Dear America

My one year anniversary here in Niger arrived without much preparation and seemed to disappear just as subtly. It got me thinking about movements of time and our perceptions of those movements, and what a day is versus an hour, a year, etc., etc. At home, in the states, each day seems to be filled up with all of these details and events, and by the end of the day one can say, rather easily, what he has accomplished (or at least what he has done). There is, perhaps, a sense of action in each American day. I am not disputing that here in Niger we don’t also do things with our days; I would like to assert, however, that the cyclical movement of hours turning into night and then day and then night and then day seems to move much more fluidly. Recently I fear time is traipsing so quickly and seamlessly that I will wake up one morning to discover I am an old, old woman and still with so much to see of the world.

I have a meeting planned with the English teachers at my school next week to start a club d’anglais. I’m excited to get connected with the actual students at the CEG. I think interacting with kids instead of bureaucracy will be a good, fresh change. Insha’allah. A couple weeks after that I will be having a meeting with the COGES, the faculty, and (I’m hoping) some portion of the village community to run a PACA (Participatory Analysis for Community Action). In these meetings the PCV sort of sits on the sidelines/lightly facilitates while the community uses an image-based system of creating a list of needs and voting on the most pertinent one to bring to action. In a positive light PACA is an innovative and illiterate-friendly forum in which a community can articulate as a team their most pressing need, and then work to eliminate/alleviate that need using their volunteer as the missing link/resource. In a less positive light it can be seen as a forum for voting on a ‘big money project’ which the volunteer can dump on the community without much hope for sustainability. I am hoping that if we go ahead with PACA in Kiota the result will lead toward the former. Regardless, if all goes as planned, I will end up asking an economically crisis-ing America for money to fund the project.



Our sister stage (the group of Ag/NRM volunteers who came a year ahead of us, and helped train us during PST) is currently in Niamey having their COS (close of service) conference. I cannot believe that this group of people will be leaving in less than two months. Once they leave we are the next set of Ag/NRMs to COS. I’m starting to feel like there just isn’t time in two years to do anything. Or rather, any amount of time learns how to eat itself up until suddenly it is diminishing and all of the tasks allotted to it have been pushed to the back. I suppose people probably exist who live differently than that: people who end up with their tasks completed and the extra time laying out ahead of them. I have not learned to be one of them.

I have harvested my millet, my hibiscus, my beans and my peanuts. My moringa trees are getting taller and providing me with delicious kopto to add to my lunches. My cat is getting bigger and crazier everyday. I’ve been reading great books and appreciating that after Peace Corps I will never again have this kind of time to read for pleasure. I am trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. But I presume we’re all doing that. Miss you all and would love to hear from you. Much, much love, Annette.

Tomorrow is September

Andrew trying out some post-colonial literature :)



It’s been cloudy all morning, even drizzled, but the sun just broke through. All the colors in the Petit Marche are jumping in the wind-- the reds and whites of the shade umbrellas covering the bowls of produce for sale, the pagnes hanging and blowing as walls. Even the stacks of phone cards, cigarettes and mystery medicines seem bright as the nerandiko boys carry them above their heads selling them to who will buy. Women in complés with their heads covered zipping by on motorcycles, the chipping paint of store fronts, the long white jabbas on the men…it all looks fresh again. The sun, this force we try to hate but are nothing without. In the rain, everyone in their puffy jackets claiming the cold is sweet, but their hands shiver near the small fires where they prepare chai. The rainy season is really here. There are vegetables in the market and we sleep with blankets.

However, my sister arrived on Friday for her study abroad program and claims that the nights are too hot for sleep. Maybe I have grown more used to this place than I think. Kate and the 17 other students she’s here with had their naming ceremony on Saturday night. She is Kaidiya, or the Zarma pronunciation: Kadija. It’s so fun having her here, and her dorm is nearly walk-able from our hostel here in Niamey. I can’t wait until she can actually come to see my village. Some people tell me she looks like me, but mostly they say, “a ga hima Sediku,” she looks like Andrew. …and then they say she’s more tan than I am. Alas, when the sun is too hot you live under a shade hangar.



Speaking of Andrew—he was here for almost 4 weeks. We had an incredible vacation through Benin, Togo, Ghana and Burkina Faso (I am attempting to put pictures up on facebook right now, the one above is the night we returned to Niger from Burkina). He’s now been in as many West African countries as I have. …And now he’s on a cruise in Alaska. Life is so hard. It was great to have such a long trip with him and I can’t wait to meet Jeanine (his girlfriend) for Christmas in Paris!!

This is a picture from The Green Turtle Lodge in Ghana where we spent 5 nights...



When we returned from our 3 week trip, my kitten was in fact missing. But he was only zellaying (looking for girlfriends out on the town) and 2 weeks later I found him. Now he leaves whenever I leave and pops in to visit for a few days at a time when I’m home. I try to tell him that he doesn’t need any other women in his life…but men never listen so out he goes. I’ve now tied a strip from little blue pagne around his neck so people will know he’s the anasara cat. He looks quite dapper.

My millet is taller than I am. My moringa trees are growing everyday. I think the third set of tomatos I planted are actually coming up, hurray! I have peanuts and hibiscus and black-eyed peas…I think I even have one lavtande squash and one watermelon. My concession is beginning to look like a little paradise instead of a parking lot.

What else? My radio show is going well. I’m working with Michelle, the volunteer who was here before me to start selling my friend Afoulan’s jewelry in San Fransisco. And when school starts back up in October I’m going to hold a meeting with director/teachers/pta to decide what projects they want done while I’m here. So…If you’ve been really itching to donate to some charity project, I’ll probably have one up on the web by January or February for you to start donating to! If I end up doing something like trying to turn their millet stalk school into a cement school, it could run somewhere about $23,000. Yikes.

So, I think that’s pretty much all that’s been happening lately. I just bumped into Kate in the café I’m in…this is going to be a crazy four months! Bumping into my sister in Niamey! I’m back to Kiota tomorrow, but I’ll be coming back for the new stage’s swear-in and GAD Auction on the 9th and 10th.

Hope all is well back in America. I can’t believe Fall is going to be starting soon. I’m a little jealous… Lots of love and look forward to hearing from all of you!

An Ex-Pat Independence Day

Storm approaching as the sun goes down.



The top of the mesa behind Kiota: you can see the mosque in the background.



Well Hello!

I know it's been a while. Happy belated 4th of July! We had a nice little party of nearly 1,000 people at the ambassodor's residence on Friday night to celebrate. The four marines in country did a salute with flags and rifles, and the ambassador herself gave a nice speech that I'm sure I would have enjoyed if the microphone had been good enough for us to hear anything. But there was free wine (though often served to men first...!), , and a sunset over the river, so I'm not complaining. It was a nice event to sort of see how the other 0.2% lives. It isn't that often we go to parties with American officials and wealthy Nigeriens.

