Red Dirt or Green Grass

Continuing on from the last post about our journey to Niger.

After the meal Jill asked us what continent we had in mind and we replied 'Africa' for no particular reason. She then said 'what area are you wanting to work in?' to which we replied 'teaching in an MK school'. Jill enquired further with SIM about this and two MK schools in Africa replied with a definate yes, Bingham Academy in Ethiopia and Sahel Academy in Niger.

When we got the two brochures for the two schools the differences couldn't have been bigger. Bingham was in a country with a reasonable climate, spoke English and the school had green grass and nice looking buildings. Sahel was in a country that spoke French, the buildings were not airconditioned (arre now though) and the climate averaged 27C at night and over 40C during the day. I could go on but you get the picture.

Seeing as we wanted to challenge ourselves we chose Sahel Academy in Niger and so the rest of 1999 was spent in sorting out what was needed to get to Sahel for the following school year in mid 2000. More on those preparations next time.

Pic: Top: Part of Niamey, capital city of Niger from the air Bottom: Ethiopia from the air