My weekend, part 2

One of the “drivers” asked us if we wanted to see a tree with plenty of bats. We said yes:

The tree is just next to his village. He asked us if we wanted to visit the village school (which I think was deliberate, so we could make a little donation to it). It was a really nice school and the principal teacher welcomed us.


Then we walked through the village. I made some new friends that helped me by holding my hand on the way back to the pirogue. They wanted me to take a photo. Afterwards they threw themselves over my camera to see it. This made me also understand that they're quite used to visitors.

Back to Kanazi we were hungry. After waiting for our meal for 3 hours and nothing came, we had enough and continued with the car. This photo is taken when we just had our drinks and were still hopeful for the meal:

This is one of the best roads I’ve ever seen in Niger. And it continues like this all the way to Mali.

To cross the river, we took the ferry:

Then we went back to Niamey on the other side of the river Niger.

My weekend, part 1

On Sunday I went on a little trip with Sébastien and Cécilia. We took a car to follow the river north of Niamey. First stop was at Kanazi. There we took a “pirogue”, a sort of boat to go on the river Niger, to see hippos.

One of the "drivers"

Me and Cécilia. In front of us the driver to the car.

We saw a big rock...

...that turned out to be a hippo!

Then Sébastien and the other "driver" wanted to go in the river too.

Sorry...

..for bad updating. I'll try to tell you about my weekend tomorrow.

Taxi

Yesterday I took a taxi by myself for the first time here. The other times I’ve either been with someone else or someone helped me. It all went really well; I got were I wanted to go. The exotic thing about the taxis are that you’re usually not alone in it (if you don’t count the driver). The taxi picks up people along the way. So it can happen that they refuse to take you, because the other ones in the taxi won’t go to the same place.

The second exotic thing is of course the price. 200 F CFA. Which is 0,3 €. If you wanna go a little further away, like to the other end of the town, it will cost 400 F CFA. But the prize is negociable. If you want to go to the other side of the river, i.e. you have to take the bridge, you need to go to the petit marché, then take a taxi from there to go over the bridge.

The third exotic thing is what to say when you, for example, want to go to my house or to IRD. To go to IRD you say CEG 6 (which is short for a school), première gao. Gao is a tree. Première means “the first”. This is the première gao (the one behind the other):

And to go to me you say CEG 6, deuxième gao. Which means the second gao. This is the second gao:


As you can see there is no tree here, because they took it down, but the direction is still valid.

Chinese

Except for foreigners like frenchmen, some americans and me, you can also meet chinese people here. There are relatively a lot actually. They do a lot of construction here. It is for example them who are building the new bridge. At the moment there is only one bridge that connects Niamey over the river.

This bridge was built in the 60’s and was dimensioned for 20 – 40 years (It depends on with who you talk to). So it is about time to make a new one. (sorry for the bad quality, if you click on the image you'll see it better)

Chinese companys have also made some buildings at the university and they’re constructing a mall here. It will be the first mall in Niamey. Except for construcion, they’re also interested in the oil in Niger.

An anecdote: Guillaume lives next to a house were chinese people lives. He told me that once or twice he have heard a dog make noise and bark in their garden, then it whimps, and then nothing…

It works here too

This Sunday I had my first pizza without cheese in Niger. The waiter looked a little surprised but said ok. While waiting we we’re sure that there would be cheese on the pizza anyway, but I got what I wanted!

However, for dessert we wanted ice-cream. I wanted chocolate/vanilla, but there were no vanilla left. They only had strawberry and chocolate flavor. So Marie took 2 strawberry, I took strawberry/chocolate, Mathieu and Souley 2 chocolate. Everyone got what they wanted, and me too I thought on the first look, it was brown at least. But my chocolate was café… You have to be prepared for anything here.

If you too wanna have a pizza with no cheese, this is where to go:

Creepy insect no.4

This one is the most creepy this far. I came across it at Parc W. It looks just like a small innocent fly, like this:

It’s a black fly (sv : knott, fr : simulie). But this little “innocent” creature bites you, so quite fast my elbows looked like this:

And yes, it is blood that’s dripping. And not only does it bleed, it itches as well. It didn’t felt immediately, but during the night and the days after. It itches even more than mosquito bites. The positive things is that I appreciate mosquitos now.

The black flies were everywhere. It was mostly my elbows that were attacked, but I got some on my hands, legs, thighs and back as well. The insect repellent I had didn’t work that well, but as the genius person I am I found the perfect solution:

During the rest of the stay no one bit me. When I got home I searched about this fly on the internet. And apparently it can transfer parasites; in the worst case scenario I’ll be blind. But the symptoms doesn’t show until 2-3 years. If I got the parasite, it can be treated though. Anyone who knows more about this?