Tim & Samaritan's Purse on the job

Hi! Fo-fo! Bonjour!
It's December and it's hot here, actually Dec is the coolest month of the year, so it's like having nice summer days. We've been busy! and time flew by, at last some time to update our news.

I've gone to visit most of our main project sites, and I've got a lot of photos - this is just a few. Note on any photo you can click and see the full (bigger) size of the photo.

SP has nutrition projects where under-nourished children are provided food and medicine, and their health regularly monitored. I'm standing here in our stock room in the village of Bani-Bangou (NW border with Mali) along with our project worker Adamou. Next to us are 25kg bags of Corn-Soya from Canada (through WFP World Food Programme). This is a multi-year project, as malnutrition is chronic in some areas. The children receive some other food too, as well mosquito nets, and a toy if their health level goes up high enough to get off the program!

Getting out to our project villages can be a real interesting challenge! One of the govt authorities here recently commented to us that he applauded us that we went to the difficult and remote areas where other charitys/NGOs generally didn’t go, as those places are hard to get to and are more rural and spread out. One photo shows our 4x4 on my way to Inates ("ee-na-tez"), a Tomcheq village near Mali. There is no road there, we are following tire tracks. Most of the traffic out there is by camel. This part of the trail is not too bumpy, but some places certainly are.

The other “travel” photo shows us in a canoe (called a pirogue, sounds like the French word for perogie) I took the photo while in the pirogue. Some of our villages are on islands in the Niger river, which is quite a large river. We access the islands from the shallow side of the river which is heavily grown with vegetation as you can see. The pirogues all have hippo spears, which are large nasty things, and hippos are very dangerous.

There are hippos near our island villages but they swim in the deep side. So speaking of hippos! Here’s one we saw from a safe place!

One our projects is about rebuilding livestock herds that get decimated during hard times, and introducing better goats and vaccination for goats. This photo has our vet Dr Aziz holding onto a goat, in one of our project villages. Goats are nice animals, quite interesting. They are mainly for providing milk, but also for meat and potentially income from selling them (the offspring).

Next is me (Tim) with some baby goats in Koutougou. I like the sound of these village names :-) These baby goats are offspring from our seed project goats, in order to build up people's stocks. These red goats are new to the region (coming from central south Niger).

Millet, mmmmm. This is a common grain eaten here. Millet is quite impressive as it grows in sandy soil and harsh conditions and yet is quite nutritious. Typically the women will pound the grains manually using a heavy large mortar approximately as big as themselves. We have a pilot of a grain mill in one village, where villagers can optionally have their grain ground by a diesel powered mill. 15 minutes waiting instead of 2 hours hard labour.

Next photo - water, clean drinkable water, very essential for living. The BioSand Water filters are the "baby" of the Canadian Samaritan's Purse, these are specifically Canadian originated projects. The filters are able to transform water from the river into safe drinkable water (dripping into the blue bucket). The people in the villages have reported a dramatic reduction in diarrhea since the filters have been introduced. I've drunk the filtered river water - no problem!


Many more filters are on the way! The picture on the wall is a picture-based training manual on using the filters, do's and dont's. The guy next to me is a water filter technician we hire and trained in the village.


Last for now - earlier in the year SP in Niger built 50 temporary homes, huts, for people who lost their homes from heavy rain and flooding in the rainy season. This picture has a widow beside the home which we had built to replace her previously destroyed home, and which she presently lives in. It is a temporary home though, a new one will be needed sometime. This project was one that the local Niger govt and press came out to view. As I mentioned ot some of you, I was on their national TV (RTN) - and seen by many people.



that's it for now! It's great to have interesting and meaningful work.



Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

First couple of months at Sahel Academy

First Couple Months at Sahel Academy

My (Christine) first week at Sahel (Oct. 1^st) was spent shadowing the teacher who I was to replace.

It also happened to be the school Spirit Week and the week before 1^st quarter break, so it was not a typical week teaching-wise. There was a special theme for each day: superhero day, pirate day, hobo day, and school colours day.

My favorite day was hobo day when each student was asked to bring in a can of food. NO, not for the local foodbank as might be expected in Canada. The cans were to be added to a large pot of onions and pasta for lunch that day! The cooks along with the director’s wife sure know how to make something good out of a mish-mash of canned vegetables and meats! It was delicious! This idea probably wouldn’t fly in school cafeterias in Canada! There was costume judging each day. Wow! Many kids went all out dressing-up. We’ve got a lot of great creativity at the school!

