Morocco to Tunisia

Hi! Just a (very) brief update. Am now in Tunisia, have been for a couple of days, and will be for another week before heading onto Turkey. After that...? No idea, but I think my parents are despairing of me ever coming home... ;)

Met up with Liz in Casa just fine, we then headed south to...

Marrakech - everything that you expect from Morocco's most tourist town. It honestly felt a little Disney, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the Dar el-Fna or the 17th century hammam. DID, however, keep me from getting too close to the live cobras and monkeys on the square...

Essaouira - LOVELY town, shitty men. Seriously. I actually elbowed one idiot in the sternum because he got too close to me to whisper 'sweet nothings' in my ear. Jerk. Of course, his friends thought it was the most hysterical thing they'd ever seen. Hmf. City was very pretty, on the ocean, with really good seafood. Walked on the beach and took pictures of this neat stranded boat.

Casa - hung out with some friends of Liz' friend.... Moroccan men are...? Don't think I could stay there that long but the flattery was appreciated...

Rabat - wandered around the old parts of the city, couple of nice museums, including one housing all the stuff they'd pulled out of Volubilis in the north. My favorite was the neolithic carving of a human surrounded by waves and circles, but the Roman goodies were also fun.

Then on to Tunisia at disgustingly early in the morning. So far:

Carthage - OMFG. You can walk in/on Carthage. It's huge. And the Romans certainly knew their real estate - the portions of the site are plop in the middle of the area now used to house ambassadorial residences (yes, yes, I think the timing was the other way around... :P) Seriously, though, beautiful sites on the water and then on the hill. We spent an entire day just poking around. Good stuff

Dougga/Bulla Regia - just got back from a couple of days wandering ruins over in the northwest of the country. Beautiful but cold. Dougga was definitely the more imposing of the two, perched on a hill with the capitol and huge amphitheater still standing, but Bulla Regia had some neat murals and a few larger structures of its own still standing.

And now it's freezing and my fingers are icicles and Liz and I are off to brave the cold (and jerky men who think that western women must == prostitutes, I blame the western media...) to find some food.

Ma'sallama (sp??)

M

Marhaba to Morocco

Hey!
So, let's do a brief catch up:

Peace Corps decided that, in light of growing security concerns, to boot my stage out of the country a bit early. Screwed with everyone's plans but we dealt with it, and so now I'm out into my COS trip, starting in Morocco. At the moment I'm all on my lonesome but Liz'll meet up with me in a few days and we'll continue on through Morocco then Tunisia, then Turkey.

So, Morocco so far: AMAZING. I love it here. I could totally live in Chefchaouen or Meknes. But I digress

Day 1: get into Casa, immediately hop the train for Tanger (not a mistake, that's how they spell it here...) Get into my hotel - Hotel Mamora. Simple, but clean and nice. Wandered around the mostly-closed medina (it was Eid al-Adha, feast of the sacrifice), got some dinner on the Grand Socco, and crashed

Day 2: Morning again on the grand socco drinking hot tea and snacking on the ubiquitous fruit. Hopped a bus to Chefchaouen just as the rain came in. Pulled in to Chefchaouen in late afternoon, still raining, but huddled in the hotel's common room and drank tea with a couple of nice Dutch women. The hotel was Hotel Mauritania, right next to Hotel Suika (which has easier-to-follow signs). It's a great little place with bright tile and nice staff (and one super cute desk guy, but I digres...) Then I braved the rain to head to a hammam. Fantastic! I don't know that i've ever been so comfortably warm and clean in my life, for all that I provided grand amusement to the women also using the hammam. Having spent 2 years in Niger, I'm used to the 'look at the strange anasara behavior' so it was fun.

Day 3: Wandered more around Chefchaouen, alternately hanging out with the Dutch girls and poking around on my own. It's a beautiful town - painted blue and white. Kind of like I think greece must look like with the whitewash, but blue. Everything blue. Poked around my first kasbah and had my first shopkeeper give me mint tea. A good day.

Day 4: Sadly must eventually leave Chefchaouen, this time for Fez. This trip sucks. It's 4 hours by bus through the mountains, and requires me to take 3 drammamine. I get to my hotel, Pension Talaa, which is clean but very institutional. I get a cell on the roof that would be great if it were summer, but unfortunately it's winter. The blankets are thick, though, so I figure no problem. Then I hit the medina. Problem. It's beautiful. Everything you think of when you think of a 1001 nights medina. Carvings. Mosaics. Neat little alleyways filled with shops selling everything. Unfortunately it's also home to 1001 rude men. I'd gotten used to the attention elsewhere, apparently Moroccan men like curvy, large-bottomed women. A whistle or two, no problem. No, these jerks follow you. And continually harass you. They don't stop. 'Hey sweetie...' etc. Infuriating. I finally rounded on one guy and told him he had no shame. Ah, Hausa. For all that Fes was lovely I couldn't enjoy it because I felt I had to duck and cover to get away from the @$$holes. So, the next day (yesterday morning) I packed up and headed to Meknes. I haven't looked back.

Day 5: Having escaped Fes I immediately collapsed in my room in Hotel Maroc. A great hotel. Very warm. Clean. And, at 90Dh per night, a steal for a double bed single. I slept until 1pm under nice warm covers, then braved the city. SO much nicer than Fes. I wandered around the main square, Place el-Hadim, had a sandwich while staring at the big gates (Bab el-Mansour (Question - if Bab is gate than was the Tower of Babel somehow a gate to Heaven that was being closed??)) then succeeded at getting myself lost in the medina while attempting to follow the guide's planned walk. In this medina, mind, I was only called after a couple of times and NO ONE hassled me, let alone followed me. In fact, when I did give up, after seeing the tomb of a saint on the outskirts whose followers are apparently immune to snake bites, and asked someone directions, he went out of his way to show me back to the main square, free of charge. Nice guy. Snagged tea in a cafe overlooking the square then dove into the covered market where I was unable to resist more olives and sweet pastries (yah yah...). Back to my room and out like a light

Day 6: (today) Began the rainy morning early with my fingers crossed hopping shared taxis to Moulay Idriss. From there I hiked the 5km or so down to Volubilis, a set of beautiful Roman ruins. Apparently it used to be the capital of their Mauritanian province. Wandered for several hours as the sun came out over the hills, taking lots of pretty desktop-worthy pictures, then began the hike back up. Somehow it was easier going downhill... BUT! A nice couple picked me up about halfway and dropped me at the base of Moulay Idriss' hill, saving me a good couple of k, then Omar, this random guy who'd walked the last few hundred meters down to Volubulis with me, miraculously appeared in a car with his friends, and carried my lazy self up the steep part in comfy asian compact style. Thence to the main square, where I intend to return and have an overpriced tajine, and then back to Meknes. A good day, even if it can't decide whether it's going to rain again or not.

I LOVE MOROCCO!!!

Scarlett Syndrome

… I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think
about that tomorrow…

So, it's mid-October, two months until I'm out of Niger for good. Time for a lot of navel-gazing, head-scratching demanding of answers, or at least half-truths, from the universe. A brief synopsis:

Murals: essentially at an end. With the installation of the newest pump (finally) it's possible that the pump walls will be up and dry before I leave, enabling one more on not giving your infant the (dirty) water – mother's milk only until they've passed 6 months.

