A favorite topic of mine has always been… keywords! People write the weirdest things to find you, from “chocolate eating gallop poll 2007″ to “holy cows uganda” - not to forget my personal favourite: “what customs come with the running of the bulls”… Here are the primary keywords and phrases people have typed in order to find me for the past two years, when I was blogging at Ishtar News:

  1. Ishtar

Yes, that was my previous alias, which derived from a nickname that the kids on my street gave me. For years I was their ‘Ishtar’, but by the time I set up a blog in my own name, ‘Ishtar’ had turned into ‘Esta’ (the Hausa version of the name Esther), which didn’t sound quite as exotic anymore. So hence the full legal name!

  1. 2007 locusts forecast Niger

I never thought this piece of information would be so well sought by the Internet community, but it was. Here’s the post! I think it’s about time they made a 2008 locust forecast, but I haven’t come over one yet.

  1. princesses of the world

My friend Anette took a wonderful picture of a chubby little girl who made such a stark contrast to all the other images shown of Niger, that I just had to write a post about it. Never had I thought it would make one of the top Ishtar News keywords!

  1. best country to raise children

This post was written after having read an article about the best and the worst places in the world to raise your children. A while later, a beautiful picture from the world of Eden’s farmers in Tanout inspired me to write a second post on the same topic.

  1. hanna grönberg

What can I say? I have international friends!

  1. heartbroken

This was a post I wrote after finding out that my mother’s cancer had returned. The response was wonderful and I appreciated it a lot.

  1. baobab forest

One of my absolute favourite places in Niger is Mirriah’s Baobab Forest – an enchanting place 20 km from my Zinderien home. I have 2 posts of it, one from December 2006 and one a year later in December 2007. Who knows - maybe I’ll make it a yearly December tradition?

  1. wasp attack

Ah, one of my more unfortunate experiences in Niger… Little did I know that there was a nasty little wasp guarding the jiga tree in our garden – and that I would have an allergic reaction to it!

  1. dan zinder

For more than a year now, I have been telling the Internet world that I have no connections to Dan and will certainly not marry him in Zinder, as has been suggested in other keyword phrases. One day, I might actually take the time to find out who this Dan Zinder is, but not today…

  1. love vs hate

This was a post I wrote after reading Stella Orakwue piece ‘Love or hate, which?’, published in the June issue of the NewAfrican magazine. It left with a heavy feeling, and as always when that happens, I just had to blog about it.

  1. umuofian society

This post is actually only an essay I wrote concerning women’s situation in Chinua Achebe’s novel ‘Things Fall Apart’. I posted it on my blog, because I enjoyed reading the book and had fun writing the essay. And perhaps I also needed to feel a sense of meaning of all the trouble I had take to write the essay in the right way… :-)

  1. beautiful Africa

25d-sunset.jpgThis is a blog carnival I created, as I found there was far too much negativity being highlighted in the African sphere. Although the carnival has been on ice for a few months due to time shortage, it is still alive. It is a project I share with fellow African bloggers Loomnie and Szavanna. Amazing actually how many people you get to know through the Internet!

  1. definition of love

As you may have figured out by now, I prefer the positive tone to the negative one! Life is too short not to highlight all the good in the world. It is so much more uplifting!

  1. does money make you happy

Good question. Just the fact that the question is raised so often, says a lot about it.

  1. eden foundation niger

Mmm… My favourite project in the entire world! Need I say anything more…?

Stay tuned for the www.esthergarvi.com keywords!