The week ended with a pep rally for the softball tournament that weekend. The boys’ team is the “Sahel Suns” and the girls’ team is “Sahel

Comets”. My class prepared a cheer and the elementary students decorated the sidewalk with chalk “banners”.

The weekend softball tournament was held at the Rec Centre located at the American school and embassy.

That seems to be the spot where many families hang out on the weekends. There’s a pool, a tennis court, beach volleyball nets, a baseball diamond, an air-conditioned lounge and a small restaurant.

Classes started back up again on October 15. I have

13 students in grades 5 and 6 from Korea, India, New Zealand, Australia, Nigeria, and the USA. Many of the students have spent most of their lives in Africa.One girl had most of her schooling in Italian while her parents were working in Italy.

My students are really enjoying the Biology unit on rainforest animals. They also have devoured the book “Where the Red Fern Grows”, which is about a boy and his adventures in the Ozark Mountains with his two ‘coon hunting hounds. My students all love animals! We

found the molted skin of a snake one day. It was in perfect condition! They also came across a chameleon one day. Very exciting! We found a screened cage in the storeroom and the kids spent each

recess collecting grasshoppers for the chameleon. Unfortunately, it didn’t live more than a day (it must have been sick). A few weeks later, the younger class found another chameleon (more feisty than the first) which we kept for a few days before setting it free before the weekend.

The next picture was taken at the birthday party for a boy in my class. The entire class was invited! It was a Hawaiian beach theme.

One day after school, the entire Christian community was invited to the house of our librarian for a special baptism service in her pool. Six individuals made a personal and public commitment to follow Jesus. The youngest was a 5 year old who read her own lovely testimony in French (she goes to a French school). The oldest was a young Romanian man. I felt very proud that one of my students, Mariah, made the choice to be baptized.

The school organizes a fair number of fun days for the students and the English-speaking community. The kids and their parents enjoy these days since there aren’t a lot of activities for kids outside of school in the city of Niamey (besides going to the American Rec Centre or going on family excursions to the dunes or animal park nearby). The high school students organized a pancake breakfast, garage sale and sports day for the community one Saturday. I helped judge the Lego space vehicle building competition! The students’ council also put on a Fall Festival evening which included a variety of fun games such as throwing wet sponges at a teacher’s face, bobbing for apples, beanbag tossing, roasting hotdogs and even camel rides! I couldn’t pass off this opportunity to go for a short camel ride.

Driving in Niamey:

Tim could tell you more about his experiences learning to drive in Niamey. I’ll tell you what I know from my experiences as a passenger. Although I do have an International Drivers License, I don’t plan on driving regularly in Niamey. You’ll understand why as you read further!

First of all, don’t expect that all cars (even those of expats) will have functioning seatbelts. If you are lucky enough, the car may have air conditioning. If not, you will certainly want to roll down the windows to get a bit

of air circulation (although the wind won’t cool you off much). Be prepared to eat a bit of dust and breathe exhaust fumes along the way.

On the right here is a road sign I pass on occasion, a no-entry sign which says "danger de mort" (Danger of death!). Well that should keep me out of there!

Niamey has a fair number of round-about intersections. You may enter the circle when your light is green. Once you are inside the circle, the right of way goes to those who are entering on your right. We witnessed what happens when you violate this traffic rule. A traffic police officer will signal you to pull over. You will be expected to show all your papers, and maybe even pay a fine on the spot. We were lucky to have been given a verbal warning only.

Stoplights. They are located very high or off to the side and often several metres before the intersection, so I often don’t even notice them. There is no assurance that the stoplights are functioning properly since many of them are broken or only have one bulb working. If you miss the green light, drivers behind you will be certain to remind you to go with a friendly “honk”.

Pedestrians and bicyclists have no right of way here. You put yourself at risk when you walk on the road. In fact, our first day in Niamey, we came across a crowd looking at a collision scene between a bicyclist and a truck. The bicycle was totally contorted under the front of a truck. We had no idea where the bicyclist was. Since then, we have witnessed a number of near accidents and seen several bad accident scenes.

