What I see...

from my bedroom window in Rome...

Christmas beach

Hoek van Holland on 25/12/2010

Niamey (3)

bumpy roads this time, going to Moussa's place, I didn't know that Niamey was sooo big!

Niamey (2)

Crossing the only bridge of Niamey on a Sunday morning.

Niamey (1)

Be blessed my friend's red toyota!
This is on the way to the youth group... on a regular "boulevard" in Niamey

Ceci n'est pas un pois chiche...

My green IKEA plastic cup filled with warm fresh peanuts... yum! The supply source is of course my dear Aissa!!!



however... I'm still not totally convinced these are not rather chickpeas...

Replantons le désert!

- le désert -

- les jeunes pousses -

- en avant! -

- au travail! -

this series is (c) from Charlotte C.

Le fleuve Niger

- Vue rive droite de Niamey -

- le pont de Niamey, au coucher du soleil -

- les rizières inondées -

- les pirogues -

Montpellier 2010 - outdoors

Finally a few pics of my great summer time!
I never had a chance to look at these pictures before today... :)

Frankfurt – Francfort – Francoforte

On board of an Airbus 321 called Darmstadt! This time the flight arrived on schedule and I had a straight connection to Italy. I never flew through Frankfurt however it’s again a place linking me to my past. It was the big city, the special one, the one we recognized to its skyscrapers naming it “le crayon”, the one I went on school trips to the big zoo, the one where my first ID was issued…

By the way, I must look German as all the stewards and hostess talk to me in German :)

:D :D :D Then I sat on the wrong seat and my real neighbour tells me “I knew you would be sitting next to me”, “why?” – no answer – I’m reading the Acts for a while included the passage where Philip is sent South and meets the Ethiopian ambassador. I just feel it’s for me. Then my neighbour interrupts “May I ask what church you belong to?” and we talk a little bit about faith. But tradition and religion is not what God requires and will never give you the peace of heart, neither “to compensate (bad) profit making through goodwills” as he concludes. (the “bad” is mine) Handing out his business card he states again that this was not random meeting, me too – I agree, but not for the same reasons :D :D :D

Munich – Muenchen – Monaco

This week-end I flew through Munich, a nice experience. First I didn’t recall that it was such a nice airport. I was surprised by the excellence in service: a personalized screen giving details on the connecting flights just at the exit gate, free coffee & newspapers all around the terminal, good communication by ground staff…. cool! As a consequence of a delay on my first flight I was rebooked on the next one. So I did some Christmas shopping. I spend almost one hour in the Vedes shop, I love it! I remembered us, little ones, spending hours reading and reading again the Vedes catalogue. Kids’ dreams :) everyone needs dreams and unfulfilled expectations. Xmas in Germany is my favourite, without doubts. Then, it was white in Munich. It has snowed a lot in the northern part of Europe this last week. But it was almost irrealistic after the 15°c in Rome and nothing like cold winter weather.

I don’t know when was the last time I flew to Munich, 6 – 7 years? It’s like a circle end. Munich, WDL, Starnberg have been the place of really important moment in my life. It’s where I promised I would even go to Africa, a scary “eventuality”… (what became reality after 8 years) … I learnt the importance of quiet times, and used to wake up at 6:00am, go to lake, sit on the stairs with the Alps in front of me, get some time apart from the chaos of the day just between me & my God… had endless conversations with my cousin and best friend at that time… (who I shall finally see again at his wedding on Dec 31^st). And in these days I was wondering what my future would look like, but I hadn’t imagined I would study in LLN, neither move to Italy AND stay there so long :)

Giraffes

Ibrahim our driver & the giraffe looking in the same direction :)

The big male.

The little ones.

The giraffes are living free. I think the guide told us there are 196 giraffes in this area.

Hippopotamus

Des hippopotames se baignant dans le fleuve Niger. J'admets... on ne voit pas grand chose mais on ne peut pas s'approcher, il parait que c'est aggressif les hippos.

The lambs and the little boy

My absolute favorite. A spontaneous shot on the Kanazi island.

Vue sur le fleuve Niger

I like this picture. I discovered afterwards while looking at my picutes that someone had drawn a heart in stones.

The engineer, the mechanic and the assistant

Our red Mercedes before leaving the city.

Repairing the spare tire, just in case...

On the road

This week-end we decided to leave our computers, the city and go into the near bush. We rented Ibrahim and his red mercedes and off we go: "Les paysans sont en voyage"*!

