bienvenue chez nous! part 2

These are pictures from the inside of our house. The house is big, bigger than we need. There are 4 bedrooms and 3 baths. We have a big living room. There is a small kitchen with plumbing from a separate water barrel for when the water is off.

Abby and Josh's room

The kids' bathroom

There is also a guestbroom and laundry room.

And one great feature, we can walk on our roof. It is a great view of the neighborhood from there.

Thanks for your prayers! Continue to pray as this next week we will begin working with our house helper and also begin our language classes.

bienvenue chez nous! part 1

Welcome to our home! 

We have spent the better part of our first 2 weeks unpacking and setting up our home. We are starting to really like it!  There are some things to fix (next blog post), but praise God we are adjusting!

Abby and Josh love to play outside! We have our 2 turtles back, Rosie and Rambo. They are somewhat liking their new home. We will find them some more sand so they can burrow as they are natural at doing. We feed them cabbage and clean their water daily.

Josh and Abby love to swing! We are spending our afternoons sainging in the shade, playing in sand, and racing against a fast Abby Chip on her bike around the house.

Continued....

First week

Our first week in Niger! Oh what an adjustment it has been! Where oh where to begin?

We arrived on Saturday the 10th, and were greeted at our home by a friend and coworker who happened to bring us soup for our dinner. What a wonderful treat! We got all of our bags in our house, looked around briefly, and ate our supper before getting ready for bed. Abby adjusted her sleep schedule perfectly from day 1,  and slept like a baby the first night in her room. Denise and I unpacked every night from 9 until midnight or later. 

Sunday morning we were greeted by our wonderful utility companies with cuts! Both water and power were out at 7am

 No water and no power all day. Power returned around 8pm, water pressure came on around midnight. We weren't prepared so we simply had to go in our fridge even though there was no power (a no-no in hot season as things in the fridge spoil easily). 

Once again, we were bailed out by an amazing friend in our time of need. I had just gotten my phone set up with a local number and Denise's best friend called me to say they were beinging pizza for our family. Thank you God for truly amazing friends. Thank you God for knowing our need even when we fail to ask. 

We are in an area of town known for frequent power and water cuts. Other than the first day, the power has been pretty good! There has been the occasional outage, usually lasting no longer than an hour. But water for our first week was a challenge. We found we had a trickle of water at our hose pipe by the meter for most of the day. But we rarely had enough water pressure during the day to get any water to come out of any sinks inside our house. This is due to the heavy demand as everyone else in the neighborhood was also using water. We had enough water to wash dishes at midnight. We could take a shower around 1am. I had to do bucket baths my first 5 days. We filled every empty container we had available for washing hands, flushing toilets when necessary, and other essentials. We do have a cistern holding 55 gallons of water and use it for washing hands and dishes when we needed to. 

Let me also describe drinking water. We use a filter to clean our drinkable water. There is one plumbed to the house that we were going to rely on for our drinking water supply. But with no water pressure it didn't work. Our first night I stayed up until 230 am filling up the 12 1.5 liter containers we had used for drinking water that day!

Another blessing, when we first came to West Africa we packed as if we would live in the bush. One thing we packed for bush living was a katadyn filter that stands alone. By the first night I had found it and on day 2 we began to prepare it for use (they need charging when they are brand new). Now we have drinkable water throughout the day with no worry of running out! 

So we have spent the days mostly playing with the kids and adjusting to the heat. Abby started to have frequent nosebleeds. Denise made a saline spray and a teammate brought us a tube of vaseline so that we could make her nose more moist. Treating her nose with both of these have made her frequent nosebleeds much less frequent. She would have had 5 or more nosebleeds during the day her first 3 days. After day 3 maybe she has had 2 in the last week. Praise God we were able to address this issue.

Have we mentioned how hot it is here? Daily temps rise to about 110 or so. So keeping Josh hydrated has been a concern of ours. We discussed supplementing nursing with cool water in a baby bottle and have been doing that after feedings. Josh likes this and will usually even hold the bottle while he drinks. Abby likes flavored popsicles and I asked if there was a way Josh could get his own icicle. Turns out Denise has a teething popsicle net that will pop open and has room for a 1 inch cube of ice. Sucking on that has made Josh so happy! He seems to be doing much better with staying hydrated and having wet diapers again.

It has taken Josh longer to adjust to our new time zone. He liked going to bed at 2am ea h night of our first week. By day 7 he seemed to finally get on the right schedule. He is still waking up at night to feed. His sleep schedule seems to be getting better every day.

By day 5 we pretty much had our kitchen and clothes unpacked and set up. Abby has been finding toys and books from our time in Africa last year. Each day she finds something else and acts like it is Christmas! It has been fun to see and I  know has helped her with the adjusting. We have a swing and some of her outside toys setup so she can play the games she has always enjoyed playing. And she has been so good playing with Josh when we are occupied with our own tasks.

