Niamey

So you knew I was going to compare this place to Chad, but I really – really – mean it this time. Niger looks, sounds and smells just like Chad. The same sandy streets the colour of a baseball diamond. The same nondescript mud brick walls that hide the low buildings, crude signs scrawled in Arabic and French the only hint of what lies behind. Men with their faces wrapped in scarves, women with their hair covered. The haunting disembodied voices of the mosques twisting serpent-like through the alleys. The goats, donkeys and stray dogs – and the smell they leave behind.

There are differences, of course. To begin with, you’re much more conscious of the desert here. The sand is everywhere, so fine that you’re not even fully aware how much of it you’re breathing in until you feel the grit in your teeth. It hangs in the air, just barely visible, muting the sky. Apparently there’s an enormous dune just beyond the city limits, the first hint of the Sahara. I’d love to go and see it, but I doubt I’ll have time. There are other signs of the desert too: camels burdened with bales of straw plodding serenely down the streets; Tuareg men on horseback squinting inscrutably in the scouring wind. You see this kind of thing in Abeche, but not in N’djamena. The big difference, though, the one that counts, is that Niamey is safe. Everyone seems to agree that it’s perfectly safe to walk the streets here, even at night. Since the sights are easily as interesting as those of NDJ, it’s a real disappointment that I won’t have time to take advantage of this freedom to have a look around. All I’ve managed to squeeze in so far is a visit to a Tuareg jeweler (and I’m much poorer for it).

You also notice the absence of oil money. No oil means no oil executives, which means no fancy hotels. The place where I’m staying makes Le Merdien NDJ look like the Hilton (with cockroaches, but still). There are other extractive interests, though, and the flight to Niamey was similar to the flight to NDJ in its odd mix of passengers. Economy class half full, business class oversold, the latter full of UN, Government, and in lieu of oil men, uranium men – either mining companies or scientific agencies like the IAEA. The Air France lounge at Charles de Gaulle was full of talk of isotopes and other radioactive language, though whether they were mainly scientists or mining interests I couldn’t tell. I guess it proves that every country, no matter how backwater, has something to offer.

A stable internet connection is not one of those things, however, hence the delay in getting this out. Hopefully Burkina will offer more on that front.