NEIGHBORHOOD

This corner has been the place of choice of drug users and mendicants, The "furniture" belongs to a man whom the guards say is insane. He sleeps here and has furnished his home with cast off items gathered who knows where. One night the floor lamp was on and a string of colored lights hung down the pole. It is to be removed and paved like the sidewalk that was recently pave, and a place reserved for the police to lounge around.

The banyan biffy, and waste basket, hopefully will be cleaned up too.

The view from our entrance toward the Catholic church in the School grounds and church offices compound.

Posting the Operation Smile Poster. Man on the left is our shoe shine friend, Didier.

Our friend Didier.

View across the street toward the Gare Centrale, the green building to the left.

Another view of the area under the banyan to be cleaned and paved.

Outside our parking area, the razor wire clothes line.

Posting more Operation Smile posters on the bus station wall.

View across the plaza toward the unfinished building. Work has ceased here.

New buss stops because the city has purchased new busses -- there are currently no city busses -- that we think will begin to circulate sometime soon. We have seen and heard them parading around the streets 25 or 30 at a time horns blaring, empty. Small building in the background houses public restrooms, recently opened.

What the finished building would look like if ever finished.

Tree trunk base by the shoe shine stand, depository for personal effects.

Closeup of the sleeping indigent. It is very surprising how few we see living on the streets in the open. There are more now that the dry season is here, because they don't worry about the rain drenching them.