Nos mondes sociaux

Our social worlds.  Someone asked about our “social life” here in Niamey.  We seem to live in two worlds here.  One is the world of expats and the other is the world of the Nigerians.  It’s not that they don’t mix because they do but our experiences with them, except for prayer time and coffee break, have been somewhat separate.  For example…

Our expat world is primarily at the SIL center.  There are two families of four that are translator families.  One lives on the center the other in town.  There is a lady from South Africa who has been doing literacy projects that lives here and has for a number of years.  Also, there are our friends Barb and Mary and Stan’s family of three. Then there is a couple from the US that has been here for 10 days and will be leaving soon.  They all speak English and French.

We go shopping, out to eat, church, and to the recreation center with them.  We spent a lot of time with the broader expat community here during the NUTS softball tournament.  People came from Burkina Faso, 6 hours away, just to play softball in the sun for two and a half days.  While the play is going on, the rest sit in the shade and talk.  Other than softball, we haven’t spent much time at the rec center.

This weekend we had dinner with the center’s expat group on Friday at a nice restaurant.  With kids there were 16 of us.  For some reason the conversation at our table got around to duck tape so I couldn’t help telling the Duck Joke. This particular restaurant will no longer be on our eating out list.  Then Saturday night went to a dinner/fundraiser at the Sahel School put on by the seniors (and their parents).  It was a Mexican meal that was really well done but all expats.  See Picture below. 

Our Nigerian world is quite different.  We aren’t with them quite so much but when we are the experiences are significant.  For example…

A lady who attends our Prayer Time and coffee break works on literacy at the center so we don’t see much else of her.  She’s the one that sings her prayers, brought us dinner one night, and is making Sally a skirt.

Another lady, who speaks English, is the receptionist at the center.  Sally and I spent about an hour talking to this lady about her job here and she was delightful.  Both of these women dress in these colorful outfits with matching headscarves. 

I got to know a young man who is Toureg and Muslim.  He works on Bible translation.  Go figure.  When I first met him he had a turban like cloth around his head.  All you could see were his eyes and yet you could tell they were smiling.  We don’t speak any of the same languages but we still have fun together.

We had lunch with Hauwa, the lady that cooks some meals and cleans for us.  She speaks four languages but none of them are English.  We had a great time with our French books out trying to communicate.

We went to dinner at the home of an African woman who prays with us.  Fortunately we went with the couple that was here for only a few days and they spoke French.  This was just a wonderful experience.  The lady that invited us had her mother come out and “talk” to us.  She looked sad and withdrawn.  We found out she took English for one year about 40 years ago.  So we began to talk English with her.  She lit up.  There was a huge change in her personality when we were giving her the English definitions for words.  Sally got out her picture book and used English words to point out people, like daughter, son, grandchild, etc.  She would write them down in French and English and then pronounce them in English.  She loved it.  Then our hostess’s young friend came with her baby.  She had just ridden 24 hours on a bus and then was going to ride another 36 hours to see her family, stay 5 days and then make the return trip.  She spoke English and was delightful.  We also heard from our hostess’s sister who had lost her job and was evicted from her home.  She was living with her sister.  It was an evening we will not forget.  

Finally, today we went to a small village about 50 miles from here for a baptism.  This trip warrants a separate blog, I’ll just say we were into the culture.

Expats or Nigerians, Christians or Muslims people have been warm and helpful.  We are blessed to have the opportunity to get to know them because both the expat world and the Nigerian world are so different from the Edina world.