Domesticated Human Life in Niger

Daily life in Niger is quite a big change from life in Canada. We live a “small-town” existence in the capital “city” where livestock mixes with traffic and one is just as likely to be woken up by a rooster as by a loud radio. Simple, ordinary tasks seem to take longer here in Niger: from grocery shopping and cooking to doing laundry and using the internet.

Our daily chores often involve cooking the meals, sweeping up the sand that blows in through the windows, emptying the compost bucket into our compost pile, and washing dishes by hand. The dish water is never hot, but sometimes it might be lukewarm from being heated up by the afternoon sun. Having a life partner in this rural developing country where the pace of life is slower makes life a lot more exciting. I am very lucky to be married to a modern husband who joins me in the kitchen or who cooks up a delicious soup while I take a nap after a long day. He willingly helps around the house and washes the morning’s dishes so I come home to a clean kitchen (in exchange for a shoulder massage that night).

We use a gas stove/oven to cook, although heating up leftovers is a lot easier with the modern kitchen appliance called the microwave. It was apparently “almost brand new” when we bought it second-hand, but it is a much older and simpler model than we had in Canada. We also have a toaster, but we do miss our toaster oven.

Thank God we have an electric refrigerator, a brand new Eco-friendly one too! We certainly need it in this hot weather! A cold beverage with ice is much appreciated on a hot day. Tim has created several of his own tasty versions of iced tea. Sometimes he might brew a big pot of citrus tea with lemon. Other times he brews a mix of fruit teas and the flower of a native plant (called bissap or zima) which has a taste somewhat like that of cranberry juice. An inviting bowl of fresh fruit sitting out on the dining table just isn’t practical here in Niger. Fresh food goes bad in no time if it isn’t kept in the refrigerator. In the hottest of weather, bananas can’t stay out longer than a day or two before they have to be frozen or placed in the fridge. Unfortunately, an electric refrigerator isn’t very efficient when the power is cut for hours at a time!

Luckily, I don’t have to wash my clothes by hand (or very often that is) or use one of those old ringer washing machines I grew up with in Cameroon. We have an electric top-load washing machine conveniently placed in our bathroom. It’s an old clunker that makes a noisy racket and “jumps” around while on the spin cycle. Tim usually jams a chair in between the machine and the wall so that the machine won’t fall into the shower stall. The wash water is always “cold” since the sole hot water pipe goes to the shower and not to the washing machine. Whites never get perfectly white again, even with powerful detergent. Hanging the clothes on the line out back is the chore that sometimes makes me feel like a 1950s housewife…damp clothes on my shoulder, clothes pins in my hands and one in my mouth. All that is missing is a scarf on my head and a baby on my hip!

Grocery shopping, preparing food and cooking take a lot more time in Niger than they do in Canada. The first step is surviving the crowded market where I often buy fresh fruit, vegetables and eggs. It can be rather draining and frustrating to always have vendors and beggars flock around you even before you get out of your car! For a quieter shopping experience, I go to the Lebanese grocery store near our house which has a small market stall nearby. The second step is food preparation. The majority of our meals are made from fresh ingredients, except for canned goods. Processed food and imported packaged goods are highly taxed so we buy them only when we feel we need them. We bleach all our fruits and vegetables before eating or cooking them.

All our drinking water comes from a Katadyn water filter attached to the sink. The city water is drinkable, but it tends to have a high concentration of iron and other particulates in the pipes that aren’t good for the body over long periods of time, so we prefer drinking filtered water. We have learned to be patient with the filter as it often gets so clogged up with silt that water only comes out as a trickle. Tim faithfully scrubs the filter every week to keep the water flow at a decent rate. We keep several litres of water in our fridge or freezer since we probably go through about 3-5 litres of water a day! Stored water has come in handy a few times when water pressure to our upstairs apartment has been so low that we can’t get a drip from our tap for several hours! It’s a necessity of life here in the semi-desert to carry a bottle of ice-water wherever you go. I learned this lesson early-on after coming out of a 2-hour church service parched and feeling faint.

