More Pictures from Trip

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

AA Girls, Tania, Me and Lisa

AA Girls again, Tania, Me and LisaJon thought this was so interesting (his line of work), sticks for the buildings and rafters
Sitting, waiting,looking
Orphanage sign

famous blue gate
house
This sister was so proud of the little girl she was holding up to us, waving and talking, it was too cute!
The drive up to the gate for the first time
Street kids

nannies doing the laundry, they asked me to mail them the picture!
The famous Toukoul sign!

Bananas hung and fruit sold everywhere, the water is undrinkable, so even the locals walked around with bottled water

The streets were full of people, half built buildings, clusters of walkers just walking in the streets in front of the cars not caring if they get hit or not. Kids roaming around, people with dead animals over their shoulders, I assume dinner just killed for that nights super. Pollution was horrible, the smells of urine and feces and vehicles, gasoline. People urinating on the streets in front of you, was a bit shocking. It was hard to have the children come and beg for things, if you give 1 person something it would start a riot and so we were told not to give anything to anyone on the streets. HARD to do, as they would come to the windows, begging, sticking their hands in and touching us and the baby. A different world, so far away, but so close as Aslynn sleeps next to me and it is and has been all she has known. I wish I could save them, help them all. I wish I could build, teach, and help their country grow and give them the tools to survive. It's hard to see and watch daily while out driving around, and then to come back into our gated compound where its NICE, clean, flowers, home feeling, and safe from what lies behind the walls. I would lay at night listening to the Muslim prayer and just thinking how people survive, and some don't, how mothers live daily, and some don't, and how they have the strength to get up the next day, and some don't. Our problems are so minor compared to others in other parts of the world. I have seen this before as I have traveled around, but there in Africa, that region, it was different. Maybe because I was taking home my daughter, maybe because we possibly will be taking another one home. Its a different feeling, one that cant be put in a blog or on paper, its in the heart and the soul, tattooed forever and in the mind ever time I blink.