Tim & Christine News from the Sahara

More Musings from Christine

2009-12-20T15:25:00.001-05:00

Fall reflections of life in Canada

In the fall, you often see large flocks of birds (often Canada Geese) flying south for the winter in V-formation. Honk, honk, honk. But I wasn’t expecting to see herds of over 100 Canada Geese grazing on open areas of green grass in the city! It seems so strange to see “birds” grazing on grass and not goats and sheep, like what we would expect in Niger.

The best way to get to know a new community is to get out and explore it on foot. That’s exactly what Tim and I did when we were living in Toronto in the early fall. Everything was very convenient (walking, biking, subway) where we were temporarily lodged near “Little India” just south of the Danforth. (We loved being so close to Indian food. Yum!) We slowly adjusted to the cooler fall weather by getting outside daily. When we left Toronto, the leaves were just beginning to fall from the trees, whereas the leaves in Ottawa had long since fallen when we arrived there the same day.

Getting to know your community changes though when the temperatures fall and the weather isn’t so nice to be outdoors. November in Ottawa/Gatineau wasn’t as warm as Toronto was in September and October. Our method of getting to know our neighbourhood consisted mainly of driving around and most importantly using Mapquest and Googling things on the internet. Thank goodness we have access to wireless internet at our apartment! What a change from Niger where you depend so much on the locals and face-to-face conversations to get to know your community.

I don’t think I experienced much “reverse culture shock” upon our return to Canada from Niger. Reverse Culture shock is when you feel disturbing emotions when re-entering your home environment. Tim and I were shopping in the large mall in our old neighbourhood our first weekend back in Canada. It didn’t phase me at all. I just accepted the fact that we were back in the affluent and consumerist West…that’s how life is here. It wasn’t until 3 months later when I stepped into a large “Chapters” bookstore that it hit me. “Chapters” is not just a bookstore. No. Now it’s a stationary store, a gift shop, a coffee shop, a clothing store, a linen store, a toy store, a meeting place for friends, a candy shop, a “one-stop-shopping”store. It’s so BIG, it’s actually overwhelming!

Winter is here! My first impressions after 2 years in a snowless country.

“What is this cold, fluffy, foreign substance? Ohhhh, it’s cold when you step into deep snow and it goes down your boots!”

“I’m not going outside unless I have long-johns under my jeans!”

“Bundle up. Wear your hat (toque), scarf and warm mittens. It’s cold outside, especially when you take into account the wind-chill factor of -25 degrees Celsius!”

“I think I’ll just soak in the sun and enjoy the view while sitting here on the comfy sofa.”

“Fluffy, white snow is truly a gorgeous sight. Just keep it nicely on the ground and not down my neck, thank you!”

It has certainly been a pleasure to watch the seasons change from our patio door looking out onto the Ottawa River. Waking up each morning to a beautiful view. Calm waters as clear as glass. Mist over the water. Lapping water against the shore. Stormy waves crashing on the beach as though you were at the ocean! Ice forming along the shoreline. Ice and snow sparkling in the sun. Ice flows floating down the river. One day I’m sure we’ll wake up and see the river almost frozen except for maybe the middle.

Luxury foods - Mmmmm

2009-11-01T13:12:00.000-05:00

When you think of a luxury meal item you like to treat yourself, what comes to mind? I know people who like to have a chocolate bar everyday, perhaps not a good idea though. I could go for a good lasagna.
I remember our cook in Niger telling us that working people in the city really go for the luxury food of rice. How about that, rice as a luxury food! I probably once thought of rice as a 3rd world peasant food, but in Niger it's an imported (typically) luxury food, not much available in villages but very popular with working people in the city. It is the peasant's luxury food, poor people have their luxuries too! Rice actually finds itself all over the world, but it is grown in flooded fields which many people don't have available, certainly not much in sub-Sahara dry lands. Fortunately Coca-cola is not the only "food" item that finds itself all over the world, you can also find rice, typically imported from Asia. Although it may be more expensive that the local cereal crop it is still within $ reach of many or most people.

Photos here are the the Niger river.
The Niger River retreats and narrows by hundreds of metres every year during the 9 months of dry weather, you can see this in the first photo. In the rainy season the river widens, flooding and regaining its original size (hopefully!).

This provides a natural environment for growing rice, indeed the river bed is lined with rice patties. There is one big problem though - there's only one river.

Pound for pound, bulk quantities of the cheapest rice are about 4 times more expensive that millet in Niger. Millet is the food staple of the nation for Niger and it can remarkably grow in dry sandy fields thank God (also Sorghum and some other grains). Millet is staple/daily food for the rural villages and for most of the population. Ironically in Canada, millet is much more expensive than rice.

As I sit here looking out the window at the Ottawa river, I notice that there are no rice patties, a missed opportunity :-) !

The next time you eat rice, enjoy the luxury of it and be glad that you can afford this very fine food.

Bonjour Canada! What we appreciate about returning to Canada.

2009-09-25T19:52:00.018-04:00

1. The abundant greenery! The green grass. Green trees and colourful flower gardens. Green spaces and public city parks for leisure walks. No more vast expanses of sandy dirt devoid of grass or even weeds!

2. Excellent Thai and Indian food. Lots of choice in ethnic restaurants (especially in Toronto and Montreal). Currently in Toronto, we live only 2 minutes from “Little India”, 10 minutes from “Greek Town”, 10 minutes from one of the “China Towns” and only minutes away from other ethnic restaurants, grocery stores and clothing stores.

3. Many comfort and health foods that we can’t find in Niger. Peaches and nectarines, cranberries, grapes, raspberries and other berries (although Niamey did have a very short strawberry season), whole-wheat and multi-grain breads of all kinds, rhubarb, orange sweet potatoes, black beans (you just couldn’t find these yummy legumes in Niger).

4. Going to grocery store to shop in peace and not getting harassed or pestered by vendors in the market the minute I step out of the car! Fixed prices at stores. No guessing or bartering required. Although, I for one quite enjoyed bartering and really got into it when I was not in a hurry. You can get some pretty good deals that way!

5. You're not likely to fall ill to malaria. No more weekly anti-malarial medication and no more worries about terrible tropical illnesses.

6. The cooler and cleaner air (less black car exhaust and smoke from garbage fires). The beautiful colours of autumn. Appreciating the sunny fall days since the autumn sun in Canada isn’t as direct and hot as in Niger. Great weather for hiking in the day and sleeping at night. (Christine isn't looking forward to wearing heavy winter jackets and boots. She quite enjoyed wearing sandals all year round!)

Here we are in the Rocky Mountains near Canmore, Alberta.

7. Flush toilets and relatively clean public washrooms. No more using smelly public latrines, squatting over a tiny hole, hiding in the bushes or bringing my own toilet paper everywhere!

8. You're not likely to be kidnapped in Canada (in reference to the separate kidnapping incidents earlier this year of 2 Canadian diplomats and some European tourists).

9. Well-equipped sports facilities and indoor gyms where you can exercise without getting heatstroke. It’s nice to be able to jog and do exercise outdoors without overheating and sweating profusely! Do you like Tim's barbells he had made from old automotive parts?

10. High-speed internet.

11. More predictable drivers who generally follow the rules of the road. In Niger, it appeared that there were no rules, or if there were, very few people knew or respected the rules of the road. Although, we’re not looking forward to all the traffic congestion, especially in Toronto!

12. Clean streets. No garbage in the streets or burning at the side of the road -->

13. Blending-in with others on the street and not standing out as the “rich white person” walking down the street.

14. Better medical facilities and health care.

15. Bike paths on many city roads and scenic trails. Biking is a lot safer in Canada and Europe.

16. Ahh. The melodious sound of water lapping on the side of the canoe as you paddle!

17. Clean plush train seats that you aren’t afraid of laying your head on. (France is to be congratulated for excellent service on the TGV going from Paris to Strasbourg.)

18. Clean and clear (not brown) flowing water in lakes and streams.

19. Seeing friends and family again after 2 years living in Niger. Although it will be hard at first to set down new roots (wherever we settle) and to invest in meeting new people.

First Impressions back in Canada

1. Wow! Black garden soil rich in organic material. Not the red, nutrient deficient sand we used in Niger for potting plants and growing veggies. (although cow manure was certainly cheap and easy to obtain in Niger!)

2. The ponds in Canada don’t dry up over the summer and they have grass and natural vegetation growing to the edge, instead of muddy animal tracks trampling the vegetation leading to the water.

The picture to the left was taken in November of a pond ("mar" in French) which is the sole source of water for the village. The picture on the right is the same pond in June before the rains arrived.

3. In Canada, there is a lot of food waste. People don’t tend to pick up their chicken/meat bones with their hands or clean them off to the very bitter end. In Niger licking your fingers after a messy meal is quite acceptable. I was horrified one evening in a restaurant to see the amount of meat wasted on a T-bone steak by a man who ordered too large of a meal to complete. I guess he didn’t think of taking home a “doggie bag”.

4. Mmmm good coffee.... Donut and coffee shops or convenience stores stocked with junk food at every street corner rather than fruit/veggie vendors or men pushing wheelbarrows of fresh produce down the road. Like any culture, Niger does sell a lot of western junk food (candies, cookies, chips) at roadside kiosks and quick Nigerien snacks are deep-fried bread dough and fried yams.

5. The countryside feels rather empty without herds of scrawny cows, goats and sheep wandering around. In Canada (and Europe) there are very few animals out grazing. Instead the fields are filled with large bales of hay or crops of grain and corn.
Note that all the farm animals pictured below are gifts/loans to local people and financed by Samaritan's Purse (by your donations). Photos taken by Tim.

Au revoir Niger!

Au revoir Niger. What we'll miss about Niger.

2009-09-10T19:45:00.002-04:00

Some things we'll miss! (in no particular order)
1. Living “on the farm” in the middle of the city!
Waking up to rooster crows, guinea fowl honking and bleating goats. Meeting spunky goats and laid-back sheep wandering the streets and garbage dumps for anything to fill their empty stomachs. Passing small herds of cattle munching on anything edible growing along the sides of the streets. Vegetable gardens and crops (millet, corn, legumes) growing on any piece of available land.

2. Our pets we left behind. Snowy our cat and the 3 dogs (daytime guards and playful companions) we’ve enjoyed taking care of at each of the houses we lived in.

3. Having connections with people in many diverse settings (from church, NGO work, school, etc.) The chance for both Tim and Christine to be more connected with each other’s jobs. Christine learned a lot about Tim’s work in humanitarian development.

4. Our new friends and colleagues, both African and internationals like ourselves.

5. Having a night guard at the house to open the gate (an automatic garage door opener), water the garden, clean the animal cages, and take out the garbage to the street.

6. Having very affordable house-help 3 times a week. Now we’ll have to get used to sharing the domestic house work! No more piling the dishes up high for our cleaning lady.

7. Greeting people on the street (something you don’t see much in big cities in Canada with people too caught up with their iPods and cell phones to look up and smile). Africans are very warm and friendly people.

8. The “fish guy” who brought huge freshly caught capitaine (Nile perch) to our door upon request. And the “veggie man” who came by several times a week on his bike with fresh produce. He was a kind old soul who was always heavily dressed despite the oppressive heat and always wearing a green “winter-like” scarf around his neck.

9. Being able to see the sky (not often possible in Canada), enjoy the sunset and actually predict the weather for the day with fairly good accuracy! Expect heat and sun (no rain) for about 9 months of the year. When the humidity starts rising and the clouds start building, expect rain.

10. Looking forward to each of the fruit seasons (mango season, guava season, tangelo season, tomato season, etc.). We’ll really miss having our mango (or two) a day!

11. “Street chicken”. The ultimate in drive-by fast food! Get a roast chicken stuffed with couscous for only 5 dollars from the vendor at the side of the road! Convenient and delicious, although rather scrawny. A whole chicken barely feeds 2 hungry people!

12. Freshly roasted peanuts (in liquor bottles!) and homemade peanut butter that tastes even better than the best natural peanut butter found in the stores in Canada.

13. Senegalese fast-food (a heaping plate of rice, sauce and meat of your choice for only 3 or 4 dollars!) The best hamburgers in Niamey at “La Cloche” bar and restaurant.

14. Tim will miss driving a big land cruiser!

15. Speaking French on a daily basis. But then again we may move to Quebec.

16. Very affordable house rental and services. You can get a really nice outfit made by a tailor/seamstress for only $15. Alterations cost only $1.00. You can hire a plumber, electrician or tree trimmer for a bargain deal.

17. The lively worship at the Nigerien churches we attended. Churches in Niger are for the most part made up of new believers and active Christians with a passion for Jesus and spreading the Good News.

18. The slower pace of life. Having more relaxed time to read, reflect, journal, go for walks, visit with people, and enjoy life. Less time was spent on the internet (most of the time we didn’t have internet at home) and more time for friendships and recreation.

19. Friendly geckos on the walls and hiding in your sandals.

20. Seeing camels in the city everyday (walking past our house, on the streets, in the market) and waiting for a camel to saunter across the intersection.

Countdown to Canada

2009-08-21T11:26:00.004-04:00

Times of change and departure are always difficult,
it was not easy to leave 2 years ago to come here, to a strange and new place, and it is not easy to leave what is now a familiar place with friends and colleagues. We are at least enjoying several dinners out these days with various friends, two dinners today even.

We have less than 1 week before our departure from Niger, with a stopover in France, then arriving in Toronto, God willing.

Its been a very successful 2 years all in all. At least with the expectation of a new baby, we have a good excuse for our Nigerien friends why we want to go back to Canada. Niger certainly is known for poor medical care and especially for maternal problems.

Christine figures she will miss living on the farm (Niamey); you'd have to live here to understand that. A farm with camels no less!

Here's some recent photos - taken when Christine accompanyed Tim to projects at SP sites in Bani-Bangou BB land. The tent photo above - is taken at our SP office base in BB. We sleep in tents or on cots outside. No travel luxuries here.

The other photo is Tim with an SP supervisor ayouba for the BSF water filter construction, along with some filters at a village construction site.

Mmmmm clean water, much better than drinking straight out of the pond.

We are hoping that it will be warm in Canada, we are used to a lot of heat out here.

A bientot

GOLF as you've never seen before

2009-07-20T09:31:00.010-04:00

Yes - come one come all to the exotic golf vacation resort in Niger, known as Rio Bravo. Bravo is a good name for it as you need some bravery to golf here. Niger is of course mostly desert but that is no reason to not play golf, at least not for the carzy Frenchman who built the course.

Rio Bravo is the one and only golf course in the country, it is an 18 hole par 70 golf course and it is located about 40 minutes drive from Niamey. Rio Bravo has special extra rules for obvious reasons and you will soon find out. The regular golf words/terms are still used despite not being quite the same, for instance the putting “greens” are called greens despite that the only speck of green on them is the painted sign adjacent to them, the greens themselves have no grass!

10 reasons why Golf is better in Niger

(in reverse order)

10) No problem with sprinklers in the way as there is no need for them since there is no grass.

9) Easy to find your ball on the fairway! On the flat brown rocky surface of the fairways, you can see your orange golf ball from more than 100 meters away.

8) You get assigned not one but two personal professional caddies who know the course, and their caddie fees are only $2 each for the whole game (or more if you want). . Your 2^nd caddie goes ahead of you to help spot your ball and to sweep a path for your ball on the putting greens (kind of like curling).

7) Unlikely to be rained out! Niger has not a drop of rain for 9 months of the year and it is usually sunny.

6) No lost balls in water traps (or unlikely). Each water trap (they only contain water during the rainy season) is equipped with some African kids to help out. For 20 cents, they will wade and swim into the water trap in order to find your ball and give it back to you.

