Arrival in Sweden

I'm back safe and sound in Sweden. The travelling went well. I didn't get so shocked as I thought I would be arriving at the airport in Paris. But as it was 6 a.m. people are to tired to stress... The biggest change was that the cold water actually was cold when I washed my hands. Then when I bought a bottle of water I had to stop myself to start asking the salesman "ca va bien?" "et le travail?" (in eng: how are you, and how's the work going?). Going from Paris to Copenhagen I had 2 kgs of overweight, but luckily the check-in lady didn't say anything.

My parents waited for me at the airport and I was this happy to see them!:

Me wating for the train to Sweden. I got a winter jacket (the pink one I'm wearing above) from my housemates as a goodbye present. I didn't bring any with me in Niger. My mom was nice to take my swedish one, made for swedish winter, with her to the airport:


I'll celebrate New Year's at my aunt's. I quickly found my favourite spot in the house:
This photo is exclusively for Marie (it's me and my mom playing a game):

Bye bye Niger

Tonight I'm leaving and tomorrow I'll be back in Sweden. It will be a big change! My last 24hs here have been very nice. I even had the honour to meet the national police commissioner in Niger, and at his home! Today I'm saying goodbye to people and doing some last-minute shopping. Tonight I'm eating at Oxygene with Souley and Marie. It is a tradition to eat there before anyone is leaving as it is on the way to the airport. And yes, there have been a lot of visits there this past week.
So bye bye Niger!

Wedding

This afternoon I was at a touareg wedding. It was a very nice experience.

The differences from what I'm used to is: the families celebrate separately, I celebrated with the bride's family; the bride does not participate during the celebrations, she sits in a room with her friends while everyone else is eating and dancing; neither the groom nor the bride are present at the religious ceremony, only the families; it is in the evening they'll finally meet (of course they have met before, but not during their wedding day) . I guess we were a little more than 200 people.

This is how you cook for over 200 people:

This is what we ate. It is millet mixed with meat, meat and rice. It was good! This plate is for four people:

Afterwards you danced to touareg music. There are just some people dancing, everyone else is looking:

And I danced! It was very appreciated so apparantely I was not that bad, eventhough it was a dance I've never done before:

"I've got hemorrhoids"

On christmas I texted with my jeweller, just to say hello and ask when he's back in Niamey. The answer I got was "I suffer of hemorrhoids and I'm doing a treatment, therefore I haven't gone to Niamey yet". I was very happy to have this information!! Then Mathieu explained to me that here it is seen as an illness like everything else, compared to in Europe where you keep this for yourself.

Christmas

I didn't really have any christmas feeling during the day, but when it became dark and we were all gathered in the house, I managed to get some. I had a very nice christmas.

Our christmas tree

Some chit-chat before dinner

For startes we hade foie gras with fig jam and melon

And for dinner we had guinea fowl:

Before

After

Goodbye Juliette

Many people are going away over christmas or leave because their work is finished. It's getting more and more lonely at work! Yesterday Juliette left.

We tried to pose for a nice photo together:

Here's the result!:

And here's a photo with Marie as well. You can also see the nice henna Juliette did:

Giraffes

Yesterday I got the opportunity to say goodbye to the giraffes before I leave. The giraffes east of Niamey are the last ones in west Africa. The guide told us that last year there were 201 of them left. This year there are probably more beacause there are plenty of babies.

The giraffes are not in a national park. However, you still need to pay for a visit (ca 5€) and you'll get a guide as well which will help you to find them. I don't mind paying as 50% of the money goes to plant new trees for the giraffes to eat, and 50% goes to compensate villagers who have lost their harvest because of the giraffes. This keeps them from killing the giraffes when they destroy their fields.

Me in front of a giant termitary

Me and a baby giraffe

Encore Park W

Here are some more photos from Park W.

A road in the park:

"Pirogues". You can go by boat from Niamey on the river Niger to the park:

A beautiful view over the river:

This is what the bridge looked like in September:

This weekend it looked like this. We could finally cross it!:

More photos from Park W

We sat on the roof of the car during the safari. A perfect view!:

This is where we slept one night. It is a camping in the middle of the park. Very wildlife! A lion could pass by when you least expect it. You got served dinner and breakfast as well... I froze during the night though. It was ca 35 degrees during the day and 10 at night:

Me, Marie, Mathieu and his parents:

Me in front of Benin (Park W is transboundary, it inlcudes Benin and Burkina Faso as well)

Me inside a baobab tree. According to our guide it is over 600 years old:

Finally I've seen some animals

I was at Park W this weekend. And this time I saw almost every animal you can find there, except for hyenas and lions... You have to do some "safari" yourself to be able to see some of the animals on my photos. But the search is exciting!

A vulture

A warthog

Some sort of antelope or gazelles..

A sable antelope

A crocodile

Buffalos

A "green" monkey

A baboon in a baobab eating monkey bread

A varan

An elephant!

This weekend

This weekend I'm going away somewhere. I'll show you on Monday!

Shopping

Here are some beautiful items I've bought:

A handmade blanket for 45€

I ordered a handbag in leather by an artisan, this is the result. I can't tell you the prize! He told me not to tell as the prize I paid was to little for the time it took to make it (you bargain about the prize before the bag is done)

Figures made in wood and talc

Lunch with Monique

Today I got a very good idea: to have lunch at my favourite restaurant Le Gourmet instead of making a sallad at home. Monique thought the idea was good as well.

Me

Monique

Amoebas and meningitis

First of all, before you start to worry, I have neither of these.

Since my treatment against the amoebas my belly hasn't really been ok. So I returned to the clinic on Saturday. Today I got the results from the test and there are no presence of nothing in my belly. So maybe just by knowing that my belly is ok now, it will get better.

I took the opportunity to immunize myself against meningitis as well as I didn't have this shot. (don't know why the immunization clinic in sweden didn't give me this). The period of menagitis starts now so I thought it was better to do it than not too, even if I'll go home soon. I wanted to take the shot 2 weeks ago. I went first to another clinic close by (the clinic I visited before is a favourite among the expat's but is far away and I always have to wait for 1-2 hours...), every thing went well. I saw the doctor immediately. He told me what kind of vaccine to buy (when you go to the clinic here, they give you a list of the medications etc. to buy, then when you get back they'll treat you, too bad for you if you badly hurt!). I go to the clinic, and they only sell doses of 10, which is kind of expensive. I needed just one... But at the clinic I went to today, they had the doses of 10 so I could take one of out of it!

So everything is good now! No parasites and probably I won't get meningitis either.

Christmas decoration

When Marie came back from France she had brought plenty of christmas decorations with her! I was happy to do some handcraft, it's been a while... I also got the honor to do the decorations.

Me doing a christmas wreath

Putting up the garlands

And here follows the results: