My internet connection at home has been out for a full week now, have you noticed?
Saturday we went to Camille’s equestian center and watched a "spectacle" a student jumping competiton. They barbequed brochettes, as they call them here, and we sat outside and watched the show and the sunset, drinks in hand: colonial life style in place.
Yesterday we drove out in a group five cars, or Land Cruisers, I should say, to see the last herd of wild giraffes in West Africa. There use to be 3000 of them, then there was 100. Now there are in the 300 range. So things are looking up, but not too up. We drove out of Niamey about an hour, then picked up three guides who sit on TOP of your car and tap a stick on the side of the car to let you know in which direction to go. We had seen some people at the equestrian competition the night before who had been out last week, they said it only took about 20 minutes to find the giraffes. I’d never heard of anyone not finding any giraffes. But after almost two hours of searching, I thought we might be the first. And we had the Ambassador with our group, so we hoped we didn’t have the intern guide. Obviously, the giraffes had not gotten our email (mine is down too, as you know) about showing up within maybe, two hours of us driving around looking for them and the one non-Land Cruiser getting stuck in the sand and not finding anything, except villages in the middle of the millet harvest.
Finally one of the guides pointed excitedly with his stick, then pumped fists in the air. Off we went over grass and through sandy ruts and there was a group of ten giraffes, including three or four babies. I loved seeing them eat from the Acacia trees and wander around on their own terms. The babies were skittish, but otherwise, you could get pretty close. They blend into the landscape so well I can’t believe we ever found them.
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 
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