5) Sand traps are no stress! (a) Being in a sand “trap” is no worse than the fairway which is mostly sand as well (b) you can whack your ball out of it onto the “green” with your putter since it is hard packed rocky sand;

4) Only your first two putts are counted! Because of the bumpy dirt surface of the “greens” (the greens don’t have a speck of green) you are allowed to count only 2 putts even if you took 20.

3) Your ball always has a perfect lay in the fairway as you are required to replace your ball on top of the portable artificial turf that you carry with you (see photo) for each shot. Always an excellent surface to play off.

2) The “rough” is no rougher than the fairway, it’s the same hard packed sand with almost no bush nor grass. Another perfect surface to play off!

1) The next time you play golf in Canada and are tempted to complain about the conditions of the grass, remember Golf club Rio Bravo in

Niger

, and you will be happy to have grass!

Looking for a new place to play golf? Now you know where to go, Niger is waiting for you!

Adventures in Taxis

2009-07-16T08:46:00.007-04:00

(Note that all photos shown here are a form of taxi!)

Taxis usually come in two forms: car or motorcycle, but could be a van or truck if you’re going into the bush or even a long canoe! Here in Niamey, taxis are cars. If you go to big port city of Cotonou, Benin, the best way to get weave through the congested streets is by "Zim" or motorcycle.

Taxis come in many states of repair or disrepair. Door handles that only work from the outside, modified door handles made out of clothes hangers, holey seats with the foam poking through, the metal skeleton of the vehicle showing, shattered windshields held together with packing tape, windows that don’t open completely or close….

The average taxi serves multiple clients at the same time (like a private run bus). “Just squeeze in. There’s always room for one more!” Babies and small kids can go on their mother’s lap or maybe even on your lap. “Hello there. What’s your name?”
Don’t expect private door to door service unless you have a hotel taxi or want to pay quadruple the price of a regular fair x two! Expect to share your taxi with at least 3 or 4 or more others.

Taxis also serve many unusual and everyday purposes! Commuting to work, going to the market, carrying your groceries home from the market, moving house, moving construction materials or agricultural supplies.

The trunk of a taxi is very versatile. It can hold anything and everything: freshly caught, fish, 50 kg bags of rice/corn/millet/potatoes/onions, pots and pans, precariously placed bowls/buckets of fermented porridge, open baskets of fragile tomatoes, small furniture, bags of manure for the garden, live chickens or goats with their feet tied, or entire legs/thighs of freshly butchered beef piled so high the trunk must be strapped down!

Some items just don’t fit in the trunk. Construction materials such as metal or wood poles may have to lay the length of the taxi and stick out of the window next to you. Once we were in a taxi where the driver hauled two HUGE truck tires on to the roof of the little old taxi. We were seriously concerned the roof would cave in on us!

Normally the taxi driver drops people off in a logical order (first come first served or whoever’s stop comes first on the way). Be prepared though to make a few detours which may bring you far away from your destination or lead you through bumpy side streets, narrow alleys and garbage dumps. The taxi driver decides where he will go and when. He may need to buy some gas along the way, or get a drink, or do a personal errand, or stop to make change for the 2000 CFA bill (worth about $5) you gave him.

Getting around town by taxi is pretty inexpensive. One average distance fare costs 200 CFA (about 50 cents). Carry plenty of little change in your purse. Don’t expect the driver to have much change for any bills no matter how small the denomination unless you happen to catch a taxi near the end of the day!

Taxi drivers are generally polite and very friendly. If they stop to buy a bottle of water, they usually buy extra and offer their passengers a bottle too. They open the door for you if you have a heavy load. Sometimes they are considerate to pull over well off the road so that you don’t have to get out into busy traffic. Generally, though, when you tell them to stop, they put on the brakes immediately. No warning to the cars behind. No gradually slowing down. No pulling over to the curb. No pulling over at a more convenient and safe location. Lesson: give the driver ample warning regarding where and when you want to get off.

Taxi etiquette: always greet the driver and EACH of the passengers when you get in. Failure to do so is very rude. Several times, I (Christine) have been reprimanded by ladies who have felt snubbed because I failed to greet them properly. Africans are very social people. They find Westerners rather antisocial in comparison. For instance, they can’t understand how Westerners can walk along a busy street without even greeting a soul or making eye contact. There will be times when the taxi driver wants to listen to radio or the other passengers are equally as tired as you, but generally it’s polite to carry on a small conversation throughout your drive. It always impresses people too if you can greet them or carry on a small conversation in one of the local languages. When it’s your stop, wave a friendly goodbye…

“Fofo. Kala han fo.” (Thank you. See you another time.)

The 10 Most Indespensible Items on Long Bus Trips (in Africa)

2009-07-16T08:40:00.003-04:00

10. A headscarf or ball cap! To keep your hair from being blown to pieces when the windows are wide open (most often on bush taxi rides).

9. A sweater or jacket! For when they turn on the AC full blast! (or for cooler evenings). It also doubles as a pillow to catch your weary head wherever you might be waiting (see item 1). In fact, a small bedroll would be rather nice! African women often just take off one of their many outer skirts/shawls, place it on the ground and lie down for a nap. You could also just bring along a small straw mat with you or your prayer rug (like many of the Muslim men).

8. Your own eating utensils AND SNACKS that your digestive system is familiar with!
Our suggestions: a pocket knife, a set of plastic cutlery, a Frisbee (works well as a plate), ziplock baggies, tea bags, milk powder (unless you like sweetened condensed milk in your tea and coffee), peanut butter, “Vache Qui Rit” cheese triangles, washed fruit, and trail mix or granola. If you forget to bring a plastic cup or bowl, be resourceful like Tim and cut off the bottom of an empty water bottle for your cup/bowl. 

7. Dental floss or tooth picks! Meat in Africa tends to be very fibrous and chewy and gets stuck in your teeth!

6. Personal entertainment for the long ride. A book, a card game, MP3 player, a pen and journal.

5. Earplugs! To block out the snoring behind you, the loud and violent movie, the roar of the broken AC fan above you, or the annoying music that is repeated over and over again because the bus driver only has 1 CD to play.

4. Hand sanitizer or travel wipes!

3. T.P. (toilet paper) or Kleenex! Have a handy supply available for pit stops at the side of the road. Don’t expect it to be provided or available, even in the nicest of restaurants.

2. Lots of bottled WATER! It’s a very useful liquid and solvent for staying hydrated in a dry, and hot climate (unless you like to stay dehydrated until the road trip is over like Tim), for washing your hands, for refilling the radiator, etc!

And the # 1 item is: PATIENCE! Be prepared for delays! From poor road conditions, detours, road construction, many stops along the way, flat tires, and other vehicle problems. You name it! The bus could even be several hours or even a day late in arriving/leaving! Very little advance warning or follow-up information is given. Customer service is rather lacking in most businesses. The response to your question regarding when they expect the bus to leave will most likely be answered with “Il faut se patienter.” (One needs to be patient.)

Of course if you’re even planning a trip within Africa, you most likely already have a sense of adventure and a good sense of humour. Bon Voyage!

Protests in Niamey

2009-06-18T04:48:00.004-04:00

Niger has had a number of major incidents lately, perhaps not major enough to hit Canadian news. The main items:
- The President Tandja has been asked to step down from government but he has refused and has dismissed the government. This has resulted in a lot of protest and dissension amongst the peoples. We've seen clashes and fighting on TV between government forces and local people. In the city of Dosso the protestors attacked the Governor's home and burned his car.
- the largest market in the captial city Niger caught fire and half of it burned down.

Here's part of a notice sent out by the U.S. Embassy in Niger:
"A Nigerien political consortium opposed to President Tandja's efforts to extend his mandate, known as "Tazarche" has rescheduled its nationwide public demonstration to Sunday, June 14. In Niamey, protesters are expected to gather at 8:00 a.m. at Rond Point Eglise. Additional public protests or rallies by opposition and government supporters could occur outside of Sunday's scheduled demonstration. The Islamic Council in Niger has called for a day of prayer at the Grand Mosque on the day preceding the rally, Saturday, June 13. While it is impossible to estimate the size of planned demonstrations , they could be very large. Recent events in Dosso, where a pro-Tazarche demonstration ended in violence, indicate that even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and quickly escalate into violence. American citizens are urged to avoid demonstrations, exercise caution within the vicinity of any large public gathering, and stock up on food, water and other basic necessities in the event of disruption of services and deliveries of goods throughout the country. In addition, American citizens should stay current with media coverage of local events and be aware of their surroundings at all times."

I don't have photos of such things, so here's a fun photo on a completely unrelated topic.

We recently visited the ancient capital of Niger called Zinder, in the east of the country. The city (about 150,000 people) has many winding roads. Here's Christine with the neighbourhood kids who were curiously following us...

Operation Christmas child

2009-05-18T13:00:00.005-04:00

Christmas gifts for kids in Niger!

This blog topic is a bit late I suppose since people naturally think about Christmas gifts in December rather than May. SP is well known for its program of Operation Christmas child (OCC) - enabling people to donate their own practical Christmas gifts to children around the world in poorer countries, Niger included.
I (Tim) work in the relief and development wing of SP so I don't have much involvement in OCC but I do have some! I had the privilege several months ago to coordinate giving these gifts to children in the Bani-Bangou area located near the north border with Mali.

Pictures speak a thousand words - here's a few...

Most children in Niger have never received a Christmas gift in their entire life.

The gifts that I and my colleagues gave out would have been the first (and only) Christmas gifts they receive, since the OCC distribution has not been done in this village area before.

As you might expect, the children were thrilled and honoured to receive the gifts.

We gave out the gifts one by one by calling the names of the students (in the classroom during a regular school day), and then when the gifts were all given (in that class), we would let the kids tear open the boxes.

We were wondering if there might be a riotous commotion but in fact the kids were very well behaved (likely due mainly to the presence of the town mayor, the village chief, the school director, and a foreigner or (myself!) overseeing the event. Actually for the schools we visited, we only had enough for 10% of the children, and so we had asked/prearranged that the school administration choose the top 10% of students to receive gifts. The other 90% of children were fascinated to watch the whole gift giving event nonetheless. The children also receive a cartoon book (in French) called "the greatest gift" which talks about God's love. The village leaders actually asked if they could get a copy of this for themselves too.

The photos also show the classrooms - the pictures speak for themselves.
None of the classrooms have enough desks, often 3 - 6 kids must sit in a dilapidated desk built for 2 kids. Many kids have no desks. In fact many kids have no chairs, and many classrooms have no regular walls (they are in straw huts). We are well known in these parts as we are the main organisation helping there with basic needs - primarily nutrition and clean water and latrines, and so they were also very welcoming to receive the gifts for the kids.

Giving out gifts is great fun! Little did I know that playing with the gifts would be an immediate need for me!! This need suddenly became apparent when we noticed the kids looking at many of the gifts in bewilderment.
Not only have these kids not received gifts before, many of the toys or objects are completely unknown to them. I quickly opened the brightly coloured play dough and I sculptured a dog, or was it a camel, anyway once they saw my art work they actually figured it out, I guess it was not all that bad. Quickly I made the rounds to play with/operate toys that were mysterious to them. Good thing I worked in the Sears toy department many years ago! Even our local SP staff do not know toys that are common place for Canadians/Americans. I think play dough is a great gift to give, but the kids initially thought it was some strange food.

Fortunately many gift items require no explanation - such as pens, combs, soap, stuffed/toy animals ... These are great gift items. Actually a pen or pencil would be a gift well cherished by a child in this culture. Some gifts come in plastic boxes which are themselves great items. There were a few "embarrasing" gift items: in a African islamic culture where women dress very conservatively and most of the body and legs (most skin) are not shown in public, the skimpy blond barbie dolls in short skirts and tops were not so good.

As with any activity we do, there is plenty of organising that happens, and coordination and approvals with the local village/town authorities. Since we are already well known in this area for our development projects, it was easy to arrange in the end.
Prior to the event, I was seriously worried about problems we might encounter, especially with only having enough gifts for 1 out of very 10 children, and second that it is a "Christmas" event in a town where Christianity and Christians are completely unknown. However everyone was very well natured and easy going about it all. Even the local Imam Muslim leader participated and asked if he could hand out a few gifts which he did.

So the next time you complain about not getting enough stuff from Santa, think again! Here in Niger a few gifts to a few children has made many giggles and tiny smiling faces...

You know it's hot when...

2009-05-15T03:08:00.007-04:00

1. the water coming out of the cold water faucet is warm enough to wash dishes!

2. you look forward to a cold shower!

3. you take 4 showers in a day!

4. you complain that the previous person in the shower took all the “cold” water!

5. you wonder if the plumber mixed the cold water and hot water pipes.

6. you’re sweating after taking a cold shower! You feel like you’re in a sauna!

7. candles melt before your eyes (and they aren’t even lit!)

8. butter from the fridge melts on a frying pan in minutes without you even lighting the burner!

9. the cat is panting like a dog!

10. the dog is digging a hole to China in the cold, damp soil of the flower garden.

Our Involvement with the Local Evangelical Church in Niamey

2009-02-16T09:19:00.005-05:00

A brief and partial history of the church in Niger

Many people have asked us: “If Niger is predominantly a Muslim country (>95%), what kind of church presence is there in Niamey?”

Much of the evangelical Nigerien church exists in large part due to the early work of SIM missionaries (Serving in Mission, previously known as Sudan Interior Mission). SIM began working in eastern Niger in 1924 and established several schools, non-denominational churches, agricultural projects, and hospitals (of which Galmi Hospital is the most well-known). Sahel Academy International School, the ESPRIT theological seminary and Foyer Évangélique Universitaire (computer and resource centre for university students) are three more recent initiatives of SIM.

Three local denominations developed out of the national churches established by SIM: EEI, UEEPN, and EERN. The EEI church (Église Évangélique Internationale) has a stronger presence in capital city Niamey. They have one French-only congregation (the one we attend), and several other congregations that worship in local languages as well as French. The EERN church first developed in the East and is mostly attended by Hausa speakers. The UEEPN also is mostly Hausa-speaking. Each denomination has their own “flavour” or style. Most churches, for example, would have the women sitting on one side of the church (wearing head scarves) and the men on the other side. The French-language congregation we attend is mostly made up of international students and business people so the environment is more “relaxed and western” (men and women can sit together, women can wear pants and don’t need to have their head covered) although the worship is as vibrant as in any African church!

The Evangelical Baptist Mission began ministry at about the same time as SIM but in the western part of the country. The Southern Baptist Mission arrived in Niger in the early 1980’s; the Assemblies of God came to Niger in 1990. There is one Presbyterian Church that we’ve heard of in Niamey (although the Presbyterian Church is much stronger in Togo, as we noticed on our recent trip over the Christmas holidays).

Although many churches and mission agencies/groups are involved in evangelism and church planting, not all of them are necessarily establishing churches with strong denominational ties. The Christian & Missionary Alliance (C&MA) does a lot of community development and evangelism, but their goal is not to plant C&MA congregations in Niger but rather to support local Christians. This would be the same for the Christian Reform World Relief Committee. The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) came in 1982 to work on Bible translation and literacy training. Other para-church mission groups working in Niger include: World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse, Campus for Christ, GBU (InterVarsity), Navigators, Youth With a Mission (JEM), Alliance Biblique, Ligue Biblique (Bible League), Child Evangelism Fellowship, Horizons Mission, Open Doors Mission, and the Norwegian Lutheran Mission (CELPA), Lutheran World Relief. This is by no means an exhaustive list of Christian NGOs or churches!

