Sonitan Church

I realized I haven’t really talked about the church I go to here in Maradi. I do go to church in case any of you were getting worried!

The name of my church is EERN Sonitan. EERN stands for Eglise Evangelique au Republique du Niger (Evangelical Church of Niger Republic), and there are actually quite a few EERN churches in Maradi and throughout Niger. It is the largest denomination in the country.

So the entire service is in Hausa. I don’t really speak Hausa, which makes things a bit difficult. And the service is like 2 and a half hours long. So I do my best to pick out words I know, but I also usually bring another book along or read the Bible during the sermon.

Half of the service or more is singing, which is kind of cool. Hausa people are so enthusiastic about music and dancing! The choir enters singing and dancing, and they sing a few songs. Then about 3 different groups of children get up in front and sing. Then the women sing a few songs. Then the choir sings again. I think you get the picture.

Then every Sunday night at 5pm we have a service for missionaries and other expatriates in Maradi. It is at the SIM compound where I live, and that is usually a good time of getting together and hearing the word, singing together, and even eating food sometimes. It really is nice to meet together as a missionary community, but I also don’t want to get caught up in the “missionary bubble” and disconnect myself from building relationships with Nigeriens. I guess it’s best to live in both worlds…

Men on one side...women on the other.

Cute kids singing a song

There are several offerings throughout the service. Everyone dances up to the front, puts in their money, and then dances to their seat. Lots of energy!

Some ladies watching their children outside during the service

Wedding

Last weekend there was a wedding at our church! There is a Swiss lady who ended up marrying a Nigerien pastor, and they had their wedding at Sonitan. So Friday night there was a big musical concert (music and dancing is SUCH a big thing here among the Hausa) and a whole heap of choirs from other churches and groups came to perform in honor of the wedding. Aaron and I met up with our friends Soulaye, Ilya, and Louise at the concert, then went to the “afterparty” (No joke). Tons of dancing there; everyone is so joyful and it is such a close-knit community. I think we often miss out on close community like that in the States…and we are often too busy or structured to really CELEBRATE.

The wedding was actually fun. It was only about two and a half hours long (I was expecting it to be WAY longer) and of course there was a lot of singing. And a very unexpected thing was that the couple actually kissed! Quite a shocker if you ask me, because that is very atypical of an African wedding. In Ethiopia (where I grew up), the groom and bride are always very stern and solemn throughout the ceremony to signify their disappointment in leaving their parents and family. I think this was the exception because it was a cross-cultural wedding.

Anyways, here are some pictures:

Singing and Dancing

The happy couple...

Aaron in the crowd

With some friends...

Bike Riding

Aaron and I each have the same bike which we are able to use from the agriculture project that SIM is involved with here in Maradi. They’re from Australia: AG 200cc dirt bikes and they are amazing!

Aaron and I getting ready to go!

So we try to go out every week riding in the “bush” behind the SIM compound. The area is called the “fadama” which is a fertile area around the riverbed that floods during rainy season. Right now it’s dry season, so the riverbed is dried out and we can go riding through the sand, and over some incredible landscape.

Passing through villages is so fun because everyone waves and smiles as we pass by. It’s like we’re celebrities…white skin, dirt bike, I guess we stick out pretty easily. I can’t fully describe how exhilarating it is to speed down dirt paths and look out over the land. I wish everyone of you could get a chance to do this. It’s like something is being triggered deep within me…the freedom, adventure, and uniqueness of this place is phenomenal.

This part of the river still has water, so people were making mud bricks for their houses.

Heavy traffic! Nothing like LA though...

A view of the riverbed from the bike...

Wide open spaces...in the riverbed
(The next week I actually ran out of gas in the sand, so we had to take one of the bikes back into town to get some fuel in a bottle. Adventurous...yes...but not an experience I'd like to repeat any time soon)

Pharmacy

Week 2 working at the hospital. I’ve been in pharmacy with Laura, another short-termer from Australia. We’re having a good time and learning a lot in the process. Having limited Hausa and only a little French, it’s a little difficult to communicate with local staff. But they are very friendly and I’m doing my best to be cheerful and joke around with them as much as possible.

So we’re doing inventory on the whole pharmacy, and figuring out a good system for documenting what comes in and goes out. We’ve also been working on seeing if what we are charging for meds and procedures is appropriate. Treatment is not entirely free, but it is quite cheap, and the demand for good healthcare is very high.

For the first month or so at the hospital, I will be circulating through the different departments to get a taste of what goes on here. The Lord really worked it out because it’ll be such good experience, and I’ll be able to have a variety of things to do. After this “internship” I’ll be able to select an area that I’d like to focus in on for my work. How exciting!

Sorry this one's a little blurry. Esther, Ma'illu, and another lady I work with at the pharmacy.

Laura and I have been cracking away counting medicine. Laura is another short-termer from Australia, and she is also a nurse. Here we were counting suppositories...if you know what they are then you would know that they're not fun...

This is outside on the hospital compound. It's kind of like a "waiting room." People just chill here all day, bring food, and wait to see the doctor or visit family members.

Cooking

Oh, the life of a single guy…in West Africa!

So we have this cookbook for Niger, which was made by the Peace Corps. It’s actually really great and I’ve decided that I want to start cooking more. So we decided not to hire a lady to cook for us (trust me, it would be completely culturally appropriate to do so). I figure I can really learn how to cook for myself more, and especially using recipes from scratch (you know, character-building, “I’m a real man” type of cooking for a change). By the way, “scratch” means no boxes or microwaves, simply starting with the basic ingredients.

I decided to make “no-bake cookies.” Easy, right? My mom used to make really good ones when I was growing up, so I thought I’d “give it a burl” (that’s Aussie lingo I’ve picked up from the other missionaries). Simple, throw some stuff together, heat it up, let it set, and voila…delicious cookies for the entire week!

I doubled the recipe and unknowingly “octupled” the milk portion of the recipe. So instead of putting ½ cup of milk, I put 2 cups! Yeah, 4 times the correct amount. Not so good.

Needless to say, the cookies didn’t set. Should’ve called them “Chocolate Oatmeal how-can-you-blow-it-on-a-recipe-that-has-‘no bake’-in-the-title Cookies”!

End of story. It wasn’t a complete waste because we still enjoyed the clumps of batter for the next week or so…

PS – Crazy thing I learned in Hausa class…the Hausa word for cannibal. You won’t believe it. The word is “yumyum”…like my cookies!