I'm not Julia Child!

I love the movie "Julie and Julia".  I got it for Christmas last year and Lindsay and I watched it again the other night on my computer.  Both of the women loved to cook and I could almost smell the Boeuf Bourguignon as it was cooking on the screen.  I wish smells like that were emanating from my kitchen, but alas, I haven't as yet arrived.  I was momentarily inspired and googled the recipe but it said the difficulty level was "difficult", so I will settle for boiling my chicken bones from Thanksgiving in hopes they will give enough tasty broth for noodle soup.

One of the challenges for me in moving to a new place is learning to shop in new places and cook with new and local ingredients as well as with a different kind of stove.  This always takes a while to master and in the meantime we eat baguettes plain, baguettes with butter, baguettes with tuna, baguettes with cheese and more baguettes (local bread).  

I find it fascinating to shop--even though I can't coupon--because I love discovering what is available.  Because Niger is mostly desert, a lot of the fresh vegetables and fruit are imported, even what is sold on the streets.  I'm told that January and February, the cooler months, are the prime months for buying locally raised fruits and vegetables and stocking up on them for the 10 months to come.  I'm excited to see what will be available then.  For now, grocery shopping involves learning which stores carry what, which open markets are the best for vegetables and fruits and then keeping my eyes open for interesting items along the street.  I had a great guide my first week here -- she knew where everything was.  When I can't find something I give her a call!   (Thanks, Kimberly).   Here is a glimpse of shopping Niger-style: 

         Lining the streets are wheelbarrows filled with seasonal vegetables.  Bartering is a way of life. 

Last week Saratou (staff friend) and I taxied down at 6:15 am (it was pitch dark) to find fresh produce bargains as that is the time of day the gardeners bring their produce in to sell to the "middleman".  We had a good time, even if it was difficult to tell the difference between a cucumber and a zucchini in the dark!  Saratou was a bit frustrated because she couldn't get rock-bottom prices due to the fact that she had a white woman in tow.

The women sell fresh peanut butter and greens.

 Sometimes the pickins' are a bit sparse...but I did find fresh ginger.

Imported fruit from neighboring countries are sold by the kilogram at the crossroads close to our home.

             Our noses always let us know when we are close to this outdoor stand.

Every neighborhood has a local boutique with the necessities for sale:  tomato paste, oil and a few other items.

I love shopping here as I can stand in one spot and see everything in the store.  I get my flour and sugar here (if it smells fresh) since it is just a hop and a skip from our house.

 There are several BIG grocery stores in town.  About the size of a Walgreens or gas station store or even smaller.  They have a lot of the same items but each carries somethings that the others don't.  I just found out that Talit's carries cocoa powder.  Yeah, for Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes!

In Honor of my Favorite Son

Happy Birthday to you, Andrew!  In honor of your 25 years I listed 25 sweet memories I have of you.  Here goes:  

1.  You were such a beautiful dark-haired chubby baby.  I loved you from the start! 
2.  You were so content to lay in your little basket and look around.  You slept through the night early on so I could continue in language study in France and our landlords were so thankful that THEY could sleep as well since their bedroom was underneath ours.
3.  You loved coloring flags with Clement on the terrace.  The "F" encyclopedia was the most worn book of the set. 

4.  You and your yellow blankie that always made your thumb go into your mouth. 
5.   We tried every means we could think of to get rid of your thumb sucking.  Nothing worked until you decided yourself to quit!
 6.  Going on trips with your dad--and Abel--"what town is this, Daddy".  Abel said you talked the entire trip.
7.  You were such good friends with our African staff and students.  They all loved you. You even formed your own airplane company with Norbert.
8.  You would sit with your head cocked, listening intently. 
9.  You had such beautiful blue eyes and blond hair. 
10.  All those softball games in the backyard-- "imaginary man on first!!" 
11.  You were the star of the class in 4th grade when you knew all the states and capitals. 
12.  Your French teacher gave up on trying to improve your handwriting, saying that she was glad for your sake that typewriters had been invented!