Things in Kiota have been great. I still spend a lot of time sitting with my friend Afoulan, and the group of men who come to sit there everyday, outside my house. My friend Suraji and I are in the midst of a fairly heated debate about whether or not there is ever a gray area in the world, or if everything can always just come down to lies and truth. Somehow it always falls back to religion, and the conversation usually concludes for the evening with Suraji reminding me that I think people came from monkeys, whereas he thinks they came from other people, and then it's hard to make the laughter stop that comes at my expense. Who is this anasara who thinks monkeys are people and that maybe an explosion of rocks created earth instead of God? I usually say, let's agree to disagree. Iri ma yarda ga si yarda. And he tells me that we're only having fun, only having a conversation. We all part ways while it's still light out, only to resume in the morning.

I'm in Niamey right now because Andrew is due to arrive tomorrow! I can't wait. Our plan is to leave Niger on Thursday morning, busing down through Benin and Togo, and arriving in Ghana by Monday or Tuesday. We should be back in Niger by the 26th. My first real vacation in 9 months! I am praying that they still sell sushi in Accra, and that there is still such a thing as the ocean.

What else, what else? I've planted my millet and a go ga fata. It's sprouted and looks healthy, and if, Insha'allah, we get rain again soon, none of it will die. My tomatos have not come up yet, nor has my moringa, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm hoping the place doesn't look like too much of a disaster by the time Andrew gets to see it at the end of the month. Also, my kitten wasn't doing so well when I left on Friday, so I really hope he gets better not worse while I'm gone. Afoulan promises that he's already doing better...but people here are not big cat-fans. Iri ga di...

Anyway, hope all is well home sweet home. How is the economy shaping up? How's the heat? If anyone is lacking summer plans (or Christmas plans that is), my door is wide open. Lots of love and hope all is well. Some more Kiota pics -->


Me at the Juma prayer.



A Niger River tributary on the way to Gotheye.



Carrie and me at my house.



Jingara Do, Juma.

Niger's President Seeking 3rd Term

Hello from the capital!

There is a strange feeling in the air here in Niamey due to recent political developments in this still new republic. President Tandja, who was elected in 1999, and in December would have completed the two 5 yr. terms allowed of any one president, has made some rather surprising decisions of late. In the last six months there has been much rumor and speculation about him potentially seeking a third term, but the hope was that the elections scheduled for December would go forward as planned, and a new president would be democratically elected here in Niger.

This past Tuesday, May 26th, after being told that the court and assembly would most likely vote in opposition to an amendment to the constitution enabling the president to remain in power for an additional three years, Tandja disbanded parliament. This is technically lawful, and means that there must be an election held for new parliament seats within 90 days. It is assumed Tandja's hope would be that the new elected officials would then be in his favor of remaining in power.

Sufficed to say, there is mass opposition to these recent happenings. Tandja made an address two nights ago to the people informing them that in their best interest he would be going through with the referendum to change the constitution, and that he would remain their president for the next three years.

Tandja is 70 years old. He claims he wants to stay president in order to fulfill certain projects he has initiated for the best interest of the country's economy such as a second bridge in Niamey, the dam project, and certain contracts with other countries and companies regarding the uranium in Niger's northern region.

This could mean any number of things for Niger, and any number of things for Peace Corps Niger. There are demonstrations scheduled for the next 10 days, and all PCV's have been asked to avoid the capitals and remain in their villages. I am getting on a bus to go home this afternoon.

It is hard to stay politically neutral, as is my job, in the midst of all this. I love hearing my villagers talking politics, but I only listen and try not to give my opinion. I'll be in touch with updates, but you can also read about it in the news. Here's a link to a BBC article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8069650.stm

I have to run, but I miss you all and I'll talk to you soon! xoxo

One Year Older and Korean Postcards

So I turned 23 in Niger. It's strange, getting older in a foreign country. My birthday brought rain with it, and so the last few days have been much cooler. Clouds have given us some slight shield from the sun, and my friend Will said they have begun planting in his village. It's only May, and hardly the beginning. Planting usually begins in June or July--this could turn out to be quite the rainy season.

My friend Kirsten is on a Fulbright in Korea teaching English to high schoolers right now. On Thursday I went to the Peace Corps Bureau in Niamey to check for any packages before my birthday. There was one incredibly beat up box with bubble wrap coming out of its ripped corners, and inside was a large plastic binder with at least a hundred laminated pages inside. The note said, "Annette, in response to your request for snail mail I asked my students to do the work. Why would you want one, lengthy, grammatically correct letter from me? Better still is over 500 personalized postcards from EFL students!! I gave them some very simplified information about Niger and this is what they came up with! A student said it best. "You mind is so beautiful and decent." And, "Annette, have a strength!" With love, Kirsten.

Sure enough, there are more than 500 postcards inside responding to a power-point presentation Kirsten gave her students on the work I'm doing here. Due to the students' English level, they are pretty hilarious. Here are some of my favorites:

"To: Annette

Hello. Annette! Nice to meet you :)
I heard about you much time
from Kirsten. Hmmm...I want to
do volunteering like you someday.
I respect you because you help
poor child and person although
it is very hard...
I want to meet you in the future.
So, please tell me about volunteer then
I look forward to help person
with you <3
Hmm. Are you okay in hot weather?
I hate hot day!!
So ~ Take care of yourself and be happy!
I will always victory for you!! Thank you for reading!"

"Dear Annette.
Hello...
You...Beautiful heart.
You...God Bless you ~ ...
Love. Love. Love.
You...I love you <3 <3"

"Hello Annette!
My name is jin-a fr
I heard your story from Kristen
I'm glad to hear your story
At first I'm not understand
your behavior
Because NIGER is so far...
If I you. I'm not.
but your behavior is nice
your will become a such as
mother theresa.
And your will have
meet handsome, and kind
and have much money guy
like obama :)"

"Hello Annette <3
Glad to meet you! I'm So-young.
I'm high school student in Mokpo, Korea.
I'm so happy, because I miss you.
I'm a lucky girl :)
Are you Happy? If you say 'I'm
not happy,' I'm so sad.
The world is beautiful, wonderful and
funny.
Anyway ~ Have a nice day.
Bye, My new friend, Annette."

"To, Annette!
Hi. Annette.
Nice to meet you :)
Do you like ice-cream?
I like ice-cream very much.
I have a lot of time."

"Hi, Annette!
Nice to meet you
My name is Lee Ji Young
What is a niger famous
food? You know what?
I hope visit a niger
what do you in niger?
Do you have a fun?
What a funny and
surprisely culture
in niger?
I hope funny of your trip!
bye--"

There are many many more. And some great pictures, too. This has inspired me to start my pen-pal correspondence with students in the U.S. So thank you Kirsten, and thank you to your students!

These are a couple pictures of my new kitten, Levin, and his triumph over a chariot spider. He has earned his keep.

Ay go ga dona

I'm back in Niamey after my first (almost) month in my new village of Kiota. I think it's going to be a great place to live. There are something around 5,000 people in the town and my house is right in the center of things, diagonally across the street from the mosque. The back of the Sheik's large concrete house stares at me through the trees across the street if I am sitting under Afulan's shade hangar outside my concession.