Every 3 months, the representatives of the Christian NGOs meet to pray, discuss certain issues in common, and present various projects to the group. Tim has attended a number of these meetings, and has found a great supportive community within this network of Christian NGOs.

Neighbouring countries (Nigeria and Benin) have also been instrumental in sending missionaries to Niger. Calvary Ministries is a Nigeria based agency that has an outreach to prostitutes and has a rehabilitation facility for women at risk. Agape Ministries was also started by Nigerian family a few years ago. Besides evangelism and outreach to the local community, their goal is to serve and encourage the leadership of local churches by offering conferences and motivational speakers.

In 1998, about 20 churches collaborated together to form an association of Christian churches in Niger called “Alliance des Missions et des Églises Évangéliques au Niger” (AMEEN). The regional AMEEN committees across the country unite local churches and missions for monthly prayer, fellowship and ministry outreach. AMEEN has a youth and young adults committee that brings together the youth of the various churches for sporting events, retreats, musical concerts and worship evenings. In November, Tim and I joined the young adults of our EEI congregation for a day-long “retreat” and sporting event organized by AMEEN and hosted by a local church.

There are 2 English language worship services in Niamey. The International Christian Fellowship is a church which only 2 years ago resurrected itself after a number of years without any leadership. The church serves the English-speaking African business class. It’s much smaller than it used to be (about 25-30 people each Sunday) but is an active congregation that is growing with the new leadership.

Every Sunday evening at 6pm, there is also an English worship service at Sahel Academy. This service tends to draw a large crowd of missionaries and English expats who are also quite involved in local churches on Sunday mornings. There are always friends to see and new faces at the service: long-term missionaries coming into town to do business and buy groceries, people traveling through, short-term mission teams coming and going. It’s like a big family where everybody helps out in the “family of Christ”. Various musical groups take turns leading worship (even the high school students take their turns), the little children enjoy passing around the offering baskets, visitors and travelers are welcomed and prayed for, and missionaries take turns sharing a message/sermon.

Despite constitutional religious freedom in Niger, pressures exist to make the nation more Islamic. Thankfully, Niger is a relatively safe country in which to work despite some persecution towards Christians. Please pray though for the administration and leaders of this country. Pray for men and women of integrity who are trustworthy and just and have the best interests of the country at heart.

Signs that Christmas is Coming (has come) to Niger

2009-02-16T05:58:00.008-05:00

Niger is a predominantly Muslim and animist country that does not celebrate Christmas, but nevertheless there are signs that Christmas is coming!! (or did in fact come)

1. The first sign is the increase in dust/sand (called “harmatan”) in the air making the sky look hazy. It also makes the sun a beautiful red ball at sunset!

2. The next, similar to the first, is the increase in smoke in the air from all the fires that seem more frequent at this time of year. Fires from burning dry leaves, burning the dry fields and most commonly just burning the garbage that has piled up in the dumps. Arriving home in the evening smelling like burning garbage after biking from school isn’t so pleasant! Although, I do love the smell of burning Eucalyptus leaves. It reminds me of Christmas as a child in Cameroun.

3. This is the season when the mango trees are beginning to blossom with tiny pinkish flowers. The neem trees also are covered with tiny white flowers that look like wedding confetti when it falls on your head. Some evenings you can smell the sweet fragrance from these flowering trees.

4. The water level in the Niger River is at about its highest in the months of December and January! Although the last rains in Niamey were near the end of September, somewhere upriver must have received rain more recently. The Niger River is the 3rd longest in Africa (4100km) after the Nile and the Congo/Zaire Rivers. The Niger River has its source in the highlands of Guinea and meanders through several other countries (Mali, Niger, Benin and Nigeria) before flowing into the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of Nigeria.

5. I know Christmas is around the corner when the talk in the staff room and among missionaries is about what plans people have for the holidays and when people are going to put up their family Christmas tree.

6. The most vivid indication that Christmas truly exits in Niger is stepping into the director’s house for the Sahel Academy staff Christmas party and gift exchange. The director’s wife is the Martha Stuart of missionaries. Her house is always nicely decorated, often with homemade crafts and manger scenes (crèche in French). Her hobby is collecting crèches from every country she’s been to!

7. If you feel nostalgic for Christmas carols and songs about snow and sleighs, just walk down the aisles of one of the 3 western-style grocery stores or the large department store called “Tout pour la Femme et L’Enfant”. Christmas music can also be heard drifting from kindergarten and grades 1 & 2 classrooms at school.

8. The only place you’ll be certain to see Christmas lights is on the outside of the department store “Tout pour la Femme et L’Enfant”. This year the city went all out decorating the most important round-abouts (called “rond point” in French) and the boulevard on the main street called “Embassy Avenue”. Rather strange for a largely Muslim country. But then it all began to make sense when I saw a sign with the words: “50 ans”. On December 18, Niger celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence.

9. It’s certainly getting close to Christmas when the African church we attend is decorated with balloons, garlands and ostentatious Christmas decorations (even stockings and Santas!) and a small Christmas tree! The Sunday school children also present special skits and songs the Sunday before Christmas.

10. The high school choir often sings some Christmas songs at the assembly on the last day of school before the holidays. This year, my 2 elementary French classes also sang a few songs in French and then presented a Christmas skit of the 3 magi visiting Jesus at Bethlehem.

11. The last Sunday evening before Christmas, the English-speaking community in Niamey meets together outdoors on the soft green grass at Sahel Academy for a special evening called “Carols by Candlelight”. This is a time to ponder and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas – the arrival of God in human form to the little blue planet (brown in Niger) that He made and loves very much.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our friends and blog readers.

Painting the Galmi Hospital December 4-7

2009-02-09T10:21:00.017-05:00

High School Outreach Trip to Galmi

December 4-7, 2008

Sahel Academy organizes several outreach trips a year for high school students to become involved in community service projects which share the love of Jesus with others. Last year, Tim and I helped chaperone one of the trips that went to Inates, a Tuareg community near the boarder to Mali. On that trip, we helped assemble 60 desks for the primary school in Inates, and we also had an opportunity to share The God Story movie in the Tuareg language (Tamajek).

This year, I helped lead a team of 7 high school students along with another adult. We were invited by Galmi Hospital to re-paint the inside of outpatient building and also do some other odd jobs around the mission station. Galmi hospital is a small (120 bed) but very significant SIM missionary hospital about 7 ½ hours drive east of Niamey. People come from all over the region (even from neighbouring Nigeria) to get quality medical care.

Galmi is also well-known in Niger for its tasty onions. I’ve even heard it said that the MAGGI company in Niger uses Galmi onions in their bouillon cubes!

The trip to Galmi went as planned but much of the way we had to dodge large potholes in the broken pavement AND several bright green chameleons that were crossing the road! I’m so glad that I didn’t have to drive; thank God for Mr. Potratz.

The area just outside of the town Dogondoutchi has some really unique geological features.

Galmi hospital and compound is a green oasis surrounded by scrubby Sahel (semi-desert), thanks to the foresight of missionaries years ago who planted many trees and gardens.

I particularly took a liking to this unusual plant that people call “desert Christmas cactus” since it seems to flower around December.

Mr. Borody (on the right) gave us a tour of the hospital. We’re standing on the foundation for the future Operating Room and wing.

On Friday, we did a bunch of odd and end jobs. The boys emptied the water from the pool and washed the walls. This proved to be an all day affair! They came across several obstacles along the way: the drain at the bottom of the pool was plugged and never was able to be cleared, the pool pump was unreliable and stopped working, and bailing the pool by buckets is harder than you think! To top it off, they finished the afternoon by helping trim some branches that were covering the Galmi wall sign along the road. But we girls didn’t sympathize with their hardships because it looked like they were having WAY TOO MUCH FUN!

The girls had a lighter workload, but with its own share of frustrations. We helped program 4 new American cash registers (we became experts at entering and re-entering codes in the machines!) and also help clean the dusty mailroom of the Galmi hospital office.

Mr. Potratz (SIM computer technician) and his oldest son had other responsibilities over the weekend. Their job was to help troubleshoot computer problems and install computer software in the office.

The girls and I took a break that morning and visited the Galmi day school for the missionary kids. This year, there are only 3 kids (all from one family). Mrs. Borody is their very animated and “motherly” teacher. The kids were busy making Christmas decorations (icicles). It brought back special memories for one of the girls on our trip who had attended the school in her early elementary years. It also reminded me of the small mission school in Cameroun where I attended until the end of grade 4.

Just beware! Scorpions and cobras hide in rock piles and under front steps at Galmi. Cobras have been known to crawl into the school house if the screen door is not properly latched!

Friday night, we had the dirty job of sweeping the walls of the outpatient room (lots of dust collects everywhere in Niger) and washing off as much "grime" as possible.

We were ravenous and tired by 9:30pm, but still we managed to have a family dinner around the table (African peanut sauce “à la Christine”). The students also surprised me with a special birthday “cookie” and a little gift.

Saturday morning came way too early! Especially for Susana and I! We woke up before 6am to join Yoko and Lawrence (the 2 ladies in the photo with me) on a walk up a hill overlooking Galmi for a time of prayer together.

Our first job was to paint the top half of the walls white. That took all morning!

We had a lot of fun with the blue!

But it wasn’t easy making a straight line without any masking tape to guide our brushes!

Mission accomplished!

On the drive back to Niamey, we passed a lot of overloaded vehicles and people on the road. People were travelling back to their home villages to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Tabaski (or Id al Ada) on Dec 8 and 9. Packed alongside the people and bags were sheep, calmly awaiting their fate the next day. This Muslim holiday of excessive feasting commemorates the sacrifice Abraham made in obedience to God. In one village, we passed several men carrying large legs of recently butchered beef on their head (most likely in preparation for all the feasting).

We came across this accident not long after it happened. Thank God this wasn’t us! Many accidents on the “highways” here occur due to speeding, carelessness, and unsafe passing practices.

Just around lunch time, our van hit a large pothole which dislodged some wires in the electrical wiring of the vehicle and gave us a short. We lost engine power and rolled to a stop in front of a large tree. (This was no coincidence. The countryside behind us and ahead of us had very few shade trees and none close to the road that could shelter a van-load of students! This was definitely a God-planned event!) So while Mr. Potratz and his son worked on the problem and got it fixed, the rest of us got lunch ready. We arrived safely back to Niamey covered with “battle” scars of white and blue paint.

NEEDS• The hospital is about 60 years old and is in need of constant repairs and renovations. A portion of the foundation for the OR wing was poured a couple of years ago, but since then it has sat unfinished. An elderly American builder was out helping for a few weeks, but so far there is no one who has come forward to help oversee completing the rest of the construction. Can you help? Do you know someone who is willing and able to help?

Visit the amazing Galmi Hospital website! http://galmi.org/

Great links related to Christine's work in Niger

2008-12-19T08:43:00.004-05:00

Tim and I enjoy writing about our time here in Niger. Unfortunately, there never seems to be enough time to write about everything and download the pictures we'd like to share with you.

So, while you wait for the next installment of articles from Christine and Tim, I (Christine) want to share with you some interesting stories, fun pictures and excellent websites that I have come across through friends/colleagues here in Niger.

For a starter, you might want to begin at the Sahel Academy website. Browse around and learn more about my school and the community that makes it so special.
http://www.sahelacademy.com/home.html

Don't forget to click on the link to the "Sahelian", the school on-line newspaper. You'll find some recent articles about the "Sahel Games" held in November (our version of the Olympics or Track and Field Day), the softball tournament in October that brings expats to Niamey from the neighbouring countries, and the story behind the construction of our new library building (media centre) over the summer. If you want to know what makes Sahel Academy a truly unique school, read about the graduating class of 2008. My favourite picture is a "Where's Waldo" photo of math teacher Ben Stam on top of a humungous baobab tree. Scroll down to read the article called "God's Provision for Sahel's Math Teacher" posted in April 2008. http://www.sahelacademy.com/sahelian/

On the "Sahelian" webpage, you can find links to past and present staff. There is also a link to our Mattimoe website.
You will find Anisa Blomquist's blog very interesting. She was my neighbour before Tim and I moved houses (you'll find some pictures of Snowy and Missy if you scroll down some). She has some recent entries about the grade 3/4 drama (I watched it and enjoyed pumpkin pie afterwards), the Student Council fundraiser evening called "Bella Notte" (an evening for the kids to dress up formally), great pictures of the "Sahel Games" and an excellent overview of the many construction projects that happened over the summer at Sahel. There's even a picture of my French room being gutted and tiled and re-painted.
Bob (high school History and Science teacher) and Lois Gillespie (Computer teacher) also have a great website. The article called "Bridge Building" just about sums up the reason for our work here in Niger. And if you're wondering how computer technology can be used to bless others, read Randy (SIM computer technician) and Wanda's website.

If you're interested in botany and horticulture, here is a link to the Niamey Gardening Club. http://www.plantsahel.org/page/Niamey+Gardening+Club I attended one of their meetings last year and enjoyed meeting other expats interested in gardening in the Sahel region. Although I would enjoy being a member of this club, I have chosen to spend my energies and free-time in other areas. What makes the Niamey Gardening Club interesting is that they're putting together an encyclopedia of plants found in the Sahel region of West Africa. The site provides pictures and information about trees, flowers, vegetables, fruits, herbs, and plants in the Sahel. http://www.plantsahel.org/

Another activity Tim and I would like to do more often (if it weren't for other committments on Saturday afternoons) is to join the Hash House Harriers club for a walk/jog in the fields and sand and rocks outside Niamey. The club is made up mostly of francophone expats who enjoy exercise and the outdoors. We went last January with some friends of ours. They have a very detailed blog of their weekly outtings if that interests you. http://hashniamey.blogspot.com/ Come and join us for a hike in Niger!

Hippo Watching

2008-12-01T03:56:00.000-05:00

Do you have the courage it takes to look into the face of the most dangerous animal in Niger?

The animal that kills more humans in Africa that any other animal? If so, then join me on a potentially perilous adventure up the Niger River for a closer look at hippos in the wild.

In October, a number of friends and I (Christine) took a pirogue ride (canoe ride) up the Niger River. The 7 of us along with our guide had this entire motorized pirogue all to ourselves during the 3-hour trip! Complete with cushioned reclining seats! Come along for the ride!

We leave around 9:30am during the cooler part of the day. It’s quite pleasant on the river, especially with the covered roof to protect us from the hot sun.

HIPPO! Our first hippo sighting is less than 5 minutes into our trip, right next to the bridge only a few metres from where men are washing clothes!

Apparently, this hippo is frequently seen around the bridge and seems quite accustomed to having people around (or is it the other way around that people are used to having the hippo nearby).

We continue up-stream. Garden plots line the edge of the river. We wave to farmers working in their gardens and women and children washing along the banks of the river. The kids excitedly jump up and down in the water and wave back at us.

The banks of the Niger River are an oasis in the midst of the dry Sahel and encroaching desert. Tall grass grows along the banks and is cut for hay to feed livestock.

Another type of long “grass” growing at the edge of the river is actually rice that will be harvested in late November. The “scare-crow” in the rice paddy is not to scare crows, but rather to keep hippos from raiding the fields for food during their nightly “snack attacks”.

A few kilometres up-stream, we see the Presidential palace grounds up on a hill. Next, we come to the dam which helps to control the water level in dry season. The water pump station for the city is located here (actually, only a 15 minute walk from our present house). At the moment, the water level is very high so our boat can go right over the dam. In low water season, boats need to go through the little set of locks.

Fishermen congregate just below the dam to cast their nets from their little canoes. I never quite understand how they can manoeuvre a canoe so easily while standing up! And here I was always taught to stay sitting (or kneeling) in a canoe for stability!