Here street indications are easy, you have only 3 roads leaving the city: la route du Burkina, la route de l'aéroport, la route de Tillabéry. If you take the direction of the airport at about 40 kms you will find the giraffes. You take on a guide (at that point we were 6 adults in the mercedes :) and drive into the bush to come closer to the giraffes. These animals are not scared, you can come really close to them. After a picture session we drove back to Niamey.

In the afternoon we headed North: route de tillabery, turn left after the toll in direction of the rio bravo golf court. I haven't posted pics of the golf but it is funny because instead of the green, it is made of stones! We wanted to have a quiet time sitting under the mango trees along the river. It was in deed a nice choice. But as we met fishermen, we decided to rent a pirogue and experience the Niger from the river. They took us to the hippos and their village on the island. The little girls come to hold our hand. I didn't know how to react but it was just a simple kids friendship gesture :) cute.

*"the farmers are travelling". We got stopped for passport check at the first toll. And we presnted Karl as a farmer from the North. And the policeman, curious wanted to see how a farmer from the North looks like :) on the way back the policeman greets us again friendly, "How are the farmers!"

Journey to the heart of Africa

One of our trucks being loaded for Maradi or Zinder with plumpy doz coming out of a 40'container. The container is coming from Lome, Benin and was originally shipped in France. That's what I like about logistics: you can see things happening! Numbers become real trucks.

My new home

Streets

The street in front of my house.

Lezard africain

Waiting for the driver this morning...

Loggies in Niger

We are loggies and after one week you should at least know Niamey, Tillabery, Ouallam, Tahoua, Agadez, Zinder, Diffa and the corridors: that Cotonou is in Benin, Lome in Togo and Tema in Ghana.

The field

The field is fun, frustrating, rewarding, moving, full of new experiences...

The field makes you become an internet addict, patient, creative, flexible...

You meet great people, important people, simple people, brothers&sisters, new friends... You see the same faces all day, every day. You sometimes learn to much about the others or they discover too much about you. :)

" La beauté, c'est une chose à l'intérieur.
La beauté du corps, ce n'est pas très important.
Tous les corps sont beaux. Mais la vraie beauté,
la vraie valeur de la beauté, c'est à l'intérieur qu'il
faut la chercher.C'est là qu'elle a sa vraie valeur,
et c'est là qu'elle est rare. Voilà la réponse à ta question.
La beauté à l'intérieur, c'est ce qui devrait être notre but à tous."

Oumou Sy
"La Vie a de Longues Jambes" 1995

IRIN Africa | NIGER: Getting food in by truck, boat, camel and cart |

read more:
IRIN Africa | NIGER: Getting food in by truck, boat, camel and cart | West Africa | Niger | Food Security Aid Policy | Feature

Horizons

behind the yellow gate, in front of the clinic fathya, next to the bus station, le plateau... ma chambre à Horizons.

L'objet #1

La thermo géante, pour garder l'eau au frais. Toutes les maisons en ont une. Mon seul problème... difficile de savoir si c'est de l'eau potable ou pas que les gens y ont mis...

Niamey

I arrived in Niamey, Niger for 3 months 2 days ago. I'm still organizing myself but it is going smoothly.

It started to rain yesterday and that's half good news: good for the crops but the river Niger is flooding so.... is it going to be another emergency on top of the food crisis?

No big surprise until now. No special animals in the hotel, food is ok for now (might become boring), weather is obviously really humid but this only the beginning... I still have time to face funny situations.

But one thing I expect, is that God is training my patience.

http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20100809-niger-river-reaches-highest-level-90-years

Impala is in Niger

Niger! not Nigeria... Niger is a landlocked country.

Anzio - Nettuno

Nettuno is a coast village located in the South of Rome. It was my first bath of the year and it was pleasant! Easy to reach by train (exactly 1h from Roma-Termini), quiet and traditional it is a nice alternative to Ostia/i cancelli.

Ponte Sisto

Sunset in Rome

A world away from the cup: The burgeoning famine that should be the biggest story in Africa this summer

in Daily Mail (original article from below FR post)

Crossing the High Atlas mountains of Morocco you may come upon a village impossibly remote, set high on the edge of a gorge. After a sti ff climb you reach it, thinking that it must be the very last village.