Recently, it's been getting pretty hot (and by pretty hot I mean a high of 129 degrees!), so sleeping at night is not the easiest activity. And if I do manage to fall into any sort of deep sleep, I am usually roused from it by 4:15 am when the Quaranic singing begins over the loudspeakers at the mosque. Then there is the call to prayer beginning at 5 and lasting to 6 or 6:30. It's sometimes a rough way to start the morning, and may be part of my inspiration for getting out of bed at 6 to go running down the laterite road before the sun gets too hot and my sanity slips slowly away.

After taking a bucket bath and brushing my teeth, I grab a sweatrag, notebook, and pencil and sit with Afulan (the bella/grassa blacksmith and jewlery maker, and also my best friend in village, who works outside my house). By 8 or 8:30 every morning a group of men will have gathered to sit around on tangaras and chat and drink sweet, strong Nigerien tea. As a guest, and even as a woman in this incredibly conservative town, I am still usually offered the first glass. Drinking tea here is more like taking shots of hot bitter sugar than it is like drinking British cups of tea with lots of water and milk. I'm starting to crave it over coffee to wake me up these days...

When I'm not sitting with these men attempting to discuss global warming and polygamy in Zarma, I'm either walking around town, at one of the two schools I am starting to work at, or at the radio station. Last week my PCV neighbors and I started our weekly radio show. We've done two shows so far (in Zarma), and I really like doing it. There's a chance I might even start a second show writing or translating children's stories into Zarma on Sundays. That could prove tricky as children are rarely the ones permitted to listen to the radio...it's usually only the men. But either way, there are projects in my future I am getting excited about.

I am still waiting for my latrine and bathing area to be cemented (so I can stop taking bucket baths with my feet in the mud), and insha'allah when I get back from Niamey that might even be done :) Right now my entire concession is still hardpan soil and looks impossible to grow anything in, but I am going to try and have a small field in it once rainy season begins. Everyday the people of Kiota ask me how the heat is. I tell them it might kill me and they say, no no, God will bring water, and with it the cold will come! I am choosing to believe them.

I painted the inside of my house blue, and have put some maps and pictures up on the walls so it's starting to feel like home. I still can't really believe I have electricty. I sometimes even watch movies! It's really nice to be able to write on my laptop when I want to. I think slowly but surely this is going to be a good place for me to live.

I just got a text from my friend Will, who lives 2 km from me in the bush, saying "My villagers told me the two Canadians who were kidnapped have been paid for and sent home...is that true??" I almost texted back, "no," right away, assuming there was no way I wouldn't have heard about it, but I decided to google it first. Lo and behold, Will's villagers were right and us PCVs are, as usual, the last to know. I think the bureau hasn't announced anything yet because it is still unclear whether any ransom was paid. 2 of the 6 people kidnapped have not been returned. If ransoms were paid I imagine there may be more chaos for us here in PC Niger. I'm very happy for the families of the returned hostages.

On that rather strange note to end on, thank you so much to those of you who have been sending me letters! I'm sorry I haven't put anything in the mail since January-- now that I have more computer access, e-mail is actually the easier way for me to write back. I don't have a post office at my new site, so I can receive mail but not send any. I still appreciate letters and packages. I am out of American food! Lots of love to all of you and I hope you are enjoying the springtime! xoxo I'll put some photos of my new house and concession below (also, me yawning and the spider that got in the way of my painting):

Inter-Service-Training and I Move in Monday!

In front of the refact.



Bawa, my new APCD. Tondi, the wonderful training manager. Sangare, my old APCD. Hauoa Grande, the wonderful PTA. And Mani, our language coordinator!



Today is Wednesday, March 25th. Yesterday was my mom’s birthday, and in two weeks we will have been in Niger for six months. Tomorrow is our last night here at Hamdallaye where we’ve been for our three-week IST (inter-service-training). By the time I post this online IST will be over and I will be packing for my installation in Kiota on Monday.

It’s good to be back together with the group I came here with in October. We were all apart for three months and have had surprisingly different experiences out in the bush. After this weekend it may be quite a while (maybe January ’10!) before we’re all together again. We are spread from Gotheye to Gaya and from Gaya to Zinder. That means within our group of 25 volunteers we are close to four of Niger’s seven bordering countries: Mali, Burkina-Faso, Benin and Nigeria. Algeria, Libya and Chad are the only three a little further away, and harder to get to.

Emily, Scott and Will (the other volunteers in my stage relocated because of the kidnappings) are now (mostly) happily settled into their new villages, all in the Dosso region. On Monday, when I join them, it means this whole nightmare of readjustment will finally be nearing its end and we will be looking forward to productivity again instead of just catching up to everyone else. By that I mean it hasn’t been easy living in limbo while our stage-mates have been integrating more and more into their first villages. IST has been largely a brainstorm for actual, do-able, mappable, PDM-able, fund-able project ideas. This is what is exciting about having spent three months at post: now you get to do stuff. But for the four of us that haven’t had that privilege, it is hard to watch everyone else here start planning what they can start right away. I’m sure in a few months, or less, I will also feel ready to start beginning projects in my new sector.

* * * * * * * * *

It’s Friday now, the 27th, and all the girls just packed up our room here at Tondo-bon (the top of the rock) listening to the Dixie Chicks, Frank Sinatra and, ladies and gentlemen, the Notorious B.I.G. My friend Jessie says it feels a little like high school graduation. We watch this room, filled with backpacks, strewn with clothing, piles of seeds for planting, books, dictionaries, project planning sheets and empty glass coca-cola bottles, begin to slowly be packed back into an empty white room with four bare mattresses and a sink. Outside we have taken down most of our mosquito nets, and the village of Hamdallaye is spread below us baking in the sun. Goats linger by the metal wire fence surrounding the training site, chewing any leaves left on the trees. To look around this same place I arrived on October 9th, (10th?) of last year—to look at the scattered outdoor showers, and small circular classroom huts with straw roofs, the refactoire with its wooden benches, hangar and metal chairs—all these things which felt so foreign not long ago; now they feel like some definition of comfort. This is our home away from post, a little slice of America. We had pizza for lunch today! (Albeit, there still managed to be chunks of bone in the ground beef that substituted pepperoni). The point is, it’s hard for this to be the end of us being the new kids. Unless the budget really changes with Obama, we won’t be together again back on this training site. We’re on our own. And we feel capable.

I would like to interject a special congratulations here to my sister Kate who has been ACCEPTED TO THE BU PROGRAM IN NIAMEY FOR THE FALL SEMESTER! Insha’allah (god willing) I will get to have her in this country for four months! Congrats, My love!

So without further ado, as I should probably hurry up and get back to the class I’m missing (even though it’s for Ag/NRMs and I’m a CYE) I would like to send my love to all of you! Wish me luck in my second first month at post! I won’t have internet for another month after Monday (but write to me at the Niamey address!) And please call! I hope you’re all doing well and know that I’m missing you everyday (but not too badly). I cannot wait to hear from you. I hope it smells like spring there. Much love, Annette.

