New Home!

Back from the Sahara, feeling better for my camel milk, but disturbed to find out that perhaps my illness was brought on not by some hard-core desert bacteria, but by the air-conditioning.

There have been requests for pictures of my new flat. It's hard to take photos inside, I discover, especially every time I step back I knock into a wall or door.

The living room, also the bedroom, also the sewing room, looking out to balcony number one.



The famous sewing table, complete with diamante-studded bobbin-drawer knob.



Bookshelves, and Rama, Mave and Aminata, the three African ladies of the house. Beware, wrong-doers.



And some old-school draining-board action.



Here's our favourite neighbour Zal, making the cathedral look rather peaky,



And favourite neighbour number 2, Cecilia, organising a first-day-in-new-home lunch.



Happy as a bee...

Shifting Sands

Mauritania is a special place, a cross-roads for Sahara trade which goes back centuries. For hundreds of years, people have been coming here from all over the world, settling, then moving on again. The result is that if you took a random cross-section of people here, you can bet that you'd find faces resembling every nation on earth.



Check out my website for more pictures

In the last couple of days I've been struck down with a fever and a chest infection, so I've been stumbling through my interviews and trying to put out stories, all the while feeling terrible. This afternoon though, perhaps the relief of the elections being over, I felt a little better and went out to the edge of Nouakchott, only a mile or so away, and watched the shifting sand dunes.



Nomads come here for a few months a year, bringing their camels with them, and sell camel milk by the side of the road. So as a Sunday afternoon treat, we stopped by and sat in our old-school Mercedes and drank a warm bowl of milk, fresh from the camel.



It is strangely delicious and I feel better now than I have in days. Although of course the local remedy for a chest infestion (which Mauritanians get a lot, because of the sand in the air,) is warm camel milk.

Shop improvements

One of the only things that went wrong during the move was that I lost my camera cable. So none of you will be able to see the beautiful view through the French doors until I find the damn thing.

A while before I left Mamelles, Now made improvements to his shop.



He extended it backwards for more shelf space, opened up the side with a large window, and created a lovely little garden. We found planks of wood and balanced them on rocks to make a bench, and planted some plants to keep the frangipani tree happy. Not only does he now sell things like cake and local milk, but it has also created a lovely space in the street for people to come and relax in, lying on the mat under the shade of the trellis, or sitting on the benches and making tea. Everyone agrees that it's the nicest shop in Dakar.



The bread is still delivered in the same way though.



I miss Mammelle and Now but life changes and this life is good too.

In other news, it's my birthday tomorrow and I will be 28. When I was 27, 28 seemed so old! I seem to remember I was getting unnecessarily concerned by my lack of partner, but I was confusing that with something much more important: friends. Now that I have a lot more wonderful, reliable, funny friends here, I feel as happy as a bee.