SO THIS IS NIGER

Near Kanazi Island last Sunday

"THE BROAD-BACKED hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;"

Have you ever noticed that T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hippopotamus" in 
which he describes the physical features and natural habitat 
of the hippo are totally wrong? 

Posted by: Lewana at January 29, 2008 17:10 | link | comments (2)
africa, hippopotamus

Every Garden Tells a Story

I have always thought that a garden reveals everything about a person’s personality and character. The way people design their gardens, their choice of garden style are clues that can be as revealing as, say, the contents of their book shelves, fridges or bathroom cabinets.

What does a garden say about a person? Haven’t we all met gardeners who prefer the artificiality of box hedges to a scented garden, mathematically clipped topiaries to the exuberance of flowering bougainvilleas and rigidly symmetrical flower beds to the liveliness of a curved cottage garden border filled with flowering annuals and perennials?

Unlike the dynamic horticultural scene back home in Australia, in Niamey gardening for pleasure and with a bit of style is but for a few rare exceptions an almost unknown affair even amongst the numerous expatriates who live comfortably in large houses behind high walls. Every property has plenty of space for at least one large garage that usually houses one or two brand-new and expensive 4WDs.

Alas, most of my fellow expatriates here leave their garden spaces to be planted and watered by their watchmen whose gardening strategy could at best be summed up as *coup–coup and error. No one here has ever even heard of mulching to preserve precious water, or of companion planting, nor has anyone ever given the slightest thought to properly prune a tree or train a climber.

Predictably, my wishes for a decent-sized garden and for at least a few established trees were always met by blank stares by real estate agents and even by my fellow expatriates. You guessed it already. Niamey hasn’t any fellow Australians as far as I know.

Needless to say, the garden around our new home was not a pretty sight when we moved in last month. Mostly used by the former white inhabitants as a dumping ground for their household rubbish, the garden, though lush and shady because of several huge Gao and mango trees, densely planted with shrubs, potted plants scattered throughout, was a mess.  Littered with rusting tins and refuse, black plastic bags in every tree, shrub and creeper, it made my heart bleed for so much ignorance. The Europeans couples’ utter lack of respect for our environment and nature made me angrier than the rotting and fungi infested kitchen sink.

I decided I needed either to rip it all up and start over or reuse and transplant every single plant that I found in the garden. Eventually, I know, I will turn this unloved plot into the leafy environment I visualized when I first saw the property. Over time and with the help of a full time gardener Moukhela, this new garden will take me as far away from Niamey’s urban slum as it is possible to get.

After we had cleaned out the rubbish my first step was to remove several rampant bougainvilleas that had taken over the rather pretty veranda. Their roots had outgrown their pots and had found their way through broken tiles into the ground. Termites had followed the invasion and I killed the pest. It took Moukhela and Amadou, our day guard all day to cut the thorny branches and to dismantle the amateurish support constructed from metal pipes and wire. I would have loved to have shredded the branches and used the material as mulch, but unfortunately my garden shredder is still making its way in a container towards Niger. I worried about the huge heap on the road outside the wall but fortunately there was no need for concern. Within minutes a dozen goats arrived and diminished the heap to almost next to nothing. “C’est la fete de mouton”, grinned Adamou. Left-over branches were found and collected by a number of local women who thought that they would useful make wonderful kindling to light their cooking fires.

Surprisingly, a lot of hardy shrubs and plants had survived those amateurs. I even found a few pot-bound pink china roses who had survived here and there amongst the helter-skelter plantings. But otherwise there was not a flower in sight, not a whiff of fragrance but the acrid smell of ashes from numerous fire places and the reek of an overflowing cistern, no colours bolder than green and purple.

My next step was to outline a curvaceous mixed border with a garden hose around the perimeter of the wall and to dig in lots and lots of horse manure into the impoverished sandy- loamy soil. Moukhela, my twenty-five year old gardener is good at that. His native language is Jerma, but he speaks and understands French very well.  He doesn’t know a thing or two about gardening, but with his permanent good mood and friendly smile it is a pleasure to work with him.

While I learned gardening from my mother and grandmother, these people here never did anything but subsistence farming. Their knowledge is limited to grow millet and beans. Even vegetable growing is something fairly new in Niger. But Moukhela, who is an intelligent little bugger, soaks up my botany tutorials like a parched soil soaks up a rain shower.