Walking to the Office

Because sometimes this is what gets left out:

As you walk along the road in Niamey at noon, which you try so hard not to do because you know part way between the hostel and the bureau you will think, “maybe if I turn around now it will be faster to get back inside and try this again after dark,” but you wanted a meat sandwich, or some cfa for your phone, or a solani to put in the freezer for later, or, well, to check your e-mail; so you trek on with the sun like some massive bright weight on you. The sand is hot and sticks to your calves as it flicks up behind your flip-flops. It is only now and again that the wind positions itself just right to carry the smell, sitting stagnant in the gutter of a sewer system you are walking beside, right up to your nose, and let it remain there gently, tangibly, until a second breeze comes to push it away.

If you’ve forgotten your sunglasses, as is so often the case, you may get lost in thought for a moment pondering the potential damage the sun may actually have on your eyeballs. How tight can you squeeze them and still see without getting dizzy? This must be how a camera feels during over exposure: all these bright white objects really have other colors too, but it hurts too much to look.

And somewhere along the way you will decide now is your time to cross the street. You will have readied yourself for this and subconsciously already crossed the sewer so you are walking along the strip of sand between the gutter and the road. Some street light will have changed up ahead, and there is magically a break in traffic and enough time between motorcycles. You wait for the one man to bike past and quickly walk out in front of the man pulling the cart of sugarcane and the camel with the dala mats slung across its back. With a jump in your step, one hand holding up your pagne and the other one shielding the sun from outright blinding you, you make it to the sand strip which runs down the middle of the road between lanes.

Another light has changed so now cars and poporos and bikes and camels are flying by on either side of you, two deep each way. You drink dust and exhaust and walk along the strip kicking more dirty sand to stick to your sweaty ankles. You are tempted to cross several times, but hesitate because that motorcycle is going too fast with not enough space behind him. But eventually a gap presents itself and you make it to the other side where you find yourself walking through the uncomfortably deep sand that will last all the way to the bureau. You think you’re safe and in an area with some sort of rules like a sidewalk until you hear the honk directly behind you of some impatient car who has chosen this sand as his road. You trudge over to the side to let him pass before he runs you over, and then walk along in his tire tracks where the sand is packed a little harder.

As you pass the meat sandwich cage you find it’s too hot to want to eat. Instead you take out 1,000 cfa and make eye-contact with one of the boys selling phone cartes. “Zangu hinka,” you tell him, “celtel.” And you pocket the $2.00 card before you get to the corner where you have to cross but one more time to enter the gates of the bureau. And has it really been only ten, fifteen minutes?

The cool air in the guards hut kicks you back to life as you sign in. Bi go no, irkoy bere. There is shade, god is huge. Maybe you will check a lot of e-mails to buy some time before you walk back.

Goodbye Winditan

I took a bus Thursday morning to go back to my village, pack, and say goodbye. I had asked Sangare (my APCD) to call and warn my village about my leaving, but I knew they wouldn't really believe him until I was there telling them myself. It felt as though we had sped up the two years I was supposed to stay, and doing all the things we would have waited to do until next December. I sat with Fati (Alpha Wande) and her new baby Abdul Rashid in her house before I ever made it to my concession. All the women came there to greet me. After I explained what was happening, and a lot of sad, quiet conversation and avoiding eye contact, they told me to go home and rest and start packing. I said I would come back to see them and they said they would come over later.

I heard the radio playing from my shade hangar before I walked in, and all the men had already met in my concession to greet me. I put my bag down and sat with them while one of them went to town to buy ingredients to make tea.


We chatted for a while and then Haouate sent food over, and I ate with just the men for the first time, from the same bowl, since arriving in Niger. After we ate, and took pictures, and made plans for them to visit me in Kiota they told me I should start packing and getting my stuff ready. I agreed, walked them to the door. And turned around to face my two huts, shade hangar, bathroom and toolshed: all completely lived in, all completely un-ready to be packed. I started with the big things, it felt easier. I brought the chairs and stools to a pile. I unhooked one of the beds. Then I saw that all the women were walking over.

Haoua asked how her cooking had been when she fed the men and me. Delicious, I said. And we laughed that she had cooked for me like that. This gender role thing...it is impossible to label. I tell them I'm a woman but not a Nigerien woman. As I was leaving the next day the men told my boss in Zarma that I was a man. And then they said, actually, she's two things. She's a man and she's a woman. And that was that. I digress. So the woman and I sat and talked about everything, mostly avoiding the topic that I might never see them again. We kept saying it isn't far to Kiota, it isn't so far to get there. I took a picture of them too, which they set up themselves and went home to get their head scarves so they would look good enough for it. In Niger if a person is smiling in a picture they say, oh that picture didn't work, they were laughing. It can take a million tries to get the picture just right because of how much laughter is actually happening. But occasionally you can really nail the picture-perfect Nigerien photo where everyone looks certainly serious, and nearly miserable. It isn't easy.


The women left around seven, right before the sun went down. I packed a little more and went back to Mari's house at eight. She said she was sorry that noboday had any food tonight to feed me. It's okay, I told her, and my stomach rumbled right then. I was hungry, I didn't have any food either.

It was dark but the other women saw my flashlight and we spent the next few hours lying on a tangara laughing hysterically and taking pictures in the darkness. Once we had all started to fall asleep we finally decided to go home to bed. The only flashlight I had that worked was my cell phone, so I spent the next couple of hours with a cell phone in my mouth trying to see and pack in the dark, emotionally overwhelmed to say the least. I woke up early the next morning to pack with the sunrise.


I finally got sort of organized and went over to Haouate's house for more goodbyes. Mari and I walked into town to greet the Maigiri, say goodbye, and pass out letters of condolence from the Peace Corps to give to him and Adoum's family about Adoum's death. When we got back the men had come over again. Agri, the agriculture extension agent had come by. I brought cards out we began waiting for Sangare to come on the bus to pick me up. I taught them how to open combination locks. It was very confusing; we laughed a lot. After a few hours I called and he said he was going to be a couple hours later. Since it was Friday the men said they needed to go Juma, do the Friday prayer. Oumarou looked at my back pack still sitting in the corner of the shade hangar where I put it down the day before and laughed. "Did you ever even open that since you got here?" I hadn't really. They left and after eating the plain white rice someone brought over for me I took a brief and much needed nap.



When the bus pulled up, we loaded all my giant amount of stuff onto it. Sangare held an un-installation meeting telling the village, "Zeinabou doesn't want to leave, but we are making her leave. She wants to stay, but she cannot stay." And I tried not to cry. The men told me I had to have one last cup of sweet chai before getting on the bus, so I did. And then I walked away leaving them all in my concession. The women waved and walked home. And we were all saying, "kala hanfo, kala hanfo," see you sometime.

Spring go ka, insha'allah, and with it something new.

2.17.09

Cross Country Excursions and Why I’m Homeless



I was picked up at the hostel last Monday to make the trek out to Hausa land with Chris, the PTO, Bawa the new education APCD, Souley, the health PTA, and Amadou our driver. Unfortunately, my cell phone slipped out of my pocket right as I was leaving so I spent the week away from texts or calls. It ended up a refreshing escape from the previous two weeks in Niamey of seeing friends and meeting new volunteers as they streamed in and out of the hostel in the usual Niamey PCV traffic.

We went through Dosso, Konni, slept in Maradi, continued to Zinder, stayed there one night, spent the next night in Laura’s village, the next back in Zinder, and the following two in Maradi before making the long drive home getting in late Sunday night. Spending 12-14 hours a day in the car, and covering a good 2,700 km in total; we felt we had earned our exhaustion by the time we finally fell asleep back in our respective Niamey beds. Along the way we stopped in different PCV villages doing site-visits so the CYE (community youth education) volunteers could meet Bawa (their new boss). It was great to see so much of the East. I feel like I’ve lost all my Zarma and picked up a lot of ‘sannu-sannu.’

On Friday, Mary (the country director) sent word that she had met with the embassy and had news on our consolidation status. Before I learned the finer details on Monday morning I was told that the 11 of us consolidated were being given three options: 1) COS-close of service early and go back to America. 2) Return to our villages after agreeing to a new set of living and travel regulations. 3) Relocate to a new village somewhere and start over. I planned right away to go back to my village, until I saw the extent of the new regulations (which would potentially stay in place past the end of my service). Essentially because the embassy is most worried about the safety of traveling, they wanted to give us the option to stay in our homes while minimizing the amount of time we spent on the road. That translates into us being able to leave our villages only once every month or two, not being allowed to work on group projects in order for there not to be multiple PCV’s in the same place at the same time, and no visitors allowed to our sites except for occasional exceptions. Not to mention that if we got sick we would have to take care of ourselves in our huts with extra medicine we would stock up on since we’d have much less access to the med bureau. And in addition to all this, daily phone calls with our APCD’s to ensure PC Headquarters we were still alive. Also, once we are done with our service, PC plans to completely close our cluster, so no new volunteers will continue the projects we start. As you can probably imagine, the circumstances felt sub-par in terms of living conditions, and far from productive in terms of successful PC projects. Especially for those of us who are newer to country, it makes much more sense to start from scratch in a new region where we have more free reign to work with other PCV’s, and have access to Niamey for project proposals, etc.

I should interject here that I still feel largely numb to the bulk of what has happened. I love my village, I love my neighbors, I love my house, and I am completely unprepared to up and move. I haven’t told them anything yet because I simply don’t have the words to say, “not only am I leaving, but due to safety problems in the area you will have no future volunteers to help fix your grain bank, get new potato seeds, and work and your tree grafting projects. Good luck.” As of right now, PC doesn’t even want us to go back to say goodbye or pack up our houses. They want to send public cars out without us and toss our stuff in the back. It is not pleasant to imagine someone else, rushed, packing all your belongings while your heartbroken neighbors stand watching.


*I got sidetracked in the midst of everything that’s going on: One Week Later…

2.24.09

City Living



I have been living in the Niamey hostel for about a month now, save my trip east and a quick two nights in my new village.

To recap major events as objectively as possible:

I’m moving to Kiota. Kiota is a city. I will have electricity. Still no running water. I am switching from an agriculture volunteer to an education volunteer. I will be writing and performing weekly radio shows in Zarma and French called “Practical Life with the Peace Corps.” Tuesdays from 5-5:30: they will quick sensiblizations through skits and conversations on subjects like AIDS, nutrition, family planning, health, women’s rights, etc. I may also be working on teacher trainings, English clubs, literacy classes for kids not in school, and other related projects. I don’t move in until March 30th, after our inter-service-training (IST), which is only sort of relevant to me now as it is the Agriculture and Natural Resource Management IST.

Kiota has one of the most important Sheikhs in all of West Africa. (Read more about him and his mother (mamma) here.) People come from all over the place to visit him and be in his presence. I will sort of be considered the sheikize, the sheik’s daughter. This is probably the most religious and conservative place in all of Niger. I am to wear long skirts and cover my head at all times. I have a hard time with this, and in the 3 days I went and stayed there I already wore pants and didn’t cover my head a few times, but I will get better.

As I am writing this my phone rings. It is my neighbor from Winditan calling to see when I am coming home. I tell him I will come Thursday to see everyone. He is so happy. He says we have been waiting so much for you to come home! I realize PC must not have called them yet to explain I am not going to be living there anymore. I have told them twice now that I can’t come back for good, that Peace Corps doesn’t think it is good for me to stay there because of the white people who got stolen, and they pretend they don’t hear me and say see you soon.

So to back up again, Thursday I will go to Winditan to say my goodbyes and pack my stuff. Friday my boss will come and collect my belongings. Saturday I will come back to Niamey. I am the only one out of the 5 of us being relocated allowed to go say goodbye. I live closer and on a safer road. I hope I can prevent myself from crying in public. My neighbor had a baby boy while I was gone. I’ll get to see him for the first time! It will be hard to see the way my neighbors will stoically accept, the way they do with all the hardships in their lives, that something like the help of a peace corps volunteer was of course too good to last. That if God wills for their friend to be taken away, and their chance of getting money to be taken away, then so be it. We will not waste time talking about how unfair this whole situation is for everyone. There is no unfair in Zarma. It will just be, ‘kala ni kayan, insha’allah.’ ‘God-willing, see you when you come.’ And I will not be allowed to come.

I watched Milk. Great movie. I’m excited to move to San Francisco. The hot season is starting. I have bacteria again, thank god for Cipro! I’m learning new ways to look great in a head scarf. I’ve thought about buying a camel instead of riding my bike. There are palm trees on my new road. I will have PCV neighbors less than 10 km away. I might have to travel east again to stay with some CYE PCV’s and learn a little bit about my new job. I have to learn French. I am trying to tell myself everyday, you can do this, you can be great at this. Some days I know that’s true, some days I am just so tired. I have met wonderful people while traveling around this country, and I have made some great friends. I know I need to at least try this next step.

Hope everyone back home is doing well! Sorry this post is so jumbled; I unjumbled it as much as I could. The stuff in my head is all a little disorganized right now. Kala suru. Thank you for letters and phone calls. Missing you.

Did the groundhog see his shadow? I didn't hear.

The hot season is beginning early. We were hoping it would hold off until March, but the thermometer has already gotten to 110˚F. It’s dry though, the heat, so not painful yet. I’ve been telling my villagers I will die once we’re really in the throws of hayniwati, the hot season.

So I should back up, and cover a little of what I have avoided having to write about. Today marks 2 weeks since we were originally put on standfast. Standfast is the first step in the EAP, the Emergency Action Plan for the Peace Corps. It’s kind of like a yellow alert for our security code at home. And it means you can’t go anywhere at all. So instead of all the volunteers in my region coming into Niamey to celebrate my training group (stage)’s completion of our first month at post, we stayed put. I found out from my neighbor he had heard that some anasaras (white people) had been kidnapped. This was Thursday or Friday, January 23rd or so.