Water: The newest pump was finally installed on Monday, then promptly locked up until Friday, when there'll be a fête to officially open the pump. Of course, even had I stayed out until Friday I would have missed it, as I have to catch the morning bush taxi. A shame, but I'd rather they not associate the pump with anyone other than World Vision, lest they think that the next volunteer (if there is one, see below) is in charge of repairing the pump, rather than the committee that they've installed to pay for it (anasara does mean 'rich foreigner' after all…) They've also fixed (again) the older pump. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they're all still working by the time I get back. Allah shi yarda.

Women's' Groups: The one unqualified success story of my village. The women, led by Sa'a and Sa'am, continue to be the forces of kokari in the village. They so rock. The next fantastic thing that the Sarkin Hatsi women are doing is taking advantage of the impending food crisis (see below) to make some money. They're paying back all their loans and using the fund money to buy millet, which is now around 350F per tiya, or 75¢ per 2 kilos, which is high for this soon after the harvest. However, it's expected to get much higher – while I don't normally approve of capitalizing on suffering, in the end I suppose this is for a good cause. Which brings us to…

The Food Crisis: this year is not a good year for harvest. At all. Rain was patchy when it bothered to fall at all; there were periods of three weeks or more when no rain fell in my village while the crops were growing. Then, when it did fall, it was highly variable – we'd sit and watch the rainfall around us, the hole in the donut. Recent stats given to us volunteers in our newsletter were approximately thus: out of 10,000 villages surveyed, 2,000 didn't have sufficient harvests to feed their villagers, meaning that over 2 million people in a country of a bit over 10 million won't have enough food to feed themselves, leaving them to rely on the government or outside aid. Well, the government of Niger isn't an entity I'd ever want to rely on for my continued nutrition, and the external community isn't that much better. WFP is closing food sites, and Millennium Development Goal funds are way behind pledges, gee thanks global recession. Doesn't help, either, that shitty weather in the rice basket in Asia, where food aid likes to come from, has helped screw over their yields as well. All hail global climate change. To misquote my dad: Niger's pretty well pooched. My village has reverted to the most feared of approaches – ask the anasara. I left my village two days early because I was worried that the next person to ask when I would bring them the buhus of rice/beans/millet – not even asking if
I would, but when I would - would be the recipient of one of my patented temper tantrums, and I wasn't sure if it would go to angry tirades or, worse, tearful sobbing. I have to admit to myself that even if I were to pull all my money out of my account in America, and use it all to buy my
village millet, it still wouldn't address the problem: they'd still be dependant on external sources, they wouldn't be any better prepared for the next year, it'd be mis-distributed because that's just the way village politics goes, and it wouldn't address one of the underlying problems – the
farming system. So, rather than cry at the next person who couldn't figure out why the rich white foreigner couldn't/wouldn't just magic away their problems, I left. Which brings me to the next issue:

Replacement: So, when my group came in, there were 34 of us. The group replacing us only has 18 people… You guys do the math. Barkatou's village isn't being replaced, and she also opened her village. Others I'm pretty sure aren't as well. Me, I've been lobbying to be replaced with a health volunteer (22 of those…), as that's what my village needs rather than another agriculture volunteer – all that the village wants with an agriculture volunteer is free seed; a health volunteer could actually improve the situation. But I've been lobbying forever and we still don't
know – the newbies come in on the 22nd, tomorrow as I'm writing this, and I don't even know if I'll know by the time I leave.

The Solution: The Go-Til-the-Money-Runs-Out World Tour (other names will be considered). One of my stage mates and I are headed to Morocco, then Tunisia, and then I'm on to Turkey, then, if there's still money, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, (I have to work the precise path out), all the way to Dublin, where I've heard that there are cheap flights back to the
States. It's irresponsible, given that I have no job lined up, and limited funds. But, Peace Corps will give us cash in lieu of our plane ticket home, plus a bit of our readjustment allowance when we leave, and anywhere has to have a cheaper flight out than Niamey. So, setting aside a chunk for a new laptop, I've got a bit to wander on, and besides, you're only (semi)-young once, right? Time to adventure. Get while the getting's good, etc. I've always wanted to see North Africa and the remains of the Ottoman Empire and this seems the time to do it. Morocco I hope we'll be able to hit the highlights – Marrakesh, Tangier, Rabat, and maybe Meknes or Fez, time determining. In Tunisia I want to visit Carthage and Bulla Regia, then trail down the coast to Matmata, where they have a hotel in the old Star Wars set of the Lars' family homestead, then back through sand and neat architecture. Those each should take a week and a half or so. Then Lonely Planet has a three week itinerary going from Istanbul down the coast to Cappadocia,
stopping at all kinds of lovely places, including ancient Troy. From there…? Mostly I'm looking forward to the scents of the souqs and the beautiful architecture of what I was thinking of when I was told I was coming to muslim Africa two years ago. Also, the hammams, Turkish bathhouses. I'm almost afraid to think how much aggregate filth will be scrubbed off of me after two years in the bush.

After that? No idea. Looking at going back to school for another masters, or going to work. I really want to focus on improving farming systems and food security. No one crop or technology will fix the mess, or prepare us for the mess to come. Solutions must be adaptive; we can't just monoculture the globe. It won't work. But that's for another ramble.

In any case, if anyone knows of any good places to stay/eat/be on my trip, drop me a line on here or Facebook, I'll appreciate any assistance.

Until next time…

Life…

Well, life’s been interesting recently. Mom just left a couple of weeks ago. It was a good visit. The loop was a great trip, if a bit too short. The good news is that, the way Peace Corps works, it may be to my advantage to leave from Accra rather than from Niamey when I head home, so I may get a chance to go back through the Loop a bit. I’ve set up a website, theloop.wikia.com, to help people get information on the places to go, or not, on the trip. Please, put any useful information there. I’ll get back to the trip in a second…

Having mom in my village was certainly neat; the villagers loved it and she got a first hand look at the insanity that is daily living here. She wore a complet and everything. It was awesome. We taught local women to bake bread and painted a mural on handwashing. Mostly, though, it was good to finally have someone from outside peace corps get a first hand look at what we’re dealing with, from the overall shittiness of the soil to the problems the culture throws in the way of development. Not that there weren’t good points, there were. We had a great time at the market, eating corn tuwo and sitting with the fabric lady. We also walked around and saw how well the millet was (or, at the time, wasn’t….) doing. Mom got to see how the trees were doing and eat delicious moringa crepes. It was a good time. Now that she’s left, however, it’s been incredibly frustrating. She had brought little gifts of soap for a few key women in my village, and tea for the men. Even while she was there the men were giving the tea away to people I didn’t want them to (but, hey, it was their tea to give away, right?) but then, after she left, I keep getting asked by men and women where their tea or soap is. I’ve made a big thing about not giving out gifts in my village for the past year and a half, and now I’m worried that all that’s been spoiled. Not mom’s fault – it makes sense to bring things to people that you’re going to meet and live with for a bit, host gifts etc. But the culture here is such that giving anything is a lesson in the benefits of becoming Scrooge. Plus, that she could come here has reopened the whole ‘take me to America’ can of worms. As in ‘hey, you’ll pay for me to go to America when you leave, right?’ And it’s not just as a joke, they really get annoyed when I say no. Finally, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m incredibly blunt – ‘No, I will not take you to America. Not only is it too expensive (I can’t even pay for the ticket, the government pays for mine) but once we get there you have no skills that will be useful. No, you can’t farm like you do here. No, you can’t herd like you do here. No, you can’t open a shago (small general goods store). We farm with tractors. We have feedlots. We have grocery stores bigger than the village (literally. You could fit a hamlet inside CostCo, easy). You would end up washing dishes or doing crappy manual labor somewhere. This would not be the American dream you see on TV. No, I will not take you to America’ Shikenan.

