrors steam up if you get too close or take a bath.

I'd forgotten about buildings with 2 stories or more.

and weather forecasts! when I hear them, it seems so obvious that of course its drizzly and cold- because that is what is it's doing outside. And of course it is going to warm up- it always does during the middle of the day with the sun's position. I think I got used to calculating my own daily forecast in Niger by looking at the sky on my little walk each morning down the road to our base office. a strange thought for me.

and no, I don't need to speak French to everyone with an accent (which is everyone). I can just blurt out my thoughts without translating first.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

There are so many things I respect about the way of life in Africa, considering the few spots I have been privileged to taste.

Africans know how to find the center of gravity, and USE IT! (these are mild examples. with the harvest, i have seen incredible feats of gravity and balance!)







They know their elements- water, fire, air, soil/sand.

Adaptability.

Patience is like oxygen- essential and natural.

The earth as the floor- You don't have to think twice about tossing the rest of some liquid to the side- it will disappear or dry in minutes.

A shower is simple- a drain in the bathroom floor, normally within feet of the toilet and the sink, and the shower head mounted high. It all dries eventually.

I like how much pleasure people take in greeting each other. They always say its going fine, even if it isn't. you can tell they gain energy from the encouraging camaraderie. I will really, really miss that warm exchange.

No one speaks one language. So their brains are open in ways that many of western minds are not, with the capacity to mix and match, to express and communicate and adjust to the mélange of people around them.

Water.Color.Palette.

You might be surprised how green it is here. The other day on the way back from the clinics, I counted 7 different shades of green! Admittedly some of them had clear family resemblence to their brother Brown, but I counted them decidedly green:
Thorny acacia trees and a greener more leafy cousin, scrubby plants that I could describe as a dark green prickly ameba, faint prairie grass stretching away in a metallic sheen, and various other grasses and scrubs.

You know when you're sorting tomatoes, selecting the ripest for canning, and subtly the standard of color shifts before you eyes. The last 'ripe' one you choose is remarkably orange compared to the first, but ripe all the same. It is kind of like that.

I am sure now that the shades and frequencies of color are infinite. My eyes have had a 6 month lesson in beauty, staged in totally new surroundings. In each locale, the eyes take in the local palette of frequencies.

"everything is beautiful…in its own way…"

CRAVE

While I have adjusted to the arid Sahelién landscape, I miss water. Yesterday, working in the office, a sensation of longing doused me with thirst for rain, out of the blue. (you like the accidental alliteration of images there? that's for my friends who miss my puns :)

I long for a dark rainy evening in which to walk home from work, because I forgot my umbrella. I would love to sit by a stream in a shady forest. When we have a rare cloudy day and the wind kicks up mysteriously, I have the sense it should snow, the dust looks like flurries…