That Tuesday morning I got the terrible news that my chef-du-group, (stand-in maigri and official counterpart) who had been in a coma for a couple weeks after a terrible motorcycle accident, had passed away. His name was Adoum and he was one of the kindest, warmest and most charismatic people I have ever met. He was the guardian for the Center (the fancy building in my village where the garden trainings are supposed to happen). He had two wives and many children and always wore a turban with aviator sunglasses, and was always smiling. When my neighbor came over to tell me the news I was eating breakfast and tried to keep my composure. But just yesterday, I wanted to say, just yesterday they said he was doing better! But I could not say anything, I nodded my head, and turned around to walk into my hut and cry into a towel for five minutes. Then I put on a long skirt and clean shirt and splashed water on my face to feel more ready.

I went with my neighbors to town to pay our respects to his family. I think my best friend in village is related to him because she was already there. I was so grateful to have bought a head-scarf (hijab) my last trip to market, because I needed something to cover my face. We are not supposed to cry in public, or to show very much emotion at all in public. And this man was the closest to a father-figure for me in my village and I did not know how to stoically greet everyone as if it was just another day. “How is your health?” “Fine.” “How is your family?” “Fine.” I was constantly hiding my face behind the embroidered blue scarf which went from my head down past my waist, because I could not stop crying. We sat on the mats in his family’s concession (divided by gender) silently, grieving. Mari, my closest friend, the 33 year old mother of my favorite little boy in the village, sat behind me drained of any of her usual spark. I couldn’t look at her without crying, and she kept having to hide her face to cry in her scarf as well. I thought I was keeping it together pretty well until an older woman walked over to join us, and was suddenly seized with grief. I at first thought maybe her ganji (the spirit inside her) was coming out or possessing her. She started shrieking with her hands in the air, screaming and stomping and wailing. It was as if she was begging God, just begging him to take it back, to send Adoum back. Like how could we physically continue to live without him—it would be too painful. I hid my face back under the hijab trying to stay as silent as I could. I heard Mari behind me give a little yelp, as if she’d been slapped in the face by this woman’s mourning, and she jumped up and ran out of the concession unable to contain her grief. The woman finally got it all out, or had nothing left to scream with, and collapsed on the dirt beside me. Someone brought her a cup of water. Then in turns the women began standing up to pound millet together. Stiff bodies slamming the pestle into the mortar in groups of three. Boom boom boom, one-two-three, boom boom boom one-two-three. I watched the catharsis of it, the hurt leaving their arms and faces as the beat the hayni. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep that rhythm. I would have tipped the mortar, spilled everything in the sand, fallen to my knees. These women have strength. Finally it was time to walk back home. We ran into Laribou, Mari’s husband as we walked through town down the paved road. “Zeinabou, ni go bani? Mate gahamo?” You have health? How is your body? I turned away mid “bani samay walla” so it would not be awkward to hold eye contact while my voice cracked. He looked fancier than I’d ever seen him. A red plaid button down shirt over tan pants. “Kala suru,” Haouate said to me as we approached the door of my concession. Have patience. I nodded. I felt like I had so much growing up to do. The thing is…the thing that’s hard, or harder, is I think he would have lived in America. Our hospitals could have saved him. Just knowing that, it did no good, not just to know that.

When I got back I had missed a call from our country director. I was running out of money and couldn’t call her, so I texted and she called me again. She said because of the kidnappings we were being consolidated, step two of the EAP. She said to make sure to tell my counterpart that we would be in Niamey for at least 10-14 days. I told her “okay.” Then lost it again. “Okay, except he died this morning, so I’ll tell my neighbor. I’ll come in tomorrow.” It was terrible having to leave my village like that. They looked as though they understood that I too might never come back. Like of course they could expect any terrible news now. “It’s better,” they said, “to be where you’re safe.” Mari was still in town and she came by that night while I was packing. Her tears had dried. After we exchanged greetings she asked, “You’re leaving tomorrow?” “I’m leaving tomorrow," I told her. "I don’t know when I can come back.” She nodded. Said goodnight. And in the morning I took my bags, locked my doors, found a bush taxi and left for the capital.

Now here I am, still in Niamey, and consolidation is only being extended. There have been two kidnappings since mid-December. You may have read about them in the news. The first was two Canadian officials, and the second was four European tourists. They both took place in a sort of triangle between the Malian border, my road, and another road, so the 11 volunteers on those roads are all here now. It was originally assumed it was related to the Tuareg rebellion in the North, but no one has claimed responsibility and they are all still missing. It is now being linked to a North African sub-group of Al-Qaeda most likely kidnapping Westerners for ransom. We are waiting for more info before knowing whether we can go back to our villages. Right now the Embassy has said that it is not safe for PC staff to drive in private cars (like the ones being targeted) on those two roads; so subsequently the PC doesn’t not want us to be at post if they are not allowed to drive to us in an emergency (regardless of how safe we actually are when just in our villages). It is possible that Americans are specifically not being targeted as America is famous for refusing to pay ransoms, and if that is the case maybe we can go back soon. As of now we are just waiting, and doing odd jobs in Niamey.

On Monday I’m leaving with Chris, the PTO (sort of Ass. Country Director) to drive out East to Zinder to do site visits for the Hausa speakers. I’m excited to see some more of this country, and see some of my friends who have been posted further away. My village calls me almost everyday and sends me messages asking when I will be able to come back. I hope my cats will find enough lizards so they don’t starve to death. With everything still pretty fairly up in the air, I suppose all I can say is Insha’allah things will go back to normal soon. I hope we will all be able to return to our villages, and (unlike the Malian volunteers) none of us will get Interrupted Service (and sent back to America until further notice).

I feel very safe, it has been nice to see my friends here (while they were in for our one-month party) and get some internet time. I miss the solitude of my village. I miss my neighbors and reading and reading and reading. I hope my garden is not all dead when I return. It was a strange way to end my first month.

Most of my friends are not consolidated, and have returned to their posts. One of my best friends in-country, Colin, ET’d and went back to the states. We miss you Colin! And on a side note, my friend Kristen (who was back at post yesterday) had to come back to Niamey because she got attacked by a random cat in her bed in the middle of the night and needed to get another series of rabies shots! So safety is relative, I suppose. So far she promises she has had no urges to bite any of her friends, but we’re keeping an eye on her.

I love you all. I can’t believe I’ve been here almost four months! Also, I caught most of the inauguration on my short wave radio, though it cut out before the end. We’re keeping our fingers crossed here for the economy. We feel it only minimally. With budget cuts we only get a few shuttle cars a year (to help us bring groceries, bikes, etc. out to post) instead of the usual monthly shuttle. But we still have our jobs, so we are grateful. Talk to you all soon. Call when you can. Kala tonton.

Journal Excerpt: 1/14/09

Wednesday night.

The men are at my house with Agri. We are talking inventory, about the magasin, about animal count, and carts and who still hasn’t paid when Fati calls something over the fence to Oumarou. I am surprised she would interrupt us. I cannot catch what she says. With it, the air changes. Everyone looks behind us, out to the bush, and the men are on their feet, flashlights click on, and they are all running into the bush, except Agri. “Ifo?” I ask him, “Ifo?” What? I don’t understand the Zarma so he says, “pleurer. Crier. Boro crier.” And then I hear it: the wey wey wey of mourning. It’s more than one woman; voices together crying out into plain darkness. The moon hasn’t even risen. You can see dots of light coming through the grass from all directions following the cries.

