One Week In
[Today's post is taken from an e-mail Ruth wrote earlier in the week. We thought it might be good to just share a mildly-edited version with everyone!]
We spent from Thursday last week until Monday in Niamey staying in SIM’s Guesthouse. It was such a nice time. We got to rest a bit and see around Niamey. We were also in the SIM office on Thursday and Friday to meet with the SIM coordinators here, and talked about plans for this year for both of us. We also went to church in Niamey on Sunday which was great: we met a couple I knew from Galmi before, who are now working in Niamey at Sahel Academy which was lovely. In the evening we went to the English-language church at Sahel which was brilliant. There were about 100 people there, mostly SIM missionaries and their children, who are based in Niamey.
Since we’ve arrived, both in Niamey and here at Galmi we have had someone have us at their house for dinner. Tonight’s [Thursday] the first night we are going to have to cook for ourselves. We got some meat off the back of a motorbike yesterday, so we’re going to make an attempt at tea with it! Funny story – yesterday I went to make scones for lunch and accidentally read the ingredients wrong. Instead of putting in 1 oz of sugar I put in 10 oz! Needless to say they were ridiculously sweet: we ate one each but ended up binning the rest for fear of making ourselves diabetic! Peter made a second batch today and they tasted pretty good, he’s getting good at the cooking. [Naturellement]
We took the SIMAir flight from Niamey to Galmi on Monday, and the same day we met with the staff and have talked about plans. We’re planning to learn some Hausa, because in Danja there aren’t that many French speakers so we need Hausa to communicate. Here in Galmi a lot more people can speak French, so we’re putting our French to good practice. I’ve been using it in the hospital and getting on ok.
The house we are in in Galmi is lovely. We’ve a nice living dining area, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. The weather at the moment is really pleasant, it cools down nicely in the evenings which means its easier to sleep. During the day it’s around 35′C, but there’s a breeze so its not too hot. It is very dusty at the moment though, I constantly feel like I’m coated in it!
I’ve been working with the children here in the hospital, mainly in the under-5s clinic and then in the ward as well. Tonight is my first night on-call. There are lots of doctors here at the moment which is great, in fact there are 10 of us in total. This means we don’t have to do on-call as frequently. I have really enjoyed meeting nurses again that I knew before and the translators. Before we left Northern Ireland, we received gifts of knitted hats to bring with us. I hope the ladies who worked so hard will be pleased to know that I spoke to the missionary doctor who works in obstetrics, and she said they had just run out of baby hats! They are delighted to get more to give to the new borns in this cooler weather, so they will all go to good use.
Peter has met with a lot of the different staff here to see what they want him to do first. One of his priorities is to redesign the website for SIM Niger, so he’s working away at that. They also have several priority projects which he hopes to produce briefs on in the next couple of weeks, two of which are based here at Galmi: one is to start a surgical training school; the other is for the building redevelopment work here. They have close to completing a new surgical unit, but need to rebuild the maternity wing next, and then possibly also the medical wards as a lot of the buildings are in disrepair.
This weekend we have an evening of prayer on Friday night for the hospital and work in Niger. Then on Saturday we are going to have a picnic in the evening up in the hills. Everyone from the compound is going – over 50 people? – so it will be lots of fun.
Missing everyone lots, and hope you are all well.