N.B. Take everything I say with several grains of salt. It’s probably not as depressing as I find it. I’m 3 months from COS and focused more on the next stage of my life than trying to wage Sisyphean battles against hunger, poverty, illiteracy, disease… Being here in Niger has taught me a LOT, albeit not what I had thought it would. I feel much more grounded in knowing what the problems are, and what the problems with the majority of the world’s solutions are. Knowing the actual solutions… um… not so much. It’s going to have to be a ground-up change adapted locally to individual situations and I just don’t know that any external force is going to be able to affect that. There are good programs out there, SIM’s agroforestry model among them, but even that model wouldn’t be adapted to a few hundred kilometers south. On the plus side, now that I know what the problems are, I’m even more motivated to try to solve them, pretty much guaranteeing that I’ll be involved in ag for years to come; yay for my education not entirely going to waste J

So, the future… hmmm… I’m of several minds on the matter:
1) Go to work in mainstream development
2) Go back to school for something along the lines of sustainable farming systems
3) Go off the beaten track and WWOOF and get into sustainable ag that way
4) Some otherwise nebulous future

Everything has its pros and cons…

In any case, I promised a bit more on the trip, so here you go

Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso): AMAZING!!! It’s a beautiful city with ice cream and cleaner streets, and my first taste of FanIce, which is so amazingly delicious I can’t describe it here. Think semifrozen cake batter, but better. We stayed at a lovely B&B – Karite Bleu – recommended to us by local PCVs while we waited for our visas to get processed and wandered around the artisanal centers.

Kumasi (Ghana): Not my favorite but a necessary stop to get a break after the horrendous drive from Ouaga. Met nice people who helped us out later on.

Cape Coast (Ghana): We got there right after Obama did, and it was packed with Obama goodies. Obamamania may have subsided in the States, but it certainly is still going full force there. We actually stayed here twice – coming and going from Green Turtle. Both times we stayed in the Mighty Victory. A great hotel, but they need to nuke their neighbors – an EXTREMELY loud church that had a wake going on one of the nights we were there. I was NOT happy. The city itself was a little empty – probably packed in slightly warmer times. We had a great tour of the castle and then indulged in Guinesses at the nearby restaurant watching the waves break on the beach. Later on we tried a bit more ‘native’ food – Chic Heb’s – run by Henrietta, an incredibly effusive warm woman with really good chicken. She even drove us back to the hotel when the area started looking too sketchy after dark. Near CC is Kakum National Park. They have a canopy walk. I chickened out after the second bridge (out of 7); even repeating the Bene Gesserit Mantra Against Fear (yes, I did. I really am that sad) couldn’t get me out on the third one. I had thought they’d be more… Wide? That the nets would be higher? Somehow I’d thought they’d feel sturdier. But, I’m a coward. At least I got two, right? The views were lovely and then we went on a neat nature walk with a guide telling us the native uses/myths about the various trees. Fun fun.

Green Turtle (Ghana): Situated on one of the worst roads I’ve ever been on, GT is paradise. Jesus loves cocktails. Had a great time vegetating with mom on the beach, drinking more STAR than I should have, and meeting a bunch of nice people. Mostly, though, it was just good to have some 100% down time with mom to shoot the breeze.

Accra (Ghana): we went back through Cape Coast and then headed further east to Accra, which was an ok city. The Christian mission type guesthouses were all full (and really unfriendly!!) and we ended up staying in what looked like a totally scary hotel but turned out to be really nice – Beverly Hills something. Plus we ate at the Orangerie – AMAZING! I had smoked salmon pasta. So delicious and western and clean and… It was a good stop.

Kpalime (Togo): After one night in Accra it was up to Ho in a crammed taxi, then from Ho to Kpalime in an incredibly sketchy taxi on an awful road eclipsed only by the one that’s on the way to Green Turtle. It was torture. But then we ended up at Chez Fanny, which is this beautiful hotel/restaurant in Kpalime run by a French/Togolaise couple. The food was to die for. Shrimp flambéed in whisky. Avocados everywhere. Local coffee (the owner was kind enough to sell me some…) From Kpalime we went on a nature hike and the guide drew a butterfly on my arm with local plant dyes (don’t worry, it washed off). The area is known for its butterflies and even though we went after peak season it was still lovely. Lots of cocoa and banana plantations and lovely GREEN everything. And avocados. Cheap. Bigger than my head for a quarter. Mom mocked me for hauling them around but they were soooo worth it. Yum. Kpalime also has a lovely artisanal center; I got a beautiful batik of a woman pouring water off her head. Yes, you can get batiks in Niamey, but nowhere near this quality and detail.

Lome (Togo): In Kpalime we decided to make a run for Niamey so that we could squeeze a full week in my village. Lome was interesting for a night, we stayed in a good hotel and walked on the beach (scary undertow!) and slept and ate fondue. Yum. Plus knowing Hausa helped me get a bus that was leaving later… not that that turned out to be much of a great bonus

The Bus: So, we picked this bus as it was supposed to be faster, skipping Cotonou and all. It was ~36 hours of hell. The road was awful, they tried to turn the music on to the threshold of pain. I’m not ashamed to admit that I used tears to get the music shut off. I’d already put up with that nonsense on the bus from Niamey to Ouaga, and that at least was a nice bus. This was a shitty bus. I wasn’t about to tolerate headache inducing music on a shitty bus. Nope. Then it stopped for 6 hours at Parakou, and they really couldn’t figure out why we didn’t want to get off the bus and sleep in the heavily lit, extremely noisy concrete floored sleeping area when the bus at least had cushions of some sort. And it was nice and quiet and dark… Africa… Then there was some sort of insane line of transport cars lined up for miles at the Benin-Niger border. Our driver and his helper got us navigated through that, but then wanted to make up time by leaving the Americans at the border to get the visas sorted and have us take a motorcycle to catch up. A universe of no. Tears again. Embarrassing but effective. They rushed us through and we were back on our (long) way, with pauses for prayer of course. Then, once we got to Niamey and were on our way to the hotel (Terminus. It’s lovely.) our stupid taxi driver tried to make us wait while he went and had a conversation with his friend, after I’d already explained how tired we were… ‘You Americans lack patience’. Yes, but that’s why our country works – we don’t put up with this nonsense. **sigh**

We stayed at the Terminus a couple of nights to get sorted and settled and rested, then it was onto the bus again out to Maradi and a week in the village.

A good trip.

So, life in the village now:

Gardening: our community garden is caput – people stole everything the second it got ripe so the owners stopped watering. I still have my little garden; it’s full of eggplant and, now that I dumped Miracle grow and other fertilizers on it, I think the tomatoes may start producing. I also am now up to 15 moringa trees. Yum.

Murals: The total’s up to three now – nutrition, conjunctivitis, and now hand-washing. I’m waiting for World Vision to finish the pump skirt so I can put another one on it on not feeding your infant dirty water – milk only until they’re 6 months. Yes, that means no hura, either, in case you were wondering…

Water: I’ve got some hope for the pumps ever getting fixed/installed. Last week WV came through and started cementing the area around the pump – a sure sign of progress.

The Women: the two women’s groups are going strong – they’re much better organized and motivated than the men. I taught the women’s leader of my village how to bake bread – she says she’ll give a demo later. I hope so. It’s an easy income generating activity.