13.  Homeschooling.  I loved teaching you...except for the dawdling over those math assignments!  
14. You have always loved history.  You could remember so many facts and correct me when I got them wrong.
15.  Sending you in the bathroom with a broom and dustpan and the promise of 500 cfa if you came out with a dead gecko.
16.  Setting up little stands to sell junk you didn't want anymore or kool-aid.  
17.  Writing dog stories in church. 

.
18.  Playing football with  your dad and friends...a birthday tradition.
19.  Being so proud of you when you hit that double in your first ever baseball game in Potwin in 4th grade.
20.  Being so proud of you again when you and dad won the award for the best father/son team at the Nuts tournament.
21  Watching you graduate from ISO and being able to hand you your diploma since I was VP of the school board
 22.  So amazed at your desire and tenacity to play college football--"look, Dad, I've been recruited!" 
23. Your artistic side came out in this gorgeous work of art! Made us all hungry. 
24.  Seeing your love for the Lord develop and your faith in Jesus Christ become your own. 
25.  Watching you love and be a great big brother to 3 sisters. 

We love you dearly, son.  May the next 25 years be filled with awesome evidences of God's continued grace in your life. I've included some of my favorite Ando pictures.  All your "little guy" pics were adorable but I don't have any with me in Niger.  

The Neighborhood

Well Come to our neighborhood. (That's what the graffiti says on the wall by our house!)  Lindsay and I took a stroll this evening just to discover more of the place we call chez nous (our home).  There is always so much to see and cameras don't to justice to the sights nor the smells that are getting more and more familiar.

The lady who lives next door fries flour/onion "pancakes" every morning under the tree on a little fire and sells them to passersby.  I had one the other day and it was quite tasty.  They have three boys and her husband is our night guard.  (You can see our yellow gates in the background.)

They also have a little portable stand to sell little bags of sugar, candy, matches,single cigarettes, laundry soap, etc.

The matriarch of the family can't speak French but we have had some good laughs together.  The first time she met Lindsay and we told her that she was my daughter, she was aghast because she figured that we (the woman and I) were about the same age and how could someone as old as I have a daughter so young!  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

There are always swarms of kids and they love to have their pictures taken.  

Sometimes I just sit in front of our gate with the neighbors and watch the sights.  You can tell on the pictures that they are putting in a new road in front of our house.  We often see groups of women going to or from the market.  One of these women was carrying a huge computer monitor! Go figure.

Some more photos from our walk around the block:

Thanks for your prayers for us. 

 We are daily aware of our neediness and grateful to our Heavenly Father who is:
                  our Shield,
                      our Strength,
                         our Fortress,
                            our Deliverer,
                              our Strong Tower
                                  our Strength
                                      and our Ever Present Strength in time of need.

Welcome to Chez Dorsch!

We moved into our new house on Tuesday and we have been busy, busy getting the house live-able.  It's been so much fun.  We fall into bed  exhausted at night--a good feeling after weeks of waiting around.  We don't have internet at the house yet--hopefully soon. 

 We are getting used to seeing nothing but cement walls out of every window of the house.  It makes the pictures of green grass in Kansas extra special.  We hear the calls to prayer at all the set hours of the day from the mosque on the next block.  We hear and smell whatever is going on at the neighbors and I'm sure they know what is happening at our house as well.  

 My incredible kitchen.  Now I'm trying to find recipes and local foods to prepare.  I went to the local market yesterday to see what I could find and came home with onions, tiny green peppers and a type of dried bean.

 The same carpenter made all our furniture and cabinets.  Not quite "Laurence style" but very
                                                            adequate and sturdy.

  Here are a couple of items that are necessities here:  a voltage regulator for our fridge and washer, as well as our water filter (below).  The store will guarantee the appliance for 1 year IF we use this.  Brownouts and sudden spurts of electrical current are not uncommon.

 A challenge when we move to a new place is:  what do we do with trash and garbage?  In Ouagadougou we had a garbage collector (donkey cart) that came by the house once a week and emptied our barrel.  Tom asked for a half barrel so we could burn our personal papers in theyard, and this is the fancy trash can that was delivered yesterday!  Handles, legs, and all.

