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.