Boarding House Views

Pete is our front balcony at the boarding house. Our apartments aren't finished being built so we are staying where the kids that board live during the school year. It is like a mansion- 12 foot ceilings, marble, tile, huge doors that you have to reach up to get the door handle. You can see the brown wall behind him, it is the 12 foot security wall that surrounds all houses. That is the road over his shoulder, dirt. Down below in the courtyard the guard has a post he sits in all day. When people come to the gate he slides open a peep hole, like in a "speak easy" to see it is. When you pull up to any gate you beep the horn to let the guard know to check. There is no rhyme or reason to the building, right nest to us is another mansion that no one lives in and then all shacks. It is upsetting to look down the back balcony and see how living conditions REALLY are.
The flowers were in our room. When we went to the market place Pete negotiated for the two lady statues and some jewelry for me. I got the "six pack" of elephants as the men followed us back to the van and kept call out "Missus, Madame, please to look, very, very good". I paid 5,000 cfa, about $10 for the six hand carved wooden elephants.

This is our front balcony where our room is at the boarding house. The open brown patch is a soccer field that is used all day lone. The high tower in the back is a mosque. The call to prayer is around 4am and extremely loud. It woke me every day until we got a fan in our room. The red roof is the big house next to us with a satellite dish, but no one ever there.