Back from.. home (Farafina)

February 16, 2017February 16, 2017 / neybahblog / 2 Comments

In Bambara language, we say Farafina to call our homeland. Some translate this with “Africa”, but actually it should mean something like “land of the black people (or black skinned)”. Farafina is home for many of us. It’s a place where to come back to find the loved ones or to escape for a while when coming back from an emigration’s country.

For me it’s the reason why my blog was abandoned for 2 months (!!). I went back to Africa and back here again. Many problems there, many different kind of issues, and SL seemed too far from me over there. But now I’m back and the friends met in the virtual world are already remembering me that friendship, even through different media, is always a treasure to preserve. So thanks for have been waiting for me, I’m so blessed.

First thing I did while back to SL was to have a walk along the Zulu Hut sim, an African place in SL. Watching the big huge trees, the blue sky, and getting rid of my shoes while tasting the earth with my bare feet. Just like when I was a child in Farafina.

My outfit:

and as usual:

BODY | MAITREYA Lara v3.5
HEAD | ANGEL ROCK Viola MESH HEAD Dark Chocolate
SKIN | ANGEL ROCK Nubian Goddess NC M36 v8

Jars in the wind

December 16, 2016December 16, 2016 / neybahblog / 2 Comments

The sky was cloudy, and yet colourful. A weird silence around, broken only by some wind gusts, stroking the scanty grass and rocks.. I was alone, actually alone. I thought about how I was little in the immensity of the landscape. I looked at the huge jars, wondering if they ever talked to someone while resting in the desert. I listened. No voice, just the wind.

Pictures taken at Plain of Jars

My outfit:

and as usual:

BODY | MAITREYA Lara v3.5
HEAD | ANGEL ROCK Viola MESH HEAD Dark Chocolate
SKIN | ANGEL ROCK Nubian Goddess NC M36 v8

King of Everything

December 6, 2016December 6, 2016 / neybahblog / 2 Comments

Listening to:

I’m only flesh and blood
But I can be everything that you demand
I can be king of everything
Or just a tiny grain of sand..

*Amy Winehouse* (song written by Donny Hathaway)

Pictures taken at It all starts with a smile, Heavenly Groove

My outfit:

and as usual:

BODY | MAITREYA Lara v3.5
HEAD | ANGEL ROCK Viola MESH HEAD Dark Chocolate
SKIN | ANGEL ROCK Nubian Goddess NC M36 v8

Beach chat

December 2, 2016December 2, 2016 / neybahblog / 4 Comments

I was wandering around Isle of Insatiables, a great naturist spot and community, located on a gorgeus island.. I like to walk and sunbath there, especially during RL winter, to warm up my heart and sit quietly on the sea shore (check a previous post of mine about that), or having meaningful conversations with the people who are regular here.
This time I randomly met my recent friend Jule, in her astonishing jewelry set, who was having a walk on the beach too. We decided to take some pics together.. I wanted to do that, especially to share my newly found jewels’set by Zaara, which I’m really loving.
We were there enjoying the sweet breeze and keeping our feet into the warm tropical water of the island. Just the waves’ sound to make us company, and some birds flying high.
Sometimes life is just simple like that.

My swim outfit:

HAIR | BEUSY Renegade Mesh Hair (Exclusive Gift Version)
EYES | CARGO Premium Eyes (Deep) (Brown) (SM)

BIKINI | BLUEBERRY Dana Set

and as usual:

BODY | MAITREYA Lara v3.5
HEAD | ANGEL ROCK Viola MESH HEAD Dark Chocolate
SKIN | ANGEL ROCK Nubian Goddess NC M36 v8

*********

JULE’s jewels:

NECKLACE | SECRETS Thin Necklace “my Heart”

Winter Memories

November 22, 2016November 22, 2016 / neybahblog / 5 Comments

While I was walking along the sweet sim of Yasminia, wrapped into my wool sweather in the late autumn breeze, watching some horses there, a sudden memory came back to visit me, a memory of Africa. Memories of the cold breeze’s feeling at dawn, when the nature wakes up, and the animals get ready for a new day. Memories of different chills, maybe different animals.
I can’t write poems. So I found this one, from Tirzah Gilmore, to give voice to my melancholy feeling. I’m grateful.

Dawn’s First Light

The sun rises over the African plain
And dawn’s first light softly wakes the sleeping birds
As it creeps to brighten the farthest domain.

