This afternoon I was on my way to my tutor’s house after lunch for our normal Thursday afternoon tutoring session, walking along, making a mental list of topics to cover with her. Up pulls a truck with one of my (many) “uncles”, offering me a ride for the 200 yards or so to my tutor’s house. Those 200 meters were enough to convince me not to go to Hanane’s house, but instead go with them on some mission to this place where they dig paint up out of the ground, grind it and sell it. They assured me it would be a short and super fun field trip that would only take an hour and I could just go to tutoring late.
Five hours later, I’d:
Climbed this mountain (and then slid all the way down it while all the men watched.)
Colored on myself with this freshly-dug up paint.
Traipsed over a plateau to find and hang out in this nomad camp.
Where we ate this guy’s (“the cheese man”) freshly-made cheese. I wasn’t a huge fan of it – a little too goopy for me. .
Gained a whole lot of respect for this river-fording, mountain-climbing, sheep-swerving, bush-whacking car.
And discovered that views like these exist only a short harrowing hour drive away from my village:
