February 2006
Vol. 5, No. 9
Dear Friends,
Hello, we’ve now spent just over a month in Niger after
returning in mid-January from our five-month sojourn in America.
Aïchatou has gotten into the swing of things and, since January
23, has been going to clinics each morning to complete her rotations.
I drop her off at the hospital before 8:00 a.m. and then return
to our house, where I try to do a little office work, but spend
much of the morning watching the girls. When Aïchatou gets
back around 12:30 p.m., we eat, have the kids take naps, and then
take our own siesta before switching duties. I try to schedule
meetings and see people in the afternoons when Aïchatou is
home. In the evenings, Aïchatou tries to study for her clinical
exams while we put the kids to bed.
Yes, we found a house for our family and we’re really pleased
with it, except it is literally located on the western edge of
Niamey, which makes everything seem so far away. The house is
new, never-before-lived-in (and thus had a few areas not quite
finished). It has four bedrooms, which is what we were hoping
to find. One bedroom is for the girls, one is for the parents
and one is for Aïchatou’s grandmother, who is living
with us and is helping us with Laurey. We’ve decided to
turn the fourth bedroom into an office, since both Aïchatou
and I need the space to work and we also need a place to keep
our things out of the range of our two little girls. So far, this
has proven to be an ideal arrangement and has helped us get back
into the swing of things.
Well, almost. I don’t have a good way to get my email.
The phone-line connections seem much more problematic than they
were when we left last August, and the Internet cafes have such
slow speeds. I haven’t had much luck configuring Outlook
to download email. There is a new Chinese-technology wireless
network in Niamey, and I’m hoping to get that into our home,
which would really make it easier to work from our office and
have unlimited access to the Internet. That should help my productivity
quite a bit, since so much of my work involves communications.
It doesn’t come cheap (about eight dollars a month), but
if it works, it will make a life much easier for us and hopefully
result in more professional and timely work. |
