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Published: February 25th 2008
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Mud Houses
Adobe style housing is the dominant housing type in the area. February 23, 2008 The Project at Gounday Happy Birthday Chris. Well, not a traditional birthday in any way for my dear husband. The only indication it is his birthday are the cards for him from the kids and a birthday e-mail. I wish him a happy birthday, we eat breakfast, and then we head out. We are off this morning to another project, also located at the Burkina Faso border, but more west of Niamey, north of the previous project. The route today is the highway heading west and eventually a ferry crossing to continue along the highway. The road is somewhat parallel to the Niger, we can see the river sometimes. It is a relatively clear day, which means no wind and lots of heat! The area is relatively flat, and savannah looking - where we travel is the image I have in my mind when I think of Africa. It is fascinating.
There are a couple of check stops along the way. At the first one, we are noticed by the kids and they stand and wave at us. The paved highway has quite a few detours onto laterite portions as highway construction happens. At one
Dry River Bed
This river is huge. Look at all the sand! detour, we are given a baton that we hand to the attendants at the other end of the detour (system used instead of radios). As we drive along, pass along bridges over dry river beds, some are huge. I am sure the landscape looks very different in the rainy season.
The huts seen are changing a little, some look like beehives, smooth mud with a couple of ridges. Most of the housing is rectangular mud brick construction. Some of the beehive huts have thatched roofs, but there are few complete thatched huts. It looks like the beehive huts are supply/storage buildings as they are usually next to the square adobe style housing.
Ferry Finally, we turn left towards the ferry. It is a big blue boat and looks old. We are loaded onto the ferry very quickly after arriving. Amadou makes arrangements for me to head up to the captains area to take pictures of our trip. It is fun and the ferry isn’t too busy. The ferry is like a market on water, there are people selling things (food, supplies) and there are people looking for donations. The Niger is quite wide, and the ferry crossing takes
Brick Making Site
Bricks are being made in the dry river beds. Note the women in their colourful clothing walking with supplies on their head. about 5 minutes.
Back onto paved highway. Along the way, see about 4 signs for WorldVision projects - it would seem that they are quite active in Niger, at least in this area. As we drive, many women are out pounding grain and people are waiting for rides (taxis). Here, people wave for a ride and many look disappointed we do not stop for them. In Guinea, I noticed people would shake their thumb or their pointing finger to indicate they wanted a ride. The taxi mini vans are fewer and seemed to be piled higher!
There is brick making happening in some of the large dry river beds. Would love to have gotten a closer look. Also see huge areas of what looks like a crop, and later learn that it is harvested fields of millet.
We pass through the large village of Banjo, and it has a large watering hole at its perimeter. Today is market day, and the large animal section of the market is to the right of the road, and the small animal section is to the left. The market for other supplies is down the main street and I spot hanging
Bridge of the Ferry
The captain and his crew meat at a stall, probably goat or sheep. There are lots of people going to the market today.
Camp Malibu We travel in total, about 1 ½ hours to arrive at our camp in Gounday. The camp looks very similar to our other project, with thatched buildings and huts. The biggest difference is the yard is reddish sand. Walking across it feels like walking at the beach, except there is no ocean or even a body of water. We tell Moussa, the geologist for the project, it is like being at a beach resort and he says, “like Malibu”, so we nickname the camp “Camp Malibu”.
Moussa is yet another nice person. He speaks some English, so we can communicate (yay!). We first check out his office and he has compiled a great map of the local pedology for one of the showings. I photograph it and later in the day, I am able to digitize it into AutoCAD. I will make it look “pretty” in the next few days and send copies back with Amadou from Toronto.
We have another big lunch, but this time, the cook is wonderful and sets it up as a buffet.
I do not feel guilty about not finishing the big pile of food in front of me, and I can take just what I want. Again, the food is excellent.
Artisanal Village We head out to the field and visit the trench sites. It is cool in the trenches today! One of the stops along the way was an artisanal village. It was so cool!!! There were all sorts of people around, and another group followed us around as we walked through the area. These folks are very organized and even have a small crusher (apparently a machine used to grind millet was converted to crush the finer rocks). The workings in the area are deep and we spot a ventilation tube. We get to watch one man pan his fines, and see the gold he has found. There is a sluicing area and miners everywhere. It was fascinating to see the process.
We continue to more trench sites and head out to another showing area. There is more hand trenching happening at this site, and the trenches are more shallow. We wrap up the day around 6:15 and head back to camp. I work on the pedology map for Moussa, then we have dinner. It is around 9pm when we finish, so Amadou, Chris and I head into Tera, a larger village 15km away, where we will stay the night (no guest quarters at this camp). We stay in the prefects other house, and have a wonderful sleep in a big bed.
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