Our street is a VERY wide sandy road with no sidewalk. There is room for 2-3 lanes of traffic. Yet, cars invariably choose to drive in the middle of the road or as close to you as possible! I realize they are only trying to avoid the “washboards”, the deep sandy spots, and the holes, but sometimes I feel like they are purposely trying to drive over my feet! Main roads may have sidewalks, but usually the “sidewalk” consists of dirt, gravel or patches of uneven and broken cement. Watch your footing! Garbage is thrown everywhere. Black plastic bags get blown around and often hang in trees and one weeds or bushes. (Some African countries have actually banned cheap plastic bags that end up littering the countryside.) You also share the sidewalk/ road with wandering goats, chickens, dogs, and the occasional donkey.

Tim and I left Toronto thinking we had also left behind traffic congestion. Not so. The Niger River runs through Niamey. Most of the city is on the northeast side (our apartment, Tim’s work, the embassies and hotels, markets…), but the city has begun to extend to the southwest on the other side of the river (my school, the French international church, the university…). There is only ONE 2-lane bridge for this city of close to 700 000! Cars, large trucks, taxis, donkey-carts laden with wood, and sometimes camels all share this bridge! We see camels on the road almost every day! Camels are used as beasts of burden to carry bulky loads of straw bales and large woven mats used in the construction of traditional houses.

We had heard before arriving that traffic was horrible crossing the bridge during “rush hours”. That’s one reason we chose to live closer to Tim’s work so he wouldn’t have to contend with this mess each morning. I carpool to school each morning and avoid the congestion. Sometimes it’s pretty busy in the late afternoon. Our first Sunday morning we experienced the worst congestion we had seen so far! A large truck was broken down, allowing only 1 lane of traffic to pass it. Ten hours later, it was still stuck! Taxis were butting in, horns were honking, motorcycles and bicyclists were weaving around the cars, and some crazy drivers were trying to squeeze through and make a 3^rd lane! Add to that mess donkey carts and the extreme heat! Recently, I saw a stalled car being pushed by the passengers in the car and 2 policeman who were trying to clear up the traffic mess. The largest hotel in the city is also located next to the bridge. When VIPs come to town, traffic gets really back-logged as security is tightened and the police make way for the important vehicle convoy. Recently, Tim and I drove to the airport to pick up an SP visitor from the UK. On our way to the airport, we noticed a crowd forming near one of the major round-abouts. It looked like a possible demonstration. When we drove home, we realized that it was actually a welcoming party for some famous African movie producer. There were police directing traffic at every intersection from the airport all the way across the city to the other end along embassy row. Essentially, all red lights could be ignored since the police were giving traffic coming from the airport the right of way. I felt like royalty as we passed by all the crowds. It was smooth sailing all the way home!

A drumming hello from Niamey

We made a short audio recording - Enjoy! Click on the blue play arrow > below. Some various photos are attached to the recording too.
You may need to have Windows Media Player already installed on your computer in order to run this (wmv video format).

Timbuktu - at the end of the world

Well not quite the end of the world, but we're privileged to take a short educational vacation and visit this obscure and mysterious former capital of the Songhai empire.

We’ve only been less than 3 weeks in Niger and we flew off to Timbuktu! Timbuktu is in northern Mali which borders on Niger. Mali is a French African country and the town Timbuktu is known as “Tombouctou” in French, as you can see in the photo. In the local Songhai language it is known as Tin Bouctou which means the (water) well of a well known lady called Bouctou (with a large navel!).

How did we get here??

While watching the annual softball tournament at the American embassy grounds in Niamey, we heard of an opportunity with SIMAIR which was already planning to fly to Timbuktu to pick up 3 people and they had 2 empty seats on their 6 seater Piper aircraft. Days later we were on the plane! Pictured here is the aircraft and our pilot Ed, on the tarmac at Niamey international airport.

Below is a posed picture of us in the passenger area and cargo.
I (Tim) sat up front in the co-pilot seat on the flight to Timbuktu.

The propeller is noisy so we have good quality headphones and microphone for communicating with each other and Christine during the flight. The flight to Timbuktu was about 2.5 hours. We flew at about 10,000 feet for most of the way there and at 13,000 feet on the way back. It was turbulent at times because of the hot air below us. A rocky flight over the Sahara is rather disturbing! But we made it through fine.

This picture left is the town of Timbuktu taken from the plane window. It is truly a desert town. There is no river in the town, but the Niger river is not far away (north horizon).

We had arrangements to stay at a guest house with the Evangelical Baptist mission (EBM) near the town, at a place called “the project”.

