Eli's Birthday Party

We celebrated Eli's third birthday last Saturday! We had a Thomas and Friends theme party which is Eli's favorite right now. Eli was really excited this year about having a birthday party. I have always loved planning his parties, but it was even more rewarding seeing his excitement and anticipation this time around. I made him some "train tickets" to pass out to all the kids here. He was really excited to walk door to door with his daddy and invite people to his party. :)

I printed out some favorite pictures of Eli before we left for Africa and used them to make this train.

Eli watched me draw and color this Thomas on some poster board and he really loved watching it come to life. When I was done he said, "Mommy you made me a good Thomas for my birthday party." :)

I made my first attempt at a yellow cake from scratch on Eli's actual birthday and then made the real thing a few days later. It was a little time consuming but the end product tasted nice and Eli thought it looked pretty cool. I have decided that a stand mixer and reliable power would be very helpful for any future cake baking that I do. :)  I brought a few tubes of colored icing from home and was able to fix this up into a real Thomas cake for a pretty special little boy.

Eli became quite shy once we all started singing "Happy birthday." The thumb of course went straight into his mouth. We might attempt to break that habit in the near future. :)

The birthday boy patiently waited for his piece of cake.

Marc tried to organize a water balloon toss since we have so many older children here on the compound. Eli thought this was pretty fun as well.

Gracie was very worried someone was going to pop her water balloon.

Hailey mostly just watched all the other kids. She turned 18 months old last week!

Time to open some presents!

Eli had a REALLY great time. We feel so blessed to have such a sweet, smart, energetic, and loving little boy. Thanks to everyone here and back home who helped us celebrate! I told Eli the other day that he will now be three for a very long time (just so he wasn't expecting to have a party every weekend). Now if you ask him how old he is he says, "I'm three, and I'm going to be three for a veeerrrry long time." Ha! Love him to pieces.

Bike Trips

A post from Marc…

One of my favorite things to do in the afternoon at Galmi is to go for a jog or a bike ride. Once you get over the heat, it is very refreshing to get outside for an hour or two and enjoy a different view of life around here. Some days the thermometer is reading over 110 F, but I find that once I get running or biking the breeze cools me off and I barely notice the temperature any more. The hospital compound is situated in a valley with a tall bluff directly across the street and another large hill about 3 miles past the airstrip. I love the view of the hospital and town of Galmi that I can get from the top of the hill.

Riding in the dirt and sand with a one gear bike and an over-sized seat is not as easy as it looks!

It took 3 tries, but I finally scaled this hill north of the hospital property. In the distance you can see a small village near the top. I was greeted by several smiling mothers and their children when I arrived. I think they were wondering why a crazy white man would be running up their hill during the peak heat of the day.

When we can coordinate our schedules, I enjoy getting away with David – a missionary kid who was raised in eastern Niger – or Christopher – a long term missionary physician from Oregon. David’s favorite place to ride is the reservoir – a large man-made body of water east of Galmi. It holds water year round and can release it at certain times to irrigate fields for the farmers. 

David is an avid naturalist and enjoys taking his binoculars for bird-watching. He also likes to photograph plants that can be seen around the reservoir. He manages the trees and plants on the hospital compound and loves finding new things that grow well in this hot and dry climate.

This is the view directly across from the reservoir. It is so green in this area because of the irrigation the reservoir provides. This is probably some of the best farmland near Galmi.

Christopher loves to ride off to small villages outside of Galmi to check on children and families that he has recently cared for in the hospital. It is usually quite an adventure to find children around here. So many of them have the same name, and the name of their village in the hospital record is sometimes just an approximation of the nearest town. Most of our time is often spent wandering around asking if anyone knows the child we are looking for.

                      In some places on the road the sand is so deep that we do more walking than biking.

We rode off the day after Easter in search of a 6 month old that Christopher had seen at 1 month of age. His mother delivered in her village and died shortly after from what sounds like an eclamptic seizure. The child was very underweight when his grandmother brought him in and he looked malnourished. She was feeding him powdered formula, but she was diluting it with way too much water to save money. Christopher talked with her about the right proportions to mix together and hoped that this 1 month old would survive. We were not sure if we would find him alive when we set out on our trip.

These villages are quite a site. It looks like almost nothing has changed in centuries… except for the motorcycles and cell phones.

These are some of the ways villagers travel in Niger...

This is a village well where everyone congregates to fill up their jugs of water.

The usual course of events is that we get introduced to the chief of the village and sit down with him on a mat for a few minutes to get acquainted. After formalities, we asked the chief if he knew the child we were searching for. He looked puzzled, and then left for 10-15 minutes to ask some of the local women if they knew the boy. We were then directed to another nearby village and repeated the process. This time, we found him! He is now 6 months old and thriving. Look at how plump he is!

It turns out that his grandmother had taken him to the hospital earlier in the morning for a visit, but was turned away because the hospital was closed in observance of Easter. We asked her and the other onlookers if they knew why we were closed. No one did. They had never heard of Easter before. Christopher then told our audience the story of Easter. I think this was probably the first time anyone in this village had heard the good news.

Christopher then presented the family with a new can of formula as an Easter gift. We also gave the chief several small bags of frozen yogurt that we purchased in Galmi before we left. A cold treat is quite a luxury in a village with no refrigeration. And then Christopher lined up all the kids to pass out some candy.