Further upstream, we pass by a herd of cows grazing on one side of the riverbank and a large flock of egrets (or herons) lined up along the other side the riverbank and in the trees.

At the halfway point, our guide points us to the eating and breeding grounds of another herd of hippos. We sit quietly in the pirogue hoping to get another glimpse of the dangerous beast (“underwater mines” as Tim likens them to).

Phhoosh! The sound of a hippo surfacing for breath. There are two hippos this time, but they don’t stay at the surface for long before they disappear out of sight.

“Just be careful,” our guide warned, “if you ever hear 3 loud blows of a hippo surfacing for breath. That means the hippo is angry and is ready to charge you!”

Human encounters

2008-11-30T16:29:00.007-05:00

People in Africa – what are they like?

One of my (Tim) personal quests here in Niger is to understand the culture here, how do people think, why do they do what they do.
That is an especially challenging and even dangerous thing to discuss, but very interesting. We show you 2 dimensional photos but the full image – well I will try to share a little bit although obviously this question really warrants writing a book to do it some justice.

One of the fellows in this photo at right is a guy I know, I work with him, we are funding a couple of his projects. He is not just some stranger that I snapped a photo, he is a friend and associate. He came from a nomadic and muslim background, but he is today a Christian and works in development to help his fellow man.

People in general often figure that they know themselves well, they know who they are and their neighbours, how untrue – once you spend some time in another culture then you see things in your own culture that you never really knew, or not well.

Asking the question “what is African culture like” also begs the question “who are we” or “who am I”.
Everyone has their own personality of course, and some attributes are genetic, but there is a lot that we might consider common sense or common to “regular” people, and yet they are not universal but rather specific to your culture or your group of people. There are also universal or absolute values that we can find through all cultures, attributes common to all humankind, yet these values express themselves differently and have different boundaries.

Stories help make a point:
I am reminded of a visit I made once to a village where we work helping locals in nutrition and safe water amongst other things. In customary fashion we sat down and had tea with the local officials. We chatted for quite awhile with the head of the military there, le Commandant, a tough gritty fellow overseeing a dangerous job as we are in the dangerous zone near the border and near rebel and bandit activity (this town was months later invaded by rebels and the military overtaken).

After discussion for quite awhile, a man entered our compound and greeted us. He was not with our staff or a familiar face, he was just visiting. The visitor was dressed from head to foot in a pink flowing outfit. The military chief gave his goodbyes to us, and then walked out with the visitor, walking hand and hand with him slowly and chatting along the way. If two men were walking casually hand and hand down the street in any town in Canada with one dressed mostly in pink, that might raise a few eyebrows, but here in the African context it is of course different. Here brothers and close friends hold hands, it is like a hand shake that is simply extended in time, and also to mention that the colour pink has absolutely no symbolism different than say red or orange, it’s just another colour.
Actually a man and a woman would generally not hold hands in public here even if married, that would be morally questionable by some, but a man will frequently hold hands with another man he knows well and may walk hand in hand. It always takes us Westerners some time to get used to that, actually we don’t get used to it.

The big point from this story though is not the holding hands; it is the “common sense” of Africans to greet everyone and anyone, an extroverted culture. If you are a person and people see you, they will greet you, it just what everyone does. Even more so for those who are from the nomadic tribes it seems, maybe that comes from being more rural and more dispersed. When you are greeted by a Tuareg it will take some time to complete it as he will ask you about 8 questions (how’s the health? the wife? The heat? The sleep? The …) There is no one alone unless they are trying to be that way. This of course is different in western big cities where people are often alone and generally you don’t greet people you don’t already know (and often walk past people that you do know).

Christine remembers well a faux pas (goof up) of hers – she entered a taxi and sat down, and didn’t greet the other passengers (the taxis are private cars that operate like free lance buses – they fill up with people and the driver sets the route.) Christine got critiqued and chewed out by the other passengers because she didn’t greet all of them! One can be rude without knowing it! But she learned her lesson.

Canadians pride themselves as being very polite, even thinking themselves as superior in politeness and highly valuing this, and some dare to call themselves friendly (‘friendly Manitoba’). But despite that Canadians are only really polite within their own definition; they are not as polite as they think. If you would “cut and paste” them into Africa they would be considered somewhat rude. What is rude? Rude, by African culture, is to not greet anyone within close proximity. So for instance to walk into an office you work, if you pass anyone’s desk and did not greet them, you are snubbing them.

Unfortunately in Niger the idea of “forming a line” has not caught on, which is frustrating for us who know the obviously benefits of order and taking turns.
Most Nigeriens will not recognize a line and most will not sporadically form a line when there is a need. There is always the chaotic scrambling with pushing and aggressive behaviour to get your turn.

I’ve learned that in Canada the people have learned to “buy into” efficiency by agreeing to a first-come-first-served concept whenever there is a group of people waiting for something. If you see a line of people in front of what you want, you agree to join the back of it.

A perfect example is the 4 way stop. Christine mentioned to me once that Niamey needs some 4 way stops. However culturally this cannot work. A 4 way stop means you have looked to see who arrived before you and you wait for them to go first – that is strange and even laughable in this culture. Laughable because you would be waiting forever or until you are alone as the others will all rush into the intersection and honk and squeeze their way through! Ah the joys of driving. Actually the occasional person may notice your plight and take pity on you and stop traffic to wave you through. Which really involves other cultural traits! one of which is vigilantism.

It is well known that in Niger if a guard sees an intruder trying to break in, they will whistle to call in the neighbouring guards, and then they will capture the intruder and then … call the police? … ask questions?... no- they will beat and kill the intruder on the spot and then burn or dispose of the body. Ahh – nasty! I’ve seen this already once by chance, a man was getting beaten to death beside a mosque by a vigilante mob, one can presume an intruder (thief). This is the “common sense” here, community vigilantism, people taking the law into their own hands and issuing a punishment. No judges or lawyers present of course. This is due in part to a lack of confidence and lack of presence of police and the courts.

Nigeriens are generally honest and trust-worthy in matters of money and with regards to stealing, at least no less than Canadians, but the boundaries and definition of this are not exactly the same. To steal or not to steal? It is more complicated that you might think. An awful lot of Canadians out there would swear that they never steal and yet their computer software and music they are using was never purchased by them! So when does the definition of stealing start and end – at least in the serious sense of it?

When in a new culture you try things out and observe, willing to lose out a little if necessary at least to learn something. One thing is with change and verbal agreements. If I go to a crowded market and buy something there for 800 CFA francs ($2) and give the guy a 5000 F bill, he will likely say – I’ll go get some change. And off he goes with his wares and then he is out of sight deep in the crowd. Note that the average person in Niger earns less than 5000 F per day, and so this is no small peanuts. The thought of course crosses your mind that “some guy I’ve never met before just took my 5000 bill and disappeared, without leaving anything behind - is this person really coming back?”.
Many minutes may go by, and you wonder, hmmm, am I waiting for nothing? However the merchant will always come back and give you the correct change and off you go. Honouring a verbal agreement is culturally very important here, and so it is really the dignity attached to it that has force.
So although person x may look for ways to cheat and even steal, he will not breach a verbal agreement. Canada is a “writing” society, Niger is more verbal, and so verbal agreements have more weight with people here than say in Canada. In many ways a verbal agreement in Niger has more weight than a written agreement, even though it is harder to prove something verbal, but they are taken with great seriousness.

These are just some snippets, I could go on and on, but I won’t, and so to wrap up: There is beauty and ugliness in every culture, but each one different, and through this it magnifies the nature of our human condition.
There is the goodness there, the image of God in us that occasionally shines through and which is rooted in compassionate love, and in which collectively each culture adopts some of that goodness as normative. Then there is the fallen nature of mankind, the sin and selfishness that is rooted the absence of love, and which each culture adopts some of that and then puts these “bad” aspects as normative and acceptable.
The morality that Jesus calls us to, especially in the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible, is a new culture that embraces all goodness. The new culture is like no other and so naturally counter cultural to every human culture yet not in the same ways to each. It is a lofty goal that is not attained but nevertheless set out before us. Particularly the counter-cultural aspects are the hardest to follow, as it is always easy to follow a crowd. In this Jesus calls us to two things, one: to choose to seek and live out a life of goodness that is counter-cultural; 2) accepting his offer of forgiveness and reconciliation along the way as we fail.

Keeping the Zoo

2008-11-30T15:43:00.004-05:00

Every morning, the first thing the zookeeper (Christine) does before eating breakfast herself is feed the “starving” animals. Snowy, the young feline, gets a small scoop of dry cat food mixed with some water. Snowy gets special treatment as an orphaned kitten and is allowed to eat indoors safe from the new dog. Although Snowy is already close to 5 months old, she still likes to crawl onto “momma’s” lap and snuggle with her.

Next comes Oreo, the energetic canine (half lab and half bush dog) who can leap over bushes with such ease that it makes one wonder if she has some greyhound in her. She gets a large bowl of homemade mash. Christine makes a huge pot of mash every couple of days and keeps it in the fridge. Dogs in Niger are content eating the gruel, which is a mix of various ground grains and beans (corn, millet, sorghum, white bean, peanut pulp). It’s actually quite nutritious and smells like peanut butter! Mmmmm. I add some dried fish while it’s cooking to make it even more appealing to the dog (and the cat). Oreo found a foster home at the “Mattimoe Zoo” – her owners are in the USA for a few more months. She had been living in the countryside with another missionary family, but they (and their neighbours) didn’t appreciate her particular craving for live chicken!

Finally comes Mango Cream (MC), the Senegalese parrot that can imitate the kitten’s meow perfectly. Poor Mango lost 2 of his long tail feathers the day Oreo arrived at the “Mattimoe Zoo”. Mango has learned to move quickly to the centre of his cage whenever Oreo is around (thanks to the extra bamboo poles that Tim stuck in there). Mango is the easiest to feed: a handful of millet and fresh water in his bowl. He loves a good neck scratching when Tim or Christine come nearby, but he sometimes has a bad attitude and likes to tip over his food and water dishes. A heavy rock in each doesn’t deter him either, so now we’ve resorted to tying the dishes down with wire!

Feeding times are twice a day. Play times and training are in the afternoons and evenings. Tim and Christine have spent many days and evenings working with Oreo and Snowy to help them learn to be friends. The main problem is that Oreo is too hyper and her quick moves scare the cat. Progress: they have gently touched noses, Snowy has given Oreo’s nose a playful swat, and they even eat out of the same bowl from time to time.

Each animal has their own nickname. Snowy is “Squeaky” since she usually has a small squeaky meow. We also think she fits the name “Miss Piggy” since she’ll eat anything, even the dog’s mash! She sometimes doesn’t know when to stop eating and ends up with a large round stomach afterwards! Mango Cream is “Squawky” for his raucous sounds, and Oreo is “rangy” since she is a bit too excited to play and chase anything. She adds her voice to the chorus of neighbourhood dogs barking in the night!

INFO on helping us help Niger

2008-11-18T10:33:00.007-05:00

We appreciate your encouragement, prayers, and donations to the work.

Christine is with Volunteers in Mission (VIM) ELCIC, through Resurrection Lutheran Church in Orleans, ON. If you are interested to donate to the work- please click on the photo to expand (on the right) for more info.

Thanks for partnering with us!

ELCIC Mission in the World
302-393 Portage Ave,
Winnipeg MB R3B 3H6

Back to School

2008-11-02T13:24:00.008-05:00

In Canada, you can tell that the new school year is around the corner when you begin seeing sales in stores for school supplies. In Niger, you can tell that the new school year is around the corner when you begin seeing billboards advertising bank loans to help cover the school fees and school supplies (notebook, pencils/pens, slate, chalk, and any textbooks that will be used that year) needed to send your children to school.

The public school system in Niger is really struggling. It’s frustrating that the government doesn’t put more emphasis on education. A mere 10% of the population is literate! The school year is from October to the end of June, with a 3-4 month vacation over the rainy season! Children in rural areas often help in their family fields during the vacation. Some city kids visit family in the countryside over their break, but many city kids end up bored and on the streets during their school vacation. There is a LARGE, GLARING NEED for children’s programs and sports camps during this time.

A German lady we know who is living in Niger for a few months has been volunteering at one of the orphanages we have connections with. Recently she visited the public school where the orphans attend. They were eager to show her their classrooms. She was appalled at the teaching/learning conditions. Small, dark classrooms with holey chalkboards. Very few teaching resources for the teacher to work with! Desks for 2 seating instead 3 to 5 students. One teacher for 60 or more students!

That day, the teacher arrived very late…maybe 20-30 minutes late! Meanwhile, the students were getting restless and starting to misbehave. This is a common occurrence in many schools. In fact, often times teachers may not even show up for classes and the students end up walking home. Lately, there have been some teacher strikes regarding increasing their salary. Teachers are paid less than most security guards, who often have little education and are some of the lowest paid people along with house maids.

Many students just can’t make it through the public education system and end up dropping out. With so many students per class, the teacher cannot individually help each and every student who may have problems with the material. Those students who master the work will succeed. Those who fall behind have little hope of receiving the help and support they need, especially since many of their parents may not have much education either. Furthermore, students easily become discouraged from rather strict teachers who tend to be harsh and belittle the students who don’t know the answers. Kids learn at an early age not to ask questions if they don’t understand (or if they happen to be inquisitive and want to know more) because questioning the teacher would be considered showing disrespect towards authority. Learning by rote and drill practice work is encouraged. One final exam covering the material learned throughout the year determines whether a child moves on to the next grade or has to redo that level again. It’s very stressful on students.

If a family has the money, they will make an effort to send their child to a private school or pay for a tutor. It’s very common in Niger to find families with 5 or 8 or even more children. With so many children to feed, most families can’t afford to send each child to school. Sometimes girls and boys have to drop out of school in order to help at home or in the fields. With a high failure rate from grade to grade and a low student retention rate, many girls and boys don’t complete their schooling and graduate with a high school diploma. Such are the challenges for students, teachers and parents in Niger.

Education in Niger may look very bleak and the system extremely discouraging, but there are signs of hope. Some NGOs and Christian missions are offering affordable education and quality teaching within the reach of the average Nigerien. Horizons Ministries, the Southern Baptist Mission and the Association Cornerstone are all doing great work in this area. Horizons runs a Christian school for Nigerien kids and Tim is looking into arranging for Samaritan’s Purse Canada to finance paying for the lunches for the kids at that school.

I have become somewhat involved with the Association Cornerstone (led by passionate Nigeriens) through my colleague, Hajara, with whom I teach French at Sahel Academy. She and her brother are two of the principal organizers of the association.

The main objective of Cornerstone is to offer affordable Christian education led by qualified teachers. They would like to establish elementary schools in throughout Niamey as well as around the country. It has taken over 2 years for Cornerstone to acquire the green light from the government to open just one kindergarten (with plans to offer all the elementary levels). The bureaucracy and paperwork required has been a formidable task. In the meantime, Cornerstone has been offering evening adult education classes which prepare adults for the “baccalaureat” exam required for high school certification.

In August, Cornerstone received the exciting news that they had received approval to open a school in Niamey. Cornerstone had already begun renting a piece of property with a home and large yard to house the kindergarten (2 classes of 30 students max.). The plan was to begin classes in early October, but unfortunately they have come across yet more government red tape. God willing, the school will open in the next week or two.

The high school students at Sahel Academy spent a Saturday morning recently helping to construct a playground for Cornerstone’s new kindergarten. This act of love and service earned them community service points required for graduation.

