excerpt from a letter. . .

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The-one-and-only-rachel-john will hopefully forgive me for publicly publishing a portion of her letter that i wrote today and also send me her address at school so i can send this part and more. . .

". . .I'm in Niger, the least developed country in the world as of last year, at a proper english style horse riding club. Puny horses, not the grand cowboy horses of the states. there's a bunch of Moms behind me waiting for their kids to finish their lesson. 8 kids, 6 white 2 black, the teacher is from benin or burkina according to his accent. there's some local nigerien kids pressing their faces at the fence of privilege. the token chubby kid just got bucked off his horse, his helmet's all sandy. the horse is being taken away to be shot. . .no, just kidding, but wait, it does look like it's being punished, running around and around a small ring, weird. . . in the big tree overhead, there are tons of little weaver bird nests, little balls of finber clinging to the twigs. the band of kids running around the tables here speak lovely thick French french and there's some little boys speaking german and french. how did they get here? is it as random for them as it is for me that we're all here, in africa? i feel like these kids are trapped in a time bubble, not just due the funnily styled european clothes, but because they're in africa.
Africa is such a time warp, behind the times. I'm drinking coke out of a glass bottle and my breakfast this morning came from a woman who fries bean curds on the street. and this equestian club just screams colonial times to me. . ."

that's all i wrote today
rachel will get the finished more rounder version, as for the rest of you, time will only tell, wahaha

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Comments

[Susie]

Amazing!
Just saw an excerpt from a report by Anderson Cooper on CNN about the famine in Niger. Can't believe you are really there! So enjoyed your stay with us in NYC...Keep the updates! they're wonderful!