The project is a huge (for Timbuktu) agricultural farming territory which feeds about 30% of the population of Timbuktu. The project is operated by an American couple, the Marshalls. It has private irrigated lots which local people use to grow crops. The picture below left is Richard Marshall showing us some of the plots of lands. Here in the shade of lime trees and other trees are small trees and plants ready for planting.

They have gas generators to power electricity for pumping water out of wells. He also has some experimental hand powered water pumps as well which he showed us.

Here above we are having lunch in the Marshall house. Clockwise starting from Christine we have: Christine, Ed the pilot, Richard and Anna Marshall, Tim, John – a friend of their daughter from school, Dan – a math teacher at Sahel, and a daughter taking the photo.

Here we are (right) in the dunes of the Sahara desert! Just outside of Timbuktu. The sand is very soft. During the day it is brutally hot but it cools down considerably at night. Since the nights are cool, we slept outside under a mosquito net suspended over a camp style bed. By dawn the next morning it was about 19 C and we were under a blanket. We rose at 5:30AM, very comfortable in the early morning.

We did a walking tour of the town in the morning plus some driving. Our guide is a local Timbuktu African and also Pastor of the local EBM Baptist church (picture later). Here left is the famous oldest mosque in Timbuktu. It is dated about 13^th century.

Below is another larger mosque in town. Timbuktu was once the capital of the Songhai Empire. It had one of the largest most advanced universities of its time, prior to being overtaken by the Moroccans. The French took over Mali in the late 1800’s. The Songhai are the dominant tribe in the Timbuktu area. With the changes in climate and politics, Timbuktu transformed from the great prosperous trade city it once claimed to be into the small desert town it is today.

In their traditional culture, the men desired the fattest women possible, and would feed their wives large amounts of fatty foods in order to make them as big as possible! Fat was equated to being wealthy. Some women were too heavy to get on camels!

There are a few small museums in Timbuktu, as well as sites of homes of early English, French and Austrian explorers.

Left I (Tim) am pictured with a block of pure salt. These slates of pure salt are found in the desert, and they are traditionally traded as goods. Salt is found in abundance in the desert, it is believed that the Sahara desert was once underneath the ocean / sea.

The right (above) shows is a typical scene on the outskirts of town. Behind the church in the middle of town is an area called the “Misery belt” which is similar to this photo but more crowded. It is the poor area of town.

Left is our tour guide standing with Christine, in front of the Women’s centre/shelter for the Baptist church. The centre provides skills training for women (there are about a dozen sewing machines inside) as well as education, shelter for abused women, clean water, food distribution. The guide/pastor knows his town history very well, and he also had many interesting stories about the church and its development.

The Malian government built a monument to commemorate the peace accord with the Tuareg rebels in the early 1990s. This display of guns below is part of the monument. Unfortunately despite the monument and the accord, the Tuareg rebels are currently active again and have recently stated that they want to separate their territory in the northern Mali & Niger areas to form their own country. That’s the main political trouble at present.

Mali is a predominantly Muslim country as is Niger. There is a Catholic church and cemetery in Timbuktu (dating from latter 18^th century). The cemetery has armed guards 24hour because it has frequently been vandalized by Muslims who have smashed and desecrated the tombs of the priests buried there as well as overturned crosses on graves etc. The Catholic population of the town is reputed to be no more than about 20 members though.

A haunted house story: When the African Baptist pastor originally requested from the city to obtain land for the church, he was refused to build on any land except for one place in town which was known as the haunted place. Nobody in town would walk near that lot let alone build on it. It is the old ancient area of town known by archeologists for finding old pottery etc. The local legend is that it is inhabited by evil spirits and people were afraid to go there. So as their only option they built the Baptist church at that spot. Later people determined that the land was no longer haunted, and the neighboring area started building up. The original church had filled to capacity and they have since expanded it to hold about 120 people, and also have several buildings and centres for community charity work. The pastor says he has occasionally received threats over the years but he seems very upbeat and optimistic despite that.

We end with a sunset on the Sahara. That’s our trip in a nutshell, lots we can write about (and more photos) but we just wanted to share a quick story on the trip.

Arrived in Niamey

We are safely in Niamey Niger, West Africa! I took this first photo from the plane window while over the Sahara desert – it is as it appears, just miles and miles of nothing but sand drifts. No roads, water, plants, animals, nothing at all but sand! The flight was fine but the jetlag has been tough especially the hot nights. It is usually 32 to 34 C in the apartment at night.

