Pictures from Village

“I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”

- Jhumpa Lahiri, “Interpreter of Maladies”

The mosque in my village.

A courtyard near the mosque.

The mosque.

My friend, Eloi, storing straw to be used as cattle feed during the dry season.

Philomene the coiffeuse (Eloi's wife) - tressing hair.

Gladys, one of their daughters.

Diane, another daughter.

Richard, their son, waiting impatiently as dad makes tea.

Mes petits voisins at the robinet near my courtyard.

Visiting neighbors: Jamila, Latifa, and Yasmina

At the baptism of baby Zouweratu - with mom.

Me and Zouweratu (she's a week old here).

Salimata and Zouweratu.

"What's the rush? Dip your brush into this twilight..."

A women's association in village, dying traditional pagnes (fabric) to be sold to benefit their work.

Laying pagne out to dry.

Salimata and Nancy, my nearest PCV neighbor

Boys playing foosball "baby foot" at the market

Ecole 'B': the primary school where I work.

The kiddies.

“But troubled as these early years of nationhood have been, Africa need not dwell forever in the uncertain twilight zone. Its dreams have only been mislaid, not lost.
- David Lamb, “The Africans”