The rest of it: well, it’s Ramadan, which means no food or drink from dawn until dusk, which in turn means that everyone is asleep and really cranky. I’m not doing it this year (I did one day and was dead sick) and so that’s an issue for the village. For all that this is supposed to be cultural ‘exchange’ they’re convinced that, having seen their wonderful religion/culture I’ll want to adopt it myself. Oh. Hell. No. So, I get this long conversation frequently on why I’m not a muslim and how there’s no way I’ll cover my head in America. I’ve explained that I have every intention of wearing shorts and tank tops and talking to boys and not living with my parents and driving a car and… they’re horrified. It’s great fun. I feel like I was too polite the first year and a half. Now I’m telling the truth and it’s very liberating. Here’s real American culture – I don’t have to listen to you just because you are male. In fact, it decreases the likelihood of me listening to you. Bwa ha ha ha. Having mom come, again, really helped – a married woman traveling by herself on her own money, and explaining that dad is not, in fact, the ‘mai gida’ (owner of the house) but that they share it jointly. A couple of my fellow volunteers are all ‘we should respect their culture and outlook’ – my response: ‘if we respect it too much we run the risk of this being it for them – there will be no progress here if nothing changes.’ Harsh. Cruel. True.

It helps, too, that I talked with an NGO worker whose NGO used to work in my village 10 years ago. They ran into the same problems I do and eventually quit working there – the villagers were only interested in using the NGO cars as transport into Maradi, not in the health work they were doing at the time. The NGO also works with trees and agro forestry - ten years later there are maybe 10 of the trees they planted still growing. I asked the villagers why they didn’t have the trees any more. ‘They died.’ And it didn’t occur to them to replant them without being paid to do so. And yet, Peace Corps felt this was a good village to post a volunteer in. **sigh** I gave the NGO worker my women’s leader’s number – she at least has the kokari to get things done. The men… even Issaka, my host dad… I’ve lost all hope for them. They’ve been ruined by the culture of NGO handouts. There’s no drive to improve the village themselves – the NGO/Government/Allah will fix it, or bring it, or do whatever it is needs to be done. There is no ownership concept because so much has been given to them in the past. Honestly, I think that most aid programs need to be pulled, with only programs that don’t give money, rely on villager motivation, and generally are sustainable, should be let back in. Yes, villages will suffer, but at some point, it is no longer the west’s water to support these people.

Again, I’ve been here probably too long and have become too jaded and negative. There are programs and people that work. My village just isn’t inclined to be one of them. The women have hope but until they’re fully free of male domination there won’t be enough freedom for them to progress. Right now my host mothers aren’t even allowed to go to the market – and these are full grown women who, in the west, would be in charge of all the marketing and running of the household. But, because of Islam and a culture of shame and patriarchy, they can’t do the simplest tasks without risking Issaka’s stern disapproval. It’s not a pretty picture. And yet there’s still smiling and laughter and good times to be had. Drinking tea or playing around. It’s not all bad. It’s just, now that I’m looking more to the future, it’s certainly far from good.

Kende Ne Waongo

Mom and I are now in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso. It's AMAZING. So incredibly green. And friendly. And my phone works, so I'm happy. Volunteers are super helpful here and we've found some great places to stay. The ride here was a bit nuts - they played music videos at volumes well beyond the threshold of pain teh entire trip (starting before 6am) ]
Just a quick update
Hi all
M

Maradi Bound

Greetings all
For those of you with my number I'm in Maradi for a while - feel free to call or email or... I should get it. Our valiant RR, Rakia, had to head home for a bit, so I'm sub-RRing. So far, so good, despite crazy politics, power outages, and just general Niger-ness. I'm using the time wisely - reading trashy novels, watching movies, and trying to sort out life after peace corps. I figure 6 months should be enough time to get something organized. As it is, I'm totally idea-less. Tempted to buck responsibility some more and try WWOOFing around the world - they have sites in Slovenia!! (I miss real soil)

So, just a heads up, more as it happens
M

Life on Planet Earth...

... because I haven't figured out how to get to Vulcan yet.

Yup, you guessed it. I've been spending time obsessing about Star Trek, primarily because I can't even watch the trailers out here - the connection's too slow. So, instead, I drive myself insane with J.J. Abrams' edit of WIRED, which is AMAZING. I love it. Plus, I get to try to explain puzzles to my villagers. I think they get it; they may just smile and nod and write it off as another example of Malika being a bit nuts. Still, gotta love hidden puzzles!

Life in the village continues...

IT'S PLANTING TIME!!! We planted once, and that was fun. I'm trying to promote an agroforestry approach, using acacias from SIM. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we're now well into rainy season, we haven't had enough rain and our first planting died. This is, obviously, not a good thing, as it's already hunger season, meaning food is scarce/expensive, and that replanted seed we can't eat. Also, the delayed planting means a delayed harvest. Not good.

MURALS: Well, finished two now, the anti-conjunctivitis one first and lately a nutrition mural (yes, I realize that step 1 is getting enough to eat, but I want them to start thinking that tuwo (millet/sorghum grain mush) isn't enough from a vitamin/mineral/protein standpoint. So I now have a care-bear baby on my wall.

THE PUMP: Well, there's been some progress on the organizational side - Barkatou and I went to a (horrendously boring repetitious) World Vision training on how a pump committee should be organized. I need to add the caveat that to us it was boring, for the villagers it was a good thing. Being raised as a Western person, you're inculcated with a sense of how business should be run - roles of committee members aren't things that take days to delineate, they just 'are'. **sigh** So, while each member of each committee from each village stood up and explained, almost verbatim, the duties of their particular role, we played dots after listening to it the first time 'round. Still, it's encouraging that they've gotten them organized. Of course, I still have a big blue plastic borehole and no pump...

GARDENING: I, too, have had to replant. I don't know what's going on, but suspect ants, caterpillars, and bunnies! (j/k. Zara will get it if she reads this, the rest of you go watch Buffy) are undermining my attempts to secure a pretty green garden. Drat them all. The moringas are doing very well, though. I regularly enjoy bush florentine crepes - just sautee the leaves with onions, garlic, and add some laughing cow. I also add bouillon to the crepe batter because I've lived here too long.

WOMEN'S GROUP: Well, now that Sa'a, my women's leader, is now the leader of a group of groups in different villages, she's rarely there, and possible thoughts of teaching bread baking and mango jamming but there's still hope to get it done before I leave. Also, they now say they want a new grinding machine; apparently the 2 we already have are not enough and they want to start making peanut butter and other goodies. Fair enough, and yay, really, but this is something that should have been brought up ages ago, so I could maybe get it done before I left, NOT during the beginning of rainy season when no one has money and no one can build anything because it's rainy and they're all out in the fields anyhow... Poor timing, but I'm working the numbers up for the next vol if they choose to do it. Or, who knows, if the job situation doesn't look any better by the time September rolls around, maybe I'll stay and do it. Could be fun :)

Hadjia House: The gutters are up, the water flows into the barrel, all is right with the world. Just in time for Ghanima to have her kittens (she looks like a balloon, any day now).

Life is good. We ARE Cylons. Star Trek needs to be on DVD now. That is all.

Future???

