Fair warning: this is a long blog update. Feel free to skim :)
5 November 6:31 am.
We won. I haven’t slept since Monday night. I’m exhausted, or would be if I weren’t so far past that. We won. We huddled in our blankets watching CNN via Kenyan satellite TV, shivering, beset by weird interruptions at KTV decided to show glimpses of African towns instead of Cooper and Blitzer and in the hour before dawn we were rewarded with our very own new hope. And then, as dawn was upon us, he spoke to us as our new President elect. I cried. A lot. Here is what a president should be. We’ve defeated the Jabberwock. We won. And now we sleep.
6 November
Yesterday was pretty much devoted to sleepily wandering around, going ‘we won’ occasionally, and reading New Moon. I finished it today - enjoyed it, but again the images in my head don’t go with the casting at all, Edward especially, but we’ll see how it goes… still… crack. Today was for the market, though market day’s tomorrow. Tagged along with Christina and Angela and ended up spending much more than I should have - 2000F for dark linen for the shade hangar, nails to hold up the fabric - a lot of nails and we named the seller’s cat Barkatou as she loves cats - and then, on impulse, this amazing blue green pagne - 3 actually, what’s called a turmi - with butterflies in relief. I want to get a full complet (shirt, skirt, kalabi(trad. head wrap)) for layya (Tabaski - the holiday where each family slaughters a ram and shares the meat with trick-or-treaters in honor of the sacrifice of Isaac?? (I should have paid more attention in Sunday school…)) It’ll also serve well for swear in, though I may get my fancy not-very-Hausa one fixed as well - will post pix either way :) Not sure I want to go home tomorrow - between being sure to hear about Obama every 5 minutes and not looking forward to explaining the water tower project didn’t get chosen (I can’t blame them - the villages they chose needed help more than we do) I’m not looking forward at all. They don’t seem to quite understand or believe when I explain that Americans are NOT made of money. Maybe they’ll get the clue when I explain that I’m also not going to be buying a sheep all by myself for layya. I don’t have a spare 35,000F (~$78) lying around and I may not even be here for all that. Given that I still have my aversion to meat after the salla - I couldn’t even eat the lamb at Ousmane’s going away party before the election, no matter how nummy it looked. The smell… They will not be happy with me I suspect. But, as they say in Strictly Ballroom, watched while waiting for the election party to get going:
And so I shall be brave and go back tomorrow having only bad news on the local front to tell them somehow I suspect Obama’s win will only make the rest worse - the concept of delays and stages doesn’t always go over here, and thus now that we’ve elected Obama everything must magically fix itself in America, the land of milk and honey, and I, being from there, should have all the money and supp… **Distracted by Atonement. McAvoy would have made a much better Edward**
8 November
Back from Maradi yesterday. Found stickers which I pasted onto my water bottles and got rave reviews on. Listening now to World Fusion music from Dad and wondering how to solve Sarkin Hatsi’s water problems - all pumps are broken, there’s not enough money to fix them, and the water table’s dropped such that it’s now 30 gabas, 40-45m deep at the well. I wonder if World Vision would be willing to fix the wells and train the people to fix them themselves. Of course, that’s still not entirely sustainable but at least it wouldn’t take three hours of hard labor to fill a couple of 25L gerkas (usually old plastic oil bottles). Will ask Issaka for more details then add WV to the list of people I need to contact when I go back - Ousmane also gave me the name of a woman at CARE to contact for money counseling for the garka (garden) and women’s asusu (group fund). Here’s hoping that all works out. Am back under the family shade hangar having swept all kinds of gara (termite) dirt out of both rooms of my house (scary) this morning. Kader and Issaka are back from the fields and Nana’s off to sell haki made from bean leaves - surprisingly yummy, especially when powdered kulikuli (dried peanut paste after oil’s been extracted) is added. I’m also hoping that Kader can fix my solar charger adapter - the Nigerien sun has worked its evil and now the pins have come unstuck and I can’t charge my flashlight any more. Have just broken the no chateau news to Issaka and he’s taking it rather well. I told him I’d be trying to find other programs to ask for money and/or assistance, but the first step for me now is getting the busted pumps back in operation. 45m is insane to have to be pulling by hand. Of course, the pump’s not much better - inspiration for the Stairmaster I suspect. In other news, gave the family the pictures mom and dad had printed out and sent - they were beyond thrilled. Now Issaka wants a big one of the one of me and him - I explained while it was cheaper to get them printed in America (here it’s several USD per copy) that it’s still not cheap. Sai Hankuri (Have Patience)
9 November
Ah Niger, the only country, I suspect, where sharing a snack of roasted locusts (hwara) with your cat can be considered even remotely normal - actually, it implies a very spoiled kitten. Tastes kind of like spiky potato chips. Today was market day and for 2900F (~$6.50) I got myself fabric and a shirt made from it for the biki next weekend- very Hausa. It manages somehow to be both lovely and hideous. It’s red and has gold trim…
