Community Barbeque

We have been settling in at Galmi for a few weeks and, unfortunately, most of that time one or more of us has been sick. I guess that comes with the territory. Tab had a full week of work last week and I did a day or so, but, unfortunately, we keep getting interrupted by our kids vomiting on stuff. We have been taking prophylactic anti-malaria medicine for several weeks now but that did not stop one of our kids from getting malaria. We also had some sort of food contamination issue the other day. I was lucky enough not to eat any of the offending food and, therefore, I got to be the one that ran around with buckets and rags cleaning up while everyone else was sick. Thankfully, everyone seems to be on the mend and we should be back to our regularly scheduled programs soon. 

One of the more interesting activities we have participated in lately is a community barbeque. One of our friends has a herd of sheep and one of the lambs got the bloat. There is no vet here and they tried several things, but nothing worked to cure the problem. It was clear the animal was going to die, and the only real option was to euthanize it. 

Typically, the customs here do not allow for eating animals that are dying. In fact, there are quite a few things one must do before butchering an animal for it to be acceptable to eat. There are some good reasons not to eat an animal that is sick especially if you don't know why it is dying. However, in this case, it was just an animal eating the wrong thing or too much of it. I don't think that poses a danger to our health. So, our friend set up a butcher to come cut it up and take it to a man who would cook it. It was all a very interesting process. 

One of the more interesting processes is the cooking part. Back home, there is barbeque culture where people use charcoal or propane or smokers to cook and finish meat. Often people have very strong opinions of what is the best way to cook a hamburger or steak or brisket on a barbeque or a smoker or what-have-you.  

Here, there is also a serious meat cooking culture. They set up a fire very spread out on the ground and put sticks and rods through the carcass making it flat. sometimes they have a grate or grill to lay it on.  They spend hours and hours roasting it next to the fire adding spices and oil quite frequently. Then, when it is done, they wrap it in a paper bag and deliver it to the feast. It doesn't always look great, but I can assure you that it has the tenderness and flavors that everyone can love. 

After the meat was delivered, my friend took the meat off of the bones and onto a serving tray, and since there was so much meat that is best served hot, everyone here was invited to come and bring a side dish. It reminded me of a 4th of July barbeque, with kids running everywhere with food and sugary drinks. It was one of the better meals I have ever had in Niger, not just because of the meat, but also because of the community that was a part of it. 

the nightmare continues...

Well, we were quite happy that Luke was able to get his tooth filled. Until last night during dinner, a very soft taco/rice dinner,  Luke reached his tongue back and the brand-new filling was gone!  :(  It lasted less than 24 hours and we are back to where we started. We aren't sure what to do now. Does he go back to the same dentist? Do we leave the tooth as is and hope its ok for the next six weeks? Do we try a different Nigerian dentist? Or, do we rummage through the dental equipment here to try to find material to fix it ourselves?  Maybe.

We are certainly trying very hard to not damage any more teeth...and thus I was a bit dismayed to find this as I was eating some delicious Nigerian ground nuts today:

one of these things is not like the other

yep, that's a peanut-shaped rock- didn't get me this time. 

Needless to say, we are now chewing things very carefully in this household!

This is my nightmare...

 It all started at dinner two nights ago. We were eating a delicious baked spaghetti with extra ground beef. So good. Then crunch. Not an unusual thing, there's often a little sand or stones or bone or something hard in the food here. I started fishing out little pieces of bone with my tongue. Satisfied that there was nothing hard left in my food I swallowed it. That's when I realized that something was wrong. Where once I had an intact wisdom tooth, I now had a sharp cavity on the one corner.
I got quite a sinking feeling. I don't think that I would feel quite that bad if were we in America, But here, in rural Africa, I was sort of panicking inside.

Tab had a look at it. She didn't think it looked so bad, but who knows. It looked like some pink was showing? It didn't hurt, but that didn't mean that it wouldn't start. Based on a quick internet search, I should see a dentist right away. We went to the neighbor's house to see what they thought. Those doctors concluded I should see a dentist. But where? There is no dentist here. Well, it turns out that there is a dentist in a town about a three hour drive from here.  And, there just happened to be someone going to there in the morning so we arranged for me to ride with them. We left at six a.m. well before the sun was up. The road was rough but I slept no problem.

We arrived in the big city about 9. First stop was the dentist. The dentist office was in the middle of the city. The driver stopped and told me the dentist was down an alley and around a corner. I exited the vehicle and off they went to run their errands, they would pick me up when I was done.