We are renting an apt in a compound in Niamey. It is owned by the mission SIM which operates the Sahel school.

This is a photo of our housing compound from out on the street, with Christine in the street. Our street is completely sand (and wide!) like most roads here. People drive anywhere on the road, usually just wherever there are less bumps or holes. We have nice trees despite all the sand. Our shared property is everything from left to right in the photo. We have walked a lot to explore the neighbourhood and shops.

This next photo shows the front of the building. We are on the 2^nd floor, right side (of 4 apts). Nice balcony! The place is called LeFlambeau. We live in an neighbourhood which has most of the head offices for humanitarian and NGO organizations including UNICEF, World Vision, World Food Programme, SIM, … Some benefits from that – we are in walking distance of the only (!) bakery in the country which makes whole wheat or multi-grain bread. We're glad to have that.

And the next photo shows our new inherited dog Missy who is a mixed lab. She is very playful like a pup.

In theory a guard dog but in reality a play dog. She stays in our compound all the time. It’s a big compound so she seems happy enough. We play ball with her as you can imagine. There is a cat as well, the dog likes to spook and chase the cat for fun but doesn’t hurt it. In additional to the dog we have a night guard/gardener/grounds keeper as well which is standard.

The next is the view from our balcony – the entire view is our front yard which has about 30-40 large trees and sand ground. The trees and the sand are quite contrasting. If you look carefully (both photos below) you can see some chairs in the middle, and the fence/wall at the back. On the right is a closer view of the same front yard – real nice patio resting area in the middle. There’s actually a thatched roof over the chairs like a gazebo but the photo doesn’t show it.

The electricity goes out almost every day it seems once or twice for 30 minutes to 2 hours. I carry a flashlight with me usually. The other day I took a shower by candlelight and flashlight! All our showers are strictly cold water. However it’s nice since “cold” water is actually about 27 C and it is hot in our place. We don’t have a TV but in this age of computers – my laptop serves as a DVD player. We had a movie night for ourselves – we put my laptop on a table in front of the couch and watched a DVD movie on it.

We were invited out to dinner every night in our first week.
On Friday (first week) our neighbours in our compound had us over for dinner – in the photo below. Our neighbours are two ladies in two separate apts next to us – one is American and the other is German. Anisa (left) is a teacher at Sahel Academy with Christine, and Christa works in ministry to prisons and students. Despite the heat, shorts are rarely to be seen here, we only wear them in private, as local people dress conservatively. People don’t show their legs or torso in public, so men always wear pants and women typically wear dresses. I’m wearing my shorts here but I would not go out in public with them.

I'm (Tim) learning to drive here and know the city a bit, but mostly we get a lift or drive. Taxi system is the African group taxi which is more like a bus.The taxi a fixed rate of 45 cents per person (200 CFA) whether you are going 1 block or clear across town, the taxi driver chooses the route and the taxi is filled with as many people as possible to fit it at any time, picking up people and dropping off. Therefore the taxi driver decides if he will take you or not and go to your destination (not door to door, just along major routes). So sometimes the taxi refuses and you have to wait for another, or he might take a lot of detours to pick up and drop off other fares along the way.

There are lots of unusual sights here that you would not see in Canada – left: typical goat on our street taking a creative initiative to get food.

Christine here in a race with the tortoise on the school grounds, but she’s not anxious about being outrun. The tortoise walked into the school the other day! The school director is in the background, we had dinner at his place.

OUR WORK: We'll share more about that on other blog moments! My (Tim) first week at Samaritan's Purse was quite busy as the country director Charles (home base in Edmonton) and accountant Moise are in Senegal this week at a conference, so on my second full day I had lots on my plate to manage the office and finances. I was given the only key to open the office, as well as combination and key to the safe. Standing in for the accountant this week is especially keeping me very busy, there’s a lot of money payments and paper work for various project activities and general operations and salaries each day. I will be traveling with Charles on Oct 9 to some rural villages (Ayourou) near Mali, to view the project work.

Christine has been visiting the school a lot and participating, she plans to fully take on her teaching role in a couple of weeks. We have both been getting to know people at Sahel Academy. It's been a great start to make friends in both the ex-pat and local Nigerien community.