10 November
Spent the morning getting the new panels nailed onto my shade hangar. Either the wood is exceptionally hard or the nails are extremely weak - bent over half trying to get them in. They are holding the panels up now, so I guess that’s what counts. Nice and shady, plus I now have an extra panel blocking falling grime from the millet stalk roof. Pavilion in paradise or some such drivel. Speaking of, finished the 3rd Eragon book last night, Brisingr. He names his sword fire… Totally hokey escapist literature; I enjoyed every moment of it. I’m sure the family wondered what the giggling was about last night. I’m such a well-trained fangirl ;)
In other news, Issaka helped buy a goat for us to share for Tabaski. Technically it’s supposed to be a sheep, but they are waaaay too expensive. So, we’re splitting a goat, 10,000F out of 16,500F being my share. It’s black. Kinda cute. Hopefully tasty. It’s also helping me dispose of all the garin rogo (cassava flour) I accumulated back when I determined it was the best solution to not wanting to cook in the heat. I’ve since determine that the improvement of couscous is worth actually heating water, but that left me with several tiyas of gari just lying around in my old milk tin from when I first got here. Two birds with one stone - fatter goat, less clutter. Plus, it seems I now have chicks - 9 of ‘em. Issaka moved the chicken back from Barmao’s house and they hatched. The chicken herself is tied up in their cooking area, lest she go wandering again. I don’t know long it takes for them to grow but maybe we could eat them when I get back from Germany? I want edible breakfast eggs, not fuzzy little cheepy critters.
11 November
Later on yesterday was the women’s asusu - I bought more grasshoppers from Hinda so that she had enough to pay in - a habit I do not wish to get into. Talked to Sa’a and we’ll go to Yammata next Monday to help them set up an asusuof their own. I also told them I’d be going to Asusu Cii Gaba (an NGO) when I’m next in to check on the prices of real boxes for keeping the money in, rather than the piece of cloth they’re using now. Something they can lock, as they’ve accumulated over 15,000F and I’d hate for anything to go wrong.
Today was interesting. Began slowly - haven’t been sleeping well - doing laundry and reading The Mote in God’s Eye. Then around 12:30 headed out to where Kader, Issaka, Bukari, and another friend were tanka-ing - sewing an outer, water proofing covering onto a new rumbu (grain silo). The rumbu is turned upside down, looking like a grass hut without doors, tall grasses are stacked tightly around it, then cut green branches are sewn in loops around the rumbu using strong grass ropes. Harder than it sounds, but kind of fun to use my muscles and help out. Plus, there was tea, which, as everyone knows, I’m a total sucker for. In doing so, however, I proved I had neglected to put sunscreen on, so I’m now nice and lobster-y. Oops. Came back around 4 to shower (kind of - it’s cold season now and even warm water is freezing when the wind blows).
13 November
Am beginning to be alarmed by the amount of time I spend sleeping - like a large portion of yesterday, 1-6ish. Morning was fine - washed dishes, read more Mote, ate tuwo (got to love good food for 5¢). Meant to go wander and greet in the afternoon but sat down on my bed for a while to read Guns, Germs, and Steel (having finished Mote), and lost all will to get up. Sign of not enough magnesium? Not sure. I keep trying to think up catchy facebook-esque statements of my current status - I am:
• Wondering why I’m always tired
• Not where I thought I’d be at almost 27
• Wishing I had a clue what to do with large portions of my life
• Craving Chinese food
• Tempted to go eat more street food to slim down before Germany
• Watching her host brother do a 50 piece puzzle
• Wishing tea took less time to cook
I’m sure I’ll come up with more. If the world were all online I’d drive people nuts with status updates. Ambled around a bit this morning - got photos of the drying rumbu and of the crappy pump in case I need to show World Vision when I go in. Again, hoping they’ll work out the logistics to replace/fix the pump and teach us how to. Then came back and helped Kader clean the yard for the biki banda gobe (celebration day after tomorrow). At least, I swept out where my goat used to be and carried the taki (manure) to my garden. The goat got moved into the sun with the others - annoying. I considered asking to have her staked in my garden area but given the frequency I with which I go to Maradi, this seemed a better plan. She’s only here for another 20 days or so anyhow, then she becomes nama for Tabaski. I’m doing my best to fatten her up - easy access to a mix of manioc flour and bran, but water’s tricky, and being staked out in the sun doesn’t help - makes me think of the scene ni Jurassic Park with the Tyrannosaurus Rex - “Where’d the goat go?” **crunch** Trying to explain puzzle-solving skills to Nafiza, as critical thinking skills leave much to be desired here - they certainly aren’t encouraged in schools. And speaking of schools - I was informed that yesterday Nuwaru got kicked out of kindergarten because he’s too smart. He knows hes alphabet and numbers to at least 11. So, instead of encouraging him, getting him started on further schooling, they kick him out. It’s too late today but tomorrow I’ll try to get Issaka to go with me and track down the principal and see if we can either get him back in kindergarten or into the first year real school class, as they’ve just started and he hasn’t missed much.
