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):