The rest gets dumped here, on the side of the road across from us--usually there are goats eating to their heart's content.

                      This photo is for my kiddos! 

 I brought the Dorsch family of elephants along and set them up this morning.  

Can you figure out which one is which and why they are spread out across the shelf?   

Cleaning Day #3

We've been cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning.  Washing out closets, scrubbing every square inch of the  bathrooms with ajax (they cleaned up very nicely), sweeping the floors, then wet mopping them twice to get as much dust up as we could, washing window frames and screens, ceiling fans,  etc.  There is so much dust everywhere.  What I wouldn't do to have a vacuum.  I'm sure the war on dust will be continual but the clean feeling under my bare feet from a freshly washed tile floor--ahhhhh, nothing better!  We wore our shorts but kept our pagnes (African wrap-around skirts) handy 

for the occasional visitors that showed up.  

OOPS!  We've got a small problem.  The curtain rod was put up verrrrrry high.  This will call for some remedial surgery! (Tom wanted you all to know that he was working in the shower,not showering!)

Gordon, I haven't gotten any response about the goat from my last blogpost...I'm sure you are reading them... so here's another:  why did the cows cross the road?  (Does this happen in our nation's capital?)

P.S.   In the last post, those little colored items on the ground are hats that the men wear here.  Cute, huh!

Lindsay's Here!

Our daughter, Lindsay, arrived on Tuesday night to student teach for 4 weeks in elementary French at Sahel Academy here in Niamey.  What a treat for us to have her here...and just in time to move into and clean our new house!  Perfect timing.  We are having wonderful times together.  Today we walked a lot and made some discoveries in our new neighborhood.  We are slowly getting things done at the house and hope to move in the next few days.

It is about a mile between Lindsay's school and our new house.  A great walking path if you watch for where the donkeys have been!

I finally got the picture.  We see camels on the streets  along with the cars all the time but usually I'm in a taxi or too close to feel comfortable taking a picture.  Walking today gave me a perfect opportunity.  This one was muzzled--our taxi man said camels hate the cold and bite more now that the weather is getting cooler. (It's been in the 60's in the early mornings and just up to 100 during the day).

                                              Hey, Gordon, why did the chicken goat cross the road?
          This was one gifted goat; he waited patiently for the opportune time and then crossed the busy                street without a problem.                                                                              
                                                             

 

                                              Can you guess what these are in the above photo?

                                                       Amazing loads carried by women.

The Beehive

Our newly rented house is a bee-hive of activity:  tile layers, electricians, door/window fixers, painters, plumbers, air-conditioner installers, furniture builder... each expert comes with several "gophers" and apprentices and each does his work and leaves his mess for someone else to clean up (namely me!!!)  Everyone has his skill that he's honed over time (or is still honing!).   Over the past week we've had numerous meetings with each of these men to:

1. Tell them what we want done.
2. Get an estimate of the cost of materials and labor.
3. We make a counter-offer for the labor cost and discuss it until both parties are happy.
4. They go buy the materials and come back with a group of men and boys who do the work under their supervision.
5. They chip a few more holes in the cement walls and patch up a few old ones and paint over them and all is as good as new.

Let me introduce the work force:

 Cutting the floor tiles.  

The plumber chipped a few holes in the cement wall and cemented in a shower curtain rod made of 1/2" galvanized pipe.  It tilts up a bit in the center;  I think he is counting on the weight of the shower curtain to make it level!

                                            The cement was mixed as needed in the hallway.

                                   The electrician put in a few more outlets as well as neon lights.

With walls within a couple feet of the windows, light is at a premium so the walls are being painted white to lighten the rooms up a bit.  The painting crew also fills in all the holes created by everyone else!  He is using oil-based paint thinned with a powerful thinner and the smell is over-powering!   

Slim, this pic is for you.  Our heating/air conditioning man and his cute little truck.  It was FULL of supplies and a ladder on the top when he arrived.

                  We hope to move in by the end of the week, if the paint smell isn't too strong...