We are on our feet now, walking to the pump where Fati is. We are searching into the night for some hint of who? what? Agri wants Tata’s number. “Tata?” I ask. “Alhassan,” he says. Before now I don’t know his nickname. Tata answers, but no news yet; they do not know yet. Agri asks Fati for a mat. “Ay ma jingar,” he says, I should pray. I remember the speakers in town went off while we were meeting. We didn’t stop for the seven o’clock prayer. Haouate is there now, her eyes somewhere else. I think, “I hope her ganji doesn’t come out tonight.” Everyone is leaving. “Ay go ga ma jirbi,” she tells me with a stern voice. I don’t understand. “Tired? Or you’re cold?” I ask because she’s shaking, and there is wind tonight. “No,” she says, “scared.” And next to me her teeth chatter and her body vibrates. Is she joking, I wonder? Haoua is always joking. But her eyes say, don’t wonder that. I want to put my arm around her, for her, for me; but I think, they don’t do that, they don’t hug. So I lean into her. I show her I am standing straight and strong and know her well enough for our arms to touch. I want to ask, what’s happening? I don’t understand what’s happening. We stay a few minutes like that: her body, wrapped in a zara, shaking into me; and then she moves away. While we listen to the wails, and the dogs’ bark coming across the grass, I feel like all the leaves that touch my ankles are snakes, and every fly a spider on my face or neck.

Oumarou calls while Agri prays in my concession with an update I can’t understand. People the whole time asking, “Was someone sick over there?” People answering, “Always.” Mari’s children come bringing food for me and the men. Maybe Mari hasn’t heard? She must have heard. I tell them to leave it on the bench beneath the Garbai tree. Abdul Karim, tied with a pagne to Hadiza’s back, has been crying. Maybe it’s just the cold, or tiredness. We cannot cry. I cannot ask questions. I want to say, just speak in English, please, speak English!

After he prays, Agri sees the tassas of food, but says he must go home. “Without eating?” Fati says, “You should eat.” He nods down, excuses himself, mumbles he must go. I offer my light to get him to his poporo, but he declines and finds the bike in the dark. We hear him kick the engine to life and ride off following his one dim headlight.

At the pump we stand waiting. Our bodies are stiff, bracing ourselves. We wait until we see the lights of the men jogging back. “You see,” says Haoua pointing, “I go ka.” They are coming. But when they arrive there are a few muttered words, and nothing. Fati says we should bring the food back to Mari’s. We will all eat there. I pick up a tassa and carry it to the men’s spot before joining the women. Voices are hushed so the children can’t hear and now I am a child. We eat millet with sauce; spoons reach into the bowl angry. Now and again I hear, “Agri didn’t eat?” “He should have eaten.” “Did he go home without eating?” And through the cracks I hear, “whose child?” and “his mother’s brother, or was it sister?” The men finish and carry food to town for the elders, for their mothers, to hear what people in town are saying. When the conversation changes to every night dinner talk, I feel my breathing resume normally. I put my spoon down having not eaten much. “I’m tired,” I say, “I’m going to bed.”

Now at my desk, writing by lamp, I think there is really wind tonight. I hear cries again, followed by dogs barking everywhere. Did it start again? Is it grieving? Maybe just the usual circus of animals speaking through the night. Tonight an edge to everything. The tall grass, the torn millet stalks, they are whispering. I cannot decipher the hum. The chairs still in the sand where the men sat, ghosts, pushed back at odd angles.

A Tribute to Prufrock...

A brief interlude before an actual update, for fear I may have amoebas for the 3rd time in a month and a half. This is really what happens when I spend a month alone in a village: (with a picture of my latrine included)




The Love Song of Me and My Amoebas

Let us go then, you and I, fuobanda΅ ‘neath this bright sky.
Let us go at morning, noon and night
as in truth, I ate something
which couldn’t have been right.
It couldn’t have been right
at all
oh how should I begin?

We’ve seen kubayans° and births and whores,
handless beggars plead for change,
ten-ton trucks of dunguri¨
with immigrants and splintered floors.

We’ve seen the prayer at sundown
feet to feet.
Learned never trust a rumble
cheek to cheek.
Oh where, oh how should I begin?
And how should I presume?

I’ve been all over these broad streets,
past fast food-huts and alley-ways.
I’ve peered in sewers, shops and mosques
at dawn
to find some clue where you were born,
but find too many
or none at all…
They couldn’t have been right
at all,
Oh how should I presume?

We find ourselves at coffee tables,
hotel bars; in millet fields.
We hear the women pound with unchanged beats,
and marvel at their strength
where we are weak.

As evening falls from hut to hut alike
it finds us sipping tea
with fingers crossed—
you there, and I.
whisper:
This isn’t right,
This can’t be right.
This isn’t right at all.

Oh how should I begin!

We’ve been to cities, watched them eat.
Leaned from rooftops on tip-toed feet:

snails and butter, chocolate spread,
yogurt, beef and cheesy bread.

We’ve inhaled odors strong and sweet,
rich enough to clench our cheeks,
to clasp our hands, jump to our feet!

mutter:

this is not for me at all,
Oh how should I presume?

And so we call to taxis, take us home!
horses, camels, market cars
…we need the safety of the hole!

We’ve heard the donkeys braying
each to each,
seen guinea line the fence tops,
heard them screech.
‘Tween millet stalks of salanga˜ walls:
wind storms, dust storms, no storms at all.

As different shadows bade new shapes to fall,
the hut’s broad arc…
it lures us just beyond.

So let us go at dusk and dawn
and indiscreetly.
Let us go forever, you and I.
For certain moments lead us to believe
eternity will find you
safely here
with me.

And something here just isn’t right,
oh can’t be right,
it is not right at all…
…oh how might we conclude?



΅fuobanda is a polite way to say “the bathroom” in Zarma. Literally it means “behind the house,” as that is where most latrines are located.
°kubayans are birthing ceremonies where you bring money to the baby’s family and then count it together loudly while snacking on various foods.
¨dunguri is Zarma for beans, or more specifically, black eyed peas.
˜salanga is the more physical word in Zarma for “bathroom.”

January Draws Strangely to a Close

My first month at post has concluded. I find myself in the sort of place where all that has happened since I last wrote has been nearly forgotten in lieu of all that has happened in the last few days. So I will write two posts. This is the first.