Walking past open sewer and trash heaps in a dark and muddy alley way made me nervous. But there it was, I entered the gate and walked past a guard half asleep until he saw me.  I asked him "where is the dentist?" he pointed up to the second floor.

It was a decent looking place,  with a sleeping receptionist/assistant inside. I woke her up, she was surprised to see a white man, I am sure. I filled out the card and paid the consult fee and then she called the dentist to let him know that he had a patient waiting. In america, dentists are always busy, but here they seem to be quite free and see patients and do the work all on the same day.

I sat in the waiting room with no electricity and read a book I brought. 45 minutes later, the dentist arrived. He came in and started preparing things. One of the first things he did was yell for the guard down by the entrance to turn the generator on. After a few minutes the assistant/receptionist invited me into the procedure room. I told him I broke a tooth. he looked in my mouth and told me I broke the cusp off my tooth and he could fix it with a filling. He could do it immediately and it cost 7000 ~30 dollars. I agreed and he went and got the supplies, he also had the guard turn on an air compressor. Most dentist chairs are run on compressed air.

The room was okay, clean by west African standards. the dental chair and equipment seemed to be from the eighties. The dental tools were kinda stained but they came out of a sterilizer box. I could plainly see the sterilizer out on the balcony. I just hope it worked and they followed proper sterile techniques and this wasn't just for show.

Before you know it he had the drill in my face ready to go. He said he had to prepare the area and that "this will be sensitive." From the moment I realized my tooth was broken I suspected I would have a guy drilling and scraping in my mouth without pain killers.  It wasn't too bad. A few minutes later he was done. We talked for a bit about where I was from, and what I was doing in Africa. I asked him about his practice and where he learned dentistry.

This is the shelves of supplies that the dentists "sells" you to use during your procedure. It includes things like gloves and masks and composite filling etc. Anyways, the assistant was nice enough to pick out all the things that I would need.
I paid and waited for my ride to come back and pick me up. They came by and picked me up about 11. Enough time for my Ibuprofen to kick in. We ran errands that day all over town and finally got home about 6 p.m.

On our way home the driver kept stopping to buy things on the side of the road. Bread, water, and then this!

   The driver was very excited to have the opportunity to buy this guy for a mere 300~ a dollar and a half. I have posted about these before. In hausa they are called gufiya. One night two years ago a friend and I caught two of these things. I guess they are a prized meal here too.   hh

where have all the motorcycles gone?

Anyone who travels in West Africa knows that motorcycles, or "machines" are ubiquitous. After years of traveling by road around here and always dealing with motorcyclists weaving in and out of  traffic and getting in the way, we were surprised to find that in the big cities here, there are no motorcycles. Instead we saw green taxis and a bunch of these trendy three-wheelers:

I asked our driver why there weren't any motorcycles in the city and he said its because motorcycles aren't safe-they cause too many accidents. Also, its a law to help prevent terrorists from bombing and or shooting up the place. Motorcycles can get away from police and security forces very easily in a busy city. But, its easy to catch these three-wheel vehicles!  I felt a little less safe in the city after talking about terrorism prevention strategies. However, it is good to know they have taken some drastic measures to improve safety and security.

artisan tour- part 1

A few weekends ago, I (Tab) finally had a chance to go on the "Artisan Tour."  A group of about ten of us followed our tour guide through town visiting the potters, bakers, and blacksmiths. Our first stop was the potter's. It is amazing how much work goes into making these pots...all done by hand.

it all starts with a pile of clay rocks

that get pounded down to a powder

then carried over to another compound to be made into the clay (we didn't see that part of the process)

The clay is eventually formed into a round circle. Then, this old lady coats it with donkey dung and starts to pound it with a stone

she places over an old pot that is used as a mold

Then she continues to pound it until it covers the old pot (a more finished example is on the left)

Once finished, the pots are fired and painted, Voila!  (they weren't firing or painting pots that day, but there were some finished products)

some of the kids who decided to join the tour

Welcome Fall!

We are getting into the spirit of fall around here. Leaves are falling off trees, the fall sniffles are going around, and we are down to a crisp high of 100F.  So, in honor of fall, we put on some sunscreen and braved the heat of the Wednesday market in search of pumpkins.

We found one "pumpkin patch" in the market

we picked three of the most pumpkiny-looking squashes and bartered him down to a price of $2.50 each

We didn't want to carry the pumpkins all over the market and back home through the 105F heat, so we paid this guy to motorcycle them back to the compound

This weekend it was time for a pumpkin painting party!!!

Before

During. We convinced are most artistic friend, E, to come over and help paint since Luke has the fall sniffles/sore throat and wasn't up to it.