Making whole wheat muffins is an example of how complicated and challenging cooking can be here in Niger. First of all, I need to be sure I have all the ingredients. Eggs. Check that they are still good. If they float in bowl of water, they could have gone bad. Be cautious. Crack one egg at a time and double check the smell. Floating eggs may still be fine since the extreme heat here can dehydrate them quickly. Flour. White flour is easy to get, but I often like to make muffins that are half and half white and whole wheat flour. I can’t just go and find a package of whole wheat flour in the grocery store. No! I need to go to the market, ask directions to the area where grains and dried legumes are sold, and buy a heaping bowl of wheat. Processing isn’t included. Next, I must wash the wheat numerous times in a strainer to remove the dirt, bits of sticks and grass, other seeds and even pebbles! Then I need to lay it out in the sun, or in the oven, to dry. When the wheat is dry, I need to bring it to a grain mill in the market to grind it into flour. Afterwards, I sift the flour just to be sure all the pebbles are out, those that weren’t ground into dust in the mill. Finally, I have flour to make my muffins! But that’s not all…whole wheat flour tends to go rancid in the heat, and also attract insects unless it is kept in the freezer. Just one more thing that needs to find a place in the freezer.

It was my mom who passed on to me a love of cooking and baking. I’m no restaurant chef, as Tim can certainly attest to, but my meals are tasty and healthy. When the creative juices are stirring on a lazy Saturday morning, I like to cook/bake or try my hand at making new things. My first attempt at making a batch of yogourt was botched – I misread the recipe and added too much liquid for the amount of milk powder and starter. The second time, it turned out just right! Now Tim and I are enjoying yogourt on fresh fruit and cereal and in smoothies.

There are a number of affordable restaurants in Niamey with good food. Tim and I often frequent the Lebanese restaurant or the two Chinese restaurants all located in our neighbourhood. Be prepared to wait a bit. It’s normal to have to wait an hour for your food, and these aren’t even high-end European restaurants either! They tend to make food on an “as requested” basis. I often wonder if they need to go and catch the chicken first, then kill it, remove the feathers and then cook it! One time, one of the cooks came out of the kitchen in a panic. They had just run out of gas for the stove and they had to go find a replacement bottle. Tim and I have learned to entertain ourselves (e.g. card games, conversation, and reading materials) while waiting for food to arrive. If we’re hungry and feel like a quick and simple meal, we drive to our favorite Senegalese restaurant near the market. The menu is simple: your choice of sauce (meat, peanut, or vegetable) on rice. It’s served in a matter of minutes. We find the food tasty, filling and very affordable (a large plate of rice, meat sauce and a bottle of pop for only about 3 dollars)!

Besides cleaning the bathroom, one chore I hate doing is ironing. At one point, Tim and I were ironing almost all of our laundry to be certain no insects had laid their eggs in our clothes. Later, we learned from other missionaries that this precautionary measure is not needed here in such a hot and dry climate. Still, I have no patience when it comes to removing all the wrinkles from my cotton or rayon dresses and skirts. Nor do I want to be around a hot iron when it’s 38 degrees inside our apartment! Suddenly, I made the realization that “I” didn’t have to iron my own clothes. That could be the job of our house help! That’s one of the perks of living in Niger. We can actually afford to have a house help, and most expatriates do anyways. I don’t know how we could ever go back to cleaning our own place! Over the Christmas vacation we went back to cleaning our own apartment for two weeks since most of the time we were away traveling anyway. But things still get dirty, especially when you live in sandy Niger. Without a house help who was going to sweep all the dirt that accumulated and then wash the floor? Whose turn was it to clean the toilet and shower during these 2 weeks? Silence…hesitation…then I spoke up “Sure I’ll clean the house Tim, but how much are you going to pay me?”