14 November
Listened to Nights in Rodanthe last night - should have come with a warning for diabetics. Also for people stuck in Niger that don’t have access to supermarkets - they talked about cooking and I ended up starving for foods I have no access to here. I will wipe out Fresh Market and Trader Joe’s when I get back to the states. Still, a fair alleviation of insomnia-induced boredom.
Today should bring interesting news - we find out which of the newbies we get - somewhere between 6 and 8. Team Awesome is becoming Team Ginormous (and still Awesome). Came across an interesting thing this morning - Hydrolique, the governmental water people, is here to deepen one of the two wells. What Rabo, the man in charge, explained there is dropping in concrete rings, ~1m high, then pounding the underlying sand, with the water theoretically then pouring in from holes in the concrete rings. Of course, still doesn’t fix the overall problem of too-deep water. Ugh, wish I could stop sneezing long enough to write this. The winds are back with a vengeance, blowing dust everywhere and darkening the sky to a hazy grey. All the blowing debris is driving my allergies nuts, to the point where I take Benadryl 2-3 times a day.
The text with the newbies just came in - I then got nearly simultaneous texts from Barkatou and Sa’adiya going ‘oooh, almost all men!’ Lol. We develop one track minds out here.
15 November
Am tempted to call dibs on cooking the turkey. I could do it pretty well, I think. Rosemary and sage and butter (hungry now…). Today’s more prep for tomorrow’s suna (naming ceremony). Timing works out well - Happy Birthday Me and Happy Belated Birthday Malam Shaihi’i. Starting to read Paradise Lost, probably a bad thing as I’m empathizing with Satan. Interesting to see how many of the names of Satan’s compatriots have ended up in video games - here treated as real where now we use them for sport. Seems designers put a bit of thought into their games - I appreciate that :) . I really ought to stop sympathizing with the Devil ”Please allow me to introduce myself…”
Issaka’s compound is still a beehive of activity and the new constructions rare almost ready. They’ve put in new millet stalk fencing to block off the goat area from the entrance and renewing the partitions in other areas. Unfortunately my favorite change - the expansion of the family’s public shade hangar where I spend much of my time - is only temporary; they borrowed the materials for the expansion and they’ll go back after the suna. Tempted to see how much they are - given how much time I spend under the hangar it’d be worth it. Mostly now I’m just staying out of the way and making the busy bees sugary mint tea. I’ve also got a mat full of boiled and mashed yakwa (hibiscus) seeds, apparently mixed with ashes (?) and smelling vaguely fermented, drying on my yard - safer here than the beehive at the moment. Sa’a convinced me to try to taste some - quite possibly the most vile thing I’ve ever tasted, barring the rotted meat at salla. Vaguely reminiscent of the pickled plums in sushi. The plums win in texture, though. Blech. I did manage to wait until Sa’a’s back was turned before giving into facial convulsions. Apparently once it’s dried she’ll put it into tomorrow’s sauce. Here’s hoping it tastes better then.
Uhoh, turns out walima, the night time tea drinking session before the suna, goes until 3am. Time to dig out the ear plugs. It starts around 7:30 after prayers are done - Kader’s convinced me to try to stay awake until 11 - a hard task since I’m normally asleep by 8. Good thing we’ve already started the tea drinking. Of course, they are also setting up the speakers so staying awake may not be the problem. Not sure if my ear plugs will be enough. Loud is an understatement. And the Toni Braxton has started - my reading of Paradise Lost has transported me physically to Hell.
*Later* Talked with the parental units - thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes. 32 days and counting until Germany. Excited to see them and feel real cold (not that today’s shower wasn’t freezing in the wind, mind). Sounds like dad’s also been able to load my games onto the laptop so I can count on sanity-saving amusements when back in Niger. **Zombie Voice** Gaaaames…. Paradise Lost keeps getting better, if perhaps worse for my immortal soul. God comes off like a bit of a jerk, toying with Adam and Eve. Whoever read this copy before seems to have had the same idea - there are amusing penciled-in comments to that effect throughout. Keep getting a line from Brahma running through my head:
Find me, and turn thy back on Heaven
16 November
Happy Birthday to Me… Earplugs worked fairly well last night, so woke to the first day of my 28th year (having just completed my 27th…) feeling rested for once, if a tad chilly - cold season is definitely here. Warm purring kitten helped with that though. Scurried inside and boiled water for the breakfast I’d been hoarding specifically for today - freeze dried scrambled eggs and ham (bolstered with onions and cheese!) and hot Hershey’s cocoa. Then it was time for presents, flopped on my mat in my kitchen with Ghanima on my knee. Can hear the madhouse outside already in full swing. I’d best got put on my biki gear and brave the outside world.
