Camping in photojournalism

I am trying to get caught up on posts after a whirlwind November – so without much commentary- here is our camping trip!

The new camping standy- Arabic tea

Magic fire – green and purple!

We finally get to use our hammock. We bought this hammock on our honeymoon in Ecuador in 2000 and have barely used it. Love this thing!

The view from my hammock

 

The view from my hammock in use

The neighbours doing their laundry

 

Out walking with friends

The little restaurant a walk away with friends

Bennett loved riding his bike on all the dirt roads

You don’t want these thorns in your tires, shoes or anywhere. They hurt!!

And last but not least – our late night visitor outside our camp ground! Happily eating grass!

Would you like some bugs with your rice?

 

I find it funny the types of things that you can adapt too. Those things that once startled you, or grossed you out, but are now just “normal”. I find the longer I live here in Africa the more that some of those things become normal to me. Take rice for example. We buy rice in bulk. It ALWAYS has bugs in it. And not just a few. No matter where we buy our rice, how much we pay or what quality it is, it always has bugs in it. So we wash our rice thoroughly before we cook it. I wash it probably about 5-6 times until the water is clear and there are no more bugs floating up to the top. Those suckers can’t swim and thus i dump them down the drain with the waste water. Tonight Paul made rice and saw the bowl swarming with these little bugs when he first poured it out of the bag. I didn’t have my main camera out to take a good pic, but this gives you the idea. In a platter the size of a large plate we had probably 30-40 bugs.

This is our rice stockpile. We bought a 50kg bag, gave about half away, and now have 25kg in large ziplock bags. We know all these bags have bugs in them. And we will wash, then cook, then eat it anyways.

Thankfully I have found a flour vendor who very rarely has bugs in his flour, and sugar isn’t usually a problem either, but I still put both of those in the freezer for at least 24 hours before I use them and sift the flour. Just part of life living here!!

 

So….wanna come over for supper :)

 

Chantelle

Run and Ride Race!

I mentioned in my recent newsletter that we sent out that Paul was involved in a 16km team race a few weekends ago. The course went from in Niamey to a restaurant by the river 16km out of town. Paul paired up with his friend Niell (pronounced Nile like the river) who is the director of Concern International here in Niger. Over the 16km course, one of them had to be riding and one riding the bike the whole time. They had to leave together and arrive together and finish together. So they could trade off riding and running as often as they wanted, but they had to make it to the end together! Considering they just heard about the race the Wednesday before it began, I think they did pretty well! (Paul said that what they lacked in training, they would make up in sheer determination from a Scotsman and Irishman!)

I found some pictures posted on the web group page of the French group that organized the race and thought I would post some here for your viewing pleasure.

 

At the starting line with another team who are friends of ours

Headed out. Run Paul run!!

 

Coming in together at the finish line

Good job guys!