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!