Later (5:15): Long day. Spend the morning being a good biki-goer, greeting and drinking tea and sitting with women and babies. Gave Hassana 200F and a bar of the nicer soap; she was pleased. Ate more fanke. Took brief nap after the prayer and goat slaughtering. It squealed a lot beforehand, as if it knew it was done for, but the bubbling screams as they cut its throat were horrifying. Thankfully it died quickly. Went to the market around 1 - bought my favorite corn tuwo from the fanke lady as well as the usual staples: sugar, flour, salt, onions, kulikuli. Tried the bread as a treat - not bad at all. Spent an hour or so there, then back home, wehre the biki had thankfully calmed down, to read Paradise Lost with the door open until it was time to get more fanke at the market, search for reception, and wait for my parents to call, which they did like clockwork. Really am looking forward to Germany.
Am back inside my yard now with the door closed, fighting exhaustion (guess I’m not as well rested as I thought…) and wishing there was a graceful way to shut the door for good this early. I know they don’t get why I don’t want to go sit with the women (and only the women), or even understand that I don’t. Gonda’s been a pain today, trying to keep shoo-ing me back to where the women are to chat every times he sees me hanging out in front with the men, who, mind, invited me to drink tea with them. I don’t want to spend all my time with women. I barely want to spend any time with them. All they do is ask for gifts: dan kasuwa, kudin goro, for me to take their picture, my camera itself…Oh, and ask why I’m not married. The men are much more interesting - on average they’re more educated and we can talk about more things. Of course, if Gonda & Co. don’t shut up about Obama and how now I ‘have’ to throw a huge party and buy buhus of rice and maca, I may scream. It was funny the first time, but it’s seriously getting irritating, especially that they don’t understand that the rest of the world, myself included, couldn’t care less which candidate they wanted, beyond a generic ‘that’s nice.’ I voted for him, America chose him - the men of Niger had zilch to do with it. Shikenan and shut up already. Seriously. I’m thrilled he won, but their constant ‘look what we did’s are sucking the life out of my joy. I’m ecstatic he won, joyous that America has a chance to redeem itself, but couldn’t care less about their expectations now that he’s won - he’s not their president; if they want shiny progress, they need to take a close look at their own (extraordinarily messed up kleptocratic) government. If they’re so happy he won, they can buy their own cow and their own rice and throw their own party instead of cheapening the absolute amazingness of his win into just another attempt to get money out of the anasara. Infuriating really. They have no concept of the scope of this election - its potential for so much good - nor of their own, and my own, relative inconsequence. Please make them stop asking me to greet Obama for them, or asking if I’ll see Obama when I’m in Germany, since it’s so close to America, or demanding(!!) to borrow my phone so they can call him (he’s black, he obviously speaks Hausa and I’m American so of course I have his number). **Sigh** Hmmm… guess I know why I’m exhausted….
17 November
Not as long as yesterday but still a long day. Many from the biki were still here this morning (which feels like ages ago - here the hours drag like aeons and the days fly by as instants). Ate my biki meat, or at least part of it - gave the fat and skin (with some hairs still attached) to Ghanima. Retreated around 10, having been social since before 8 drinking tea and doing coloring books. Around 1 I went to go verify everything was set up for today’s meeting with the Yammata women. When I got to Sa’a’s they said she was in the field. I hoped for the best and went and told the Yammata women I’d be back around 4. 4 rolls around, Sa’a’s gone - not to the field, but to a biki in a town down the road, where she’s been all day apparently. So, I screwed the itsy bitsy bit of courage I have to the sticking place, grabbed my dictionary, and headed back to Yammata alone. I did ok. They either hear anasara Hausa really well or I’m getting better - somehow we managed to get through basic set up: who’s holding the money, no the anasara will not be buying you a caisse with her own money. They’ve got 44 women and are starting with a weekly 50F. They’re meeting weekly and I’ll be in Maradi for the next one, so hopefully Sa’a will be able to go. The actual meeting part was, of course, chaotic - I may have Hausa but I’m far from being able to corral Hausa women into some semblance of order. Not to mention that they all felt it necessary to bring their squalling offspring, rather than leaving them at home with a sibling for a few minutes. Despite all the madness we made progress, and I made it back home with the remnants of my sanity intact.
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