So, greetings all
I've been in town for about a week, what I call my vacation from the village though I'm actually running around a lot here like a headless chicken. Huzaah for work! It's hot season, so, beyond my murals, there's not a lot of work going on in the village at the moment; it's just too darn hot. At the moment I'm enjoying the Guest House's lovely A/C and higherspeed internet. Trying to figure out the rest of my life - no pressure. Torn between loving ag and wanting something that will give me psychological payback faster than the decade it can take to produce a good seed line, which will then take another decade to get to the people who need it most, at which point it's no longer relevant... and yes, I'm prone to hyperbole. So, breeding plants and living abroad that way, or ag econ, which is less hands on and concrete, but instead gives you real numbers you can actually get your hands on... Decisions. So no bloody idea. What I'd really like to do is run away to Slovenia or somewhere in that area, down into the old Ottoman empire, as far south as Turkey, get a rambling old house, renovate it and turn it into a production center - gardens, fruit trees, etc. Of course, though, I'd have highspeed internet and all the modern amenities installed so that I could do outstanding analysis by contract. Yes, I've been reading Under the Tuscan Sun, Blackberry Wine and others. A woman can dream, yah? Fresh fruit, fresh air, WATER, GREEN. Just a few requirements. **sigh** Of course, I want to work on African issues... For all that I'd rather live in Slovenia they don't seem to have any problems with ag (I still remember that deliciously dark soil every time I look at the fields around here...) So, retirement only. I'm 27. Why the heck am I thinking about retirement??! Granted, a few grey hairs here and there...

What I've liked most about living here in Niger is not, surprisingly, the weather (jk) but the opportunity to farm and get my hands dirty. I like my gardens, my tree nursery, and planning my field (I'm going for an agroforestry/regeneration of really crappy marginal farmland approach. I'm planning on planting rows of acacias (nitrogen fixing, fast growing, good firewood and nutritious seeds) 10m apart, with 2 rows of zogala (VERY nutritious leaves) in between those, and planting the ground around with cowpeas. I'm doing this, insha'allah, in two new fields - my old field is too close to the site of the new pump, where they're planning on expanding the village eventually, so there's no real point in planting field trees there. I'm hoping that the next volunteer will continue to take care of the little plots in my host family's fields, so that people can get the idea and expand and eventually reclaim this crappy marginal soil. That's the plan. Of course, said plan requires rain for it to work... It has rained once... we're still in hot season. I'd hold my breath but that might make me sweat even more. Ick.

Hugs from Niger to anyone still reading this ramble.

A semi-massive update

In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take a way.
-Antoine de Saint Exupery Wind, Sand, and Stars

And on that note, I ditch the thought of trying to catch up the last few months of journal. Here's a summary of what's been going on:

Garden Project: The gardens looked great. The gardeners put in a lot of money (they have to buy water from the well women) and effort and we had a good crop of vegetables. Unfortunately, the rest of them couldn't seem to keep their hands off of the veggies. Every time a cabbage or tomato or carrot was ripe and ready to harvest, it was gone the next day. I suspect children, but the gardeners say it's probably the adults, too. With the garden being so close to the well, and thus so far from the town, it can't be policed efficiently. The gardeners were very disappointed. We're going to try again once World Vision finishes working on our pump, which is closer to the village and thus we can have people guard it effectively. Apparently the same thing happened over ten years ago when an NGO came through and tried to start a school garden - all the veggies disappeared. It's really frustrating to see peoples' hard work be destroyed so casually. My mai gari and host family assure me that if they find the people they'll take them to the sarki in Chadakori and have them fined/punished. It is, to me, so ridiculous that they would steal from the garden - they KNEW it was a trial garden - I told them that if it went really well I'd start trying to get a big garden project funded. Now, they get nothing. Frustrating.

Tree Nursery: Hopefully better fated than the garden, whose space we're now using. I'm hoping that the larger number of people participating will increase the psychological buy in and thus reduce the thefts. Plus, black plastic bags with trees are a bit bigger than tomatoes, and thus harder to conceal theft. The set up is as follows: for 250F they get 15 black plastic bags and seeds of kuka (baobab) or zogala (moringa). A lot of them are also going to use bedi (neem) or dan tahoua (Acacia colei) seeds which they can get in the village from trees we already have. I've invested the initial 6000 to get the project off the ground. Once that's paid back any further profit will go towards upkeep of the fund and the tree nursery area. The villagers can see a profit of 1250F, minus whatever they pay for water, which should be much less than for the garden as the trees are smaller and don't require as much water as vegetables. Trees sell for 100F in my village market and they're a rarity - hard to bring from Maradi. The seller when he had them always seemed to sell out. Also, the nearby bigger market doesn't have a tree seller - they definitely have a market to sell the trees. Personally, I'm hoping they'll keep at least a few of the trees to plant in their fields and around their houses. Any tree around here is a good thing - they reduce the wind and runoff. But even if they're used as purely profit, profit is something my village could use. So, yay. Here's hoping.

Pump: World Vision came out and put in the pipes for our new pump. The water was approximately 75 meters down, the well itself I believe goes to 100m. Just a bit deep, yes? Getting the work done was a lot of fun to watch - they made holes for the drilling mud and spent several days drilling and getting the piping in. Now we're waiting for them to do tests on the water and come back and put in the hand pump. That's been a couple of months, but they've put the one in at the village up the road, so I suspect we should see ours before I COS, which is good.

Womens' Groups: The two womens' groups I've helped start have taken off. I checked in with both of them recently. The one in the nearby hamlet has about 50 women and they're borrowing and paying back almost the entire fund every week. I'm really impressed. The one in my town is going a bit more slowly - the pay in is half as much as the hamlet, and because it's larger, around 100 women, there are more squabbles over who gets what when. But, they're both going and people are using them to pay for bikis or to make food to sell at market. It's really neat that they're continuing all by themselves. Plus, it's a great source of change for when the bank gives me ridiculously large bills - I try to explain that I live in the bush, and sometimes they get that I can't do anything with a 5000F bill (~$10) in a village where 100F is a lot of money.

Hadjia House: I finally got my ridiculously expensive shade hangar installed this past week before coming in for team meeting. It's tall and lovely and there will be no more evil termites and stuff falling on my head and leaking water and. It's great! Next step - cementing the floor so it'll be even for me to sleep on - I hate my cot and I sleep on the floor on mattresses on a mat. I've also got all the fabric on the ceiling so no more mud/termite dirt falling on me, and I don't have to look at the spiders I know are up there. Yay. My garden died before producing anything of use - hot season came really early this year, and much stronger than it did last year. I should have planted it before I went on vacation in December, but oh well, hindsight 20/20 and all that. It's now serving as a place for my own personal tree nursery of acacias for my field this coming rainy season. I have a. tolurosa and a. colei from SIM, a great NGO that I like a lot. They work sustainably for ag development. At the moment the tree nursery people really wanted bedi with a smattering of the others - I'm hoping that when they see how awesome the acacias are they'll want to plant them for the next round. They provide firewood and windbreaks and nutritious seed and they fix nitrogen. Yay.

Life in general: Pretty good. I think I've figured out what I want to do after service. I'm interested in looking into the effects that current agricultural policies in the developed world (i.e. US/EU Farm Policy) have on the agricultural sector (i.e. over 75% of the people) in the developing world. I'd like to focus on the Sahelian area, but not really sure yet. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up studying underwater basket weaving. or extend service to go teach in China. Anything could happen. We could be Cylons.

:)
M


P.S. Current book read count since 22 January = 31 If anyone reads Pride and Predjudice and Zombies, could you send it? It looks VERY fun.