The orphanage has a publically funded kindergarten attached to it with a qualified, enthusiastic Christian teacher. She has a BIG heart for the children.

The day I visited, she was planning activities to teach the concept of quantity: “a lot”, “a little”. She had 3 stations set up with various activities involving counting, colouring and manipulating objects.

NOTE: this classroom has more resources than your average kindergarten thanks to the support of the local church and other missions.

This year there are about 15 students in the orphanage kindergarten (half are orphans and the other half are children from the community). The school can hold between 25-30 students maximum.

Kids during recess at the orphanage kindergarten and playground.

This year, I’m teaching 4 classes of intermediate level French to students from grade 1 to 12. My schedule is lighter than it was last year, but I still manage to keep myself busy planning lessons and doing other “teacher-related” tasks. I miss not having a homeroom class where I can get to know the students more intimately over the year, but I certainly don’t miss having to teach 5 subjects. I’ve just started helping out two mothers organize the afterschool elementary girls club called “God’s Girls”. This year, we’re planning on incorporating activities from the Girl Scout/Girl Guide program since a couple of us have some background with Scouting/Guiding. I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences in Girl Guiding and my love of nature, knowledge of camping, and enthusiasm for campfire songs!

The Mattimoe Zoo

2008-07-18T10:59:00.019-04:00

Welcome to the Mattimoe Zoo!

Kitty-Kitty was the pampered “king” of our apartment and compound….that was, until Snowy arrived. Kitty-Kitty is NOT impressed with this new arrival. “We are NOT amused!”, growls Kitty-Kitty with his ears back. Maybe one day, Kitty-Kitty will learn to like or, at the least tolerate, another of his own species living in the same compound.

Snowy, our little orphan kitten. We found her under some thorns in a ditch while out for a walk behind the school. We almost past her for dead, but Tim noticed movement and a feeble cry. Tim thought it was a rabbit at first, as it was a small white curled up furry ball. She was covered with ticks (eyes, ears, body) and her eyes were closed with puss. Thankfully, an animal-loving colleague of Christine’s was able to help us clean up the kitten and give us some instructions on how to care for her and make kitten formula.

Within one to two days, Snowy was already getting noticeably stronger. It was hard to keep her in the laundry bin. She preferred to climb up the cushion ramp and sleep on the couch (she’s already learning a bad habit!). She also learned how to “surf” down the ramp (she’s a pro at it now!) and explore the rest of the place.

After only 3 days, she was already well into exploring every nook and cranny of the apartment, playing with her shadow, tackling our feet, and following Christine around the apartment. She loves to play in our pile of sandals at the door. She tackles them and crawls in and out of them like her own jungle gym. After some hard play and a stomach full of warm milk, Snowy can nod off to sleep in almost any location! She particularly likes to meditate on "the Word of God".

Snowy was introduced to a not-so-welcoming “Kitty-Kitty”, and an overly welcoming “Missy”. The dog showed considerable restraint and gentleness with Snowy, although it’s hard to know what she would do with the kitten unattended! Snowy was scared at first by the big, wet tongue, but soon became curious and even affectionate towards Missy. Snowy has enjoyed her daily time exploring the outdoors...chewing on grass, hopping over "kitty-sized" weeds, climbing "every mountain" and "leaping over every branch".

Snowy loves to snuggle up to Christine’s neck, play with her hair and nibble her ears after a feeding of warm formula. Snowy is learning from instinct how to wash her paws and face after each feeding. She’s even found a “thumb” to suck on! The exhausting part for Christine has been keeping up with feedings every few hours, even at night! Welcome to the joys and challenges of “motherhood” and "fatherhood", Christine and Tim. J

Our resident Senegalese parrot Mango Cream or “MC” for short. Not so lovingly nicknamed “Squawky” by Tim. MC will be with us for a year while his owners are in the USA. He’s good at imitating sounds and making a racket early in the morning or when we’re trying to sit down for a peaceful dinner. He also enjoys playing with his jingle bells and shredding to pieces any branch that he gets his claws and beak on. He’s very affectionate towards Christine and loves getting his neck rubbed.

Our ever vigilant and loyal guard dog, Missy.

Tim and Missy sharing a moment together. (How scandalous!)

The marriage proposal.

Missy accepts the proposal with a kiss on Tim’s face.

Domesticated Human Life in Niger

2008-06-16T10:51:00.006-04:00

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?”

Our Trip to Cameroon Over Easter

2008-04-20T07:16:00.000-04:00

“Planes, Trains, Automobiles, Buses, Taxis, and Motorcycles…

CAMEROON!! (or Cameroun as they say in French).

March 15 – 29, 2008

Getting ready to go

It was hard for me to believe that this dream was finally a reality – we were actually on our way to Cameroon! My family had left Cameroon in 1986 when I was 10 years old. The last time I had set foot on my birth country was the summer of 1990 for a short 2-week visit with my parents and my brother, Glenn. That was almost 18 years ago!

Now I was going to visit Cameroon as an adult, this time with my husband, Tim, to show him where I grew up. A month earlier, we still didn’t have plane tickets or Visas for Cameroon. I was getting a bit nervous thinking that it might not happen. Our main problem was that Niger does not have a Cameroonian embassy. The nearest embassies are in Nigeria or in Senegal, and we weren’t about to make a special trip to any of those countries or send our documents in the mail! We weren’t sure what to do with so little time left. Even the Canadian embassy here in Niamey couldn’t offer us much help. Then, a surprising opportunity came available. There just so happened to be a Samaritan’s Purse training conference in Ethiopia that Tim was asked to attend only 2 weeks before our planned trip to Cameroon. Furthermore, there just so happened to be a Cameroonian embassy in Addis Ababa. So…in order to get our Visas for Cameroon (in central Africa), Tim had to fly from Niger (West Africa) all the way across to East Africa! Crazy, but it’s amazing how God works things out! The rest came together fine after that: the Air Ivoire tickets to Cameroon, the Visas for Benin, the bus tickets to Cotonou in Benin, bookings for accommodations during our travels.

The Incredible Journey :-)

Traveling itself was quite a ride as well, here's all the places we visited: Cotonou & Grand Popo (Benin); and in Cameroon: Douala, Yaounde, N'Gaoundere, Meiganga, and Garoua-Boulai.

Time was rather tight throughout our entire vacation, but we had a great 2 weeks none-the-less. Tim was delayed by 4 days coming back from Ethiopia & Mali, and so he had only 4 days (working!) back in Niamey before we headed out on this trip. Our vacation started very early Saturday morning after a very busy work week for both of us. We endured a very bumpy 20 hour bus ride to Cotonou.

We took a day of R & R at the beach in Grand Popo Benin to recover from the long bus ride. Ah – jumping in the ocean waves, so nice!

Photo of the fishing boat we saw regularly at the beach, the "Philosopher's boat" with wise sayings on the side.

Then we drove back to Cotonou to catch our flight. Only hours before we were supposed to be checking in at the airport, we got stuck in our first heavy rain in months. We had gone to an internet café and to this really delicious vegetarian restaurant when it started to pour. Honestly, I was enjoying the rain and would have loved to jump in the huge puddle in the middle of the street, but I wasn’t smiling when later I had to pick my way through the dirty water in search of a taxi. Finding a car taxi in Cotonou isn’t so easy since moto taxis, called zims, are more common. But even zims were hard to flag down in the rain! We walked half way back to the SIM guesthouse when we finally hailed a zim. We were soggy and sticky, but there was no time for a shower before we had to catch the plane. As it turned out, our flight was delayed until the next morning so we spent an extra night in Cotonou. We arrived at a vacant airport the next morning at 5:00am for our 7:30am flight. The only people awake were some men washing the floors. Security guards lay sleeping at their desks; the 24 hour drug store was closed but the owner lay sleeping behind the counter; the sound of snoring came from an office nearby. We waited for an hour and a half for anyone to appear, only to learn that the flight would be delayed until 11am. The Cotonou airport is rather small, and there was no AC since the electricity was cut all morning. So we sat in one of the two stuffy waiting rooms all morning. The plane from Abidjan didn’t come until 1pm, and we didn’t take off until 1:45pm! Due to technical problems with the plane in Abidjan, Air Ivoire had to borrow a plane from Air Méditerranéen. Despite, all the waiting, the flight to Douala (the large port of Cameroon) only took 1 ½ hours.

Cameroon at Last!

Our first impressions flying over Douala were: “Wow, it’s really GREEN down there! Look at all the thick forest and lush vegetation!” What a welcome change from dry, sandy semi-arid desert (called the Sahel region) where we live in Niamey. The southern part of Cameroon is primarily tropical rainforest. What a feast for the eyes!

We were greeted in Douala by Daniel Simeu, the father of our friend Bélise who attends the same church we do in Niamey. I was immediately drawn to his big smile. Considering we had to phone him three times to change the pick-up time and the fact that he had to take a day off work to be available for our arrival, he cheerfully met us at the airport with a bouquet of tropical flowers for me. He generously took care of us, putting us up in a rustic inn a block away from his house, showing us around Douala that evening in the driving rain during a power outage, introducing us to his family, and delivering us early the next morning to the bus station.

Yaoundé the capital!

On our way out of Douala, we came upon a three-vehicle accident involving two large trailer trucks and a bus. No worries, though. We had been advised that this was one of the best business class coach lines commuting between Douala and Yaoundé!

The curvy, uphill road was paved from the coast to the capital city, Yaoundé, located at high altitude, surrounded by beautiful hills and having a very pleasant climate. Along the way, we passed by small farms, lush forest and rusted out car wrecks at what seemed like break-neck speed.

We were met at the Yaoundé bus station by Pastor Samuel Frouisou, a (tall!) man who spent a week at our place in Ottawa a number of years ago. See photo at left. He took us to his office, located conveniently a 5-min walk to the train station, where we dropped our bags. Then we spent almost an hour waiting in line to get a train ticket for the evening train. We were only able to get 2 seats in first class rather than a double sleeper car. (Once we were on the train, we were able to upgrade to a 4-person sleeper.)

Pastor Frouisou arranged for a driver to take us around Yaoundé during the afternoon. Issa took us up Mount Fébé to get a good view of the city from a very ritzy hotel at the top. Picture on the right taken in Yaounde.

Yaounde is on a plateau and is mountainous, making for a great climate!The presidential palace was nearby, and an expensive-looking golf course was directly below us. Rainy season had already started a couple weeks earlier than normal in the south of Cameroon. Heavy late afternoon downpours are normal. Fortunately, the rain abated by the time we had to walk to the train station.

African Train

From Yaounde we took the overnight train to N'Gaoundere in the north, 16 hours train each way.

We sat in our assigned seats in first class until sometime after the train started moving (after an hour delay). First class was okay with its padded seats, but it was run down and dirty. If this is 1^st class, I wonder what economy class is like! We were entertained (annoyed) by traveling salesmen who were selling everything from ginseng miracle products, to magazines, CDs and snacks/drinks. Luckily, we were able to move to a quieter 4-person sleeper early on in the trip. Horizontal sleep was much appreciated, even if the cabin was rather stuffy.

It was fun being a kid again and sleeping on the top bunk, but eating meals from a tray and drinking tea was a bit of a challenge! I wasn’t too impressed with the bathrooms on the trains. Stinky. Sticky. Smelly. We were a little more comfortable on our return trip a week later. We were able to reserve a 2-person sleeper which had its own sink and running water (although still not drinkable). Unfortunately, I still had to deal with stinky toilets!

One thing I enjoyed about the 16-hour train ride was watching the changing geography: from lush rainforests to grassy savanna pocketed by forested river valleys. The grasslands we passed looked so much like a wildlife reserve that we half expected to see antelopes or lions and giraffes in the distance! No such luck. Furthermore, Tim and I were rather surprised to see so much grassy bush land yet very little livestock grazing on the abundant grass. In Niger you see cows and goats everywhere, even in the most remote places.

I also enjoyed watching the vendors at the various stops along the way selling food through the windows to passengers. It appears that the entire community comes out to watch when the train passes through town! It’s great business for them. You could buy water, bananas, mangoes, pineapples, peanuts, roasted pumpkin seeds, mandarins, doughnut holes (beignets), wild honey in bottles, dried fish, baguettes, ground fish wrapped in banana leaves (pistache) and cassava starch wrapped in banana leaves (baton de manioc). Men, women and children learn early on how to balance a load on their heads. One little girl amazed me at how she was able to balance a 1 ½ litre bottle of water perfectly on her head!

Bottle, Bottle!
One picture will forever remain etched in my mind. As the train slowed down to approach villages, we could see children from our window children who were running exciting alongside the train yelling “bouteille” (bottle) or “Tangui vides”. They were asking for passengers to throw them their empty plastic water bottles. You could see from their faces that it was a thrill to have someone chuck a bottle their way, like receiving a gift. Empty bottles are valuable in Africa and can be reused and refilled to sell almost anything (honey, nuts, oil, juice). When a passenger would throw an empty bottle out the window, all the children would excitedly run towards it. Some children worked together and gathered many bottles. Other children preferred to stand off on their own in hopes of being the lucky winner of their own bottle. I particularly remember this one boy off on his own. His arms were wide open and he had an expectant smile on his face that would melt your heart. To think that a water bottle I had no more use for and could easily replace could bring such joy to the life of a child!

Familiar Faces and Places

I could tell we had arrived at the outskirts of N’Gaoundéré when I saw the familiar chain of hills and one hill in particular with a large rock balanced on top that gives the town its name.

In the local language, N’Gaoundéré means “Belly button” because the chain of hills looks like a person lying on their back with an “outy” bellybutton protruding from their stomach.

This photo with the moon taken where we attended a Easter morning sunrise church service with the English Cameroon church there.

Jim Noss met us at the station and drove us to the mission station where we met his wife, Karen. Jim and Karen are long time missionary friends of our family who will be retiring this summer. Karen, our amazing hostess, set us up in a comfortable guesthouse just next door and served us most of our evening meals.

It was fun telling stories around the dinner table of our years together in Cameroon. Things looked pretty much how I remembered them, except for a few things (a wall around the compound, a large new “Millenium” church, larger trees, and some rundown buildings). Of course, I had many memories to share with Tim at every turn as we walked around and visited the house we lived in for 2 years, the hospital my father worked at and other buildings. We also loved all the flowering trees on the mission station! Despite it still being dry season in N’Gaoundéré (the rains had not yet arrived), it was still much greener than we are used to in Niger!

We spent 5 days in N’Gaoundéré. Tim and I visited two families who were friends of my family (Salatou Paul, Etienne and Jeanne Fomgbami). One afternoon, we went exploring the paths behind the station which led us past people’s vegetable fields and several active soccer games. We also went hiking in the hills behind the station with some of the doctors (Tim and Wen Bartholomew) and medical students who were living there.

Photo of us from up top of Ngoundere mountain, with the town in the background.

One of the "cool" adventures we had was visiting and jumping into the crater lake. On Saturday, a number of us drove out to the large, deep crater lake called Lac Mbalang where the Norwegian missionaries have a little cottage for a picnic.

As a kid, I remember swimming from a raft in the middle of this lake on special outings. Tim and I joined Jim and two others (Dr. Jim and Marianne Menges) on a hike around the rim of the lake.

I couldn’t resist the cool, blue water. So we took a motor boat out to the middle of the lake for a swim. Refreshing! I felt like I was back in Ontario swimming in a cool lake at the cottage!

Some crazy prickly trees out there ...

And guavas too! Christine could not resist, Tim caught her in the act...

- and we were not alone

Easter morning found us at the base of “Bellybutton Mountain” for a sunrise Easter service with the English-speaking Lutheran congregation (FYI, Joseph Barya is the pastor at the moment). Photo of Christine sitting with the congregation at the outdoor service.