But no, there's a track leading upwards, and as you round a bend in the gorge, you see another village seeming to rise from the Earth itself, but way, way above you. So you head for this village, thinking there can't possibly be another... and yet there is, and another and yet another still, until you give up, realising you'll never reach the very highest village.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1287125/A-world-away-cup-The-burgeoning-famine-biggest-story-Africa-summer.html#ixzz0tsEOaPar

Niger. La famine fait à nouveau parler d’elle

in Courrier International

Nous quittons la ville de Téra et commençons à traverser une savane poussiéreuse dont la monotonie est parfois rompue par les huttes traditionnelles des villages. Le sable, la poussière blanche balayée par le vent et une végétation en quelque sorte momifiée par la sécheresse composent le paysage que nous traversons. Cette province située à environ quatre heures au nord-ouest de Niamey, la capitale du Niger, est l’une des régions les plus démunies de ce pays déjà très pauvre. En 2009, la saison des pluies n’a pas été suffisante. A Tillabéri, la pluie n’est pas venue du tout. Les gens d’ici n’ont rien à manger.

la suite: http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2010/06/30/la-famine-fait-a-nouveau-parler-d-elle

WFP Niger

official link to the WFP Niger website: http://www.wfp.org/countries/niger

Wedding in Centocelle

One Saturday this spring I was sleeping waiting an sms to wake me up. It was too early for a Saturday morning and missed the sms. It would have been a good idea to ignore totally that invitation, but I didn't know at that time! So on this rainy rainy day I met this friend and 3 hours before the wedding he was supposed to attend I decided to take the chance to assist to an italian wedding once in my life :)

As I said it was raining. My friend is a milanese lawyer and was wearing a lawyer black suit... I put my high heels on and a light colored trousers and the journey started... The wedding was in Centocelle. It is a poor and popular era of Rome far behind the Termini station and I had never been there. Our mission was to reach the church with public transport. ^^ We finally managed to find the connecting bus line but had no idea were our bus stop was as this street (via casilina) is several kilometer long. Remember my friend the lawyer with his milanese accent and myself looking like a lost displaced english girl in a crowded misty bus with a higher than average percentage of immigrants. I would have asked someone on the bus were the bus stop was, but no! my friend said "don't worry! I have the GPS" he took the GPS out of his pocket and started to programme it. The other passengers were glimpsing towards us. A man offered his help. "no, no, it's ok I have the GPS" he answered. Then my friend tried to follow the way while I was trying to read the bus stop names. ...... It was so out of place that I started to laugh... But he was so proud and convinced that I couldn't stop laughing thinking how stupid we looked. :D

Shame doesn't kill!!! and new experiences either ;)

After that the wedding was interesting.

Security

There is no security on earth. Security is "the state of being free from danger or threat" and no, you cannot protect yourself against danger or threat... You can try. You can try to minimize the event's occurrence probability (not travelling to Africa or Asia if you want to minimize the risk of getting the malaria) or to minimize the event's impact if it happens (that's the insurance mechanism).

We all want to believe to be safe, but hard reality is that you can loose everything at any moment... just think about a car accident or an earthquake. I know it's not really cheerful :S


I faced again this long known evidence a few days ago. In 48h:

• my integrity was attacked through an email account violation
• my friend got his car almost stolen overnight
• another friend was assaulted at the station and lost everything from credit card to passport, music player, phone... as she was supposed to leave for Afghanistan only a few days later
• malicious neighbours are life threating family members and taking pictures of them in their car, and one second you imagine the worse... yes, just like in mafia films...
  

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Mat 6,19 -21

ABC

I got angry this week-end...

Sunday morning, alarm clock rings at 8am. I'm all on time. But the train is slower than usual and I have to wait 20 mins under the sun without the chance of seeing ANY bus at Acilia. But where are they? at the beach? 10:00 the Sunday service is starting and I'm still blocked there, 10:15, finally I get on the first bus passing by, knowing that I'll have to walk 15 more minutes to get into Dragona. I'm quite upset...

I got creative this week-end...

Sorry guys (to the italians), but I became so bored of italian food that I had to get some inspiration from marmiton.org. Tomato lassi is so easy and so good!!!!!! (peel tomatoes, mix them with yogurt, add basilic and put everything in the fridge) Then I went for a cake, such a long time I haven't dared... :) burnt chocolate & almonds along with homemade lemonade (camomilla-lime teabags + 1 lemon juice + sugar) just feels like being home.

I became efficient this week-end...

One application, bank stuff, OM presentation, ironing with 28°c: I finally did it! Even though I still have a few bullet points on my post-it. I also felt inspiring others, for once, let's see the result in a few weeks...

clipart is open source from the openclipart.org library

Bikes

Delft Station, NL.
Where is my bike?

