Tim and Jolene

Streaming through the wedge shaped gaps in the stale flower curtains, the sunlight ornaments the walls with a sense of amusement. It is almost as if it is taunting me until I get out of bed. But, I guess it is about that time to pack my stuff and get ready to head back to Niger. Today is Tabaski and I am a little fearful to step outside since John has convinced me that “sheep’s blood will fill the streets.”  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Adha). I tried to warn all of the sheep we encountered last night and into the wee hours of the morning that the end was coming yet their only response was a dull “baahhh.” I tried…. Tabaski already happened in Niger, so I am kinda missing out on the festivities by traveling today. Yet at the same time we wouldn’t have been able to be in our village since we are/were (?) on stand fast and there is always next year.

This whole week was overall, quite exciting and yet not too overwhelming. On Saturday night as I slept soundly in my air-conditioned (AMAZING!) hotel room the phone rang and I lethargically to answer it. Unsurprisingly, the man on the other end mumbled something in French and I responded by hanging up the phone… I don’t know- 4 in the morning, random phone call, still dreaming in English… But then, there was the knock at the door so I irritably respond, “Who is it and what do you want?” And in response was a gentle female voice, yes in English, “It’s your roommate…” John, my friend who got his wisdom  teeth out this week, mentioned that we might have roommates but I didn’t know that they arrived at 4 in the morning. So Stephanie from Downy, crazy enough, was my roommate this last week and she is a volunteer in Burkina. Together we tackled Dakar, wondering up and down every street in search of cute clothes, delicious ice cream, to die for pasteries, and diet coke. Our mission was simple but we gave it 110 percent.

We ended the week by taking a short boat ride out to Goree Island, about 1k off of the coast of Dakar. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor%C3%A9e). It was absolutely gorgeous and only 3 dollars round trip since we were considered African residence. The island is so petite but a man that sat in front of me on the ferry sad that 1200 people live on it. Because tourism is their main source of income the island is filled with art and jewelry made locally by the residence. While we were on the island we ran into some other volunteers from Cameroon who were on their COS trip and we made plans with them to meet up later and go out.

So after grabbing some delicious hummus and baklava (yes it was amazing), we headed out to Dakar’s hot spots. We jumped around a few times, but to sum things up we thoroughly enjoyed Dakar and ourselves. Thank you Rihanna! Well, time to pack things up. It feels great to be headed back “home” with repaired teeth to see Tim and make plans for Christmas!  

Things have gotten a little interesting lately…

Two weeks ago Tim and I came into Niamey to meet up with the other 37 volunteers in our stage for our in-service-training. Fortunately, we lucked out on our 10+ hour bus ride from Maradi to Niamey and got to ride the SNTV bus that appears on the commercials that has air-conditioning and television! AWESOME- except for the fact that air-conditioning is a little too intense for me now since our bodies have started to acclimate to HOT. Even in the mornings I have started to bundle myself up in a sweater and pants when the temperature is probably quite similar to a nice day in the LBC. Anyhow, IST is a two week training course to provide us with the knowledge and tools thought to be essential and useful to work in our communities on projects that meet Nigerien’s needs and are sustainable. It was great to see our stage again and we had a really great weekend in Niamey that now seems GIGANTIC. There is even this new restaurant that had coffee and tarts and multiple salad options! It was all a little overwhelming at first, but I enjoyed wondering around Niamey with Nicole as we both supported and encouraged our outrageous shopping addictions- as much as one can in the context of Niamey markets.

The first week of IST was challenging as we all worked to readapt to a structured environment. The MCDers (my sector) found that the differences between our communes are numerous and vast and that it is imperative that we work to help in developing the program as we go through the training. After six days of long sessions and the familiar cluster-phobic of the site, I was eager to head back to Niamey for a night and Tim stayed to have a relaxing day of reading Count of Monte Cristo. Exploring Niamey’s nightlife was exciting but my legs paid the price the following day. After we returned to Hamdallaye to resume classes on Monday 10^th that’s when things got really interesting….

For those of you who read international news, you may or may not have heard that there were two landmines that went off in Niger this last week. Though no one is taking claim for them, the situation in North remains uncertain and appears to be posing a threat down south as we approach Tabaski, the Islamic fete that is happening either the 19^th and 20^th or the 20^th and 21^st and Republic Day on the 18^th. Taking cautious, preemptive measures, all volunteers we put on stand fast through the 21^st meaning that travel is restricted outside of the community you are present in. So for all us ISTers, we are hanging out in Hamdallaye until the 21^st which is a week after the original completion date. From the bright side, I think that this is a great opportunity to work on one’s creativity, which is exactly what is happening.

However, I won’t be able to join in on that creative collaboration since yesterday morning I got a call saying that I was leaving for Senegal at eight pm that night. Back tracking just a little, my tooth broke a month or so ago, one of my molars that has a filling in it. I know, I’m like a problem child that is accident prone.  But anyway, I went to visit the dentist in Niamey before the hold stand fast fiasco and it was later decided that the work the needs to be done on the tooth cannot be done in country. Donc, I was medavac-ed to Dakar, Senegal where the dentist will hopefully give me a root canal and a pretty new tooth. Last night, I arrived in the beautiful city of Dakar with my friend John who has to get his wisdom teeth out and currently I am lying in my hotel room overlooking a fabulous pool, using wireless internet, and eating chocolate that I got from a real chocolate shop. John and I went to the beach today and he put his feet in the ocean for the first time ever! I KNOW! It was incredible. The city is so BIG compared to anything I have seen in the last five months and the culture is so different. I am looking forward to splurging on some beautiful wood carvings and awesome Senegalese art work for Christmas. I have never been so happy to have a sharp, broken, painful tooth in my mouth!

Hopefully, I will be back with Tim in Niger in a week and the situation will be at peace. But until then I am going to eat all of the delicious food I can get my hands on!

The other day we were talking in the street with one of our friends that’s a vender, and we decided that he would come help us out with our Hausa the next night.  Right now our French is a lot better than our Hausa, so usually we use it to try and learn Hausa, translating between the two.   When they came over, however, we realized that they didn’t speak any French, so we could only operate in Hausa (which was okay because they were both really understanding about the fact that we are still just learning), but it was funny in the way that most akward, we-don’t-really-understand-what’s-going-on-all-the-time conversations here are.  At one point, they said that learning is a lot easier when you write things down, so we were like, yeah you’re right, and grabbed some paper so they could write down what they were saying.  When he started writing Salaam Allekum though, and it looked something like ooiuoiioioiiiouuoo to us and he was writing from the opposite direction as we’re used to, we realized that he could only write in Arabic. We explained that we couldn’t read Arabic, but they powered through an kept writing down whatever words they were saying (which we didn’t understand) in our notebook in Arabic (which we couldn’t read). It was funny.

Nothing else too exciting to report.  Jolene and i have some training to look forward to over the next several weeks, which means we get to see the folks from our stage.  A few of them were around last night and we got to hang out after our couple month absence.  It was a lot of fun. We got a computer from Becca (our RR) upon her return from the america, so that’s sweet.  It will be nice to reenter the technological front, as i definitely haven’t been using computers much with the exception of the postings that are showing up here (which are obviously few and far between), so far vista gives me the heebie jeebies, and the new word freaks me out, it’s all so new and scary.  I got to talk to the fam on thanksgiving and see all the pictures from that day just now.  I can’t believe how big (and rediculously cute) Noah is.

I think that’s all for now.  Hope all is well back home