Later that day, Tim and I climbed and conquered “Bellybutton Mountain” to gain a beautiful view. Sunday evening, we attended a concert of the high school choir “Gospel Singers” at the new church.

I’m Home!

Monday morning, Tim and I drove the 300 or so kilometers to my hometown of Garoua-Boulai (GB).

A missionary family needed us to drive their truck down to GB so that saved us having to take a public bus. We left at 7:30am, had a 2 ½ hour stop at Meiganga to visit my friend and didn’t arrive in GB until 5:30pm! The roads were pretty rough all the way: very bad potholes from N’Gaoundéré to Meiganga, none-stop washboards from Meiganga to GB. Although many vehicles chose to pass us along the way, Tim drove carefully, for which I am very thankful.

We were fortunate to be offered a truck to drive; unfortunate to get a flat tire! Tim was covered in red dirt after changing the tire. It gets everywhere!

In Meiganga, we visited my best childhood friend, Anne Yadji, and her family.

Life is difficult in Africa. Anne has lost her father, 3 brothers and a sister. Her two sons and only daughter all died before the age of 2. The only remaining members of her family are her mother (solid as an oak), one sister and two brothers. It was a short, yet special visit with Anne.

Excitement was mounting in me as we got closer to my hometown. When we crossed the Lom River, I knew we were almost there. The scenery had changed and become more tropical and lush: from the dry and hilly plateau of N’Gaoundéré to the flat grassland of Meiganga to the lush hills closer to GB.

Photo of us below on a bridge over the Lom river. It's tropical there!It had been cloudy and threatening rain all day, and was starting to rain when we arrived.

At GB, we settled into our guesthouse (which we shared with the noisy bats in the attic) and then headed over to have supper with Dr. Solofou and his wife Joely. Gado, another childhood friend, also joined us for supper.

Walking back to our guesthouse that evening, I felt like I had never left Cameroon, like I was walking home after a movie night at the dorm. In the dark, everything looked the same. The curves in the road felt the same. The trees lining the road were the same, even though many had grown taller over the years. Photo on right side is the Jacobsen family house.

In the daylight, I noticed that some trees that I had remembered so well were now gone, but most were just taller and showing their age.

The avocado tree that Glenn planted from a seed was still beside our house (photo below). Alas - the tree is too big for the photo!

The frangipani trees were blooming. The bark looked well-loved from years of kids climbing on their branches. My favourite guava trees behind the dorm had long ago been cut down. Gado helped Tim and me find the only remaining rubber tree planted on the station where we kids used to gather the sap to make little bouncy rubber balls. The towering kapok tree that used to be at the centre of the station had been cut down since it was dangerously close to several houses. Fortunately, there still remains one healthy kapok tree with fruit pods that will provide cotton fuzz and little wooden boats for kids to play with for years to come. :-)

It was a rather sad for me to notice many of the buildings on the station looking more run down than I had remembered them. It felt rather empty, not like I remembered when the station was bustling with missionary activity. It’s harder to keep things maintained now that the local church has been handed over that responsibility due to fewer missionaries in recent years. Our house where we lived for so many years is showing its age, but at least it’s still standing firm. I was happy, though, to see that my 4-room school, which was closed about 10 years ago, is now being used by the Bible School. They had added another room to house a library. The junglegym structure is still holding strong, but the swing set is lacking swings. The dormitory is used by the Cameroon church for meetings and conferences, and the screened in porch is being used as a sewing school for illiterate girls. The pool looked rather sad with no water in it. The volleyball court is now being used to dry cassava flour! The large water tower which was built next to our house in 1986 to provide city water is no longer functioning (apparently it never did work). It now has a cell phone tower on top of it. Another company built a tower nearby too. Different times, different needs, different purposes.

Our time in GB was way too short. We caught a ride back to N’Gaoundéré that afternoon with Dr. Salofou and his wife who were planning on going to the city for business. Tim and I had only the morning to walk around, take pictures, and meet friends who knew me or my family. Gado was our “guide” and “interpreter” of memories.

We met his older sister, Ina, in the market and he introduced us to many others like Pauline, who babysat Glenn and me and had many funny stories to tell. He also brought us to his house and showed us the dirt mounds where family members were buried. Just this past January, his youngest baby daughter, Christine, (named after me) died from eating improperly prepared cassava that still had traces of cyanide in it (normally found in the variety of cassava grown in this region but removed through soaking the root in water for a few days). Disease, poor nutrition, AIDS and death are so familiar to many in Africa.

The Hospital

Dr. Salofou gave us a nice tour of the hospital where my father worked for many years and where I was born! Photo of Christine and Gado (Glenn's friend) in the Lutheran mission hospital, standing by the mural painting, painted by an anthropologist in 1980 when they were kids.

There were only 2 older nurses’ aides who had known and worked with my dad. Dad sure left such a wonderful legacy and witness of Christ’s love! I felt honoured to have such a rich heritage. Everywhere we went, whether in the hospital or the market, people remembered my father’s name. Some Fulani women were sitting in the maternity hall, and when they heard that I was Dr. Jacobsen’s daughter, their ears perked up and they started chatting amongst themselves and smiling at me. Insufficient funding is making it hard for the church-run hospital to provide the quality of care that used to be available.

The orphanage is now being used as a nutrition centre where severely malnourished children and adults live for a month and are provided a special diet and basic classes in nutrition. Since GB is a boarder town, it has received many refugees from neighbouring Central African Republic where there have been rebel attacks on villages in the recent months. The nutrition centre has seen a rise in cases of malnutrition with the influx of refugees. Thankfully, those who are sent to the nutrition centre often see great improvement after the month-long program. I smile when I think back to the beautiful faces of the Fulani women sitting on mats outside the centre playing with their happy little babies.

Photo of Christine , Gado, and Gado's sister in the GB market.

Changes

Much has changed in the 24 years since I lived in Garoua-Boulai. It is no longer a little town of 10 000, but has expanded in all directions. The main road running through town is now paved and runs all the way to the next biggest town of Bertoua, which is now only a 3-hour drive. (Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the road from GB to N’Gaoundéré will be paved anytime in the near future.) The prominent cement round-about at the main intersection gives the town an air of importance! It even has a hotel with a restaurant, most likely catering to the influx of aid-workers in the area. City-wide electricity has been one of the biggest changes. There is more of a night-life now. It also means that morning sleep is now interrupted by the call to prayer since the local mosques now have microphones that can now be heard even as far as the mission station! There is an internet café, and TVs can be found in almost every eatery. And, the (one and only) gas station now has electric pumps rather than manual pumps!

Return to Reality

The 3-day return trip to Niger went a lot smoother than our trip to Cameroon. No major delays or problems. The train ride was a bit noisy – we heard the next morning that the guards had caught a thief and they were beating him up all night, and keeping him in the toilet room.

Our two week vacation went by too fast. The time was too short to spend very long with any one person or family. Although I didn't feel like I came with much to offer or many material gifts, people thanked me over and over again for the gift of friendship that our family had maintained over the years. Their words to us were “Thank you for remembering us here in Cameroon after all these years. Thank you for not forgetting us. Thank you for visiting us.” Tim and I were so well taken care of during our time in Cameroon, thanks to the generosity and hospitality of the many friends we met along the way. It was a dream come true to go back to Cameroon as an adult with Tim. I was not ready to wake up. It wasn’t until our bumpy bus ride from Benin to Niger that I really began to realize that we were now entering the Sahel. From lush forests and green grass to sand and stunted trees with thorns and little leaves. Welcome to Niger, a place where life holds on hopefully to every little blessing and promise…and…thrives. Welcome to the garden where I am currently planted and learning to bloom. The Gardener has not forgotten about his oasis in Niger. The rains are coming soon.

Favourite Food:

Plantain everywhere! One of our first snacks in Douala was roasted plantain from a street vendor. Mmmmm. Plantain is served either fried like French fries or boiled like a potato at almost every meal in Cameroun. We took advantage of this abundance. Delicious!

Food for the Adventurous:

In Yaoundé, while waiting for Pastor Frouisou, we had a late breakfast/brunch at a little kiosk at the side of the road. Fish in tomato sauce (with the head still on) and bread for dipping. Now doesn’t that sound appetizing?

On the way back Tim ate a hot plate of crocodile! There are very unusual bones in a plate of crocodile. Tasty and worth trying again!

On the train to N’Gaoundéré, I was looking for something to eat with our baguette. I asked a vendor from the train window about a little package wrapped in banana leaves. It looked like something I had eaten as a kid. I was hoping it was pound cassava leaves with spices. He called it “pistache”. Hmmm. Sounds kind of like pistachios. “Should be good,” I thought. Well, it ended up being fish pate with bones and all. Even though Tim and I enjoy eating fish, one bite of this was enough for both of us!

Lessons learned:

In Douala, a power outage means no water from the taps.

It’s good to check your tires often while driving.

Meiganga does not have tonic soda.

What to do? No Public Phone Booths.
No need to have public phone booths when you have “call boxes” at almost every street corner. A call box is a small open booth/kiosk where you can borrow a cell phone to make a call for a small fee. You can even find call boxes in small towns since many places now have cell phone reception.

Favourite Roadside Attraction:

Little knee-high mud termite mounds in the shape of toad stools. Cute! You could see large “cities” of these toad stool homes in the fields at the side of the road. Some of the termite mounds had 2 “mushroom caps” on one stalk: maybe an upstairs suite for the in-laws! J

Talking about mushroom caps, the rainy season happens to be the start of mushroom picking season. As we were driving to and from GB, we passed by a couple roadside kiosks where they were selling large mushroom caps the side of a dinner plate! And when you buy the monstrous mushroom, you don’t just get the top, you also get a foot or more of the root! Imagine how many omelets or bowls of soup you could make with it!

Faces I will Never Forget:

Word got out quickly that Dr. Jacobsen’s daughter was in town. On our last day in N’Gaoundéré, a Fulani woman named Mariama came looking for me. Her face and arms were all covered in scars, but she beamed with joy and hugged me like a long lost daughter. She told me her story. Many years ago she had fallen into the fire and had received severe burns all over her body. She was brought to the GB hospital where my father treated her and gave her skin grafts to cover the opened wounds. She was now completely healed, and even more exciting was that she had found Jesus as her Healer and Saviour. She had made the big jump from Islam and was beaming with an indescribable joy. Before we departed, she took my hands in hers and prayed a passionate prayer.

Planes, Trains, Buses, Motorcycles, and Trucks!

Flying 3 hours; Waiting in airports: 11 hours
bus: 45 hours
Train:32 hours
Truck: 13 hours (8 driving); Motorcycle: 1 hour

Battle of the bugs

2008-04-17T17:00:00.004-04:00

News from the battle front - African bugs - mosquitos actually...

Several things can keep us from sleeping at night, namely high temperatures, farm animals (roosters, goats...), the neighbourhood mosque, dogs howling over intruders, wind storms, but surely the worstof all are ...

Most every living organism agrees, except for possibly dragonflies and bats, that mosquitoes are annoying little creatures that somehow passed through careful inspection when God announced at creation that “It was good”. These blood-thirsty beasts must have sided with the devil early on, for they are nothing but evil incarnate with 2 wings, 6 legs and a razor-sharp siphon for a mouth! Their sole purpose is to torment any warm-blooded organism in an attempt to suck the life-blood out of it. These skilled demons have continued their moral decline and corrupt lifestyle over the centuries by making unwise alliances with equally evil elements of The Fall called “viruses”. Together, they collaborate to pursue their own selfish interests while making life miserable for warm-blooded organisms and spreading diseases such as West Nile virus, Dengue Fever, Japanese Encephalitis, and Malaria.

The mosquitoes in Niger are even more irritating and elusive than those of Canada. Whereas Canadian mosquitoes like the warm spots near the neck and the backs of the knees, Nigerien mosquitoes tend to go for the ankles, although they will bite any exposed skin available. Nigerien mosquitoes have a way of gorging on your blood without you even feeling a sting. It isn’t until they are flying away or are long gone that you notice an intense itchy sensation. At night while in bed, they fly around your head and emit a very high pitched hum, higher than the low drone of Canadian mosquitoes. It reminds me of a small dentist’s drill. The sound seems to surround you from all different directions so that sometimes it sounds like the hum might be coming from within your head! Unlike the mosquitoes in Canada that are large and rather clumsy, the mosquitoes in Niger are small and react quickly when they sense they are being pursued.

One strategy the mosquitoes use to evade capture is to drop instantly out of eyesight and fly low to the floor. Another strategy is to fly next to a dark or busy background where they get “lost” in the motif, such as near a bookshelf or a bedspread. The only sure way of killing mosquitoes is to spray the house with an insecticide before you go to bed. I prefer not to use this method since the intoxicating fumes will no doubt give me cancer one day. Tim and I have found using a fly swatter is healthier than spraying and more effective than using your hands, since often the mosquitoes fly right through your fingers! Frantically waving the flyswatter in the air may kill the mosquito, but usually your best bet is to patiently wait for it to land on the wall. Our bedroom wall has black spots in numerous places as testaments to battles waged and won!

The pesky insects hover eagerly at our door, like our hungry adopted cat, waiting for an opportunity to sneak in when the door opens. We have screens on our windows to keep the mosquitoes out, although for several months a few screens had rips in them, allowing free access to mosquitoes and moths. Recently, our apartment complex was redone with new screens having finer mesh that is supposed to keep even the smallest of insects out. That was a big improvement. Unfortunately, the daily battle with mosquitoes isn’t over. So before we go to bed each night, Tim and I scan the room for mosquitoes. We check behind the curtains, in the corners, on the ceiling, and under the folds of the sheets. No mosquito must remain alive! How miserable a night for Tim and me if a mosquito escapes our flyswatter! When we have peacefully fallen asleep, it will come out of hiding, find our warm bodies and start hovering around our heads with that annoying high-pitched hum. Who will deliver me from my misery at 3 in the morning? “Timmmmm, it’s your turn to wake up and kill the darn mosquito.”

Class Camping Trip Niger River

2008-04-13T11:48:00.002-04:00

February 26 and 27

It seems to be turning into a tradition for the grade 5/6 class to go on a yearly camping trip. I was more than eager to continue this tradition, to the delight of my students. I wanted to give each student the opportunity to experience the adventure of camping in Niger and the thrill of being immersed in God’s amazing creation. And of course, the outdoor enthusiast and camper in me wouldn’t pass off this opportunity!

There would, no doubt, be an educational component to the camping trip. We had just finished reading a novel about a boy who was very knowledgeable about surviving outdoors. Many of the students were inspired by this story and were interested in learning some camping skills, such as making a fire and setting up a tent. In science, we were studying about space and our solar system. This camping trip would give the students the chance to study the moon and the constellations at night, hopefully with a telescope or binoculars. In social studies, we had been learning about famous explorers of the past and present. Before and during the trip, we would practice using navigational instruments similar to what some explorers used, such as a compass, an astrolabe/quadrant, and a sundial.

“Be prepared!” The Girl and Boy Scout motto. We spent two weeks preparing for the 24-hour campout! Deciding the food, making a packing list, learning about fire safety and fire building, learning how to set-up and take down a tent, studying constellation charts…the list goes on! The students were divided into 3 teams of 4. Each team would be responsible for planning a game for the trip, presenting a campfire skit or story, leading a few songs at the campfire, and helping cook or clean-up. Teamwork, leadership, accountability. These are qualities I was trying to develop in my students.

