So I made it "on time" By African time. Sunday I left the states and arrived at Niame, Niger on Monday afternoon. the "plan" was to catch a bus Tuesday morning to Galmi where the hospital I'll be working at is. But the bus ticket hadn't been bought in advance, and a dust storm rolled in just after I arrived and lasted until the bus station closed. Consequently I took to bus today, Wednesday and have just now arrived at the hospital. :) ...african time.
Dust storms are interesting. We'll see if I can load this picture. But the whole sky turned red. I'm in between the hot dry season and the start of the rainy season. First comes the dust and then comes the rest of the storm and the rain.
A family of local missionaries had me over for dinner. I was a blessing to be able to bombard them with questions because the locals speak French and the local language. Few if any spoke English.
After gaining the blessings of one of the local missionaries I went out running the next morning.
I think the most complicated thing about this place besides the language barrier is the dress code. Because its a largely Muslim area (so much so that the bus stopped at 5:30a during the 7 hour bus ride to Galmi for everyone to get off the bus and pray. I wasn't sure what to do, so I stayed with about 2 or 3 others out of 60+) the dress is very modest. Legs and shoulders are "risque" so long skirts and short/long sleeves are worn. no pants for women, nor tank tops. Men don't completely have it off easy either--> they can't wear shorts either.
This gets complicated because skirts are so nonfunctional for daily life. Number one, its kinda hard to jog/run in skirts. I did get permission to run in long loose caprii's with a big baggy t-shirt. Evidently the locals allow more "risque" attire for sports/exercises (sort of like in our culture we allow more revealing attire for swimwear than for everyday wear). Number two, I'd been told that I could were scrubs (tops and bottoms), but after asking a couple missionaries at the hospital it sounds like I'll be wearing a skirt (though i may be about to wear scrub bottoms under. it may be hotter, but it saves me from having to worry about being modest with the skirt all the time--guys, you may laugh, but i dare you to try a skirt. its super complicated to make sure your legs don't show if the wind blows a certain way or if you sit down a certain way.
So the morning run in niamee turned out to be quite humorous. I I was told to walk down to the stadium and run around it. When I finally found it there were a bunch of men and youth running around it. no women. I jumped into the circle between two groups of youth (high school/college age) jogging. They dropped back to run in line with me. One attempted to communicate and became saddened when he realized I only spoke English (which makes me think of another funny story while i was in Paris). They continued to run around the stadium with me for four more laps, at which point I peetered out...dehydrated and overheated in my "overly dressed" running outfit.
Incidentally, it was probably 90+ degrees out and a bit humid, and i was in my 40 degrees running outfit. I have my running attire figured to the t, now that I have my iphone to always tell me the ambient temperature while i'm dressing to run. In the 40's I wear my long capri's and long t-shirt with thin gloves (which i wasn't wearing). In the 30's I wear sweat pants and t-shirt and skii gloves and ear warmers. in the 20's i wear sweat pants and long underwear shirt under t-shirt and skii gloves and ear warmers. In the 50's I wear shorts and a t-shirt, and if its windy, thin gloves. At 60 degrees or greater I wear shorts and a tank top. There fore at 90+ degrees I had good reason to be overheated :) Oh well...at least I got to run.
So the funny language story while in Paris: I had a lay over in Paris on the way to Niger. A man sat next to me and started talking to me. (turned out to not be so super creepy..he was a missionary traveling to work on mission church planting in Niger) he realized I didn't speak french so tried to figure out what else I spoke. I guess he wasn't real comfortable with English, but had worked as a missionary many years in various south american countries (on the spanish and Portuguese side) so was more comfortable with Spanish. Consequently, we probably created quite a spectacle having a long conversation in spanish in the middle of paris---it was long partly because neither of us was super awesome at Spanish so we had to keep thinking of works/verb conjugations.
So here I am, and it looks like i'm going to start working tomorrow...(shh don't tell Dr. D). they've been wonderfully hospitable here though, so I know its going to be a great month. I had lunch with one missionary family today, and i'm scheduled for dinner with several others over the next couple of days. Sounds like from my lunch conversation that they're losing a bunch of doctors (one of the via christi fellows left today just after i arrived and the other leaves tomorrow), so the medical director was joking about how this month call/work schedule might compete for the business of the one that john abraham, sanyo and i created the first time i was in india when we worked every day and john and i alternated ob call every other night. Oh well, as the missionary at lunch said, I'll/you'll get your moneys worth of experience.