Quickie

So just updated the Dragons in Niger blog, if anyone's interested.
:)
M

Evil Red Lectroids from Planet X by way of the Eighth Dimension

This makes me happy:



Although, really, it needs an oscillation overthruster to be 'interesting'.
Duh.

Better Living Through Chemistry

So, I have strep. And Amoebas. Joy. Other than that, life's good.
Came in on Monday to get some work done and put in the order for my (inordinately expensive) new shiny shade hangar that will be used to demo water harvesting (and because I'm sick of spiders and the sound of termites munching). I had a bit of a sore throat, upset stomach, and mild fever - figured it was nothing. Oops. So I'm here until Friday, working on getting handouts set up for the newbies' upcoming IST and trying to keep the fever down (it maxed at 100.6, approx 3 degrees for me) and sleeping a lot. A lot. I'd also like to draw your attention to today's weather report: Dust. Dust doesn't even begin to cover it - try nasty evil haze and coughing and blah - and that's the people without giant lumps of goop on the back of their throat. This is why Niger needs more trees.

The garden's going well in the village, though some brilliant person let the goats in and a couple people lost their lettuce. We planted enough that it will be fine, though. I went by the metal place this morning and for all that it's ridiculously expensive, the quality of work is phenomenal. I was expecting flimsy, but I'd feel comfortable using his work in the States. 163000F well spent. (No, I don't want to do the calculation into USD, it would only depress me). I'll put up pictures when it's done, but basically it'll take all the water from a 6m2 area, plus a portion of my roof, and funnel it into a barrel to which a spigot has been welded so that I can use it to fill my watering can for my garden.

Why go to all this mess? Because I want them to come to me and ask me to help them do the same thing. I want the motivation to come from them, so that they'll contribute, which is something that doesn't really happen around here all that much - the white people just show up and give them stuff and it's great. La la la. So not sustainable. So, to get them interested in gardening I made my own. To get them interested in water harvesting... you got it :) We'll see how this works. Ultimate goal: School garden with water from harvesting off the school roofs. Of course, I expect that there'll be flying pigs present at the opening ceremonies, but hey, we can hope, yah?

:)
M

Quickie

Hi
So, I'm a horrible person and forgot to bring my old journal in to give everyone a blow by blow of my life for the past months. So, you'll have to just settle for the knowledge that I had an AMAZING time in Europe with my parents. We we went to Munich and Regensburg and Prague and Vienna and Salzburg and I gained 5 delicious pounds from eating amazing food and drinking fabulously dark beer. (Though, the situation here has been remedied slightly in that there is now Guinness available in the hostel). I took lots of photos, so enjoy those :) The stuffed animal is Chloe, I've had her for ages and she works really well for when I don't have people to take pictures of.

This I stole from a letter to my aunt, as it covers pretty much the rest of life since:

Life here is... well, it's Niger. Coming back to Africa was... difficult. Extremely. I was in the Paris airport thinking it wouldn't be that hard to change my flight back to America instead of Niamey. And then one of my stage-mates, John, waltzed up, coming back from the states. It was sort of like confirmation that I was doing the right thing. And even then, convincing myself to leave Niamey for Maradi, Maradi for the bush, eep. Not easy at all. But then I got back and they were all 'Maraba Malika, Maraba' (Maraba=welcome, stole it from Arabic. Hausa is half-arabic it seems. Islam's been here a long while) and my cat was still alive and my house wasn't too termite ridden.

Tossed myself back into the swing of things to take my mind of not being in a Marriott and so now we have a cold season garden going with 8 village families. It keeps me busy and reminds me that hey, contrary to my boss' opinion (I'm convinced the country director has no idea about any of her volunteers' abilities - we're just warm bodies to fill villages) I do, in fact, have useful skills that can help people. It's a good feeling. Plus to know that it really is because of me that they got off their butts and got the garden. Previously they'd determined that water was just too much suffering to get - the well when I got there was approx 35m, it's now somewhere around 45m, and the pump on the other side of the village they apparently had to drill to 50+m to hit water. I look in the well and get vertigo. But they saw me, granted I bought my water rather than pulling it myself, and I had a garden. A few people started asking for transplants, and since I'd overplanted, having no idea what, if anything, would grow, I gave them to them. Granted, they all died because they didn't protect them well enough from the nasty grazing beasties, but it got the idea started. Eventually my mai gari (mayor, kind of, except more than that, socially) got together 8 families and, using fencing from an old NGO project, we set up a garden. I used my own money (told them it was from the parents so they won't ask me again ;) ) and bought seeds, but they know that after this it's all on them - they're starting a fund to be able to pay for seeds, plastic bags for a tree nursery, an oil drum, etc. It was tempted to pay for all of it, but then it wouldn't be at all sustainable, and they're used to anasara handouts. Getting their own money involved gets them to take better care and make better decisions. Which is pretty much what changeed my mind about putting in a water tower. They're a small village, they don't really NEED a water tower. They just want one because they think that because I'm white I have lots of money and I HAVE to give it to them. Just started reading Dark Star Safari - Paul Theroux. He makes a good comment about what we face here - the weird sense of entitlement that a lot of Africans have. I liken it to the old 'teach a man a fish...' thing. Here I am, teaching them to fish, right? The men come back the next day and say 'well, yah, that's great, but now you have to give us better fishing rods and stock the lake for us.' the women come back and just demand I give them more fish - I'm rich, I can afford it. It's ridiculously frustrating. I'm hoping the garden doesn't turn into it. So, that's that, and now I'm in for team meeting and a party to congratulate the newest stage on their first month in the bush.


And thus my life. I'd like to thank everyone for keeping in contact with me, via emails and facebook and all the insanity that is communications in Africa.
Thanks
:)
M

Another Massive Update

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 eons and the days fly by). Ate my biki meat or at least part of it - gave the fat and skin to spoiled Ghanima. Retreated to my house around 10, having been out drinking tea and doing coloring books since before 8. Kids still don't understand the 'only bring me lizards once a day but bring them every day' rule. They brought Ghanima 8 this morning at least, and she's still noticeably round - it's almost 6 pm. Around 1 I went to verify everything was set for today's meeting with the Yammata women. When I went by Sa'a's they said she was in the field, though next door said biki. I hoped for the best and went and told the Yammatawa I'd be there around 3, then headed back. 3 rolls around - Sa'a's still gone, not to the biki in town, to which I will haul my asleep carcass to this evening for walima (yay fanke and not having to cook…) but to one in Tam Roro (alternatively, she may have gone to Dakoro, where the Belgian MSF still operates, the French one having been kicked out of Maradi and possibly all Niger for suspected assistance of Tuareg rebels in the North). In any event - she's not here. So, I screwed the remnants of my nonexistent courage to the sticking place, grabbed my dictionary and headed back to Yammata alone. I did ok. They either speak 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. The basics. The actual meeting part was, of course, a bit chaotic - I may have Hausa but I am far from being able to corral Hausa women into some sense of quiet order. I'd have better luck herding cats. Oh, and, lest we forget, Hausa women go nowhere without at least one, often snotty nosed and filthy, squalling child. I'm surprised BoyzIIMen wasn't playing close by just to help my sensitive ears give me another headache. But, despite the furor, we made progress, which is really all that matters, and now I'm back at home, bathed for the second time today, and wondering if I really have the kokari to put outside clothes back on and go to the walima, especially as whichever nerve it is that runs to your pinky is acting up again. I miss my chiropractor.