The day we were waiting for dawned hazy and hot! So much for trying to avoid camping in the hot season! Fortunately, the nights are still cooling off nicely, so we slept quite comfortably. We managed to pack all our camping gear (backpacks, sleeping bags, pillows, tents, food and water coolers, guitar, telescope, firewood) and 12 students and 4 adults into two land rovers!

We camped upstream along the Niger River on a piece of property that the school director rents along with a couple of other families. The small riverfront property is enclosed with a grass fence, contains a round hut for storage and a nicely designed latrine, and has four large mango trees growing on it.

The first thing we did upon our arrival was head straight for the shade of the mango trees. Seconds later, the kids were up the mango trees and hanging from the leafy branches! After setting up the tents, we settled down to the game that quickly became the card game of the trip: “Apples to Apples”.

"What time is it Mrs. Mattimoe?”

I don’t know, Lachlan. Why don’t we check on the sundial?”

Sure!”
Make sure the sundial is pointing north.

"Approximately what time does it indicate”

Wow, it’s already about 4:30pm!”

Then it must be time for the “Saturn’s Rings” team to lead us in a scavenger hunt.”

After the scavenger hunt, we did the fire-building competition that the students had been gearing up for all week. The objectives were straight forward: gather the wood needed to build a small fire, use only 2 matches to light the fire, get a small can of soapy water to boil over. This activity was aflame in creative chaos resourceful problem solving as each team struggled with similar problems: a broken match, the wind blew out the match, thorny branches, the string on the can got burned and the can of water spilled.

One team tried persistently, although unsuccessfully, to light the fire using a magnifying lens. Another team learned through trial and error how to keep their fire going without smothering it.

How fitting that the “Super Survivor’s” team were the winners of the fire competition. Coincidently, they were also in charge of making the fires for our supper. Hotdogs accompanied with cooked veggies in tinfoil.

I was really impressed by how well my students played and worked together. There was little arguing during the games, and each team willingly took their turn to cook or clean up. The aptly named “Bubble Buster” team was certainly the most cheerful group of dish washers!

The stars weren’t as bright as I had seen only a couple weeks earlier in a village. The sky was a bit hazy, mostly due to the harmatan (sand) in the air. Even so, we did manage to spot Orion and the Big Dipper. The North Star was too low on the horizon for us to see it very clearly, so we didn’t get to try out our “homemade” astrolabes to calculate our latitude. It was also rather disappointing that we never had a chance to use the telescope that Mr. Golde had set up for us to observe the moon. The moon was waxing after the full moon and lunar eclipse a week earlier. It didn’t appear in the sky until much later in the night.

After a number of popular evening running games, we gorged ourselves on roasted marshmallows, Smores, and banana boats (banana with chocolate chips and marshmallows and wrapped in tinfoil for the fire). The campfire program followed, and lasted until close to midnight! All of us were tired and by 12:30am, we were all drifting off to sleep to the tune of croaking frogs and buzzing crickets.

Favorite Campfire Memories

Funniest skit: “Bring me my royal papers!”

Silliest song: “Making Melodies in my Heart”

Most creative new song lyrics: “If I were a Firefly”

Scariest moment: Hearing the grunt of a hippo nearby

Breakfast was pretty fancy for a campout! We had fresh fruit, plenty of home-made muffins and a never-ending pile of warm French toast! Mr. Bliss and Shelley had 2 pans going on the fire pit. Christina and I mastered the art of cooking over a buddy burner (upside-down can with an opening for a small fire under it). Those who preferred a fried egg were invited to come and cook it themselves.

After a time of devotions, we broke camp and started to pack up.

Meanwhile,

Mr. Bliss was taking three students at a time out in his canoe to get a look at the hippos on a nearby sandbar. It was reassuring to learn that even though the hippo’s grunting sounded close by the previous night, it was probably several hundred metres out past the island of grazing cows.

We arrived back at school tired, thirsty and hungry, but full of great stories to share with our friends and family. The students and I have all agreed that it takes too much effort to organize a camping trip for just 1 night. Next year, we would suggest a 2-night camping trip!

THE END →

Learning to Bake in Africa

2008-04-12T12:01:00.005-04:00

I tried baking pumpkin/squash during our first month in Niger. What an adventure! It took about 1 ½ hours to bake it! Here are the instructions. Who knows when you just might need to use a gas oven....during the next dump of snow or ice or a province-wide power shortage.

1. First of all, try to locate where to light the burner. Lift up the metal cover at the bottom of the oven. Turn on the gas. Light the burner with a long gas BBQ lighter. Replace the cover. Don’t expect to get access to the burner at any other time during the baking process! Once the oven is lit, keep it lit since you don’t want to be fiddling with a hot element later on.

2. The dial shows only a picture of a “large flame” or “small flame”. Somewhere between the two is “medium flame”. Translated, that means: “Hot oven”, “Not so hot oven” or “Somewhere in-between”. There are no temperatures on the dial.

3. You will need an oven thermometer if you want to keep track of the temperature, especially for baking desserts. A thermometer is also useful to see if the oven is losing heat and needs more flame.

4. Without a thermometer at your disposal, use your nose to check for smoke or burning! Use a fork to check the squash for “doneness” and use your eyes to look for browning or burning spots.

5. CAUTION: The entire oven (door, dials) gets very hot while the oven is on. Use thick oven mitts for safety.

6. Reminder: There is no door handle. Open the oven from the edges. Be careful not to slam it closed.

7. Unless you want a sauna in an already hot and poorly ventilated kitchen and you don’t mind emptying your gas bottle, you might want to forgo using the oven and find an alternative method (e.g. steaming or boiling on the stovetop ) to cook your food in the future.

8. Remember: there is no microwave in your apartment. All leftovers have to be reheated on the stove.

Happy baking! :-)

Since my first experience, I have cooked squash two other times. The second time I steamed it. It was okay, but not as flavorful as using the oven. The third time I tried the oven again. Success with less frustration this time! Our guests enjoyed my cinnamon-flavoured specialty.

Postscript: I thought you might be interested in reading about my first experiences with our gas oven. Since then, I have made banana bread/cake/muffins, apple-cinnamon muffins, pumpkin muffins, and an egg casserole in the oven. We bought a used microwave in December which has proven to a big lifesaver and added to the convenience of re-heating leftovers. Thanks also to my mom for sending us an oven thermometer in a care package. :-)

Ethiopia - different than you think

2008-03-20T07:04:00.022-04:00

Hi there - March has been an intense travel month for me (Tim), as with travels to Ethiopia and Cameroon (and Mali and Benin). News on on the east first...

Ethiopia, East Africa – I have arrived in the capital city Addis Ababa, it is March 1.

I'm here to participate in a training conference with Samaritan's Purse .

The SP staff in Ethiopia are quite friendly and cheery (photo on right - training class). They have some programs similar to Niger, they also have a large HIV/AIDS awareness program (called MET and Prescription for Hope). Their project sites are quite far off, some are more than 10 hours driving from Addis. As a result they do have a staffed remote office in the south Somali province.

But - rather than bore you with too much work stuff I'll share about my adventures. As flights within Africa are not so frequent or convenient, it was convenient for me to have some extra days to explore Ethiopia a bit - very nice!

FOOD - now that I have your attention. An important part of any country, and so much so in a country like Ethiopia. Ethiopia has a very unique traditional food not found anywhere else on the globe and it is quite delicious. The meal is comunual, buffet style, and consists of many sauces which are scooped up by a chunk of dough called “Injera”. Traditionally Injera is a very large pizza-like dough baked over a pit fire, but in the city people often make it in pans and then make rolls of the dough (As you can see in the photo). The dough is moist and flexible and fairly strong, so one tears a piece off the roll or platter, and use the piece of dough like a mitt to scoop sauce. I must admit that Injeri can only be eaten with your hands, fork and knife just wouldn’t make sense. I ate many different sauces, usually I have no idea what I’m eating. I know that one sauce was raw meat (ground beef), I didn’t eat much of this. A typical good restaurant will have more than 20 different sauces.

Surprise is a word that comes to mind for visitors to this city. In some ways as you look around Addis you might think you are in a US city, in an African-American neighbourhood. The capital is well developed, however there are malnutrition and many other needs in the rural majority of the country.

Even so - living in Addis is quite unlike the US due to its distinctive culture and religion, and as well as you look deeper you find an eclectic mix of African and Western life going on. From my hotel room window, I took the photo of this cathedral in the distance. As it is the Easter lenten season, there are throngs of Ethiopian Coptic Christians at the churchs everyday, as you can see in the photo. Notice the white garments. This was a regular workday morning.

Addis Ababa (which means “New Flower”) is a flowering city, prosperous and modern, good paved roads with much traffic, and a substantial availability of goods and services. You can find many modern things here including smog :-)

Notice the photo of the food and the "fasting" sign. PUZZLED? READ on.

March 2 is a significant day and time of the year for

Ethiopia

. For starters, they celebrate the Adwa Victory, which was their victory in defeating the Italians. Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that was not colonized, and was for a few years occupied by Italy in the region now called Eritrea.
The other thing kicked off in this country is the Christian Coptic lenten fast, which is a 40 day fast following up to Easter (Orthodox date), and is taken quite seriously and performed by a large proportion of the population, basically most Coptic Christians.

This food photo above has a good closeup of the injera dough, the beige rolls at the bottom. The “fast” is actually a vegan diet, an abstention from meat of all kinds and all dairy. It is significant enough that many restaurants immediately stop offering meat or dairy dishes in their menu. Alternatively restaurants will separate “fasting” food from “non-fasting” food, as is the case here. Of course fasting generally means to abstain from eating food, so the idea of "fasting food" is an oxymoron. Personally I enjoy the wide variety of tasty healthy vegetable sauces and foods that you find everywhere.

Coffee connoisseurs know well that Ethiopia is highly sough out for its coffee. And no less so in Ethiopia which has well entrenched coffee traditions. In the photo I'm in the restaurant next to the lady taking care of making coffee for all the patrons, as a meal normally is followed by coffee.

In the local coffee shop, the coffee menu includes “fasting hot beverages”, meaning coffee drinks with non-dairy milk substitutes like soy. Effectively a Soy cappuccino is called a fasting cappuccino. Interesting.

I took 2 photos which also would raise some eyebrows on some people –
One is of a throne seat near the front of the church, a special large luxurious chair reserved for the king or honored guest.

Apparently many of the Coptic churches have such throne chairs. The 2^nd photo is of the church ceiling fresco, on the right side you see Christ on the cross and on the left adjoining it a picture showing a troop of armed soldiers saluting the King. For Anabaptists this association with the military would be quite disturbing, alas the reformation.

Mountains, exploring - On Thursday we had the great opportunity to visit the Ethiopian country side, and some beautiful natural scenery. I took a lot of photos!
Ethiopia is quite mountainous, and Addis Ababa is on a high plateau, one of the highest cities in the world. As a result the weather is actually cool and comfortable (a bit chilly at night). I'm standing here with two of our SP colleagues, at the edge of a cliff.

While we were sitting having lunch, a large herd of monkeys came down the mountain side and walked in front of us, about a 100 monkeys, at a safe distance from us. My photo on the right was fully zoomed.

We went up a plateau to visit two famous monasteries. One is active with pilgrims attending everyday during the lent period.

We were allowed to visit, with a guide, during the mass service, and so I have some photos inside while people are praying. The participants there are on the floor, either sitting or kneeling in prayer, head to the floor.

The church has a replica of the Old Testament Ark that Moses had. Ethiopians have a strange fascination with things like that, a leader in the church said that all the Coptic churches in Ethiopia have an Ark, they wouldn’t be a church without it.

A guide brought us up a steep hike into the mountains, where we encountered a small “chapel” built into a cave in the mountain. I enjoyed the opportunity to hike and get some exercise, two of our party were pretty exhausted once we arrived. The chapel is simply a cave with a wooden wall and a light inside. The history there is that a famous monk from centuries ago used to pray and fast there for many years. His left leg fell off (amputed?) and so he is depicted in a painting there standing on 1 leg, with the other leg lying on the ground. Saint Terry Fox? Water is seeping from the roof of the cave, and this water is diverted into big drums as it is revered as holy water. There were 8 large drums in the cave and a hose filling one of them. Pilgrims will come from afar and pay good money in order to get this holy water, which they would use to apply to their faces or drink.

Personally I like drinking tonic water, they have 3 flavours/brands here and most places provide 2 or 3 brands.

Being here in

Ethiopia

is a treat, but not a treat in the way Canadians would think. Niamey does not have much of many nice things readily found in Addis Ababa, and so I feel spoiled. These things include: flush toilets and nice washrooms are common; people can understand English; there are bookstores with English books; there is often green grass growing on the ground and the soil is black; high of 25C in the day; you can find fresh brewed coffee in cafés; also cappuccinos, lattes, café au lait etc; the streets are not strewn with garbage (not as much); and a few others.

Shoulder bumping! Many cultures I notice have their unique ways of greeting friends and family, and Ethiopia most certainly is unique! Ethiopians on the whole are physically affectionate; people embrace and kiss each other if they are close friends or relatives. However the common greeting here is something quite unique – I supposed it is a more subtle or abbreviated form of physical contact. It involves bending your right shoulder towards the other person’s right shoulder and touch shoulders. This is often done while holding hands during the initial hand shake. So the right hands clasp for the hand shake and then you do the shoulder bump! You will not see this in Niger. In Niger you hold the person’s hand for a few minutes while going through a long series of greeting questions (not intended to be nosy) where you ask how is the health, then family, wife/husband, work, heat/cold, dust, tiredness, sickness, …

My flight back to Niamey was delayed by over 3 days! So I spent some extra time in Bamako.

Building desks for a village school

2008-02-23T15:28:00.014-05:00

Christine's Journal - Mission to Inatés

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Morning:

Tomorrow is the big day we have been gearing up for. Our team of 8 high school students and 4 adults has been meeting twice a week since early January in preparation for the outreach trip to Inatés, a small Tuareg village only a few kilometers from the Mali boarder. Today at lunch we have one final planning meeting. This trip is a joint venture with Samaritan’s Purse (SP) and Sahel Academy. We heard through SP, which works on nutrition and livestock projects in the area, that the village school is in need of new desks since their present desks are falling apart. Samaritan’s Purse was able to get funding for materials to build new desks. The Southern Baptist Mission provided some of the manual labour in building the metal frames. We all spent a Saturday at the shop cutting, sanding and drilling holes in the wooden desktops and seats. Our job in Inatés is to assemble the 60 desks. We are all ready for the 6 hour drive tomorrow. The food team has enough ice in the freezer for the water coolers and all we have to do is pack everything tomorrow.