Now the fleeing darkness whispers to the herds,
“Make use of the daylight until I return.”
Slowly, they shuffle to their feet at these words.

While the day moves on, the sun starts to burn
Making the grasses glow with its golden heat,
And the animals’ stomachs begin to yearn.

They all disperse, looking for something to eat,
Till sun and horizon will once again meet.

My winter outfit:

and as usual:

BODY | MAITREYA Lara v3.5
HEAD | ANGEL ROCK Viola MESH HEAD Dark Chocolate
SKIN | ANGEL ROCK Nubian Goddess NC M36 v8

Escape into outer space (INSILICO)

November 18, 2016November 18, 2016 / neybahblog / Leave a comment

I don’t know if it’s because of the previous shocking events, or maybe just because we all want sometimes some kind of breakaway. But this week I found myself wandering in biotech places, in control rooms, and landscapes both urban futuristic and sandy .. up to the surface of Mars. It was a friend of mine to let me know of the existence in Second Life of the regions of Insilico, a well known and huge area dedicated to the reconstruction of a “cyberpunk” reality and actually used for roleplaying, since many years. And that apparently would have to close down three days ago, on November 15th (after eight years!). For this with my friend I went to explore (he had visited there several times) and in some way to greet and say goodbye to this wonderful environment. In fact something has happened and Insilico is still online today, even though I could not say for how long. I really hope those sims will be saved.. More info on the Insilico site here.

I know nothing about roleplaying (although a bit all SL is this, in some way). I’ve never been part of groups that do it systematically. But I loved the film Blade Runner and Ex Machina, and always feel a strong attraction to these future size not that far away, where basically you deepen and bring extreme stories that are already present in our daily reality. I also like the imagination with which they are played or imagined back in Second Life, and once again I remain fascinated by spaces and lights that builders have made to make us travel in another dimension like this.
I invite you to visit Insilico as soon as possible, and lose yourself in a future sometimes disturbing and sometimes poetic. And for my sport outfits with whom I find it so comfortable, as always the details below. I just wanna say here that I’m so happy with my Aibeat short hair, which I really love and that really I find it hard to change these days…

My outfit:

HAIR | AIBEAT *Teddy* black

and as usual:

BODY | MAITREYA Lara v3.5
HEAD | ANGEL ROCK Viola MESH HEAD Dark Chocolate
SKIN | ANGEL ROCK Nubian Goddess NC M36 v8

DAY AFTER (don’t panic)

November 11, 2016November 11, 2016 / neybahblog / 5 Comments

Second Life has always been also a kind of escape for me. That’s why I don’t like to mix too much RL and SL, and bring Real Life into those quiet landscapes. But I’m one and whole, and sometimes what happens on earth simply can’t avoid to affect my SL.
That’s why yesterday I found myself on the seaside at Pino, all alone and pondering about what had just happened in the US, after the presidential election’s results were out and many people, including me, felt upset and worried.
The amazing landscape subsided me, and after a while I found a bit of peace, although I must say that the future appears to me difficult now, more than it was before, and not only for people living in the United States. I also realized that the photos I took are all near a staircase. I wonder if this has a symbolic value in some way for me, as always when I am afraid of the direction the world is taking.

An American friend sent me this, from the Cracked website. She is concerned but is finding a way to go further. This helped me. I hope it can help also those of you who are having the same feeling. Have a good day guys.

My outfit:

and:

BODY | MAITREYA Lara v3.5
HEAD | ANGEL ROCK Viola MESH HEAD Dark Chocolate
SKIN | ANGEL ROCK Nubian Goddess NC M36 v8

BONDS

November 5, 2016November 5, 2016 / neybahblog / 2 Comments

Last thursday night I went to a birthday party in SL, a surprise party actually. One of the owners of Bohannon Soul & Funk venue, Djungle, was celebrating that day an important personal birthday (a Real Life one), and the crew and friends from Bohannon organized a fresh new party for her, with the support of the great music of DJ Finn, another pillar of the club. It was fun, the company was delicious, the music – inspired mostly from the ’50s – was stellar. My friend Martin (seen from the back in the pic) came with me and had the opportunity to know many SL users coming from his home country, Germany. A lot of people stepped by, and Djungle seemed to be really happy of the surprise.. You can see her in all her astonishing elegance dancing right behind me in the picture, on a blue/red dress and red shoes..

