An exciting week at Sahel Academy

On Friday Aug 26th we all gathered in the car park to witness the arrival of the long-awaited shipping container...

Does it look like the whole thing is leaning a bit?  Look at the picture below to discover why...

      

Yes, this truck brought our container all the way from Cotonu, Benin (the nearest sea port).  Thanks to those of you who were praying for a miracle - we needed it, even though we were not aware at the time what kind of miracle we needed!

It took a crane and a folk lift to remove the container from the truck.

As if the arrival of the container wasn't exciting enough, last Tuesday (Aug 30th) we were able to move into our new classrooms in the upstairs part of our new building.

From the temporary classroom downstairs - no door, no blackboard, no textbooks,  not much room to move...





... to the new classroom upstairs - with all of the things we were missing downstairs and more:)







 

The Niger River in Dry Season

Believe it or not, most of what you see in these pictures was under water from Oct - Feb!




The water went almost up to these buildings during "flood" stage.

Easter Sunday Celebrations

How is Easter celebrated by Christians in Niger? I don't claim to have an authoritative answer, but here are some pictures of the Easter morning service at "Eglise Evangelique Internationale" - the French-speaking church that meets on the same compound where I live.

The service was outdoors, and began soon after 6am. I left at 6:30am to attend an English service, then returned about 9am to find the service still in full swing. After plenty of singing, a sermon and several baptisms, it concluded just before midday. A great celebration of the resurrection!

A trip to Maradi

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to Maradi, a city 600km east of Niamey, to participate in an SIM orientation program for members who are new to Niger. The road trip took almost 11 hours, mostly due to difficult road conditions. Here are some common sights along the way...



A highlight was an afternoon visit to Danja, about 20 mins drive from Maradi, where SIM operates a hospital dedicated to the care of patients with leprosy. A new hospital dedicated to the care of women with obstetric fistula is now under construction. Both of these conditions are almost unknown in the west, but affect the lives of so many here.







The fistula hospital under construction.



Another highlight was a visit to "Maza Tsaye" - an agricultural project. Here, new sustainable farming ideas and plant varieties are trialled and information passed on to local farmers. The women are included too! Training in sanitation and nutrition compliments the agricultural program. I was impressed with this holistic approach.

Holiday Adventure

What do you do for fun during the holidays if you live on the edge of the Sahara desert? Camel riding and hippo spotting of course!!!

The camel ride was slow and rather bumpy, but lots of fun. The only time I thought I might fall off was when the camel was kneeling down to let me off.




We got off the the camels at a village called "Boubon", where market day was in full swing...

This grain is "millet", the most widely grown crop here.







After a good look at all that was on offer in the market - animals and fish (dead and alive), pottery, clothing, vegetables, herbs and spices and much more - we adopted a different mode of transport for our return journey...



River Transportation







Mango Trees









Water Lillies







Hippos!!!