Building desks for a village school

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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



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



Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

First couple of months at Sahel Academy

First Couple Months at Sahel Academy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Classes started back up again on October 15. I have

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Driving in Niamey:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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