With our journey a success, we set off for the long ride home filled with joy that we had found the young boy alive and that we had the chance to share God's love with so many people.

Happy birthday Eli!

More pics to come after Saturday's party. :)

Visits to Danja

During our orientation in Maradi, our group made a visit to see the Danja Fistula Surgical Center and to see the other work that they do in Danja like working with leprosy patients. The Fistula Center just had its grand opening a few months ago. SIM Niger partnered in this with the Worldwide Fistula Fund and they are going to do some great things for the women in this region in the years ahead. You can read more about this SIM Niger project and why there is a need for this kind of medical care HERE. Since the visit was scheduled during the kids' nap time, Marc went with the group and I stayed back while the kids slept.

Gracie was there representing the little ones and making sure everyone's owees were doing ok.

 Some of the medical staff that work at the fistula hospital

Since I couldn't go tour the hospital the first time, Marc and I went back later on in the week with the kids. We had a great time walking around with the regional director and Eli and Hailey enjoyed providing the entertainment for all the patients and their families. The leprosy ward is behind Marc and Bert in the picture below. I had never seen anyone with leprosy until our visit. This hospital compound first opened in the 1950's as a leprosarium. Much like in biblical times, people with leprosy become outcasts in their village and are shunned from their families. The hospital opened to provide medical care for the patients and give them a place to live. It has slowly grown to provide care to patients with other medical conditions, but leprosy is still one of the most common things that they see and treat. It is hard to imagine that a disease like leprosy, that is easily treatable, still exists in the world. However, it is quite common in Niger. When we walked the ward, we saw many patients disabled and with missing fingers and toes as a result of untreated leprosy. As we heard about the history of the church in Niger we learned that Danja is one of the first places where Christianity took root as a result of SIM Niger's compassionate care of leprosy patients.

We headed back to Danja on Sunday for church. Here are some women chatting after church.

We took Eli's Nerf soccer ball with us and the Nigerian kids loved kicking it around after the service.

After church we headed out to Lake Madarounfa for a picnic! Marc and I could not believe that we were actually hearing "lake" and "Niger" in the same sentence since we had not seen any naturally occurring body of water since arriving here in January. This lake has an average circumference of 5 km and happens to be one of the few permanent open bodies of water in Niger. It was well worth the 30 minute car ride out there!

Shortly before we arrived we saw a dirt devil that was spiraling high above the tree tops. You can somewhat see it off in the distance in this picture, but trust me, it was very cool to see in person.

The Goulbi N' Gabi river is what forms Lake Madarounfa, but the riverbed is actually dry the majority of the year. It only has flowing water during the rainy months of July and August. There is a grass path that is put down over the sandy riverbed for travel purposes. I took this picture of the truck behind us after we crossed the riverbed. :) It is crazy to see such a large portion of river completely dried up.

There were lots of villages scattered along the lake. I imagine this lake is probably very precious to people in a country that is so dry and hot for the majority of the year. I couldn't capture everyone in this picture  below, (because I took it out of a moving vehicle) but there was a large group of women off to the right washing clothes, the children in the middle were swimming, and the man on the left brought his cows down to the water for a drink. A picture like this makes it more understandable why clean drinking water is a necessity for good health. In the same small area, animals wade and drop waste, kids swim and women wash clothes.

Everything was so green. This was refreshing to see after only seeing dirt for so many months.

The animals certainly know where to hang out.

Who needs a zoo when you can stand right next to a herd of camels???

These are mud bricks carved into the softer ground of the shoreline as the water recedes. Then after the bricks dry, people can use them to construct their homes or other building structures.

Don't let the serenity of the picture fool you, it was still a scorcher out there under that tree.

Eli enjoyed throwing rocks with the big kids.

Marc spotted this man off in the distance in his boat and flagged him down...

 ...and before I knew it Marc and Eli were setting out for a little boat ride. I should probably never again wonder where Eli gets his sense of adventure from. :)

Back to the water subject... Marc said that while they were on the boat, this villager dipped a plastic bottle in the lake, filled it up with cloudy brown water, and started drinking it. The lake is contaminated with schistosomiasis and animal waste, but it seems that many don't understand the importance of clean drinking water or they just don't have any other options.

 Here is our picnic crew... the majority of these folks are new friends from Australia.

We had a wonderful time exploring in Maradi and Danja and made lots of great memories (and some new friends!). Marc is going to take over the blog for the next week or so since he has some good posts he wants to share with you.

Pool Day in Maradi

The kids' favorite part about our trip to Maradi was our visit to the French club swimming pool. We have a small above ground pool here at Galmi that we really enjoy but this pool was much larger and the kids had a great time. Eli loved jumping in from the side and off the diving board. He can't swim yet and unfortunately still has no fears about being in the water. At one point he jumped in before we told him to and when we weren't within reach of grabbing him. Another man who was swimming with his two boys thankfully came to Eli's rescue since he was close by. It didn't phase Eli one bit and he went right back to jumping off the diving board (at least this time he waited until his daddy was ready!). We also ordered some spaghetti and some cheeseburger like sandwiches that were really yummy. 

Fearless Eli... Marc had to catch him while treading water. :)

Don't get any ideas Miss Hailey...

What a fun day! We enjoyed all the new families that we went with as well.