Overdue Update #2 Niger, Niamey

I’ve been in Africa for 3 weeks and already I have pets!! Well not so much, but there are a lot of animals that hang around. I have cockroaches that live in the bathroom and my underwear drawer (although it did not live long enough to find it’s way back) lizards, geckos and chameleons that scurry over the walls and roof, 6-7 large frogs that come to visit every night, the occasional hedgehog in the grass surrounding the house and Rover the Turtle who seems to just appear out of nowhere every now and then, the other day he was walking past the front door. And of course there are plenty of birds, bats and the neighbours cat that comes to visit when cooking tuna, donkeys pulling carts, camels carrying mats, cows and goats grazing on the road leading to school, but no hippos or giraffes yet! So Africa is full of life – some times it gets splatted sometimes it gets photographed!

So I should probably tell you what I’ve been up to. Megan (the Adelaide girl that I travelled with) and I have settled into our little house a stones throw from the school – literally, you could probably hit the high school building with a big enough throw! It is only 198 steps from the house to my classroom door – I counted. We have just hired a lady called Lindly to come once a week to clean the house and do our ironing (it is far too hot to iron here so I am doing it even less than I did at home!!) we are paying her about 2000 cfa a week which is only about $5. We feel like we should be paying more but have to stick to the standard, same with beggars, you want to give them lots but then it would make it hard for others and wouldn’t necessarily benefit them as the money goes to other people. The house is comfortable and we were very grateful to have a toilet and shower inside and a washing machine. We don’t have air con but there are air coolers that work ok when not humid although at the moment it is very humid.

We have stayed fairly close to home over these weeks, I haven’t even taken Murray out yet, although he has met the class and has gone home with one of them this weekend. We have done food shopping and just about got the hang of all the different places, there are 3 fairly good places for supermarkets that vary in price for different things so we usually visit at least 2 of them to get the different things – eg meat is better at one place, cheese is cheaper at another (although it is still fairly expensive about $20/kilo for cheddar – the cheapest) and then we go to the street markets for fruit and veg. There are lots of people who crowd around wanting money or want you to buy things so we get to practice “non merci” lots. Last week we had just bought some pita bread so we pulled out one to give to some boys who were begging, as soon as I began to tear it in half a third boy appeared! It is sad to see all the needs on the street and harder to walk away without doing anything.
This week we went out to eat at a little Chinese place that was nice. When we came to pay the bill and working out who owed what then handed it back to the waiter he gave our money back and we eventually worked out that he was telling us that the 2 men on the table near us had paid for our meal. We were a bit shocked and not quite sure what to do! The lady we were with had never had this happen before so was a bit thrown her self. We said thankyou and chatted briefly then sat there wondering what do we do now!! It was very funny. (No Bec we did not exchange phone numbers and workout a date – I can just imagine your mind working overtime!!)
We have met some fantastic people who have helped us to feel very much at home. We have been out to eat most nights which is handy as often it is too hot to cook. There are a lot of American missionaries around so we are hoping that we don’t pick up an American accent!!
We had a staff retreat before school started to get to know each other better and doing some seminar stuff. It was very hot and the centre was only on a generator which had to be turned off every few hours to stop it over heating. It was a little hard to sleep with no fans on so was awake till about 2.30am. We got to do a bit of 4x4 driving too as it was down a dirt track, I think the van I was in managed to get air born for a second going over one big dip (no dad I wasn’t driving)

The school is very nice and it is great to have a nice new library seeing as I left Harvest just as theirs was being finished. The class room is great, very well equipped, it just gets a bit stuffy during the day, the thermometer seems to always say 32’c not sure if it’s just stuck on that or if that is the temperature it always reaches during the day!! The power fluctuates a lot, if we have air conditioners running then often power for the whole school will shut off and we have to go to the generator. There is a new computer lab which also struggles for power so we are praying that gets sorted out soon with a new transformer that is being installed. The kids in my class are fantastic. I have 7 in grade 5/6. some great personalities and I can see we are going to have a fun year. School camp will be easy only having to worry about organising 7 kids!
We have had some fun with language already. One day I told some kids who were lingering in the classroom at recess time to ‘go and eat your recess” they looked at me a bit strange and said that they couldn’t eat their play time!! Australia we just lump the whole lot together –snack and play time is all recess! On the 2nd day I gave them all a spelling test to work out what they knew and once I had marked them and handed them back one girl asked me ‘so check marks means it’s correct in Australia?’ I had ticked all of her correct spellings and corrected the wrong ones. In America they are only checked if they are wrong otherwise left blank if they are right!! Lol she thought she had got them all wrong for a moment. I have to stop assuming that they know what I am talking about. Even though I am teaching in English it’s a different language. I have one student in my class who is from Australia but has a very strong American accent so is hoping to pick up a bit more Australian before she has to go home at Christmas for 6 months!
On Tuesday nights and Wednesday mornings Meagan and I will be helping out in the dorm. We will go after school, have dinner with them, do devotions, play, do homework then make sure they are all in bed before we leave around 10.30 then back again about 6.30 am to help with breakfast and making lunches and kicking them out the door in time for school at 7.30. There are about 10 dorm students, one in my class who is the youngest by a few years. So it should be fun hanging out and getting to know some of the older kids. Luckily they have a house help lady who will do all the cooking in the evening for us and the kids make all their own lunches so that will be very handy.

We have some had very varied weather already. Lots of heat and humidity, some fantastic rain storms where the lightening lights up the sky then eventually the thunder and rain come over, and we had a dust storm that brought sand from the Sahara, luckily it didn’t dump it on us but we could see it in the sky and had some great winds.

Megan and I are both hoping to have some French lessons. It’s been abut 12 years since I did it at school and I am finding I am remembering some words and finding it a bit easier but it is still hard to talk to someone so lessons will be good.

Thankyou to everyone who has been keeping in touch, it is lovely to hear all you news. I’m not feeling too homesick yet but I am sure that it will probably kick in at some point.