Well, a couple people have emailed me lately asking if I have fallen off of the face of the earth, or settled permanently in the desert among the nomads, so I decided it was time to stop being lazy and update my blog! In fact, I am still in Niamey and doing quite well. Sorry for being out of touch for quite a while; my main excuse is that I have been doing a lot of writing and using my laptop a lot, so when I have free time I prefer not to spend it staring at the computer screen. But again, sorry for not writing for so long and I hope you will find your way back to my blog and say hi!
Since it's been so long since I've written, I don't quite know where to start. I guess I'll start with what is most fresh in my memory—the Advanced English class I visited tonight at the American Cultural Center. The nice guy who directs the English language program at the ACC asked me to come speak to one of the English classes, and so I showed up at 7pm like he said and found a very nice Nigerien woman as the teacher, who spoke English quite well. At first I thought the class was incredibly small (there were only 5 students), but 15 more showed up after the sunset prayer. There were 5 women in the class and about 15 men, and they looked to me to be mostly in their late 20s or 30s, some older. This makes sense because the English classes at the ACC are not free, and of course not everyone can afford to pay for them, especially not young students, and also this was the advanced class. We had a lively discussion about the U.S. elections, and at one point one of the students came to the board and explained to the class the issue with the superdelegates in the Obama-Clinton race. Someone had asked about the primary election, and I avoided going into the details of the superdelegates because I didn't want to confuse everyone and was already concerned that it might be difficult for them to understand me. I was wrong, because the student got up and spoke English twice as fast as I was speaking (still slower than my normal speed ;)) and explained the delegate process perfectly. It is incredibly impressive to see how much people here know about the U.S. elections; if Americans knew even a fraction as much as other world ctiizens about different political systems, the world would be a different/better place in my opinion.
I was also using my notorious "Franglais," a combination of French and English plus a few local expressions in Hausa and Zarma, until the teacher said, "Maggie, please, we speak English here"; oops. Another funny incident occurred when we were talking about Barack and Hillary and I said, "Do you think the American people would really elect a woman as their president?" I said this because I have had many discussions with Nigeriens about the elections, and sometimes (not always), men will say something like, "but seriously, the U.S. is too powerful, there is no way that a woman could handle that position." I just wanted to see what these English students thought, and to my delight, they laughed and said, "Are you crazy? Of course a woman could be President!" and "Come on, why not?" I am personally rooting for Obama, but it did make me happy to hear that these people were okay with the idea of a female president. The English students also enjoyed the pictures of my family and friends and couldn't believe that Charlie is my "little brother."
Since last I wrote, I have been trying pretty hard to research and write newspaper articles to send to international papers. I have written about street food, African fabric (called pagne), the taxicab scene in Niamey, a camel ride in the desert, and I am currently working on a story about "les anciens combatants," Nigerien soldiers who fought for France in World War II. I'm very excited because in April I'm going to a town called Diffa, in the far East of the country and practically on the Chadian border. I am traveling there to interview (and write kind of a profile/portrait story about) a cool woman who started an NGO to help widows of armed conflict in Niger; she is illiterate but speaks French and Hausa and a few other languages, and is quite well known in Niger. It will take me two solid days on the bus to reach Diffa, and in April it will be around 120 degrees F in the shade, but it should be worth it to get to hang out with this lady for a few days. To be honest, it's quite possible that none of these stories I have mentioned will be published, but this is a good learning experience for me and I want to give this journalism idea a try before doing something drastic like moving to a random city and doing an unpaid internship with a newspaper! I'll let you know if anything comes of this silly plan…
I think I've had amoebas/stomach bacteria/giardia/whatever you want to call it twice since I wrote last. That's okay though, people here are so ridiculously nice that when you tell them you're sick they come over and visit you and bring you food, although the last thing you want is food. They also give you advice about how to kill the parasites; I think the craziest advice I received was from a Peace Corps volunteer, who told me to fast for 24 hours to starve the bacteria and swallow whole cloves of garlic (I didn't eat for a while but I couldn't make myself do the garlic thing). I'm making a Niger scrapbook and I put the Fasigyne pill box in it. Fasigyne is a serious parasite-killing drug that makes you want to lie under your ceiling fan all day long. To my credit I only laid under my fan for a few hours yesterday and then forced myself to go get some things done, but only because I am going to Senegal on Friday and need to tie things up before then…oh yes, on Friday I am going to Dakar, Senegal, where I will see my parents and my brother Charlie and it will be a delightful wonderful vacation! It will be the Fick Family's first "sejour en Afrique"/ visit to Africa, so I am trying very hard to make it a great one, in hopes that they will return to visit me again if I end up staying here a bit longer! ;)