Over the past weeks Moukhela learned how to prune a lemon and grapefruit tree and then we started to tackle things in bite-size chunks: Against the high walls we transplanted flowering shrubs and bougainvilleas, in a middle section we planted anything we could find in those root-bound pots that would create some colour and texture. We even found some purple –leaved begonias and purple ground-covers to fill the empty spaces in front.

Against the sunny garage wall we planted a sweet- scented of jasmine and Moukhela learned how to rig up a support trellis in a diamond shape.

Between the swimming pool and the curvaceous border I plan leave plenty of room for a spacious pebble rotunda under the mango tree grove.

By now, we have worked eight solid hours for 20 days. The potted plants are in the ground and are starting to recover.  Now the time has come to move a dreadful straight garden path that brutally cuts the garden into two uneven parts. In my mind I can see already see it all coming together. Different garden rooms, one flowing into the next. A garden bench to sit under a canopy of hanging plants and seasonal displays. Perhaps a knot garden and yes, tomorrow I will buy red and white roses.

Just let my garden speak to you…

*a vicious machete

Posted by: Lewana at January 24, 2008 16:16 | link | comments (2)
gardening, every garden tells a story

A new home in Niamey - Haven and Hell

A small bungalow in the shade of large Gao trees is not what you’d imagine to find slap-bang in the middle of Niamey’s sandy-gritty residential areas. Yet in the midst of a new suburban development area known locally as Khoura Kano, after several weeks of frustrating house-hunting, we finally found this ‘little gem’ that distinguished itself favourably from the twenty room mausoleums that are being built by the ‘Nouveau Riche’ of Niamey. On Christmas Day and with much relief we left the stifling junior suite in the Grand Hotel de Niamey for our new residence.

Calling our new home a little gem is, of course, vastly exaggerated. But it has a good-sized garden, a shady veranda, high ceilings and plenty of space to keep clutter out of sight. I even have two spare bedrooms for brave visitors and friends, who may be curious for a taste of life in the poorest country in West Africa. “The house has good bones and even some style, and I am tired of searching,” said my husband and I, just as tired of being locked into an airless hotel room agreed hesitantly.

“It will be a challenge to turn this neglected and run-down property into a decent home.” I grumbled.  Look at it closely.  This rental would be offered in Australia by real estate agents as a renovator’s dream. And will the house owner pay for all the necessary renovations in this uncared for house and cover a least some of the costs necessary to redesign this unloved, badly designed and trash-littered garden?”

It took long and complicated talks with our elderly landlord, a former mayor of Niamey. Like all African politicians he pleads that he is poor with no money in the bank. “I have four wives and sixteen children to support; he enthused during one of our discussions. I almost fell for his subterfuge untiI saw him driving off in a brand new and luxurious Toyota 4 WD. Like all landlords in Africa he demanded an inflated rent to be payed in advance for six months with a shameless sense of entitlement.

Obviously under pressure to pay for his new toy car, and anxious to rent out his house as quickly as possibly, he reluctantly agreed to enlarge the tiny kitchen, pay for new cupboards and to replace every single broken toilet bowl and washbasin, and to treat and replace the termite eaten in-build wardrobes.

I even managed to get him to repair or replace the many non-functioning neon lights in house and security lights in front of the garden wall - and to cover the costs for unblocking showers and sinks. I bet you get the picture by now.

On our first day I learned the hard way that the cisterns hadn’t been emptied for years. My first shower ended with a flooded bathroom, the same happened in the kitchen. Toilets couldn’t be flushed. Enough said, I think I am going outside now to redesign the garden…

 

Addendum

It seems that senseless violence is following me from Pakistan to Niamey. Two days ago, and just 600 hundred meters away from our new home one of our neighbours, the director of a private radio station was killed by a landmine explosion shortly before midnight.

Koura Kano has only laterite roads. It is a piece of cake to dig in landmines and then dissapear without being observed.

No-one has claimed responsibility for the explosion so far. We have not idea how to protect ourselves against these terrorists who do not claim responsibilities or give a reason for their evil deeds.

Posted by: Lewana at January 10, 2008 15:27 | link | comments (5)
africa, never a dull moment, niamey, niger, a new home in niamey