Finally! The sun came out! For the first time I got a clear view of the mountains that surround our city (and a clear view of a few other things that I'm not sure I was missing...). So I took the chance while I could and took some pictures of my city and the view that I (almsot never) have.

The view above is what I see out of my home/office windows - or at least I do on sunny days (the rest of the time the river creates a misty fog that obscures everything).



And this is what (for the time being anyway), I call home. My bedroom is on the top floor, far right side. Living room, for the moment, is behind the open window on the third floor. The very top is an unfinished roof area used for drying clothes and housing the essential generator that often keeps us in business. The windows on the far left overlook the river pictured above. Kitchen is down at the bottom, behind the ugly green gates on the far right. To the left on the bottom floor is the motorbike parking area, and all the other windows are office space. My goals are:

1) put in real doors on the ground floor and add some kind of signage that indicates this is an ADRA office.

2) consolidate all of the living areas (kitchen, livingroom and bedroom) to the fourth floor.

And when I do manage to escape my not-so-ivory tower, these are the streets I take to. A bit different from the Madagascar ones (at least the ones up in the mountains).

I'm not sure if they just take much more care of the streets around here, or if motorbikes are just much gentler, but the streets are in MUCH better condition than I could have hoped for.

Wow, it's really amazing how much nicer it all looks with a little bit of sunshine...at least just looking at it this way takes the chill off for me. I don't often mind the cold, dark days that have been so much the norm lately - it makes it a lot easier to stay in and get some work done. But for the weekend I appreciate being able to get out and about. And with that, I'm going to go explore some more - have a great week, wherever you are!!