Afternoon:

None of us was prepared for the news that awaited us at lunch. Pastor Dave informed us that Ralph Sauers, one of our adult leaders, had just become very sick overnight with malaria. He is an important member of our team; not only is he the only one on the team who really knows how to assemble the desks, he is also the only one who speaks the local language of Tamashek. On top of that news, we learned that the truck that was loaded with supplies and sent to Inatés ahead of us had been in an accident. Luckily there was little damage to the desk frames and the wood. After much concerned prayer, it was decided that we would put off the Inatés trip for 2 weeks. This seemed to be for the best anyhow, since many of us were running low on sleep over the past few nights and could use some time to re-energize. We all prayed that Ralph Sauers would be restored to full health before then.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Morning:

Today is the big day we have been gearing up for since early January. The day has finally arrived! The two week delay has dampened our spirits somewhat, but yesterday’s lunch meeting renewed our enthusiasm. We are eager to serve the Muslim Tuareg community and also have a bit of a camping adventure in the process. J

Afternoon:

More unexpected delays! We had planned to have the 2 land rovers packed by 11am so that we could leave immediately at 11:15am when the students got out of classes. It appeared that things weren’t going to go quite as planned when by 10:30am we

were still waiting for the 2 trucks to arrive! There had been traffic delays due to student demonstrations at the traffic circle near the ONLY bridge that crosses the river. By noon, we were finally ready to hit the road! We arrived in Inatés well before sunset, by 5:30pm. We had made excellent timing despite the initial delays. Half of the trip was paved road. At the town of Ayorou, we turned off on to a dirt road which later become a rutted track. We traveled through as many kinds of semi-arid landscapes that one could think of: dry grasslands with scrubby acacia trees, barren gravel hilltops, dry sandy riverbeds, seasonal “ponds” or lakes surrounded by leafy trees, rocky moonscapes with large termite mounds resembling the stone statues of Easter Island. It kind of felt like we were on a safari; large herds of goats and sheep were roaming free like wild herds of antelope. Camels were wandering around and grazing on acacia leaves just like giraffes.Squirrels and birds darted in front of the trucks. Donkeys stood patiently for their owners in dry fields or else stubbornly in the middle of the road! In some places, we drove through sand tracks that were about 1 foot deep! At times, it felt like we were fishtailing through deep snow! We passed by a number of villages or “camps” along the way, but you would never notice if you didn’t look hard, for the straw and mud huts blended in with the sandy surroundings.

We were warmly welcomed by the community as we drove into the school’s yard. The school director had organized the students and they were singing as we got out of the trucks. We politely greeted the school director, the village chief and some of the other important men of the village. In no time at all, the curious children started to crowd around us in an effort to shake our hands. At first we stood around awkwardly with our limited language abilities, but soon we were also eagerly shaking grubby hands and snapping pictures of the cute kids.

Mr. Sauers and Tim went off to visit with the important men of the village and have a customary round of Tuareg tea while the rest of us set up camp. We had quite a few curious onlookers as we set up the tents right in the middle of the school yard! We had a choice of 2 latrines: the closest one was a shallow hole in the ground encircled with an old straw mat located in the corner of the school yard.Most of us preferred the newly dug latrine on the other side of the schoolyard wall which had a decent mud wall around it for privacy. It also had a nice west facing view of the “mare” or seasonal pond if you stood up and looked over the latrine wall. J

Supper was bread dipped in delicious peanut sauce as we sat around in the glow of flashlights. Tim and some local boys got a campfire going later that evening. John had brought his guitar and some music, so we sat around the campfire singing worship songs as a small group of boys listened and watched from the other side of the campfire. We involved them in a Tamashek song that Mr. Sauers and Daniel taught us. A memorable moment was watching the boys as they listened with fascination as Mr. Sauers read them the story of David and Goliath in their own language. We drifted off to sleep with a glorious starry sky above us and the sound of donkeys braying in our dreams.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

The morning began at around 5:30am when the roosters started crowing and the donkeys began their awful bawling! Mr. Sauers was the first one up at about 6:30am. The rest of us crawled out of our tents not long after. The sun itself didn’t peak over the horizon until around 7:30am. It was a chilly morning! Some of the girls huddled in their blankets around the little Tuareg charcoal burner as Mr. Sauers handed out little shot glasses of sweet Tuareg tea.

By 8:30am we had finished breakfast and were already starting to assemble the first desks. There is no electricity in the village, except for the health centre where they have their own generator. Thankfully, Dave Ceton had loaned us his generator so that we could use the power drills to drill holes in the metal desk frames. We had quite a system going between the 12 of us: a few people drilled holes while the others screwed on the bolts.

Three people could drill at a time until 1 drill sparked and died on us.Of the two remaining drills, only one of them really worked very well. That slowed things down a bit, but by lunch we had completed 20 desks out of 51. It looked like a daunting task, and some of us were getting sore backs and hands, but we managed to up the speed and efficiency after lunch. It wasn’t all work and no play. There were dramatized scenes of the dentist drilling teeth , and other creative childhood moments finger painting with varnish. J Hafsa, Aagje and I got ourselves covered in sticky varnish from one too many varnish fight! It wasn’t fun, though, bathing in gasoline afterwards! Our last desk was completed by about 5:15pm!

The community presented us with gifts of decorated pens, leather pouches, wooden spoons and bracelets. We in turn thanked them with a colourful soccer ball which the boys quickly blew up and started playing with.

That evening, we invited the entire community to watch the “God Story” film translated into Tamashek. Mr. Sauers hooked up his computer and the projector to the generator so that we could show the film on the school wall. Around 60 or 70 eager children and interested adults came for the entertainment under the starry skies. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine Abraham looking at the stars of the sky long ago and wondering how God would make his offspring as numerous as the stars.

Sleep came easily, for most of us that is except for a few hyper teenagers, for we were all exhausted!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Again we were up before the sunrise. Mr. Sauers had a nice fire going to warm up the chilly morning air. Our first visitors began arriving just as we were eating breakfast. We girls weren’t quite prepared for visitors so early, for some of us were still dressed in our cozy pajamas and didn’t have a head scarf on yet. There wasn’t much privacy as we started taking down our tents and packing up. The school director and other important men were there to greet and thank us before we left. Kids were peaking over the school walls, climbing the thorny trees nearby, playing soccer in the school yard, or standing nearby. Goats and guinea fowl were wandering around the yard. Donkeys and women were at the village well next to the school. Imagine brushing your teeth,
doing your hair and putting in your contacts with almost the entire community watching you!

Before leaving, we wanted to get a picture of all the kids sitting in their new desks. We asked the director if he could round up the kids. News spreads like wildfire here. The director only had to tell one boy who was listening nearby, and in less than 5 minutes all the kids were assembled at the desks.

We had a 2-sided colouring sheet for the kids along with a dozen boxes of colouring crayons for the school. I explained in French which Bible stories the pictures were from while Mr. Sauers translated into Tamashek. Then we passed out a handful of crayons to each student to colour with. It appeared that many of the kids had never seen crayons before (or maybe they aren’t given many opportunities to colour in school), because it took them a few minutes to understand what they were supposed to do with the crayons. So we went around showing the kids what they could do with the crayons. After an exchange of “thank yous” and “goodbyes”, we were on our way back to Niamey. We left Inatés feeling a special bond with the people. They really appreciated all that we had done for them; that we had cared enough about their little village to drive 6 hours and make them new desks to replace the 40-year old desks. In sharing with them God’s love, we had also been richly blessed by their friendship.

Wild animals! C'est bête

2008-02-05T11:41:00.001-05:00

Despite so much sand and dryness, we encounter many strange and wonderous beastly creatures here in Niger. And we wanted to share some of that with you! Many photos in this blog! You can click on any photo to expand it.

We will start with animals found in our front yard!

Our faithful protector and companion Missy, is very curious and attentive, I saw here wagging her tail quite excitedly at a bush in our yard one day - alas these photos show her discovery. West meets east?

The large brown nose is Missy our dog and the grey creature is a Chameleon lizard. The Chameleon changed colour to green later, but it is in distress at the moment.

Missy was trying to put the poor thing in its mouth, so I held back on her to let the creature escape.

Another closeup photo of the Chameleon. Chameleons hiss when in combat mode.

Another creature found, this time by Christine in her compost, was a small hedgehog. Upon discovery it currled up into a very tight spiny ball, see photo of the prickly baseball. The ball is perfectly round and spiky, no signs of life or body parts except you can tell it is breathing somehow.

We put the prickly ball on the ground and waited.
I (Tim) waited an hour while sipping lemonade and reading, keeping an eye on our visitor.

After an hour it got tired of hiding and unravelled itself! Unravelling took a couple of minutes.
Then it calmly crawled away.

Our next photos, as we stay in Niamey city, are creatures at the office! Actually animals we see in front of the yard at work, starting with the office of Samaritan's Purse.

Right in front of the SP office is where a herder keeps about 25 cattle, some donkeys and a camel.

This is a picture of our neighbour's camel, along with it's saddle sitting in front of it.

There are many small creatures too of course. A common and not-so delicious meal here is fried grasshoppers, a bowl of which was bought and shared with the staff.

See photos of the bugs and snack time.

MMmmmm, well ..., edible and nutritious but ... not so tasty.

There are creatures at the Sahel Academy too, particularly noticeble is the large tortoise - here's a repeat shot. There is another one wandering the grounds of at the American rec centre, and it likes to eat the nice green grass in the baseball pitch.

Now as we venture out in the country...

A common site in Niger are "vehicles" pulled by animals, typically donkeys or bulls. You won't see any horse pulled carriages here.

So the term "cow power" would make more sense that horse power, as in the photo. You will see wagons pushed/pulled by Africans themselves as well. These vehicles are not too quick, a challenge for motor vehicles amongst others.

There are some pretty ornery looking bulls too! Various types of horns can be seen on different bulls.

Niger is home to the last wild giraffe herds in west Africa. Herds of giraffes roam freely in the wild in certain parts of Niger, near Dosso which is not far from Niamey.
And so we drove out in search of them - with great success!
We drove the 4x4 through the bush while our guide stood in the truck box. The guide would give directions to the driver (Tim) via a very long stick/tree and by tapping it on the front windshield, and by this we'd scout for giraffes and then head off to catch them.

Donkeys! These are marvellous animals, and they live a HARD life here in Niger. These photos below are taken from my SP trip to Tchin-tabaradene in northern Niger, where we have partnership projects for grain banks and goat herds.
In these photos, donkeys are used for pulling water from a well. The well in this area is 100 metres deep! With water beginning at a depth of 97 metres. The well has a pulley and rope, with the rope attached to a group (4) of donkeys. The donkeys are driven out 100 metres to pull up the water catch basin (large leather pouch). You can see that there are a lot of camels in this area as well.

Heading further out - here's some birds we saw in the wild at the Parc W (highly zoomed in!). We also saw unique birds near the river, but birds are always quite difficult to photograph, they are fast and shy.

Camels are a very common sight here!
Camels walk on the street in front of our home in Niamey almost every day.

They can often be seen carrying very large loads, particularly for carrying large straw walls which are used for building huts or as a roof.

And last but not least (unless you ask the dog) is the furry beast prowling inside our apt at times, here seen at its favorite spot on the couch in its usual position.

The cat is often seen snuggling up to the dog, or fleeing from it in sheer terror, depending on the mood of the dog.

that's it for the animal show for now!

No doubt we will add some more as other "things" make their appearance.

holidays and vacation

2008-01-20T14:19:00.000-05:00

Hi! Yes, Christmas is gone past but here in the land of sand it was of course an unusual Christmas & New years time for us! Our experience in driving through snow drifts in Canada is helpful as the sand is getting deeper, I've almost had the vehicle stuck in the sand dunes (on the road) on many occasions. Over the holidays we had a couple of weeks vacation and adventure along with...

We visited Bénin - a small country which borders on - yes - the ocean! as well as Niger. Very tropical there on the coast. We took the bus there and back (see photo), cheap on the wallet but hard on the body - 17 hours bumpy ride each way, no washroom on the bus. We spent New Years eve at the bus station, not too exciting but we had a great week of travelling.

We spent a week at a 2-star small resort on the beach called Awalé Plage, in a town called Grand Popo. It was a real nice change to see so much water!! We enjoyed jumping in the waves. Grand Popo is a small friendly town, nice quiet beaches and few tourists, good eats as well.

Benin is known for its mobylette or motorcycle taxis, we took those a lot despite dangers I suppose.

Grand Popo is a fishing village as well, so interesting seeing the local life there too. Photo below shows some of the local people pulling in the fishing nets.
They sing songs as they pull on the nets. There was an African music group playing on Sat night.

Our other adventure!? Visiting the wildlife reserve called Parc W which borders on Niger and Benin.
Very cool experience - you drive through the reserve and wild animals are living and roaming about in their natural state. Including our surprising discovery of a lion which was right next to the road. Yiikes! We stopped, it went and sniffed the truck and looked at us, then walked away. Christine likes the little things - especially the termite hills - see photo. This style of termite hill is called the cathedral. When the queen termite dies, the termites abandon their castle. Nature - bizarre stuff!
We missed out on seeing elephants, but we did see fresh tracks from them.

We're glad to have the chance to see some interesting things while out here, although we missed having the family get toethers at Christmas. We appreciated a lot our Christmas gifts like tea, sweetner, DVDs, etc!

That's it for now!

Tim & Samaritan's Purse on the job

2007-12-20T07:36:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-18T10:49:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-26T07:15:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-20T14:40:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-08T06:46:00.000-04:00

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.

Africa? Niger? What's up?

2007-08-03T16:49:00.000-04:00

Since telling people (or through the grape vine) about our decision to move and work in Africa, there's been a lot of interesting responses - mostly of the positive "wow" type of response. Niger in particular is a challenging place in its own ways, not withstanding that the UN rated it as the least developed country in the world (2006).

Since more than a year ago, before we were married, Christine and I discussed about the future and about working abroad, we both have that in our blood and background. We both speak the same 3 languages, we've both lived in Africa. We are also thinking that it would be good to more daring in our early years of marriage prior to having kids.

Where is Niger? Please see the map and look in the middle for the light green country. French and two African languages (Hausa and Djerma) are the official languages of Niger. We will definitely be using French the most and hopefully pick up some Hausa which is the dominant language of the local people.

In early July I flew down to North Carolina for an interview with Samaritan's Purse, after several phone interviews. In mid August, Christine and I went out there for an orientation, and we have a Canadian one later in Calgary. My job will be working with the Country director in Niger to oversee projects there and to look into how we can address other needs there and how we can plan and finance those new projects. Once upon a time in the 90's I had worked with Cause Canada in West Africa and in Guatemala, and that will be good past experience for this new challenge.

Both of us have given our resignations at work, my (Tim) last day was on Aug 7th, and we are rapidly tackling numerous tasks to try and be ready for a late Sept move to Africa. Our plan and commitment is for one year there. I usually don't like to commit to much beyond 1 year at a time (with special exceptions!) so we'll see where we are at in 12 months time.

What is Christine up to? Her plans are to be finalized, but she plans to teach at the Sahel Academy in Niamey. Sahel Academy is an English speaking Christian international school for grades K-12 with students from 14 different countries. The school is located near the Niger river in the main part of the city. This will be a great new opportunity for Christine and one of her dreams! Certainly should be different from teaching big classes in the GTA (Toronto).

There's more we could talk about the "why" question, why we are making this change. There are many contributing reasons. For Tim: having my life count for more than the rat race, the opportunity to serve God and help people, and tackle challenging needs in the world. For Christine: contributing to community development in Africa through her background in education and her interests in sustainable agriculture and environmental protection.

It's an exciting time, but also much change and upheaval which can bring about some stress and other feelings I suppose. Lots of "leaving" that we need to do. Permanent leavings: leaving work, leaving our home/lodging, selling Christine's car, giving away our pets (large tropical fish)... Temporary: Leaving behind the proximity of friends and family, leaving Canada, snow, lakes, sports we typically play, leaving behind familiar foods, comforts, places...
Once we get to Africa our time will be filled with much exploration and new preparations in the short run, so the first month should be fun and the next one may be harder, who knows?

Things we retain! Communication with friends and family (being hopeful!), God's spirit in our hearts, each other, good memories, good health (being hopeful!), experience and wisdom, and some personal effects.

Ways to support us or our work:

Pray for us.
We'll be very glad to hear from you!
Christine will be looking for support for her teaching work at Sahel Academy.
You can also donate to the work of Samaritan's Purse. Note that I personally do not need additional funds for my support/salary.

Departure from Canada: Sept 24, 2007