Destination Vacation Anyone?

Believe it or not, there's actually a golf course here on the edge of the desert just outside of the city. We've driven by it plenty of times, but I've never stopped to try it out. A few weeks ago, one of our co-workers had a birthday and his wife asked some of us to take him golfing. He's been here a long time and had never tried the course either. This is our group at the "club house". Get ready for a unique adventure.

The course is actually very well laid out. Here's the tee box on the first hole. In the background you can see the pavilion for the driving range.


The course is on a plateau that is laterite rock, which is very hard. You definitely don't want to take a swing with the ball sitting directly on the ground or your clubs would be hurting. Instead, you have to tee the ball up for every shot. We played on a weekday morning, so the owner wasn't around to provide the special rubber tees. We had to make do with whatever we could find... a few plastic bottle caps, a piece of rubber rolled up, some cardboard rolled up... The fairways are marked on either side with large rocks that are painted green.

Most of the year, there are no water traps. We also don't have deep rough or woods in which to lose a ball. There are some unique obstacles, though. Here are the remaining stalks from crops (probably millet).


There's also the occasional herd of goats or sheep that cross the fairway. Donkeys, cows and camels also frequent the course.

The "greens" are nicely oiled sand and well groomed. You can see the caddy pulling the flag out of the hole. You have to take some caddies along with you. They were pretty helpful for finding our way around the course and carrying the clubs. Most of us fall into the "hacker" category for golfers, but we had a good time. We played the first nine holes before we ran out of time and it got too hot. So there you have it... you can now include the Niamey Golf Club at Rio Bravo as one more attraction to see during your next destination vacation. Oh yeah, there's also an airstrip next to the course.

Medevac

Sunday afternoon, one of our MKs (missionary kids) at Sahel Academy fell and broke her arm. She lives in the dorm, since her parents are missionaries in Benin. After taking her to a local clinic for x-rays and then talking with our SIM doctors, they decided that she should go to Galmi Hospital to have her arm set there. In God's perfect timing, we happened to have a really good surgeon at Galmi for a little over a month to help out. The surgeon is Dave's (our maintenance specialist) dad and he was a missionary doctor in Galmi for over 20 years. Monday morning, I flew the 4 hour roundtrip to Benin and back to get her mom. Ian then flew the two of them on to Galmi (1.5 hr flight) and spent the night. Monday afternoon, Galmi consulted with an orthopedic surgeon in the States who comes to Galmi every year to help. After discussing the break with him, they set the arm Tuesday. Everything went well and we flew them back on Wednesday along with Dave's dad and mom. Once again, God's plan is perfect. He pulled all the right pieces together at just the right time.

It's a girl!

If you know our family, you've become accustomed to announcements about a new Rideout model making it's debut. We've been married 8 years and have 4 kids soon to be 7, 5, 4, and 2 years old. Well, life has been pretty busy so this latest announcement is a little slow in coming. In fact, our latest model arrived August 26th right here in Niamey. We returned to the tried and true girl model this time. Our newest arrival is named Joy. All of our kids have been pretty big at their arrivals, but Joy outdid them all. She arrived almost full grown and just a few months shy of 18 years old!


Joy's real parents are missionaries in Mali (next door to Niger). She's living with us for her Senior year at Sahel Academy. We've had a lot of fun having Joy join our family for the year.

A new pet

Just a few blocks from our house in an intersection we call "4 corners." At the intersection there are some vegetables stands, a little food store, a place to buy cases of Coke bottles, a place to get propane bottles, lots of shacks where artisans sell their various crafts, a guy with makeshift racks of used clothes, and then there's a guy that has lots of cages of animals for sale. The animal guy usually has birds (african greys, pigeons, hawks, doves, sometimes owls, armored ducks, and love birds) and sometimes turtles, rabbits, and a few other random animals. One day Krista took a walk with some of the kids to 4 corners. As they looked at the animals, they found a guinea pig in a cage with a bunch of bunnies. Of course, they all thought Mr. Guinea Pig was pretty cute and that he would make a great pet. When I came home, the first question from everyone's mouth was, "Daddy, can we get a guinea pig?" My first questions was, "How much does it cost?" With a starting price of about $30, I decided that we definitely didn't need a guinea pig. Well, my family is pretty persistent. For the next two weeks, they all kept an eye Mr. Guinea Pig. Every time we went by 4 corners, they checked to see if he was still in the cage. A few times, they checked on the price to see if the guy would come down on the price. After about two weeks, they came back one day and said the guy would sell it for $8. That was more in my range. Later on, I went by and asked the guy the price. He told me $10, to which I replied that he had told my wife $8 earlier. Not a chance he said. He had $10 into the guinea pig himself. They must have talked to one of the kids that help him. So off I went. Well, my family is not easily deterred when they set their minds on something. I told them that we could get the guinea pig if they convinced the guy to sell it for less than $10. No problem. One of them headed out to make a deal. She talked to one of the kids and convinced him to sell the guinea pig for $6! Nice going. Not so fast. She headed home with the guinea pig in hand. As she started to turn the corner and head down our street, the kid came running up to her. He said the boss told him he couldn't sell the guinea pig for that price. The money exchanged hands again and the guinea pig returned to his cage with the bunnies. Like I said before, my family is very determined. About an hour later, one of them headed back again to talk business with the boss man. The end result: he wasn't going to budge from $10, so we now have a guinea pig for $10. I had a very excited and happy family, which makes me happy as well.


