Last Friday I set out with a team of 4 other teachers and 9 students to a small town about 6 1/2 hours East of Niamey. I have not done hardly any traveling outside of Niamey and was looking forward to the trip. The purpose of the trip was to lead a retreat for home-schooled kids in Niger. I was in charge of children between the ages of 4 and 8. Thankfully I had four great student helpers who did most of the work of planning, preparing, and organizing the Bible lessons, crafts, games, etc.
Ready for some pictures? There are a bunch.
First stop: bathroom; the original outhouse.
Guys on the left, girls on the right.
Friendly Travel Tip: always always pack toilet paper and hand sanitizer!
Funny Story: coming home my friend and I had to go to the bathroom quite urgently. The driver pulled the van over, only, the landscape looked more like the last picture on this post (scroll all the way down!) rather than the one above. You see the problem? We had no choice. (Well, I suppose technically we did, but we opted for a dry ride home.) Strategically choosing our bushes so that we would not encroach on each other's privacy or scare those waiting in the van behind us, we did our job. Unfortunately, we did not take into account oncoming traffic--the road being so empty and all. Three mobylettes passed us and let's just say, I think what they saw will never be forgotten.
Second stop: gas station.
No QuickTrip icees or peanutbutter crackers here.
Third stop: Galmi
A few snapshots of the kids working on their craft.
Saturday evening all of the retreat staff, home-schoolers, and their families went picnic-ing. Since we were outside, we had to wear head coverings, and of course skirts and tennis shoes. The ideal hiking outfit, right?
This is Cathy-Jo, another teacher sponsor on the trip. We were roommates! She's great and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her more throughout the weekend.
It's either rocks or sand or thorn bushes. You pick.
The view.
One word comes to mind: desolate.
Sunday morning we drove about 15 minutes outside of Galmi to attend a small village church.
It's a new building.
It's a very small church.
Our team doubled the congregation.
As is custom, we were asked to sing a song. We sang "Amazing Grace" first in English and then all six verses in Hausa--the language in that area. There were Hausa songbooks available to use and since the language was written phonetically, it was not too difficult to follow along. You just sing quietly, mimicking the sounds your neighbor is making all-the-while hoping your neighbor knows a little more than you do! (A couple of the people on our team spoke Hausa.) The congregation liked it so much that we sang it again at least 2 more times. Yes, all six verses every time. By the sixth verse the third time, I felt like a Hausa master! At least concerning "Amazing Grace!"
These are some of the musical instruments.
Some of the local villagers.
Some more sights through the van window.
Onions, desert, lizards...........
I kept thinking of Holes the whole weekend!
We returned Monday evening. It was a wonderful weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment