Checking in before checking out...

Hi everyone,

It has been quite a while since I have written because a lot has been going on lately in the hopping town of Niamey ;) Actually I have just been busy wrapping up loose ends, saying goodbye to friends and people who have helped me with research, chilling at the university, finishing up articles and sending them to newspapers, etc…

a great non-work highlight of the past month was ANN SAGAN’s visit!!! Ann rocks as you might know, and she was the perfect person to come visit Niger, because she was so can-do and never complained that we kept a breakneck schedule (visiting all my friends, eating all the traditional and fried food we could find, traveling North with a friend) until she unfortunately kind of got heatstroke and we had to slow things down. Don’t worry, she recovered quickly and we went back to having a rocking time. Then Amy Van Buren, another Pomo peep, popped over from Ouagadougou, where she will be interning at the U.S. Embassy this summer, for a short visit, which nicely overlapped with Ann’s last few days in town.

Yesterday Amy left and then I went to a rap concert and a “boite”/nightclub with some friends to celebrate my last weekend in Niamey, but the point of the story is that today I was really tired and emotional about leaving Niger in six days and also trying to get a bunch of work done and say bye to my wonderful families and friends. So when I rolled up to Habsou’s (my Tuareg mom) house to hang out because I hadn’t seen her in a few days, I must have looked not so good.

Habsou’s older sister Zeynabou was braiding Habsou’s hair and after a few minutes she said, “You are not in your plate today,” which I guess means I was not acting like myself, which was true. I was kind of mopey and laying on the mattress in the tent outside (actually I always lay on the mattress but usually I am not mopey ;)) Habsou and Zeynabou talked to me and made me feel better and told me everything would work out with post-Niger life and work and such, and then Habsou yelled at me for having dirty cracked feet, which was fair, so I promised to wash them every day until I leave. Then Ghaicha, Habsou’s 13 year old daughter walked into the tent and gave me a head and feet massage and sang a Tuareg song to me until I fell asleep. I floated home later that afternoon feeling so much better and so grateful to have that family in my life. Seriously, they are just the greatest, and I can’t imagine this year without them. I know I will come back to visit them ASAP, and Habsou even said she would write another letter and try to help me to get another grant, which I thought was funny and unfortunately probably not going to work out anytime soon!

I’m leaving Niamey on May 31 and headed off on a bit of an adventure with limited internet access, so I may not post on my blog again for a while. I think I will wrap this blog up with some photos and one last post once I return stateside later this summer. Thanks for reading and I hope you are well! Drop me a line if you get a chance, I love hearing from you and hope these posts aren’t too boring.

Xoxox Mags