musings from the gutter

Hi all,

Last night I had a funny experience that I thought would be fun to relate. It started with dinner with some friends at a little bar overlooking the Niger river. After dinner I left my friends there and headed out by myself (I was in a hurry to go somewhere, you know, I'm often in a hurry, not a good thing).

It was 9pm and I walked out of the restaurant into a large unlit parking lot. I thought, hmm, this would make me nervous in the US, but it's Niger, so it's okay. Then I saw a man slightly ahead of me, but our paths were converging, so I sad "Fofo, Salaam Aleikum" to greet him. Well then he started teasing me/ harassing me so I picked up my step and emerged onto the main road. There was no one around except a guard of a small NGO across the street. I "fofo"-ed him and crossed the street, already launching into an explanation about how I needed him to help me find a taxi. He looked nice and we smiled at each other and then my next step put me knee-deep in an open sewer. I had completely forgot that I needed to jump over the open sewer, in my hurry to get the guardian. There was a splash and my cry of surprise and then the guard was pulling me out of the sewer. The pooface who was teasing me disappeared and so did my flipflops, lost to the guck of the sewer.

Luckily a taxi came and I poppped in, but then the girl next to me was trying to find her boyfriend at a hotel and she used a dollar of my phone minutes trying to track him down. In the end I went to meet my friend and her Nigerien friend helped me wash off and told me that he detests those type of guys that "see a woman and shike nan, it's over, they just won't leave her alone." He was approximately my grandfather's age and so nice, so he pretty much made my dad.

When I went home I disinfected myself very throughly. In the end, perhaps I fell in the sewer because someone wanted to tell me that I needed to get throughouly clean; in fact, i did, considering i swam twice without showering and sweat profusely b/c of the heat (sorry, gross, will shower more promise Mom).

I hope I don't fall in the sewer again. But I am now cleaner than I have been in months, alhumdillilahi!

Cheers et bon week-end,
Maggie