Mr. Guinea Pig finally got a name after a few weeks. Lots of ideas were given, but no one could agree on a name. Wise mommy eventually put all the ideas in a hat and had Silas draw out a name. Mr. Guinea Pig is now called "Squeaker."

Learning to Sew

The girls are enjoying some opportunities to start to learn how to sew. One of their recent projects was making dresses for their dolls. Of course, Krista gives them a lot of help, but they are beginning to learn how to use the sewing machine and make stitches. Here's Brynn working on her dress.

The finished product. Brynn's doll, named Evi, is wearing the new dress.


Kira gets her turn to make a dress.

Kira's doll, named Emilie, tries on the dress. Kira later took it off and said that it was going to be a special dress for Emilie to wear at Christmas.

Sweet Corn

For years the guys at SIMAIR have grown sweet corn behind the hangar. You can't get sweet corn here, so it's a really nice treat to have fresh sweet corn to eat. The last couple of years, we've continued on the tradition. We bring out Silver Queen Sweet Corn seeds from the States to plant. The first year we did it, we showed our guard at the hangar how far apart to make the rows and how to plant the seeds. Ever since then, he's actually done most of the work. We provide the seeds and he plants it for us and waters it each day. We divide the plot of land and give him a third of the land to plant his own crops. He then gets free water from the hangar to grow whatever he wants in return for helping us with the corn. Above is a picture of just some of the corn from one of the harvests. We plant it in three sections and space the plantings 2 weeks apart.

Kira shows off some of the corn.


Most of it turned out really well this year. We eat some fresh and then freeze the rest so we can enjoy it throughout the year.

SIMAIR Calendars & 2nd Diesel Plane for SIMAIR

Over the past year, we've shared about the need for a 2nd plane for SIMAIR that uses Jet-Fuel instead of the very expensive Avgas that our larger 6 seat plane still uses. After looking at lots of options for a replacement 6 seater plane, we've decided that the best choice at this point is to get another plane just like the 4 seater diesel Cessna 182 we purchased a few years ago. We're now hot on the trail trying to find just the right plane to have converted with the diesel engine. A project has been created for the 2nd Diesel Plane. The official SIM project designation is "SIMAIR JET Fuel Cessna 182; Project # NE 97720." We currently have enough money to buy the plane, but need roughly another $100,000 USD to do the Diesel Engine conversion and add other modifications to the plane before it is ready for service in Niger.

With this project in mind, one of our longtime SIMAIR pilots came up with the idea of creating a calendar with drawings of airplanes used in mission and humanitarian work. He's an incredible artist and spent much of the last year drawing the planes for the calendar.


The finished product was debuted during the annual HUGE airshow in Oshkosh in July (see the calendar cover below with one of the drawings and a sample page). This calendar is a beautiful 14 month calendar from December 2009 - January 2011. All the proceeds from the sale of the calendar go towards the purchase of the 2nd Diesel Plane for SIMAIR. It's a great deal for everyone! Please consider buying a calendar and maybe some as gifts for others. Your purchase will help SIMAIR buy a second diesel plane and you'll receive a beautiful calendar in return.


The calendars are available for sale at the SIM USA bookstore online. To purchase a calendar go here. You can also go to www.simusa.org and click “online bookstore” and scroll down until you see the calendar. The cost is $10 plus tax and shipping.

You can also make a donation directly to the 2nd Diesel Plane Project for SIMAIR. To do so you can click here or go to https://usanet.sim.org/SIMGift/detail.aspx and enter "SIMAIR Jet Fuel Cessna 182 Project#NE97720" for the project name. Then, follow the directions to complete the donation. Please let us know if you have any questions.