Stuck

A week ago, Ian headed off in the Cessna 182 to Galmi and Dave and I began working on a long list of things we wanted to get done at the hangar. After a while, we got a text message from Ian that he had landed. Then a little while later, we got a call from him that he was stuck. When he went to start the plane, the starter fried. We're thankful to have two planes at times like these. Rather than driving 6 hours to take the spare starter and fix the plane, Dave and I got everything together and flew to Galmi in the other plane. Every day here is full of unexpected events. There's rarely a day that goes just as planned. Here's a rare picture of both planes sitting at Galmi at the same time.


Instead of a six hour drive, Dave and I were in Galmi with a new starter in an hour and a half. Here's our SIMAIR team in Niger right now. We're missing Ed, who is in Canada for the year. In this picture you see me on the left, Ian in the center, and Dave on the right.


You can only get so many sets of hands in a small space to work on one starter, so I was forced to supervise.


Ian did some supervising as well. We wanted to make sure Dave felt like he was needed.


Here's the old starter with the burn marks on it.


An hour later, Ian was taking off with the passenger to head back to Niamey.


Dave and I waited around for another 20 minutes before we followed in the other plane.

Treats

One of the things we enjoy doing at SIMAIR is bringing treats for people. We tell everyone to let us know if they want us to buy things for them that aren't available where they are and we'll fit them in if there's space. I flew to Galmi recently with the plane empty, so it was the perfect chance for people to send us their orders.


Everyone was there to meet the plane to retrieve their "treats". Some people ordered cream.


Some wanted Diet Coke.


We also stocked up for a construction team coming from Ireland.


Cheese is always a hit. It's very expensive here, but well worth it when you don't get it much.


The kids always like it when the plane comes. For the missionaries kids, it means they get out of school for a little while to watch the plane land and then takeoff again.

Co-Pilot

When it works out that I have room on a flight, I like to take one of the kids along for the ride. Most of our flights are quite long (3-4 hours one way), so I wait until there is room on a flight to Galmi (which is 1.5 hours each way). During our last term, Kira and Brynn each had a turn. Ever since we returned to Niger, Elayna has been eagerly waiting for her turn to fly with daddy. I had a flight a few weeks ago to pick up a short term doctor in Galmi and bring him back to Niamey. So, Elayna got to go spend the day in my "office" helping me as my co-pilot.

I must say, I haven't seen a co-pilot much cuter than this one. It was a real treat for both of us. She was thrilled to go and the folks in Galmi enjoyed seeing her too. Now Silas is ready for his turn! We told him he has to wait until he's a little older for his turn to make sure he can control his wiggles for that long.

A favorite book comes to life!

I was driving Elayna home from swimming lessons when this peddler walked by on the street. A book title came to mind immediately. I'm sure my FIAR friends can guess what it is! I didn't have a camera, but was only a block from home. Racing home, I ran in, grabbed the camera, and went down where I guessed he would be. I stopped at a light, and there he was, crossing the street in front of me. Perfect opportunity for a shot...

There were no monkeys nearby, but I'm sure if he sat down there are plenty of goats around to munch on the straw.


So have you guessed the book yet?



How about now?



I'll give you a hint, those are hats on his head...



And he's peddling them...



For those of you who still don't know...



Go to the library and check out the book "Caps for Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina.

Alive?

We returned home one day while the workers were in the process of raising our gate. As we started to walk into our yard, one of the workers said nonchalantly, "your guard dropped off this gate key for you. He also brought you a rooster." We replied, "a rooster? Alive?" "Yes," he said half laughing as he walked over to some bushes and ruffled them with his leg. The rooster started squawking behind the bushes and eventually hopped out with it's legs hobbled. We were now the proud owners of this very alive rooster. It was a good thing our dog, Oreo, was on a chain due to the work being done on our gate. While we were in the States on our Home Assignment, Oreo killed 12 chickens that lived near the family who was taking care of her for us. My mind started racing to figure out why our guard had brought us a live rooster. A month or two earlier we had a conversation about roosters. He asked me if we ate them and I said sure. He then said that his mom sometimes gets rooster when she visits her relatives in another town about an hour away. He'd have her bring us one the next time she went there. Of course I was thinking he meant he would bring us a rooster cooked up in some African dish like he's done before with other foods he wanted me to try. Apparently I was mistaken. Now what were we going to do with the rooster. It couldn't stay in the yard because eventually the dog needed to come off the chain, which would mean no more rooster. So, after the kids had a chance to watch the rooster for a while, we loaded it into the vehicle and took it to a friends' house who had an empty cage. The next day the friend got the rooster butchered and brought it to me. Krista wasn't too impressed when I walked in the house with what used to be the rooster in a plastic bag. We ate it a few days later. The meat was very tough, which is pretty common with the chickens and roosters that get to run freely on the street.

A river runs through it

This is the view down our street at our new house looking back toward the main road from in front of our gate, which is just out of view on the left side of the picture. Our street is called rue Château d'eau, which mean Water Tower Street. It's called that because we are just around the corner from the water tower for our neighborhood in the city. We're coming to the end of the rainy season. As I write, we're getting some rain which will probably be one of our last rains until next May/June. This rainy season, though, we discovered that our street at this house becomes a river when we get a heavy rain. Our street is lower that than the main road, so all the water from the main road runs into our street. The problem is that our street is a dead end, so there's no where for the water to go except into the yard of people's houses on the street whose gates are below the water level.


Here's a view of our street after a heavy rain. The water was 2 feet deep at some points.

Unfortunately, our gate was one of the gates that were lower than the water level, so the river on our street flowed into our yard. This happened twice this rainy season. The first time I was gone and the water in the yard was already almost up to the level of our porch. Then, the water from the street started flowing in the gate, which put our house in danger of being flooded. Krista took control and built a barricade in front of our gate. She grabbed cinder blocks from around our yard, an old shower curtain and shoveled sand from the street to stop the flow of water in the gate. A guard from the house across the street jumped in to help her. Our guard was pretty impressed that night when I told him what Krista had done.

Apparently this wasn't a new problem. Over the years people on the street have tried to solve the problem. Everyone build up the levels of their gates at one point. Then someone had the bright idea of filling in the street with more sand, which meant that the gate at our house was no longer above the street level. Later on, someone build a raised ramp at the end of the street by the main road with a small wall coming out from it on either side. That worked until owner of the house around the corner broke a hole through the wall to divert the street water from flowing in his yard and back onto our street.

After building a barricade at the gate during a second heavy rain, we decided to raise up the level of our gate again.
Here's the front of our gate from the street side. The level of the gate is now a foot higher than it was before. This won't solve the problem of the river on our street, but it should keep the river from flowing into our yard.
Here's our gate from inside our yard.

Only Here

Get them while they're hot! During one of our first trips to a store after arriving back here, we noticed a new brand of laundry detergent was available. After a while, we couldn't resist buying some Welcome Obama detergent so you could see it too.