Finally, Niamey!

Hello Everyone,

This morning, at 3:30am, Cheikh, Karim and I climbed down the long staircase from the plane to the ground. Happy Birthday Cheikh! The heat wrapped us up like a long hug from an old friend. I had the most wonderful and intense feeling of homecoming. After nearly a decade away, I'm back in Africa and I realize that some small part of me never left. Cheikh's colleague picked us up in the Mercy Corps vehicle and drove us straight to our hotel. The Hotel Terminus isn't really the end of the line as it sounds, but more of an oasis. My feelings on air conditioning have totally reversed in the 12 hours we've been here. LOVE IT! After a nice little chat with Deb and Rosella that made us feel like we weren't quite so far away, we had a few hours of sleep. At 11am, we breakfasted on croissant, eggs and hot coco in the garden under the mango trees. Since we were such late risers, our only companions were two peacocks and a handfull of lizards. Karim still isn't too sure about the peacocks- they make pretty crazy sounds, but he's warming up to them. After breakfast, Cheikh's co-worker, Bachir picked us up to look at houses and see a bit of Niamey. The first 2 we looked at were nothing to get excited about, but the last one has definite possibilities.

It's funny that no matter how many photos you look at online, you never can get a sense of a place. Niamey is beautiful with wide mango tree lined boulevards, loud music blasting from street corners (from weddings, Saturday is wedding day, Bachir informed us.) 

Karim is doing great. He's not speaking any French to anyone yet, but he talks a lot at people in English and he's already invited everyone he's met to our house to visit (nevermind we don't have a house yet.) Before this, he was inviting Londoners to ride the jumbo jet to Niamey with us. I got a nifty camera in London, but it's just now charged, so I should have photos up soon.

Love to all of you and thank you for your support of our new adventure. We look forward to your visits. Tonight we are off to Le Pilier (Cheikh's choice- since he's been here before) to celebrate his birthday- with cake of course:)