I try to go often to listen to funk (my passion) at Bohannon, and this wasn’t a totally new thing for me, but after the party I found myself thinking once again to the strong links that people tie up through a someway total virtual social media like Second Life, where each one of us can’t help but take his/her own soul but also a “new” me, not necessarily the exact copy of the person we are in Real Life. But the bonds that people tighten in here never cease to amaze me, and they are perhaps the most beautiful and touching thing about my journey through this “metaverse”. It’s something we know, it’s also something been studied by people who deal with social relationships in the digital age. Nothing new.
But the feeling I had when I left the party (and the new location built only few hours before to house the celebration), that was new. I felt happy and proud to be part of all this. And to be able to enrich my life with so many new friends from all over the world. That’s it.

Wish you a good weekend, and below, as usual, some details about this outfit I really like (photo taken at Bohannon’s regular location)..

My outfit:

and as usual:

BODY | MAITREYA Lara v3.5
HEAD | ANGEL ROCK Viola MESH HEAD Dark Chocolate
SKIN | ANGEL ROCK Nubian Goddess NC M36 v8

[happy birthday again, Djungle…!]

HUMAN CONNECTION

October 28, 2016October 28, 2016 / neybahblog / 9 Comments

Neybah and Samira

Connection is a word I love. I think it has to do with friendship, sometimes with love, many times with the feeling to acknowledge someone, or even to find him/her again, in another person. Maybe we had loose them for some reason, and then, they’re there again. Not necessarily the same people. But the same way of understanding things, to be curious about things, to laugh about what’s happening..
In Second Life I have many times this kind of sensation to find out again something I knew already. And when I find this in people, and more often in women I know, I feel a warm feeling, like it’s not only single people meeting (me and her) and relating, but the feeling of a kind of network, which extends along the time and that feeds on our experiences and our memories. It tells us that we are all connected.
Sometimes this insight comes in a special moment, a sweet one.
In this case, it came while I was dancing with a dear friend of mine, Samira, in the back hall of the Fogbound Blues venue, pretty busy with people all around.
But that moment’s connection, made of music, silence, and a deep gaze into the eyes, it was also made of memories, laughters, conversations, books, opinions exchanged with Samira, but also with other people I really care about in this parallel universe. And that maybe I do not see since a while.
This is the beauty of life. First, Second.. it doesn’t matter. At all.

(this post is also dedicated to Ana Gabriela)

If you can’t help but try to know what my outfit is here, le voilà:

HAIR | AIBEAT *Roots * black
TOP | ASTERIA “Stela” Top Brown Pattern [Maitreya-Slink-Hourglass]
SKIRT | FashionNatic Idira Skirt
BANGLES | KIBITZ – Zaris bracelet copper

Talking to the birds (at The Trace)

October 24, 2016October 24, 2016 / neybahblog / 4 Comments

Wish you a very good new week, guys.
My blog post today is first of all to let you know that the Fashion Show where I modeled last friday night was a success, thanks to the commitment of many different people. I think also the amount of money raised is totally satisfying, and I think people had fun watching elegant models walking the catwalk, dance, and …strip, showing their breasts as a reminder to the fight against cancer. So thanks from my hearth to all those who organized and to the generous donors, of course.

Second, related to that event, I’d like to show you the second outfit I used that night, and despite it’s long, it was not so impossible to dance on stage with it! Its an Asteria dress combined by me with two different color options, since the dress is available in many different shades. I love this dress, the bandana accessory, and the textures quality.
The pictures were taken by my friend Phuoc Hanh (thanks! Full photoshoot on his Flickr) on a wonderful sim I really love, The Trace, in its summer version. The Second Life claim of this lovely place on the SL Destination Guide says “come see serenity at it’s best”, and if you visit you really won’t be disappointed about that.
I spent also a lot of time talking to a nice bird, which is something I really recommend to anyone who wants to reconnect with his/her true nature. He told me interesting things about living into the wildlife.. but I’ll tell you more when I’ll meet you inworld 🙂 See you at the beach..

My (event) outfit:

HAIR | VANITY HAIR Amina HP-Black
DRESS | ASTERIA Stela outfit (mixed: purple pattern tank + lavender skirt) with Bandana
SHOES | MAITREYA Gold Shiki * Black
NECKLACE | MAXI GOSSAMER Shell – Teardrop (V1)
EARRINGS | MAXI GOSSAMER Octavia
BANGLES | *MM* Resin Bangles (bit old, can’t find any link, sorry)