Grumpy cat with bloody fangs... Happy Halloween

the backside

Dreaming of the Cold

We ended the day with delicious tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches while trying to pretend it wasn't still 93 degrees inside at 7pm. Welcome Fall!

don't touch!

The millet fields a few weeks ago...tall and green

Harvested millet field

Millet harvest season has come and with it have come bugs.  Lots and lots of earwigs that swarm up walls, cover doorways, and somehow seem to make it inside your mosquito net at night. Thankfully, our house is in the middle of the compound and is somewhat protected from the influx of earwigs that occurs during millet harvesting.  Another interesting bug we find occasionally around here is this:

That is a blister beetle...if you startle or squeeze them, they secrete a powerful substance called cantharidin which causes blistering. Luke had his first encounter with one several weeks ago and got some painful blisters on his arm. Interestingly, cantharidin from blister beetles is used medicinally in the USA to remove warts! I don't think I will try extracting it here anytime soon, though. :)

Its running out...

It's one am Sunday morning and I'm still awake. Usually the only reason I would be up this late is 1) an emergency operation 2) a phone call from a resident about a new or sick patient  or 3) a quick trip to the water closet. But I am still awake now because I desperately need to write some e-mails and we are running out of internet. Here is how that works, once the 60+ people living on our compound and working in the hospital use our allotted 40 GB of monthly data, the internet will shut off. However, data usage is free from 12am to 8am. I just want to go to sleep...so sorry to all of you who I haven't communicated with lately. Maybe next month when we have more internet.

It all starts with a piece of bubble gum

There is a strange (to me) Saturday morning tradition here.  Its nothing like the American tradition of waking up late then eating a bowl of Lucky Charms while watching cartoons.

It all starts with a piece of bubble gum.

This is your invitation to a baby-naming ceremony: a piece of bubble gum is handed to you about a week before the ceremony.

A baby-naming ceremony, sounds like fun right? It is, except for one thing. They are always on Saturday morning. And not late morning...traditional start time is 7 am!  And, unlike many things here, the party starts on time.

After working for 12 days without a break, we dragged ourselves out of bed this morning to attend the baby-naming ceremony (biki) of some friends of ours.  When we arrived, Luke stayed outside with all the men, while I went inside the compound with the rest of the women.

All the men sit outside in plastic chairs.

The women are inside the compound, cooking food (see the metal pot in the background) and going inside to meet the baby.

Holding the baby before the name has been announced.

This is also the time to give a gift (usually done by discretely handing the mom some cash- awkward) and then to receive a "party favor" which is usually a plastic bag containing some variation of popcorn, biscuits, and the ubiquitous Robot bubble gum.

When the preacher officiating the ceremony outside is ready to announce the name, the baby is whisked outside and the name is announced to all of the men. The news quickly spreads in to the women waiting inside.  Then we eat breakfast. With our hands.

Breakfast- meat sauce with chunks of tuwo (pounded rice).

Then, its over.  On our way home, Luke stopped to buy a more American-style breakfast.

The doughnut shop. Hot and Ready...just add sugar. (As opposed to the traditional chilli powder, oil, and beans.)

its raining, its pouring

the view from our porch this am

Rainy season is officially here! Its been raining almost every day. Friday it rained so hard during afternoon break that instead of getting soaked and muddy going home for lunch, I fixed a hernia in the OR instead (plus, we were super busy). :)  This morning it rained for almost three hours and it was almost chilly- got down to 79F last night! Its so much more enjoyable to drink coffee when its not ninety degrees outside.

success!

so we opened our fifth avocado...and fifth time's the charm

we added the guacamole mix

it was magically delicious!!!

life here can feel a lot like making guacamole

Life used to be like this: Walk through the produce section in the grocery story , see avocados on sale, buy avocados, wait a day or so until they are slightly soft, make guacamole. Simple. Delicious. We love guacamole.

So, when we were sent a package of guacamole mix we were pretty excited. Until we read the label: just add avocados. Um, ya, no avocados here. Well, we did have an avocado last year that someone brought from a neighboring country.  So, a couple of weeks ago when our friend C brought back four avocados from the capital, we were quite excited.

After a week in the refrigerator, their skins were still very hard. We couldn't tell if they were ripe, so we cut one open. Nope. Bitter, hard, definitely not ripe.

Then there were three.  We put them out on the counter to ripen more. Two days later, they had white moldy fuzz growing on them. We cut another one open. The outer 1/4 inch was ripe...the rest was still rock hard and bitter. Luke was a bit upset that we had opened the avocado and told us be patient and wait longer. So we did.

Two days later, two avocados left.

