Long Trip to Niamey

The voyage between Niamey and Abalak is very long and very hot. When the roads are good it can be done in 8 hours, if your vehicle doesn’t break down. They’ve been working on fixing the roads since we were here last at the beginning of the year, so now the drive is down to nine hours. But it’s taken us as long as 14. Usually the first half of the trip is not so bad, it’s the second half during the heat of the day that’s the killer. Our team vehicle doesn’t have A/C, and it breaks down about every other trip to Niamey. None of the other project vehicles have A/C either. Micah gets dehydrated. I could nurse him the whole way there and it still wouldn’t be enough. Last time he stopped peeing after noon and didn’t pee until well into the evening. This time, though, I was a little more prepared and had about six ounces pumped off that I could give him. Still not enough, but it helped. What we ended up doing was to wet down his cotton swaddle blanket and wrap him up in that.