La joie de voler

I usually have a French word for each blog.  However, today is different because if I am ever going to teach you French in six months we will need move faster than one word a blog.  So today's phrase is "La joie de voler."  It means the joy of flying.  Since we are flying to Niger it is important that we focus on the joy part.  Let me explain:

I think I mentioned that we got a really good deal on our tickets to Niger.  Now as we get closer to leaving I am realizing that we are going to have to “pay the piper” for our frugality.

We leave for Atlanta at 6:30am on Friday, September 16^th.  If I remember right, we will need to be at the airport well before 6:30 to check-in and go through security and if we are going to be there early we will need to get up even earlier than that.  This just means I will start out our venture tired and crabby.  But what’s new?

We get into Atlanta at 10:10am and wait for an 11:52 flight to New York that gets us in at 2:15.  I might note that it takes 3:38 minutes to fly from Mpls to New York if you fly direct and if we had done so we wouldn’t have had to leave until 10:37, and hour that is a much better fit to my personality.

We get to enjoy the sights and sounds of the John F. Kennedy airport for 4:30 hours from 2:15 to 6:45pm.  Then we board a Royal Air Morac flight for Casablanca, Morocco, Africa.  This is a 71/2-hour flight that gets us in at 6:30am on Saturday, September 17th.  I’m tired already.  The Casablanca airport looks really nice and I hope it is because we will get to see it for 14 hours and 10 minutes.  I don’t know if we have to stay in the airport that whole time but even if we don’t, I have read that Casablanca is a uniquely boring city.  I always thought it was full of intrigue and mystery, at least it was in the movie, but evidently Rick’s Bar is about all there is to see and that’s not supposed to be that great.

At 8:20pm, we board another Royal Air Morac flight for Niger.  Somewhere in the middle of the night we get to stop in Ouagadougou, Mali.  Since I cannot pronounce it, won’t be able to see it, or care about it I don’t think this stop is going to be too exciting.

We get into Niamey at 2:50am on Sunday, September 18^th, just 44 hours and 20 minutes from Minneapolis.  We are excited about going to Niamey, but we are not so excited about the process of getting there.

We are taking four big wheeling duffle bags.  They will be filled with everything we will have for the next six months plus a few things for some of the people in the SIL center.  What do you think the odds will be of our bags arriving at the same time and on the same plane on which we arrive?  The advice of the day is “be flexible.”

We received a 2½ page instruction sheet for getting through customs in Niamey.  I won’t bore you with the details but thought it was interesting in the way it ended given that we have had a 44 hour flight and it will be around 3am when we land.  Here it is:

     “*Try to stay calm throughout the process.  It is not designed to be smooth and can be quite hectic.  This, together with the heat, can be very exhausting especially if you already have jet-lag.  If you need to step back from everything and take a breath or rest, do it.”  

Le Medcin

One of the French words we are learning is “medicin,” pronounced, as far as I can tell, “med-sin.”  It means doctor.  It is telling that we are learning this word.  We have been to many medicins this summer.

If there was one thing Sally and I were trying to do it was to take the summer to get really healthy so that we could better take whatever Niger might have for us health wise.  But in God’s humor, we have been a medical wreck all summer.  Here are some of the medical woes and preparations we have encountered:

-            * I got a virus in June and it laid me low for at least three weeks.  A doctor visit resulted in tests for Lymes and a few other things but it was just a virus.

-            * Not a big deal but I had to get new back up glasses.  I went to the eye doctor and she gave me a new prescription.  The prescription ended up being wrong and so I needed new lenses.  Then the lenses popped out and had to be repaired so I ended up going back to the store three times. 

-           * I got shots in both knees for my lack of cartilage.  (Shots 1 & 2)

-            * Sally went to the eye doctor for itchy eyes.

-            * A tick bit Sally and it caused a fever that sent her to the emergency room in Aitkin.  After confirming a tick disease she was on a nasty antibiotic for 3 weeks (she had to stay out of the sun – hey it is summer!)

-            * Elgin got a summer cold that threw him for two weeks.

-           * Elgin went to the podiatrist to get his smashed toenail cut way back.  Looks lovely.

-            * Elgin had a gel inserted into both knees.  Involved Novocain shots first.  (Shots 3, 4, 5, & 6)

-            * Sally and Elgin went to see Doctor Bergman the skin doctor.  He excavated holes on Elgin’s head and on Sally’s cheek.  (Shots 7 & 8)

-            * Sally and Elgin went to the Travel Clinic.  (Shots 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 for Sally.  Shots 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 for Elgin.)

-            * Elgin pulled a back muscle.  It was so severe he couldn’t walk.  Doctor had him have a CAT scan to make sure it wasn’t more than a pulled muscle.  It wasn’t but it was and still is pulled.

-            * Sally has yet to see her doctor, her oncologist, and get her mammogram.

-            * We also need to get flu shots before we go.  (Shots 22 and 23)

I know these are not big medical problems but when you are trying to get healthy they don’t help.  We just hope that we have reached the end of the “medicin” visits until April of next year.  We are also very thankful for all the medical care we get here.  As my orthopedic shot giver, who has been all over Africa volunteering his skill, said, don’t let anyone over there touch your knees.