About the Niamey, Niger Project

Niger is located in West Africa and 80 percent of its land is in the Sahara Desert. Most of the country is desert plains and sand dunes, droughts are frequent. The climate is one of the hottest in the world. Its estimated population of 11 million are 98% Muslim. Niger is ranked 172 out of 173 countries in the United Nations Developemnt Program's Human Development index, and only 13.6% of its population is literate (6.6% of women). The Reformed Church in America partners with the Evangelical Church of Niger. Their focus in the region is to help with community development, theological training, literacy, medicine, and agriculture. The Mission project for this winter is to build a guest house to assist the Evangelical church's programs. It will give them a facility to house people who come in from the countryside for training in evangelism, leadership and other minstry skills. Bruce and Laurie Hawley are the missionaries responsible for the project and will be working closely with Kay and Sue. More information is available on the Reformed Church website at http://www.rca.org/.

Kay and Sue will be in Niamey from January 26, 2009- February 10, 2009.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Thursday afternoon

Hello, It is afternoon here after lunch again. We had ziti with a meat sauce and a corn salad. And we have been eating bread with every meal.

So far I have not seen the stars; there is too much smoke in the air from the wood fires and of course all the dust.

While Sue worked digging again this morning I had the adventure of going to change money. We did not get out of the car because we did it on the Grande Marche.(basically on the street) They do not charge a fee as the banks do. The car was swarmed with young men who had calculators. Jeremy opened his window haggled with them a bit until they agreed on a price. 490 francs for $1.00. He said that is the best price since they have been here almost 2 years. After all was counted and exchanged we went on our way. Driving around the city is like nothing I have ever seen or experienced before...it is so hard to describe the conditions. On the road we passed goats, people, camels, people,more goats, accidents, motorcycles, more people, and chickens and litter and garbage and of course more goats. All that being said, people are friendly, happy to meet us (and stare a bit). Tonight we are going to a restaurant for dinner....stay tuned!!
-- Kay
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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous1/30/2009

    Your blog is better than AMC, Kay. What an adventure - we will "stay tuned"!

    ReplyDelete

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