Tenere Hotel Niamey

... Mum please correct me if the spelling is not correct!). So far, so good, I have received a great welcome and everyone is really nice and respectful. There is no hassling (unless you have just come out of a shop and people are waitng to sell you stuff - on the road there is no problem). Tomorrow I set off for the 12 hour journey to Guidan Roumji. It has to be early (6am) as MSF vehicles are not allowed to serve as vehicular transport for expats during the hours of darkness.

... cotonou, benin around 6, waited til my bus left at 11, and arrived in Niamey Nig** 23 hours lat**. Luckily it was a deluxe and mostly empty bus; because it was a long trip (Gas Station) finally, and with many tears of relief; i found calvin at our hotel which was a cool hangout hostel type place with books in english and a ...

Spécial dédicace à toutes les mauvaises langues qui pensaient (et je suis sûr qu'il y en a) que je n'avancais pas bien vite... Me voilà au *****, à Niamey, où tout est différent. Je suis parti de la forêt équatoriale et, 27 heures de bus plus tard... me voilà au Sahel semi dés**tique. La ville sens le brulé à cause du soleil frappant et les maisons ne sont plus que des cabanes en bois aux toits de paille. Changement de décor radical, mais ce n'est pas un mal au contraire ...

On Tuesday aft**noon, we w**e able to visit our office in *****. I was impressed at the size of the office, and apparently they are receiving a really good rent. The bottom floor is devoted to storing our mat**ials and reception. The top floor has the conf**ence room and offices. This is TBL-*****'s third year of op**ation and they have had an extremely fruitful ministry in a difficult context. ***** is predominantly Muslim country. Howev**, I think ...

Well, ladies and gents. My first entry actually in Niamey. Weirdly enough, *****, with it's 40+ degree weath** and incredible humidity has been quite refreshing for me. A larg** group of Aussies, a bunch of people my own age, church in English, being flat-out busy in the office, reliable int**net access, meat you can chew without having to cook it in a pressure cook**, the list goes on and on! Oo, oo, and the Am**ican rec centre with air conditioning, lasagne, and sattelite TV from ...

Alright, ladies and gents. I haven't really got much in the way of stories for you today. I just wanted to put up a bunch of pictures from a trip Lisa and I made down to Cotonou a couple of weeks ago. I also wanted to let you all know that I'm heading to Niamey, ***** for a few weeks. So hopefully soon I'll have a whole lot of new stories for you from a whole new country. Raoul tells me I might see elephants crossing the road before ...

... pretty Togolese waitress sat down opposite me. "We should talk" was h** strategic opening line "Let's talk" I replied and talk we did, through all the standard preliminaries. Then the inevitable happened. She began to lean clos** with a naughty glitt** sparkling in h** eyes. Playing my part I matched h** advances, when h** right hand took me completely by surprise! Releasing h** drink it moved in a slow motion arc, forefing** extending towards its target, she then rammed ...

... a real safari. About an hour through the sand a h**d of maybe 10 giraffes appeared. Th**e was no development anywh**e except for a nomadic h**d** woman and h** 2 small children pounding millet outside their hut. I was able to "talk" to h** and get some hopefully great shots of them with giraffes in the background. The giraffes are in no way tame, but they aren't scared and we w**e able to get v**y close to them. It was surreal, almost like coming across a h**d ...

... jeep. I am, as p** always, the only white guy, which is a great source of amusement to the military. We cross the Ten**e, 600kms of solid nothing. The crossing of it is a haze, my wat** supply tainted with petrol, sleeping in the des**t, shooting stars readily apparent. Standing in the fine sand, looking at all four compass points and seeing nothing but horizon, colour the only thing diff**entiating sand and sky. On the 2nd day when we stopped for ...

... is thinking "We cannot possibly go down that path!" We come upon a group of Fulani boys waiting as their cattle drank from a wat**ing hole. The boys come ov**, and one hops in the car with our guide in the front seat, having said that he had spotted the giraffes earli**. I speak a few greetings in Fulani to one of the old** boys in the group, and as we drive off, he runs behind us, his long blue robes flowing, and his stick trailing on the ground or in the air behind him. I look ...