My month in Winditan was:
-waking up to mornings with the roosters accentuating the light coming in around the window edges.
-trying to find ways to get my feet less wet when watering my garden.
-admiring my newly acquired triceps.
-finding better ways to stretch my back.
-greeting my neighbors over my concession wall, “you slept in health?” “yes, all in health.” as we garden while the sun comes up.
-learning to cook dinner before the sun goes down so I can see better.
-writing letters at my desk where the lemongrass and basil are.
-sitting on a small wooden stool at my neighbor’s house with my notebook and dictionary, trying, just trying to understand this new language.
-the stars: in Zarma they call them “the moon’s children.”
-breakfast: couscous with powdered milk, cinnamon, raisins and a nice cup of instant coffee.
-lying on my cot watching spiders hunt, and reading.
-walking to town to buy minutes for my phone…sitting on the wood benches there, watching a village exist.
-moments when I first wake up after dreaming of America: what am I doing here? what, what, what?
-falling asleep at night: I am learning to be less instantly and completely afraid of spiders.
-tomatoes: finding the caterpillar holes, killing the eggs, throwing them over the fence.
-onions: adding dirt as they grow out of the ground. building and re-building the bed’s edges.
-Tuesday nights: meet with the 8 men of the men’s group at the Center around a fire because it’s cold. talk about what the problems are. how we maybe find, begin to find, solutions.
-post dinner conversation with the women at Mari’s house when work is done and it is laughter and gossip.
-the 7 k to Balleyara for market and the blisters and finding a donkey cart to ride back on.
-drawing with the kids on a straw mat in my concession on Saturdays, always: Zeinabou? Babou? Is this one good?
-Abdoul-Karim, not yet 2, comes running when he hears me bring my watering cans to the pump. Babou! Babou! and he follows me pointing at everything while I water.
-when the wind comes, and the cold comes, and everyone hides in their houses. and the trees blow sideways.
-the stars.
-the stars.
-the sunsets are somehow casual. In Zarma they say, “the sun falls.” Everyday I am sure; today is more beautiful than yesterday.
-but then those mornings when I wake up and think I’m in America. What it takes to get back here all over again.

A good first month. I am constantly listening. Trying so hard to absorb. Sometimes I make hot chocolate and read with my headlight until midnight.

Playing New York in the Sahel

This morning with seven antibiotics safely in my stomach, I woke up at 8:20 (the latest I've slept in 3 months) miraculously without a single mosquito bite, and decided above all else I needed a latte, a chocolate croissant, and some T.S. Eliot.

You may be thinking, "but Annette, you are a Peace Corps Volunteer (and yes JFK did make it a policy to capitalize the V in Volunteer), you are stationed in the hardest-to-live-in country according to the U.N.'s human development index, you are supposed to be a farmer; how could you get those things?"

The answer: Amandine's. The secret escape (however shameful) of all admittedly indulgent, or even somewhat human, Niger PCV's. And "The Waste Land" was in my backpack.

Although it takes crossing the wildly undirected "highway" next to our Niamey hostel, waiting on the sand strip between road and sewer and beckoning for a cab that, insha'allah, will have enough empty seats left in it for you and your companions, the ride there is not a difficult one. You exit the taxi next to the open-air, typical sub-Saharan market, "le petit marche," and promptly walk past the guard into the air-conditioned bliss of this mock-Western establishment. The waiters, hailing from all over West Africa (namely Mali, Niger and Nigeria) are wearing uniforms, speak either French, Hausa or Zarma, and bring you menus with items like: submarine sandwich, pepperoni pizza, salade nicoise, and steak with cream sauce. Then there is the pastry section: croissants, baguettes, danishes, the list goes on. This glass counter continues around the corner to chocolate mousse, tiramisu, and finally ends with a selection of gelatto before you find yourself in the seated restaurant area.

Now coming from New York, or really anywhere in the moderately developed "first-world" your first impression might be, "wow, look at this cafeteria with 2 modest TVs on the wall playing dated MTV." But coming from en brousse, the saji, the African bush, this place is a little slice of some strange heaven. Or to those of you who were in Ghana with me, it is a poor man's Frankie's. As most of Niger, spirituality not included, is just a poor man's Ghana.

I ordered a latte (machine made, yes), and drank it on cloud 9. Ate a croissant, a submarine sandwich (complete with sweet pickles and bright pink salami...not my favorite, but I don't like being picky and making them take things off, usually adding an extra hour or two of ordering confusion), and was only in mild gastrointestinal discomfort afterwards.

Now I am going to consume a lot more medication, go back to the hostel, and maybe get a little writing and reading done. So yes, even in Niger one can pretend it's just another Sunday at Gorilla Coffee with nothing to do but try and figure out what we're really doing here.



Plus, it's not every Sunday at Gorilla that your sister turns 20. Happy Birthday, Kate.

Amoebas Strike Again

I was sleeping soundly the night of the 31st, determined this would be my first and last New Years to ever sleep through midnight, when I wake up to my phone (which sounds like croaking frogs) at 11:40 pm. "Happy New Years!" says Alex, "sorry I'm a little late." I tell him he's early not late (people seem to have trouble getting this time change right) and then (as he has just landed in America for the first time in 6 months) he tells me he has to go be with his family. I hang up and am suddenly left realizing that at 11:43 pm I can't, in good conscience, sleep through the coming of 2009. I sit patiently, watching my kittens tear up and down the straw mats leaning against my make-shift bookshelf, and wait until my watch says 23:59:50. And then I count down from ten and say "Happy New Years," (and rabbit-rabbit for good luck) to myself before rolling over to go back to sleep. As soon as I roll over, however, I feel that all too-familiar rumbling in my stomach and I think to myself...my family and friends may be drinking champagne and taking saunas and dancing without me...but it looks as though I am not alone. And when my family woke me up at 1:15 am to scream Happy New Years, which was wonderful albeit an hour and fifteen minutes late, they were rumbling even more. And when my family called again at 7:40 to say they were still dancing, and at 9:00 to say they were getting ready to go to sleep, I knew that I was bringing in the new year with what felt like thousands of tiny babies all jumping up and down toasting to each other inside my stomach, shouting: this is going to be one hell of a year!

I waited it out for two more days, and finally this morning I rode in to Niamey, trying to contain myself, sitting atop a bag of animal feed in an open-back truck. I nicely asked the doctor to please come in on a Saturday and promptly tested positve (for the second time) for amoebas and bacteria. Which is way better than testing negative because it means they'll give you medicine! And then you get better! So now here I am...haven't eaten anything or even drank much water in a few days...but I am getting better. So much for one full month in my village.

But, as I have the technology for a moment, some photos:

This is my shade hangar to the left (you can see my two small solar panels on the roof) and the door to my bedroom hut on the right. My outdoor bed is straight ahead, and to the left of that: the other half of my garden that is not shown in the picture behind my blog title.



This is the inside of my kitchen hut!



Behind my house there, though you can't really see them, are my shower and bathroom. And then my watering can cart, and my concession's back-door being held up by a shovel.



And this is my dishwasher!



And while I'm at it, another adorable picture of Sylvia Plath.



And this is a little random, but here is the ambassador's residence, where we swore-in. Not a bad set-up...




Another swear-in picture: the Beeri Kwara Clan.




And Carrie, Kristen and me at Christmas.



So I should get some sleep, but a Happy New Year to all! And Happy Birthday to Kate! According to Niger time you turn 20 in 2 hours and twenty minutes! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I can't believe you got so old. I love you.

P.S. I have a new address and phone number (my phone got stolen...), I'll post the address on the side of my blog. Love to all!