There was a family of cats that took shelter under our vehicle under our carport. We found them on day 1 and Abby loved holding the baby kittens (3 weeks old?). Mama cat moved her 3 babies the next day to keep her kittens from curious 4 yeal old giants who love to hold and pet her babies. It was probably wise as our vehicle was going to be a danger to them.

I am writing this on day 11. Today we felt like our house is mostly unpacked and functioning. We have our list of things to purchase and things to fix. But we are making great progress in settling in and adjusting to our new home!

Thank you for praying for us!

Traveling to Africa!

The day finally arrived. We had been anticipating our travel to Africa for many months. All the goodbyes to friends and family. All the last minute shopping. All the covid testing. All the packing. Abby had been counting down the day on her calendar. The day was finally here, we were finally ready. Can you be fully ready and prepared? 

Abby's calendar just over Josh's head

Friday morning we loaded up our luggage and set off for the airport. We had 9 totes and 3 suitcases as our checked baggage. Denise and i weighed each one. In weighing the last tote before traveling, I happened to take out 2 bottles of medicine and a piece of cloth fabric. The scale gained 3 ounces! I exclaimed to everyone in the house that I had broken the laws of physics! But in fact this made me nervous that our bags would be overweight.

Well, God hears and answers prayers. All but one of our bags were 49 pounds or heavier, yet not one was over our allotted weight!  The only checked bag weighing less than 49 pounds weighed 48 pounds. We were so happy to not have to repack any of our bags or totes. Denise did wonderful packing our luggage and I give her all the credit. It couldn't have been any better!

My mom and George took our totes with them to the airport. Denise's brother Steve surprised us by joining us for the evening before leaving, and saw us off at the airport as well. He then drove off with his newly purchased car that he bought from us.

The airplane rides were mostly uneventful. Denise was a champion mommy as always, sitting between both kids while I was separated from them, either by an aisle or by a row. I was there to watch kids during potty breaks, take kids to go to the bathroom, change diapers, hold hands and pray, and share stories, but Denise handled the kids for the majority of the time with all wisdom and grace.

Abby giving all the hugs

We like to explore during our layovers at airports. The airport in Atlanta was my highlight. We found a nice porche Panamera! Abby found a bookstore with some of her favorite titles-Daniel Tiger large story book being one. There were also many stuffed animals, knick knacks, and novels there. I am reminded of how much I liked knick knacks and stuffed animals when I was Abby's age. Denise and Abby found a very cool service animal relief area! Abby was so excited she had to show me, too. I had mentioned when we entered the gate area and saw signs for restaurants of my sudden Asian cuisine craving, and Denise found the perfect mouth watering sign while I watched Josh and luggage. Oh, and how could I forget that we got to ride a train and an elevator?!!

Mommy Abby snack

service animal relief station

bye Aunt Sum

train ride!

Paris to Africa was the hardest flight transition. When we deplaned we immediated checked the departure table to see our next gate assignment. One departure sign said our flight was at one terminal, but as we went that way we discovered  another sign pointing us back to the terminal we had just left from. At least we got to ride another train! We had to go through customs with very little layover time. They were odd in that they required us to use their ziploc bags for our liquids, required us to use large boxes to put our carry on luggage bags into, and wouldn't bother to refill the boxes when they ran out. We made it through customs 30 minutes after boarding for our flight began. We got in line and were tired, hungry, hot, and thirsty after carrying all the luggage and a tired Abby all through the airport. Denise had just enough time to fill water bottles before we boarded our flight. I was nausious on this flight and couldn't even look at food. 

I need to brag on Abby. Without her help we honestly could not have gotten all our bags boarded. We found that she could easily push my small tote that had 4 wheels. She loved pushing it down the ramp and through the aisles. She is always a big helper! She wore her mask very well for the duration of our travels! She was actually sad to learn she didn't have to wear her mask on the airplane from Paris to Africa. "But Daddy said I need to wear my mask on the plane!  I overheard and told her, "That's right, but we just learned you don't have to if you don't want to! That rule is for kiddos 6 and older." She was a champion throughout the whole travels. Thank you Abby Chip!

being a goof wearing Josh's hat.

I can't brag about Abby without also bragging about Josh. He was the best any 5 month old could be! People who saw me hold him during the flight even said they forgot he was on board. He was a very calm traveler. Great job, Josh!

Well, we made it. After getting off our last flight we got our stroller and made it to customs. Abby helped me find a bathroom for her (more escalators) and me, and we came back to help Denise fill out customs papers. We were last in line only to learn we didn't fill out the proper form. So we start over filling out the proper forms, getting our fingerprints scanned and our stamps of acceptance. 2 hours after landing we finally collect our luggage-all of it! We had 2 men who were overly excited to help us with our luggage load everything into the SUV and one of our coworkers drove us to our home.

Here we are! We knew it would be a big challenge to get here and to get settled. And we are surviving. One day at a time.