Earth day 2010

Non, ce n'est pas Ben Harper qui jouait cette année, c'était l'année dernière...

Concert en plein à Circo Massimo à l'occasion de l'Earth Day 2010, sponsorisé par une chaîne de documentaires bien connue. Sauf qu'il a commencé à pleuvoir et que nous étions crevées ce qui a pour conséquence, qu'on a jamais vraiment entendu le gros du concert :)



(c'était le 2 mai)

S.udan countdown

Day 0 -WEDN-
The meeting was postponed several times. Today as well, we had to wait late afternoon to be able to present our tool.
The meeting in Khartoum takes place in about 2 weeks. Greenlight!

Day 1 -THURS-
I first need to be officially invited by the meeting chairman.
I draft an agenda and start requesting visa documents as they tell me the authorities are slow to process visas.

Day 2 -FRIDAY-
I get the confirmation from our contact in Sudan.
The Visa requirements and forms arrive. Half arabic, half english, a bit counter intuitive. I have an appointment scheduled with the nurse for next Tuesday. :) First time to the heart of Africa.
A colleague gives me the Security clearance link, where I have to register all my travel details before leaving. We are not allowed to travel before having received the security clearance.
I request flight plan to the assistant who requests them to the travel agency. I have to coordinate with another colleague before choosing.
I check what are the different types of malaria medicines (link). Scary!

Day 5 -MON-
Monday 9.30.still no answer from Sudan office, I absolutely need this authorization letter to join to the visa deposit. Visa docs have to be submitted by today 11am. I try to call them, no answer. Lotus Notes is down for many staff.
10.45 I submit the docs without the letter, but embassy is going to withhold proceeding until letter is received.
2pm I try to call again Sudan, I finally get through. Some time later I receive the Note Verbale. I bring them to the protocol office but there I understand that actually the MOFA in Sudan has to give permission to the embassy in rome before they can deliver the visa.

Day 6 - TUE-
I get my three shots (out of 6, luckily I had already Hepatitis vaccines done in the past) + malaria pills and the yellow booklet. I won't take the tough treatment and I just have to start one day before arriving in the country, what is good news in case I don't get my visa on time!

We book flights through DHX what is Dubai and not Djibouti as I thought. But the trip is on two days (leaving in the evening, arriving the next day in the afternoon) as we have 9 hours stopover in the UAE.

Visa? visa?? visa???

I discuss about my presentation with a colleague and she names our colleagues in the field "the cow boys" :) so you should better know what you are talking about...

After work I pass by MAS at piazza Vittorio Emmanuele to get long skirts and large shirts. Not easy to dress light but covered!

Day 7 - WEDN-
Second shopping wave, flip flops for the shower (and camping this summer) and a nice tunique (size L while for Europe I would take S). I'm also looking for a cheap watch but there is no way I can find something for less than 30 euros...

Days 8-11
I'm on leave. Checking emails once in a while. Enjoying friends and family in Rome.

Day 12 - WEDN-
Only three days left before departure... I get my flight tickets and the venue is confirmed. I now have to book an hotel. Good question?

And my passport is still at the embassy and protocol office tells me the consul is sick :)

Day13 - THURS-
Thursday is the last working weekday in Sudan.
I'm still trying to book that hotel through the assistant there before the office closes... what a mess!
On the other hand I receive 847 sudanese pounds + ask my bank to increase my daily withdrawal rate. No international mean of payment is available in Sudan, you have to take it all cash.

And finally I try to arrange an appointment with an ex-classmate working in Dubai...

Day14 - FRI -
Last working day before leaving.
I finally get my passport back with a nice hand written visa!
But I'm a bit worried because I still have no security clearance.
And I start withdrawing my cash reserves: 6x200eur

Day15 - SAT-
In the morning I call the airline to book the complimentary hotel in Dubai, but it's too late for the same day.
And I just have to finalize my packing, no stress the plane leaves at 22:00.

Bubbly or gloomy Friday?

Vendredi soir.

Je suis dans ma cuisine en train de manger du fromage pour faire patienter mon estomac en attendant le dîner. J'ai lancé un podcast de France Inter. Pas de visite à la librairie ce soir. (c'est ma tradition du vendredi soir) J'ai besoin de créativité et de changement alors au travail! Je vais devoir affronter mon four à gaz :)

Et voici la meilleure, une émission de Karambolage (arte) sur la sauce tomate d'une italienne à Berlin et le magasin du vieux campeur. Excellent-issimo!

The Dutch & the world cup

Orange forever!
(not me, them...)