An-Nahl
The above, I am told, is a surah (chapter) of the Qur'an, commonly called An-Nahl -- the honeybee. This is because it contains the lines "And your Lord taught the honey bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in (men's) habitations; Then to eat of all the produce (of the earth), and find with skill the spacious paths of its Lord: there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men: verily in this is a Sign for those who give thought."
It looks like my project in Guinea is all a go. They found flights and the visa was actually approved a mere few hours after I submitted the online application so that was amazingly fast. So I'll be heading out on May 5th for at least two and maybe three months of travel.
The Country Director for the Organization in Guinea (Ibro) is a very nice very Muslim man -- he recently made the hajj to Mecca. The above An-Nahl art I saw on a wall in Kyrgyzstan, and the above is the photo I took after some attempts to clean it a bit (upped the contrast and cropped it closer). I would like to make it nice enough to print out in a high quality fit for framing to give to Ibro as a present, I think it would be very fitting.
I'm wildly assuming that someone with a bit more skill than me could probably clean this up very easily, but my last next step in the process -- using background fill function to make the background all perfectly white -- is not working because if I set the tolerance high enough to get all the background it also makes essential parts of the art disappear. Soo I don't suppose anyone wants to step in and clean it right up? If it helps starting from the version I haven't tinkered with here's the original.