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28 July 2006 - 15:13
This is Maimouna, the daughter of one of my best friends in Tidjikja. Marouf works for World Vision with their child sponsorship program, so his daughter is not eligible for the program. She feels left out when she sees other sponsored children getting gifts from their American sponsors, so I told her I would "sponsor" her.
This is a photo I took of Maimouna (that's part of the sponsorship program process that she really wanted to take part in but couldn't), and I send her toys from time to time. She's a cute kid.
When I went to Selibaby to teach Demba Sylla, a Malian artist, how to silkscreen print, I spent a lot of time at my friend Cailin's house. She has the cutest host siblings, especially the youngest baby, Demba, who is shown taking a bath.
Right before I left Selibaby, I convinced Cailin that she needed to climb the water tower with me. We jumped the fence, climbed all the way to the top, took pictures, then came down just as the tower guard showed up for work. We explained that we just felt like climbing over the fence and going up in the tower, so we did, and we hoped that he would have a nice day, then left.
This is a hollow baobob tree on the outskirts of Selibaby.
When I got to Kaedi, one of my friends was having his gums tattooed black, and he let me take pictures. The tattooing is done partly for aesthetic value, but Mauritanians claim it is for health reasons, and that the combination of peanuts, charcoal, roots, and a few other things that they use to make the ink keeps the gums healthy.
I found a really cool corner of the market where a few people sell hand-made beads from all over West Africa. I bought some really cool ones, as well as some cowrie shells (which used to be used as currency in this part of the continent) and some pieces of alligator and leopard skin (they were all out of elephant tusk ivory) that people use to make gri-gris, the good-luck charms that a lot of people (including me) wear here.
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