Desert Gills

  Ir and T got to go for an early morning camel ride with some others a couple weekends ago. Its one of the few 'touristy' options in the area... we payed a local man for a 60-90 minute ride. Ir named her camel 'Ms. Viola Swamp' (after the children's book character) and enjoyed it a lot ... for the first half, then she got a bit tired. T and E's camel had the munchies... he kept grabbing for overhanging shrubbery!

This past week, Ir has requested more than once to don Ad's head covering. E requests one too, and since married women here wear both a head covering and a shawl (despite the heat!), there is usually one for each kid. Of course, E looks a little silly dressed up like a woman! Both kids then run to the mirror to admire themselves. We appreciate this child-initiated cross-cultural interest. Everyone always tells us that children adjust easily to new cultures, but Ir at least has not always found it easy to live in a different environment. Sometimes she seems to feel threatened by differences, being at times either timid or rejecting those differences. We need wisdom to shepherd her through the process of cross-cultural living. The other day, she surprised me with the question of whether this is the old earth and America is the new heavens and the new earth. I explained that no - sad, bad, and painful things happen in America too, and people in both places are still waiting f...

Ir is at the fun stage where she comes up with surprising connections and ideas. Recently she started praying that "God would give us a car." It surprised us because it's not something that T and I perceive as a need. We have ready access to a compound car if we need it, and our most frequent foray out to church is only a 15 min walk away. But it is hot, and usually the kids are tired on the way home. Mom often has to carry both kids(as in this picture), particularly when we're on the only paved road in town with trucks and motorcycles occasionally buzzing past. Shepherding our kids through Hausa church is one of the challenges we share with the other families. The service has many kids floating in and out, along with a Sunday School of sorts, and it is usually about two hours long. After an hour, when Ir and E start melting down, Mom takes them home - as pictured, while I stay for the rest.

This is a picture from our 'alternative pool.' One of our friends here says that when she checks the thermometer in the house, if it's more than 90, she turns on the air cooler, and above 95 she heads to the pool with the kids. I was very fearful about how the heat would be here. We had read on one blog about some long-termer saying the only time he was comfortable here was in his air-conditioned car. September was tough because it was still hard to sleep at night, and our air-cooling equipment in Niamey was lacking. Now in the past month it has once again gotten pretty warm at night, but our swamp cooler has actually done a good job. March, April, May, June, is prime time for the swamp coolers, because they work by humidifying the air... once the rains come in July-September things cool off a bit, and anyway the air is not dry enough for them effective. But we have really appreciated our little unit: we're not as tough as the Africans I guess.

Hausa moms characteristically carry their sub one year-olds strapped to their backs. Its a universal practice within the culture: indeed, if I ask a mom if she could be pregnant, she will often say "No, I am goyo baya." Then they may point to their infant, sometimes with a quizzical look for the clueless white-man. I think the point is that I should have picked up on the fact that she is breast-feeding. In a similar vein: observers often laugh seeing me walk down the street carrying E strapped to my front with a Baby Bjorn. It just seems like a ludicrous inversion to them to see the husband carrying the baby, and on the front, and using an expensive contraption when I simple cloth would do. Goyo Baya is such a fundamental cultural concept here, that if you say you are goyo baya with someone, its an idiom meaning you agree with them. Saul is said to be 'goyo baya' with the murder of Stephen. In the contemporary translation... the more stately, antique translatio...

Its really endearing how chummy Ir and E are... that is, when they are in a good mood and *especially* when being chums means postponing sleepy time. So when we put them down for nap or bedtime together, we often let them chat together for a while until they wind. Don't ask me what they are chatting about because E's sounds aren't very intelligable. Anyway, we were really touched once to find them like this... E's face still pressed against the crib where he had fallen asleep giggling with his big sister.

  The compound pool opened this weekend, and while its one of those little round things that takes two strokes to cross, my kids talk about it all the time like it's an Olympic-size delight. But they don't exactly inspire confidence with their swimming abilities. I mean, picture Ir and E... the little arm floaties I managed to survive on as a kid are not nearly enough for these modern day water warriors... oh no: my kids have to have the latest in floatation safety, with foam built into their bathing-suits like body armor. Here are my kids, bobbing on top of the water that (generously estimating) is two feet deep, clinging desperately to their giant inflatable floaty, and screaming at me to hold them with both arms.