On Arrive

From snowmen to sand-drifts.

Amsterdam to Niamey. It's just a five hour flight from Paris, but the differences are far more than just the temperature.

I arrived on Wednesday - a little bushwhacked after sleeping the night on the floor in Paris CDG airport - with three huge suitcases, a rather cool hat and a big sense of wonder.

Sleeping on an airport floor is embarrassing, but I don't think I was recognised.

In these days when so little travel is possible, I get this amazing opportunity to be in Niamey, Niger, together with my partner, Superman. (But more on that later.) My knees went a bit wobbly seeing the river Niger from the air. It starts in Guinea, less than 250km from the ocean, but makes a massive 4,200km arc through five countries, creating a green streak through the scorching desert. Yes, I'm a geography geek and I can get a crush on a remarkable river.

Superman met me at the airport, picked me up in the car "we" have bought - a 2003 Corolla. Luckily, fixing cars is one of his Superpowers, and we are less obviously rich and foreign in this well-used ride.

For now, we're staying in a hotel - pretty, single story buildings around a green courtyard. The buildings are pale yellow, with blue/grey trim and Tuareg symbols painted on in ochre. The courtyard has palms, frangipani, mango trees, lantana bushes, Cana lilies and more. There's a gang of peacocks wandering around. And the lantana bushes are a good place to dry laundry. Another courtyard has a lovely - and welcome - pool. And decorating the edges of the pool are a dozen Italian airmen, here on some unspecified mission. I'm sure the mission is not simply to be eye candy, but ......

Superman had been looking at houses, as well as cars. On Thursday we visited his top choice - a pleasant bungalow with some character, on a sand street. It has a small garden (someone has planted tomatoes) and a tiny - and currently rancid - pool. There's a large shaded patio and a baby mango tree. The exterior only needs the addition of barbed wire (!) across the top of the walls, and it's perfectly liveable. Inside is shade of brown on dark brown, except for the bathroom which is electric blue. Not a relaxing colour scheme, but we can work with it. We like the place - undoubtedly middle class, but unpretentious. Everything is covered in about an inch of red sand from the Sahara - courtesy of the Harmattan season which blew in a sandstorm last week. "In principle" it will be cleaned by Saturday afternoon, the broken wiring fixed and the brownest of the four brown sofas taken away, so we may move in on Monday. Inshallah.

We may be here for as little as three months, and in any case want to avoid buying too many consumer goods, my suitcases were packed somewhat unconventionally.

The little blue one contained my clothes and shoes.

The others were packed with kitchen items, as many drugs as I could persuade my doctor to prescribe, a sewing machine, cheese and - possibly the strangest thing that anyone has ever imported into Niger -- that Welsh breakfast treat consisting of boiled seaweed.

PS for those who came to this blog via my FB page, I brought an old fashioned coffee percolator, but not a tea pot.