Ups and downs

Cascades at Man

I had a lot of firsts this week.  I finally made it to Odiénné, the northernmost city in my sector, that I have been trying to get to for several months.  In Odiénné I went to the market, which was also an Ivoirian first for me, and I bought some of the Odiénné specialty, honey from the savannah.  Apparently it's collected from wild (?) bees that build their hives in the trees.  It's very tasty.  On the way back we stopped to see one of the two main tourist attractions of the western city of Man: the cascades.  The other main attraction is the monkeys that live on the sacred mountain and come down for bananas if you offer them politely enough.  I'd like to see the monkeys, but in these days of Ebola they are much less popular.  New things and new places always make me happy, so the week had a lot of highs.

Odiénné honey vendor serving up my share

There were also a fair number of lows.  It became clear that some projects I had been pushing for at work will never happen.  The first of a number of volunteers who are reaching the end of their contracts here had his leaving do on Friday.  One wall in my house has a lot of moisture damage from all the recent rain and looks like it's ready to fall in (although it isn't actually going to), and will definitely need some work.  On top of that some sad news from a dear friend left me feeling very far away.

But in the end, I had a very nice Sunday, spending the afternoon sitting at a maquis (sort of like an outdoor bar, would be a café but they don't serve coffee) in a nearby town watching the world go by.  All's well that ends well.

Cute, painted round huts in the villages around Odiénné