A Day in the Life...

While this may look and sound like all we are doing is play, actually our kids are having to put their noses to the grindstone and get their school work done, also. The picture at the bottom is of the school house that is here on the Galmi compound, used by other missionary children over the years. Currently we are it, although I believe another family is on its way here, and has children school age. We not only do the school work brought from home, but we are currently taking Hausa language classes for 1 hour per day, for 2 weeks. There is a lady here at Galmi that has lived in Niger for 50 years, and is fluent in Hausa who is taking the time to teach us all. We are learning the basic greetings, the customs of the Hausa people, and some very simple phrases to enable us to communicate with the people here. Niger is a country that values taking the time to greet one another, and the greetings can go on for a long time. Not only does one enquire after the other's well-being, but also the well-being of the family, how the "cold" is affecting them (we are here in cold season - it only reaches around 32 C in the day and hits a low of about 20 C at night), how the work is going, and so on. The only trouble is that the national people speak this language very quickly, so we have got the one phrase down pat to give when all else fails - "Lahiya" (which means "fine"). The soccer you see above was played on the airstrip that is very close to our house. The dust you
see in the background is the Harmattan winds blowing the Sahara desert right onto our doorstep. These past two days have been very dusty. In fact, the dust was so bad that the compound lost its internet connection for a period of time. The wind seems to be the worst in the morning, and by evening it has calmed down somewhat. But these past 2 days the dust remains in the air constantly. This is apparently what happens in their cool season, which lasts until the end of Feb. Except for this, the weather has been beautiful, and the sky has been very sunny and clear.

On Sunday we went to the local church here and all our kids joined the Sunday School, which just happened to be practicing for their Christmas program. So our children are now part of the Christmas program here in Niger! And can these Nigerien children ever sing! All they need is a drum and the music begins. It was a wonderful thing to see our kids interacting with the local children. And they were not shy to help our boys get the movements and words down! The choir conductor just happens to be one of the fellows that works with Jerry at the dental clinic. He also writes much of the music that is used for the children's choir. The first practice the kids had was under a tree in the shade in a yard just down from the church - what a great sight! So as you are getting ready for your Christmas programs in the beautiful snowy weather, we will be doing the same thing here, except we don't require parkas this year!