Sacrificing sheep in Niamey, Niger

Six airports, six countries (four not on purpose), five flights, 14 hours from A to B ….. where A to B was only 90 minutes of flying time apart

Getting to Niamey wasn’t as easy as it should have been! In theory, Niamey is about 90 minutes flying time from N’djamena. Unfortunately there aren’t any direct flights, or even any indirect flights. I had booked a route leaving N’djamena (Chad) at 7am that was supposed to arrive in Niamey at 17.45, after four consecutive flights (via Douala (Cameroon), Lome (Togo) and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)). West Africa being the fun place it is, I got a surprise bonus country, as we also ended up going through Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire). Apparently one of the Asky planes was broken, so they just shoved us all on one plane and added a drop off in Abidjan – but they didn’t tell us that until we had boarded. Note I had already spent a lot of time in each of those four countries previously, so there was no upside to revisiting their airports. On the bright side I only had to get off the plane in Lome, and they had wifi in the terminal. I had contemplated going overland, but it would have been three days in a bush taxi and it wasn’t particularly safe at the moment with Boko Haram.

These things used to bug me when I started travelling, now i feel like 12 hours of travel on five flights with free food, aircon and loos is better than 12 hours in the back of bush taxi smushed between sweaty passengers. I wasn’t even that bothered by the extra two hours going to Abidjan…. in Africa, I am just grateful to arrive :-).

Relaxing evening – steak frites

I finally arrived at Niamey at 19.20 just in time to watch the sun setting over the river as we landed…. 12 hours since the 7.15am departure from N’djamena. There were twenty of us disembarking – 4 chinese workers (all of whom had tried to get off in Ouaga by accident), one lebanese guy, 4 african business men and three women with an assortment of children. We really are at the end of the world.

Mr Amadou was there to pick me up, and i was surprised by how lively the streets were, and how many motorbikes were going past with live sheep on them. He explained that I have arrived just in time for the festival of mutton – Tabaski or Eid el Adha (the festival of sacrifice) – in celebration of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. Apparently everyone has to slaughter a lamb, give one-third to the poor, one-third to friends and neighbour’s and have one third for your family. That would explain the flocks of sheep road side, and the sheep on the moto -taxis, its a bit like being back in NZ

I arrived at the lovely Tabakady restaurant and hotel to be greeted by the lovely Ida from Togo and the lovely Moroccan manager. Its nice to meet some women. This place is one of the best restaurants in Niger which also has a few basic rooms attached. I highly recommend it. I have said it before, and i know i am repeating myself, but the upside of french colonisation is that you can get an excellent steak frites with sauce au poivre in the unlikeliest of places. It was an excellent dinner! Off to bed to get some sleep after my 4.40am wake up call, i needed too rest up for the lamb festival.

I woke up freezing – the air conditioning had two settings – ferocious or off. I decided to drag myself out of bed to get going before it got too hot. After an excellent breakfast of omelette, croissants and Bissap juice I headed out to stroll around town. Apparently Niamey is famous for muggings rather than kidnappings, and I’m ok with mugging so was happy to walk. Kidnappings I am less cool with! (note I did avoid the two main mugging spots of town, I am not a complete fool.)

Wandering the streets

It was a sleepy morning for a Wednesday, and it turns out the the downside of the sheep festival is that pretty much everything is closed. The upside is that the smaller streets were full of friendly locals preparing for a feast. I do love walking around African cities. Locals aren’t used to seeing toubabs (white people) walk – toubabs are a species normally spotted in 4wds. As a result most people are surprised to see you and are keen to say hello. I also get optimistically chatted up by all manner of young men, who seem to be using me as a good excuse to try out their pick up lines….. am pretty sure most of them would run screaming if i appeared mildly interested.

First stop the perpetual lady of succour – the main cathedral. It was an interesting brutal concrete building with natural air con provided through the designed holes in the brick work. It was sleepy and lovely.

Niamey cathedral
Niamey cathedral

Crying in the zoo

After that, I went to the national open air museum. It was officially closed but an entrepreneurial guard let me in (i.e. in return for a modest bribe). All the pavilions and shops were closed so there wasn’t much to see. I hadn’t realised the museum also had a zoo, and by accident I ended up near the animals. I hate zoos in general, but this was awful. Tiny filthy cages. I started crying when I saw the chimps and then the lion cage. It was vile. Poor animals. I decided it was time to move on.

Dinosaur at the zoo
Zoo pavilion
Zoo pavilion

Coffee and the NationalAssembly

I stopped into Amandine cafe to fortify myself with a coffee and take advantage of the air con. It was 10 am and I was already drenched in sweat. Its not technically that hot here – probably 35, but it feels like 45. Properly restored I headed out to continue sweating and walking. I saw the National Assembly (and the guard gave me permission for a photo), and also checked out some of the other government buildings.

Congress
Main square
National Assembly
Hotel du Ville

Rubbish in the grand market

I then headed around the Grand market. The actual market was closed today but there were a few stalls open. When open, there are 5000 stalls in the main market, but it has burnt down more than once given the closely packed quarters. The rubbish was depressing!

Grande marches entrance
Grande marches entrance
When closed the vendors leave most stuff there but cover it up

Blood in the streets

After that I meandered through the streets strolling the few kilometres to the Ghadaffi mosque. The small streets had become abattoirs with blood literally running in the streets. They weren’t joking when they said that it was a festival of lamb sacrifice – i gave up counting when I had passed 100 slaughtered lambs. There are clearly no butchers here with nicely vacuum packed cuts of lamb. Groups of men with sharp knives were slaughtering, skinning and gutting the sheep every few metres along the streets. It was extraordinary. The small kids were digging holes to bury the entrails. The young boys were sent off to buy sticks to skewer the whole lambs. Other family members were building fires. If i was ever going to become a vegan again, today was the day. On the bright side, it was quite nice to see men actually doing physical work, typically its women in Africa who do all the work. Today the ladies were in their finest clothes and observing proceedings from afar.

These men were butchering street side – it was a continual bloodletting
Later in the morning, butchering done
Later in the morning, butchering done
Now time for cooking

Ghadaffi’s gift

I eventually reached the Ghadaffi mosque – which was gifted to Niger from Gadaffi. Prayers had finished for today so I was invited in to take a look around. It was a stunning mosque, with beautifully intricate tile work, and unusual yellow tiles. After having a gossip on the steps with the custodians, who were trying to persuade me to go and buy them a lamb, I summoned up the energy to stroll back to town.

Ghadaffi mosque
Ghadaffi mosque
Ghadaffi mosque
Mosque guardian

It was sweltering by the time I got back to the hotel so I opted for a laze by the pool with a Diet Coke, and a chat with the wait staff who gave me some free lamb to eat (honestly it was pretty delicious).

Another wee stroll, some more energetic exercise catching a huge cockroach in my room, and then a quiet pizza by the pool. And so ends my amusing time in Niamey. Another early night as have another 5am pick up

I was up early this morning, earlier than my driver so had an amusing ten minutes hanging with the security guards outside the hotel who were fully kitted our with laptops and phones and watching Nigerian dance videos – hilarious. And now am loving the airport, after two nights of dial up speed, the high speed WiFi provided for free by the Chinese corporation at the airport is amazing! Also reinforcing my view that we are at the end of the world, there were only 10 passengers on the flight with 50 spare seats.

5 more to go, next stop Bangui
Niamey August 23, 2018

Additional notes

  • Stayed at Tabakady – a restaurant with a few rooms and a nice pool
  • Flew in with Asky and out with Air Burkina when asky cancelled their flight ; RAM might be a better choice though

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