Tahoua 3

Many things have changed very little for centuries...A wadi with a little water still standing in it. Even when they're dry, there's water just under the surface and people dig down to it. We drive across plenty of them, but I'd hate to get caught in one when it fills!

This is not a village, but actually a collection of huts designed to house straw for the dry season. Collecting grass is a major task for children, and donkeys, kids, women, and cattle loaded down with straw are a common sight. (notice men are absent from the list?)

A village peaking out between two hills around Keita. You can make out the fairly dense collection of square banco huts and big round granaries.

A few things have changed dramatically - one thing is the cell phone. Every major town has a tower. Cell phones are not cheap - the least expensive are at least $60, and credit is expensive - it costs 40 cents to talk for a minute, so most people send text messages. You can't buy a contract - you put minutes on your cell phone by buying cards of various denominations and keying in the code on the back. Each card has fun pictures on the front - I went through at least $100 of cell phone minutes. Here are a few 1000 cfa cards - 1000 cfa is about $2.

Another thing that has altered the landscape (literally) is HIV. The prevalence is still quite low, but signs urging people to protect themselves are everywhere. This one says "No one is safe from AIDS. Let's protect ourselves." This being a Muslim country, signs promoting condom use are a little more discreet than in Cameroon!
Lightning over Illela. On rainy nights, the lightning was incredible - sometimes a flash every second. Even with a point and shoot camera, it was possible to capture flashes. On clear nights, the stars were incredible. The Milky Way was clearly visible. I always looks for Orion - wondered how they got a hunter out of the three stars on his belt, but here you can see the background stars that "flesh" him out, and you can imagine that big arm pulling back a bow! The Pleides really do look like a cluster of sisters. Amazing!

The front porch of the house in Illela is where we did all our cooking, eating, and sleeping. The interior of the house was 100 degrees, even at night, whereas out on the porch it was usually down to 95 degrees by bedtime with a gentle breeze, and often cooled to mid 80s (~84) by early morning. We all had our mattresses or cots and mosquito nets (insecticide treated of course) set up on the porch at night, and put them away every morning. Very satisfying to wake up in the morning to a pile of dead mosqitoes on top of the net!