Catch up...

Well it has been quite a while since I last did an update and quite a lot has changed. I was in Bamako for 10 days in January and it was sooo nice to have some sense of civilisation with a flushing toilet and ceiling fans. It was also a good opportunity to stock up on a few items that I can't get here. The DTS team from my base in Norway visited and were here for 5 weeks and it was great to have them and the boys loved it too.

I went on a little drive with my friend when she borrowed a car, here are some photos of the scenery in the surrounding area - and some of the local wild life (camels) although I am not sure if anyone owns them or if they are wild. Apparently there is also an elephant roaming these parts but I haven't seen it yet.

And here are some other random photos from the past few months:



Mud bricks drying, you find these rows of drying bricks everywhere as people build new houses and prepare the old ones for rainy season.



A photo taken from the roof of our property.



A house under construction behind our house, this is where the little boy we feed lives, his family are the guardians of the property.



Our guardian making tea.



A BIG herd of camels on the way to a meeting one day.



Some of my boys and Bradley from the DTS walking home.



The boys are quite helpful around the house, watering the garden, sweeping etc.



Some of the boys, Annika and I.



There were lots of serious moments when the DTS was here.



Some people from my team at a potluck dinner.



Me being all African and carrying stuff on my hear - I was quite surprised at how well I did, nothing like the locals but I am getting better. I am only game to do that at night when people can't see me and laugh.



Boys having fun playing some hopping game that I don't really understand.

It is now the hot season (at least the beginning of) and that has meant a few changes in daily life here:
- I hardly ever have to dry dishes anymore, they dry by themselves in minutes.
- When I fan my hair dry (with a hand held fan) after a shower it is smells like when you’ve had the hair dryer too close to your hair and it got too hot.
- I have to buy an umbrella because I can’t use sunscreen anymore, I am sweating too much that the sun screen doesn’t soak in, even in the mornings.
- I am now sleeping outside under the stars, protected from all the bugs and critters by a thin mosquito net. It is way too hot to sleep inside now.
- The water coming out of the garden hose is so hot during the day it literally burns you.
- I keep going to turn down the hot water in the shower but then I remember we don’t have any hot water! That is just how warm the water in the pipes is.
- We are now drawing water from our well to water some of the plants at night because everyone in the town gets water at the same time and the pressure is really bad.
- I just laugh at all the bottles of pills, creams, food stuff and other things that say store in a ‘cool dry place’ as there is no cool place anymore and as the wet season approaches the humidity gets into everything.