First Impressions

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

As we comple our first full day in Niger, it seems that every sense is bombarded with an overload of input!

Our sight is overwhelmed:
• The images of children everywhere playing in the dusty garbage-strewn streets.
• Donkey drawn carts loaded 15 ft. high with straw from a local farm.
• Goats, camels, and dogs outnumbering the cars in this city of Niamey.
• An open air display of meat swarmed by flies
• Men and women carrying loads on their heads (items such as firewood, food, produce, fruit or drugstore goods, etc.)
• Primitive homes along the sandy streets; the nicer (if that’s the word) ones are thatch roofed huts or stucco covered brick.

Our hearing is overwhelmed:
• Music playing on boom boxes – even through the night.
• Those countless children playing, making the happy sounds of laughter.
• Animals protesting the burden of their loads.
• Cars honking at the pedestrians (that would be us).
• Mothers shouting at their children to stop crowding those strangers in white skin.

Our smelling is overwhelmed:
• Dinner time means the family fire is started out front of the dwellings of Niamey. This creates a smoky charcoal like smell over the whole city. It’s a thick haze that you can see as well as smell!
• Fortunately, because of the goats that roam the streets, the garbage that is strewn everywhere does not smell. Those hungry goats have eaten anything and everything that is even remotely edible.
• Right around the corner from the compound where we are staying, there is a bakery with smells of fresh baked bread.
• Other foods are prepared for sale on the streets (over those fires). Some are pleasant; others not so appealing.

Our tasting is overwhelmed:
• The meals prepared here at the center have been wonderful! Today we enjoyed chicken in a rich sauce over rice.
• We also have enjoyed fried dough that is very popular here.
• With heat in the 90’s and humidity hovering around 15%, the best taste of all is plain water!

Our touching is overwhelmed:
• Well, you don’t actually “touch” heat. But with the dust in the air, it seems that the heat is definitely touching you!
• Everything you touch is layered with dust!

Sights, sounds, tastes, touches and smells that are Africa. It all is so different, so foreign from what we know in Delmar. As powerfully overwhelming as all of this is, it is still a wonderful experience!

More later . . . .

Pastor Dave Corlett