Le Café

It is the little things that sustain us. 

Last week we took Beki out to dinner.  Beki is the girl that lives in a town about 50 miles away; we met her at the Baptism back in October.  We see her every so often at church when she comes to Niamey for a sanity check.  Beki is the only white person in this village and has been trying to “work with the youth” there.  Not a very rewarding endeavor but as she says, “I love my life here.” 

Anyway, Beki recommended a new café for us to try out.  We have eaten at a Chinese, Indian, Italian, American, and at three different hotels.  All of them have been nice getaways.  We order things like omelets, brochettes, pizza like food (PLF), egg rolls, and mutton.  All of this is very nice and a welcome change from the sauce over noodles, rice, and potatoes that we have at home.

Beki’s café sounded nice so we gave it a shot; actually we gave it three shots in the last week.  It is a small café run by a French lady next door to one of the grocery stores we go to.  It is not fancy.  Two walls are all blackboards with menus written on them, the chairs are all different kinds, and the napkins are kept inside old 33lp records that have been melted into a bowl. 

For us, it has been a touch of heaven.  It’s just a café but it feels like so much more.  So far we have had small scoops of ice cream “bols”.  Delicious.  Then of course the chocolate oatmeal cookie is a must along with a large cup of French press coffee.  Most coffee here is thimble size and to get a big cup is a blessing.  I know we should not get too excited about a café but we are.  I’m sure that means we have other emotional issues we need to deal with but this café has really been a bright spot for us. 

We are branching out Friday by meeting Beki for breakfast.  She leaves the next day for six months in France so that she can improve her French.  She expects to live the rest of her life in Niger and so needs to speak good French.  Then on Saturday we are showing two women our new discovery cafe for breakfast.  So you can see, once we latch on to a good thing we really go for it.  It is the Starbucks syndrome.

Our internet has been unreliable, mostly "un" for the last month.  Every few days it comes up but only weakly and not for long.  We rush to download emails and try to get some news of the world but we don't get much.  Then too, our phone doesn't work when the internet is down.  We get frustrated until we remind each other that for missionaries that came here only a few years ago had very little contact with friends and family at home.  We are blessed for what we do have, not what we don't have. As with the posting of this blog, the internet came on this morning for a bit.