 

18 November

            Didn't end up going to walima, stayed up reading Shelters of Stone until 9ish. By now Ayla has invented/discovered everything except sliced bread and the wheel, thought that may be in the sequel. Showed up bright and early for the biki itself this morning, sitting for a couple hours with Maryama greeting people, eating tuwo and just being brightly visible in my flaming orange fancy mayahi, as opposed to the much-abused purple one I bought back in Hamdy and which serves when I want to go sit in the family's concession in a tank top - like now :). All my other clothes, or almost all of them, are either hanging on the line or still soaking - huzzah for laundry day. Watching now as Jacoba uses actual sandpaper to try to fix the calli on his feet. **later** There is a reason you're supposed to take Doxy with food. Ugh. There went my afternoon - wiped out by nausea. Kader made me tea though :)

 

19 November

            Even nicer, it turns out he'd waited tea for me, and as we sat drinking he explained that here, wives bring a tea kettle, 2 kilos of sugar and tea, and a set of metal tea cups as part of their dowry. Issaka's big pot came from Tchad - I wasn't clear if he'd bought it from a traveling salesman or if it was a dan belagro (gift from a trip), Issaka having never been to Tchad. I asked about the one Hassana would have brought to the marriage, and it turns out that some evil jerkbunny stole it soon after they were married, hence why we always use Issaka's.

            This morning was spent making a clean copy for the Yammata Asusu, alphabetizing and writing legibly - of course I'm assuming they have someone literate in their group - Sa'am wasn't their to make sure when I dropped it off with her kishiya (cowife), but one of her neighbors can, as can Sa'a if she has time to go next Monday.

 

Knowledge forbidd'n? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord envy them that? Can it be sin to know, can it be death? And do they only stand by Ignorance?

Satan. John Milton, Paradise Lost, IV: 515-9

20 November

            I hate insomnia - woke up every hour or so last night after not even getting partially to sleep until midnight. Napped the morning away and started to pack in prep for Maradi tomorrow, only to find the evil gara (termites) had eaten holes in my pretty new scarf where I'd hung it on the wall to stare at its prettiness. I sewed them up and it looks fine, but I'm still far from Zen. Plus, turns out that candy is a far more effective lure to get kids to bring Ghanima lizards. Almost too effective… prices range from 3 tiny lizards per candy to 3 candies for a big lizard, and I'm seeing a bag of 60 candies lasting me maybe 4 days, tops. Part of the problem is that they know I'm a sucker - I'll tell them shikenan, sai gobe, ya issa but they know if they come back with more later anyway and Ghanima meows plaintively I'll still buy them, which is how I went to bed last night with a pile of lizard corpses waiting to become kitten breakfast at the door of my concession, and why there's a huge lizard even now in the door of my house, with an obviously glutted ball of fur asleep nearby. Should stock up on more penny candies when I'm in Maradi, since all Ghanima seems to do when she goes out at night is fight and get trounced, rather than hunt. Maybe she'll get the hang of it while I'm in Germany and there's no one to buy her lizards - somehow I doubt it, though. I'll probably cave and leave money/candy with Kader to make sure the lizards keep coming. They're a little stricter with the kids though, so maybe she'll look less like the abominable snow kitty. Unlike the cat, the Tabaski goat is resisting fattening, or maybe she's just having all her food stolen by the pesky red goat that wanders in from someone else's house every day - now that the harvest is in they've started freeing some of the livestock to graze the empty fields.

 

22 November

            Got into Maradi, and an incredibly full house yesterday. Showered - real hot water without breeze and freezing - then headed to the market for Thanksgiving goodies. Read emails and it looks like S is going to support me in the whole INRAN mess (YAY) though I'm worried it's too late, between the Germany trip and Tabaski I don't have much time. Not that I'm sure I would have if we'd gotten this sorted earlier - some places are still harvesting their beans, and after that they still have to process them to separate the seeds - no clue how K expects the project to be over in December, unless he meant the end of December? Argh, but huzzah for S backing me up. Now to see how to swing the measurements, given zero response to emails/texts sent to Team Z - kinda worried there.

            At the moment am chilling in the corner of the hostel's main room. The place is packed - at least 75% of the Team is in, and we're a big team! Spent the morning typing the first half of a massive blog update, then to the net café to get it sent. Talked to parents and B from back home yesterday - very cool. Good to hear from friends back home (HINT) and jealous that you all are playing the WoW expansion without me. Looking forward to Germany. Didn't sleep well last night either, surprise surprise, and I'm looking forward to some real rest. The big day's tomorrow - turkey and newbies, but I'm going to go find someplace to curl up and sleep so I can be alive tomorrow.

 

24 November

            1:27 am. Am cross-legged on the floor of my trunk room in the hostel, hoping that my double case of stomach upset and insomnia resolve themselves soon so I can crawl back to my bed and pass out. I think my birthday was the last time I slept well. It's been a long day. I was up around 7:30 am and Barkatou and Gado had thankfully already killed the turkey and were well on their way to plucking and gutting it when I woke up. I brined it, then proceeded to spend the next several hours getting on everyone's nerves worrying that, as there was only one functional oven at the time, the turkey wouldn't be cooked on time and I'd single-handedly ruin Thanksgiving. Unless the upset tummy is a result of the turkey, I'd say I avoided that. In fact, the turkey got tons of rave reviews. Lots of rosemary and some of the fattest meat I've seen in country, or ever. Plus, everyone else was also busier than bees whipping up all kinds of delicious goodies. A feast. The newbies seemed happy and all 6 of them seemed really cool. All in all a good evening, though I could wish they weren't followed by insomnia…

 

25 November

            So, yesterday did turn out quite a bit better. Got up at a decent hour and headed first to World Vision. Idigine's been promoted to a post in Tahoua and the new guy seemed to think that he'd be able to get us some help with the pumps, just no idea on the time frame. Still, good to know he thinks it's possible. From there it was over to Asusu Cii Gabba, which was less useful. They can't/won't help us until we get 50k, but oh well. Tried to get to the internet, but the power went out after half an hour and remained off the rest of the day. It worked out ok, though. We all sat around in the dark and split chickens and fries from down the street for dinner (we were also out of gas for the stove) and sang Christmas carols accompanied by a child's toy electric piano. It was, after all, the day after our Thanksgiving.

 

Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches. Yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth.

Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam

 

26 November

            Sitting now with Zeinabou at the Sonitrav station, waiting for the bus to Zinder. She's going sightseeing before she leaves Niger while Ibrahim, her replacement, is in her village for live-in. I'm going for the bean project. That's right - after all the insanity it's back on with a vengeance and I have less than 2 weeks to get as much data as possible or pass out trying. My day began around 10am, heading over to INRAN once S called to tell me that Dr. B was trying to call me but couldn't get through. I hate Zain. Hopped a kabo, which led to the 1st bit of news for the day - I had my first ever motorcycle accident on that evil deep sand pit they like to call a road. It happened rapidly but almost in slow motion - I knew we were in trouble when I felt how deep the sand was but figured we'd be ok because it was one of the larger 'real' motorcycles as opposed to the little baby scooters. No such luck. I had enough time to register a string of curses and a sense of impending doom as the tires slid to my right and I fell with my left leg pinned. I remember feeling incredibly disjointed from reality as the driver pulled the bike off my shocked form. I wasn't really injured. I ended up with a blister on my right foot and a series of precisely spaced scratches on my right knee that look like they could have been ritual scars from Clan of the Cave Bear. Not too bad, though I was definitely shaken and the blister hurts like a b****. At least I was wearing my helmet like a good girl (I always do, don't worry). No real harm, no foul. Got back on the kabo and headed the rest of the way to the meeting, where they kindly gave me a couple minutes in the women's room to clean up and slather myself with Neosporin. Love that stuff.