We cut through hard skin to find this:

appetizing? i think not.

Half of the avocado was rotten and the other half was rock-hard. None of it was ripe.  WHAT?!

End result: No avocados. No guacamole.
Just add avocados...why can't anything be that simple here?

Today, our friend J brought us a gift from the capital:

doesn't seem ripe yet, but maybe tomorrow there will be guacamole. we hope.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9

The dust before the storm.

Every year is more of the same. After months of cloudless skies, one by one they start to appear on the horizon. Will they have rain or will they just provide some minor relief from the scorching sun?

In America, predicting the weather is a part of everyday life. There are whole TV stations and websites dedicated to the prediction and documentation of weather events.  I have never been the type to look up the weather unless there is something important happening  (like to see if the mountain passes are closed due to snow, or is the rain-delayed sportscast going to resume soon). I think this is a reaction to my father's addiction to the weather channel. Or maybe it is because I never really minded being inconvenienced by rain, hot, cold, or snowy days. I couldn't do anything about it anyway.

This place has relatively stable weather patterns. It's sunny and over 95 degrees almost every day, but we do experience a couple dozen thunder storms a year during rainy season. Those storms can have extreme winds that are known to topple trees and blow down walls and crops.  Each storm is unique and we never know what is coming until it is here. Each time the clouds build on the horizon, we pray that the storm will bring rain and not too much destructive wind and dust.

Storms follows a similar pattern almost every time. Clouds appear, the wind picks up, and eventually a wall of dust overruns everything, with everyone huddling in whatever shelter they can find. During most of the year, the dust eventually settles and everyone goes on about their lives. However, this time of year, there is a chance that one of these storms will produce rain- significant rain that floods the ground and cools the air.

This year, the rains started quite late. They were late enough that our church had prayer meetings every evening for a few weeks to pray for rain. In this land, there is never sufficient rain, but even less than usual can be the difference between life and death for many people.

Towards the end of the workday a little while back, I saw the dark storm clouds amassing in the east. They were very dark, which doesn't necessarily mean rain, it may just mean more dust than usual. As I watched the clouds moving slowly, I could clearly see the massive wall of dirt and sand as it made its way across the valley. I knew I wanted to get a picture of it. So, I hopped on my bike and hustled home to get a camera and run to the edge of the property to get a great picture of this spectacular site. Unfortunately the storm was moving way faster than it looked. By the time I got out of my house the storm was upon us. I tried to get some pictures anyway, but walking into a storm with my mouth and eyes full of sand is not as fun as it looks.

You can kind of see the difference between the dust on the right and the clear skies on the left.

This is the view across the air strip and the valley beyond. There is an orange wind sock on the left that is pointed straight out. 

This was the one! The storm that finally brought rain. The next day the fields were full of men planting and tilling. We've had steady rains since then and now the millet sprouts are about 30cm tall. W Although, with the blessing of rain there is also the plague of mosquitoes and the malaria that they will bring. It is always something here. If there is one thing that place has taught me is to learn to be content where ever you are. No matter how perfect or horrible the place is you live, there will always be things to complain and worry about.

spoiled weekend

As in, we are spoiled by you.  We have had a relaxing, fun, delicious weekend made possible by the generous gifts and packages we have received. It started when I got home from work and found a new package on the table!!!  Our friend C came over, saw it, and got super-excited as well....so excited she stayed to "help" us open it. :)

A package opening party- smiling and laughing and dancing about.

We had some friends over to play a game of Settlers while drinking tea and eating candy and chocolate.

We've been blessed with enough Skittles to share. Our Australian friend who had never heard of Skittles is now a big fan.

It poured rain for several hours on Friday night and it was blessedly cool Saturday morning.  

Martin coping with the cold weather by rolling up into a ball.

By "cool" I mean less than 90F...which means we can sit in our living room in relative comfort. After 120F, 82F feels downright amazing.

I enjoyed some coffee with flavored creamer and had some quiet reading time.

My weekend home improvement project: our toilet paper holder before.

After: Painted black using some paint my mom brought over for us.

Luke woke up and asked what was for breakfast. I reminded him about this tasty goodness in the refrigerator.

Pop Tarts = Happy

 Then, C came over and we had a cooking/baking party. 

chocolate chips...like gold around here :)

Chocolate chip pecan cookies!!!  (Vanilla, chips, pecans, baking soda all imported)

Salmon croquettes with Siracha mayo. They were amazing!!!

Chillin' reading some magazines.

After baking and eating salmon croquettes we enjoyed a few games of Dutch Blitz. And that was just our Saturday...made possible by people like you. :)