Happy Birthday Mom!!

I give to you a picture of me on a waterfall.  

When I'm Thirsty

Most drinks, especially in villages, are sold in little plastic bags that were hand-filled and tied.  You just nibble off one of the corners and start sipping.  They range from chilled pump water to delicious sugary drinks.  They are very cheap at 25-50cfa (500cfa = 1$).  Unfortunately, this means anyone can afford them, adding to the already pervasive littering problem.  Trash cans don't exist.  I should add that most of these drinks are prepared through boiling, so are usually pretty safe; though the bags might be dirty on the outside.

The purple one's are dahjii (french bissap).  It's made from the bissap plants by boiling the leaves in water and adding sugar.  Very good but not very thirst quenching because of the amount of sugar.  The gold ones are serajii ( I don't know the french name) and made from baobob trees (the fruit?) and tastes kind of like applesauce.  The white ones are mugujii and I'm not sure what it's made from, but they add millet to it so it's fairly nutritious and my favorite from a taste standpoint, though I can't describe the taste.  The other color (lime?) is a ginger drink and is very spicy.  I don't like it much.

I come across the occasional coke in village that is sufficiently cold, but the majority of my sweet satisfaction comes from these little guys because candy is not common/good.  Surprisingly though I find myself missing salty/fatty foods from America more than dessert even though salty/fatty foods are easy to find here and dessert doesn't exist.