Driving – Camel crossings while driving over the Kennedy bridge over the Niger River. Herds of goats with kidlettes running out into the road. Pausing with hesitation once nearly across, then running back across as the car nears dangerously close! Shrinking water holes with naked bodies casting fishing nets, washing clothes, bathing babies, and watering livestock. Many species of trees Their large roots with sculpted trunks; some with leaves. Others without. Their silouetted bodies contrast against the bright daylight. One with green leaves turning lavendar. Small clusters of village grass huts with campfires. Hand pumping water. Women walking along side the road with large pots and possessions on their heads. Scooters and bicyclists. Donkey carts pulling loads of firewood and hay. Children running with sticks and old bicycle tires.
Work at the Embassy – Teaching the Trauma Course all day. Burkinabes demonstrating treatment of mass casualties on each other: Triage. Stop the bleeding! Applying bandages. Perform the Heimlich maneuver (not Hindlick!). Demonstrate one and two-man carry. Waiting for a "no show". Talking to Paulina about morale and patients. Reading charts. Country team meeting with the Embassador and DCM. Seeing patients. Visiting with Dr. Riese. Hearing a babies heart rate for the first time and the pregnant mom getting so excited. She brought her husband later so that he could hear it too! Joy. Still a "no-show" on the recheduled "no-show."
Ouaga – Our driver loosing all his money (not stolen). La Palmeriae hotel like an oasis with one story buildings, clean white rooms with African art, and a swimming pool courtyard. Birds cooing in the night. Buffet breakfasts with fresh ginger juice, coffee, pastries, cheese plates, and mangos, mangos, mangos! Walking in the heat for an hour with winey children, looking for FESPACO information, then finding it just around the corner. Swimming and reading. Watching a short film clip on a young boy who lives at the dump. Eating out in fine restaurants. Discovering a French wine shop with temperature controlled storage. Then buying beautiful labels of wine to taste back home! Dinner at Paulina’s Hotel Richard. Good wine and fried fish with fresh steamed spinach! Live dogs and stuffed heads of big game on the walls. Feverish Stefan hallucinating with comical statements. Dreaming of Dyadya Oga. Last minute shopping at Marina Market (a real super market!) before leaving for home. Beefy chicken breasts at $28/pound!
Headed home – Late start. Crossing rocky hills with thick vegetation. Sub-Saharan desert. More village life. Camille getting Stefan’s illness. Niamey in lights as we drive home in the late evening. Home.
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 
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