 

27 November

            Stopped yesterday when the bush showed up. Now am waiting for the bush taxi to pass another control point on my way to K-, Mamansani's village. But I get ahead of myself… Once I got my owies tended it was back to the meeting with Dr. B, Dr. H, and a woman from SNV, a Netherlandaise NGO. It went really well - they assured me all my expenses would be reimbursed, provided I could get the data for them and totally forget/get over the K debacle - done! Sweet! Then we got down to discussing upcoming projects. There's one project being funded by Gates Foundation, Tropical Legume 2, which seems to be focusing on marketing. Sounds good. Need to give SNV a call when I get back from Zinder. From the meeting I headed back to the hostel and packed for Zinder. Zeinabou and I hopped the 5 pm bus and arrived in Zinder around 9. We had a good time chatting. **later** There were a bunch of Zinder PCVs in the hostel for their upcoming AIDS bike ride and it was good to see my stage mates and vats again. This morning I got organized with Chamsia, the RR, and headed off to Mamansani's village. 3 hours later I arrived at his door. We're done now with the meetings and I'm chilling in his amazing screened in porch while he cleans his house in prep for going in - he's going to VAT for the last 2 weeks. One of his villagers is trying to curry favor with him and brought me these amazingly delicious tiny green bananas. Hopefully the ride back to Zinder (Damagaram as they say here) will be as uneventful and unsmooshed as the ride up.

 

28 November

            LOL. Now that was an unfulfilled wish. Mamansani and I waited forever to get a taxi, then, when we finally found one it was far from a healthy vehicle. For me at least the ride was fairly comfy, smooshed into a corner, but poor Mamansani kept getting wedged off the seat by the hadji next to him. The main problem, though, was the radiator apparently had a leak and we had to stop every few km, empty the front bench (where we were sitting) and open the cab up so they could add more water, resulting in massive clouds of steam. A ride Mamansani said normally doesn't take more than 2-3 hours took close to 5, including the hours we waited, on a main road, for a taxi. The road itself was also awful. This country needs to spend more on transportation infrastructure. Arg.

 

29 November

            I'm taking a day off, vegetating in Zinder. It was awesome to see Halima again yesterday, but the trip totally tried to do me in. Getting out there wasn't too bad, though it took me two confused kabo drivers to find the tasha (station) to get to Z-, her market town, though the taxi itself happily let me out in B-, her actual village, where Halima and her mom were waiting for me. Her village seemed pretty neat - her area is very New Mexico, mesas and desert scrub. We talked pretty much non stop for 6 hours. It was really awesome seeing her again. Plus, we stopped in Charifa's village whish is only a couple of k away. Her villagers were at market but they're going to give their info to Halima's counterpart to get to me once she's back from the bike ride. Halima's counterpart rocks. We tracked him down in the market, which is a fantastic market and close and I can totally understand how she's bush ratting, and he had memorized the yields for himself and all the other farmers in her village on the project. Awesome. Plus there was ice and sodas from Nigeria (sooooo much better than American soda. I think it's that they use sugar cane instead of corn syrup for sweetener.) and we indulged. I earned it - I calculated I walked >6km yesterday and spent >7.5 hours in a bush taxi, the majority of them on the way back. Total nightmare. But, again, worth it to reconnect with Halima and see Charifa, and guarantee that Halima's going to come visit me in January. Two days of hellish bush taxis, though, convinced me to take a rest day here in Zinder, which works well as the volunteer I had planned to go see today came in to the hostel. Tomorrow I'll try to get to Chamsia's old village, then hopefully back to Maradi on Monday. Not sure how to work getting to Hadiza's village as there's currently no cell rezzo to check on her with. Spent the morning watching Lucky # Slevin and going to the place where they sell kaki, these amazing honey cookie things that I'm bringing back to my villagers as dan belagro, especially since they've texted me asking where the heck I am. Now I'm going to go crawl back into my PJs and watch Becoming Jane and then Underworld Evolutions. (Note: that was then followed by Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. ZOMG, what an awful movie.)

 

1-3 December

            The next day I waited around in hopes of catching the shuttle, which was not to be but waited with two other Zinder vols to catch a taxi to Matameye and thence to Kirou Haousa, Chamsia's old village, where theoretically I would be able to sleep in her house… nope. The school director's taken it over, but the mai gari was totally nice and let me sleep in a big comfy bed in his house. Then the next morning Sani, the mai gari's son and one of the project guys got me his data and his friend's and walked me to the other village that did the project. Then I literally ran to catch a bush taxi going back to Matameye, then caught another to Zinder. Tried to get on an afternoon bus to Maradi but for whatever reason they weren't running and so I went back to the hostel, watched all of season 4 of Lost (ZOMG. I love that show. The mist. The orchid. The temporal displacement. Sawyer. Shirtless. Leaping into the ocean. What the devil did he whisper? Sacrificial bad boy with a heart of gold (or at least silver?) Daniel. Geeky. Socially awkward. Brilliant. Hope he's still alive. Said. In suits. The accent. The guns. Ben. Moriarty incarnate. A villain you've just got to admire. Locke. Jacob. Kate. Can I be her? Please? Sun. Awesome. Takeover scene. Respect. New villain? Charlie! Can I look that good when I'm dead?) And now that my stream of consciousness fangirl babble is over… Watched Lost until it was time to head to the bus station around 3:30am, then hopped the 5am to Maradi. Got in around 9am. Headed back to the hostel then ran errands. Blasted tailor's still not done with my clothes. Grrrrrr. Collapsed exhausted in the TV room and woke up around 6. Made pizza. Gossiped with Rakia and Soba and Ramatou, then zonked out again. Woke up this morning, got data organized and sent off. Going to try to go out later and go visit Hydrolique to get info for the pumps but as it's almost 2 and I'm still half asleep… **later** So, I did, in fact, get off my rear and get to Hydrolique, where the really helpful director (being an anasara hath its benefits) got me the data I needed on the pump, including the fact that it's 57m to water, or approximately 171ft, even deeper than the water at the well. Gee, think I live in a desert? But, again, got the info so now I can go to World Vision tomorrow - I've been living today as if it were Thursday and it turns out it's Wednesday so I have more time than I think I do to get stuff done. After Hydrolique I headed to the tailor, who had finally gotten all my stuff fixed for me. My swear-in outfit is awesome. There will be fights over me it's that awesome. I'll take lots of pictures. I also managed to get to the net cafe and post more pictures - the stupid machine had apparently rendered the file folder hidden, which it isn't normally so I still had my photos, just not where I could see them, so I fixed that on the PC computer. In any case, new photos! Check the link and head to the November folder. This I'm posting with the email your blog post option, so lets hope that it works. Now to post this and then go pick some braindead movie to fall asleep to.

 

HUGS

M

 

Nightmare

So, the nice long post I'd written, along with my edited photos, and everything else I had on my thumbdrive, have now disappeared - wiped by an evil, vicious, and poorly kept computer in the internet cafe. This is sooo not good. I have backups, but aie. It's been a long week.

If the Milky Way were not within me how should I have seen it or know it? Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam

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:
A Life Lived in Fear is a Life Half Lived
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
Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam

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:
But Thou, meek lover of the good,
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.