Greetings
At 5:01 pm Dallas time we toasted the New Year in Niger! How much bigger our world has become because of the skills and passions of our children. 2010 will be a year filled with stories of projects, people, travel...from Niger and 2010 will be a year when some of us at home travel... to or near Niger and bring additional stories home.
So share a story or a travel plan for 2010.
Warmest regards,
Patty and John
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Happy New Year to all of you. The world has certainly expanded for all of us! We will continue to watch Niger news and news from your crew with great interest. Our crew, now in Madagascar, is working hard at learning new skills, environment, and language. From what we hear, conversations now occur in a mix of Zarma, Housa, French, Malagasy, and broken English. The extra time in training is making our group especially eager to get out to their villages to begin work. We wish the best to you and hope for safety and the sense of accomplishment that comes from helping those in need for our crews.
ReplyDeleteOne of our new facts from Niger is the high cost of turkeys! Will informed us that the 2 they roasted for T-Day cost the equilvalent of $90. Since 26 of them were together they simply pooled their resources, had them shot and appropriately prayed over, then they cleaned and roasted them. But he remarked that the Niger turkeys are not too plump and the turkey morsel for each of them did not merit the cost - so the menu at Christmas was definitely different.
ReplyDeleteHe reports his Village will have a new mayor because of the election, but that no one feels the switch will take place anytime soon and that the daily life for his villagers will remain status quo.
Happy new year! Our Christmas was a bit more stressful than anticipated. As luck would have it Emily got sick for the first time while in her capital for the holidays and we could not get a working phone connection. So, we could hear her, she could not hear us, it sounded to me like she was crying, so naturally all my instincts went on red alert. Of course when we spoke to her that Sunday, all was well,she thought her voice must have been distorted by the connection, and I shook it off!
ReplyDeleteYesterday we got a wonderful package from her. It contained ten letters from students at a school in her commune who will be pen pals with students at my school. But even better a photo chip. In addition to a lot of photos of tabaski, weddings,and other events, there is a wonderful video taken out of a car window as she and other pcv volunteers careen through the streets of her capital on the way to market. The kids voices, the sites and the breakneck speed with which we viewed all the produce, calling card venders, carts, camels, mopeds and a sea of humanity are like being there! You get a sense of the humor and commraderie that they share and how comfortable they are in their new home.
Some of the tabaski photos were posted to her blog at christmas, they are a bit gruelling but there is a funny post about cleaning sheep intestines in the river. Check it out at ebniger.blogspot.com
Best wishes to all our families and volunteers.
Five down, twenty two to go.... months I mean!
stacy