Besides writing articles and thinking about new topics and emailing away in hopes of something working out, I have been enjoying weekend yoga with some friends, little trips to Sunday markets, pirogue rides on the Niger river (including hippo sightings!), and especially entertaining guests at my house. Well, it's not my house, I share it with two lovely roommates, and it couldn't be more fun. We have outfitted the place with plenty of plastic mats for optimal lounging potential, and we have great speakers which lead to interesting dance parties; a recent memorable one involved my 45+year old Tuareg friend Fatimata shaking her booty to some Coupe Decalé (look up the music videos on youtube) while her teenage daughter Leila and my homestay sister Ghaicha whipped their braids around at a frightening speed…here's an okay photo of the scene:
I also had an unexpected visitor (who I shall not reveal in the blog), which was fantastic because I got to play the role of Niamey tour guide. Because I've spent the past two months in Niamey, I feel more at home here now than in the beginning of my project when I was traveling around the country a lot. It was great to show my friend my favorite places (a Cameroonian restaurant, the Grand Marché) and introduce the visitor to my friends. Highlights were going to the Grand Mosque, going on a tour of a fabric factory (truly a dream come true), a full moon picnic on the sand dunes outside of Niamey, and tutoring my Tuareg family's kiddos in English.
Today I was reading my friend Becky's awesome blog (she is in Indonesia on a Fulbright), and she was commenting on how generous people are in Indonesia, and the idea of communal/collective vs. individualist societies. It is also true in Niger that people are willing to do almost anything to help other people, and this is not an exaggeration. For example, it is considered rude not to offer what you are eating to other people in the room who are not eating. If you compliment someone on her earrings, she will probably reach up and take them off and try to give them to you. I think it is doing me a lot of good living in this communally oriented society, because (I hope) it is making me more cognizant of the needs of others, even if just in small ways. People here set such a good example of generosity and consideration for others, so it is a blessing just to be around this culture. I try to think of nice "cadeaux"/gifts to bring to my friends' houses, whether it's a bottle of ginger juice or a kid's coloring book, and now I don't even think twice about showing up at someone's house unannounced; I think the rule here is, as long as you say "salaam aleikum" before you enter, you are always welcome. I hope that I will come back to the U.S. and continue these practices, even if my friends and family find them bizarre! I really like having visitors and being a visitor and making people feel welcome, so I hope that I will remember how much fun I had doing these things in Niger and not let myself get stressed out or forget how easy and fun it is to just hang out on the floor on a plastic mat (although I don't know yet how I will transport my beloved plastic mats back home!)
Ok, this entry has gone on for quite long enough, so I will wrap it up now. Thanks for the emails and letters, I love being in touch and promise to send you a postcard with cool stamps (of President Tandja, of camels) if you send me your address! One more thing: I'm going to SE Asia and China from mid-June to mid-August, then I'll fly home to Seattle. Then after a few wks I will probably move to 1 of 2 places, both start with Ds and one is in the U.S. and one is in West Africa, but who knows we'll see. In the event that you are my friend or family member and have the intention to be in any of those places I mentioned—Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong, Seattle…--DO let me know so we can get in touch! And (if my money is not all gone, incha'allah I won't spend it all in Asia) I may need to make trips to other U.S. cities (San Fran, DC, NYC) to find friends that I miss a whole lot, so if you want, email me if you wouldn't mind a visitor in mid-late August.
I will try to post more frequent updates, and I will definitely post some pics after the Fick family reunion au Senegal! Unfortunately I lost my camera in a taxi recently, so I don't have too many fun pics to share, but I'll leave you with one I took in February in a small island village in the middle of the Niger river up near the Malian border, where someone expressed their love to someone else with a creative wall painting. Don't ask me why it's in English, but it's pretty cool:
And just one more, taken by my friend Alice of her friend's little son, how can you not love this little fellow?
Sai an jima/ see you soon (in Hausa),
Mags
p.s. it's only March so I'm not going to start any serious complaining about hot season just yet, but if you are bored, check out the high temps in Niamey. At least mangos are abundant and cheap now.
