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.