Africa is Amazing

It has been an incredible journey thus far and proves to keep getting better. We arrived 2 hours late into Niamey on Tuesday, but without any lost luggage, or bother. Tuesday was very difficult as we were very tired from not sleeping much on the planes. Starting Wednesday we have been busy orienting (and being oriented) ourselves to Niamey. We have learned that there are not many Sokoto here in Niamey. The dialect spoken here will not be similar to the one spoken in Konni, so we will have to be doubly sure to work with our language helper to learn the correct dialect. The culture here is amazing. The colors don't even compare to the most amazing pictures I have seen. I am anxious to be able to speak to more african as I learn more language but for now, learning about the culture of africa and not to forget the "missionary culture" is important to learn too. All the missionaries here have been wonderful in helping us adjust and transition. It has been nice to get to know the Western Fulani Team as they are almost a "sister team" to us. The phones are pretty bad, and the internet is not a good connection either. That is okay, Things are going very well. It is so crazy to me still that I'm in Africa. Tonight I am taking it easy, because we were in the market all afternoon bargaining for cloth for african clothes. I will send pictures as soon as I get them uploaded to the internet. Driving here is insane. I feel like someone is going to die around every turn. They don't go very fast, but that is not the problem. They are everywhere. Cars, trucks and motorcycles jet out in front of you all the time. I will only be riding my motorcycle inside the mission compound and when we get out to Konni. We are learning a lot about our town, Konni and the Fulani that live there. Also, Sokoto is not a very good name for them because of the shared culture that they have and the region in which they live, but we still have much more to investigate. The 15 we will be heading out to our town for the first time. We start language study with our tutor on Wednesday. Until then we will be visiting different places around the city to learn our way around and where to buy things. We bought food, cloth, soap, powdered milk, and lots more. The culture here is pretty different from what we will find in Konni we are told. That is not what I wanted to hear because it only means that much longer until I get to study the appropriate culture, but I am learning a lot about the african culture in general. Today we ate street food with our supervisor. I will be doing that often because it was really good and super cheap. We ate rice and beans and a different sort of yam that was almost like Ecuadorian yuca. Manioc or cassava in English I think. It is about to rain here, which is rare, but the amazing part about it is that a big dust storm just went through. It came like in the scene of that movie Hidalgo.... I haven't seen it, but everyone else compared it to that. It was basically an orange wall of dust. It came slowly over the horizon (you can see everything for miles) and crept up until it blocked out the sun causing an eerie orange haze everywhere. It was very exciting to me, but pretty eerie I want to write so much, and I can, the trick is to get it sent online. I'll post some pictures later tonight. In Him, Danielle