Sahel

Just back in Ouaga after a trip to the Sa-hell. What's in a name, I'd say...
I am tired to death, lost a few kilos and if I did not feel hungry I was sick. Imagine that that is their life; every day in and out; every year...
¨This is Africa, this is the Sahel¨ is the response to every flat tire, another hour waiting or a child with an obviously nasty infection. But it is said with a smile and accompanied by the never ending calls from the children. ¨Les blanches, donne-moi bonbon/argent/medicin (the whites, give me sweets; money etc)¨. Our Dutch politically correct mothers would snap us for it, but here things are still named the way they are. So we just shouted back "Hi le noir/black, ca va" or "Black, leave me alone."
We saw the mysterious Touareg on their camels, the men covering their face. The Peul and other nomads; the women who carry their wealth in old silver French francs on their hair. It was a dream even though sometimes a bit nightmare like. In a strange way we thoroughly enjoined it.

And is not beauty in the beholder's eye; poverty only real when one has no richness of heart?
When Youssouf walks me home at night and I struggle not to fall over a goat, sleeping people or the open sewage, he sighs: "Is not my home a beautiful place, Cousine (nichtje). It is nice and quiet and we can still see the stars. And everyone knows me. For not all the money in the world I would want to live in Europe."