Tim and Jolene

To sleep or not to sleep. That is the question, it is nearly 11 pm and I still need to pack and get ready for the shuttle that will arrive at 3 am to take me to the bus station for the 12 hour ride back to Maradi. It would be an easier decision if I knew whether or not I would actually be able to sleep on the bus. However, since I am generally holding on to my dear life - my heart racing the entire time - I would have to be pretty dead tired in order to actually even imagine that I might sleep on the trip. But, this is my last chance to put a blog up for a while so I thought I would write a little bit and postpone the sleep till tomorrow night.

This last week was relatively production. I attended a radio workshop with a woman from the radio station that we do a show on every Saturday. We got some good ideas for shows in the future and how to make them more effective so overall it was beneficial. After that I stuck around to work with some other MCD folk on compiling our manual in order to have it prepared for our sister stage who will arrive in the beginning of July. It is just a reminder of how quickly time is flying by. But it was actually really nice to pretend like I was back at a 9 to 5 job. I also felt a little slow since typing in English seems to slowly get harder and harder. Another reason I should write more blogs…. I’ll try to add that to the to-do list, but to all you all who have not received a thank you card for the wedding yet… those are number 1 on the list so don’t you worry. They are on their way, in sha allah, well by June…

Tim has been at post this last week doing work cuz he’s awesome and I can’t wait to get back to see him. We bought an oven a few weeks ago which is absolutely amazing! We baked a cake one night and made chocolate frosting and ate just it all for dinner- and just that. My old Jolene-like habits. And then we made over 80 cookies another day and gave away about 20 and continued to finish them off over the next two days. I love baking. Well, I guess I love the final product.

We are currently trying to plan a vacation to Greece this summer and will hopefully be able to meet up with my sisters-by-fate, Deanna and Rachel who are living in Spain encore. Hopefully the dates will all work out, but I am super excited about baklava and Greek salads, yum. But in the mean time, Tim and I are keeping ourselves busy between soccer tournaments, newspaper club, young women’s fair, Nigerien Women’s Day event, first aid kits, and kindergarten fun, and probably something else I forgot.

The heat has arrived, cuz hey- it’s the time. But with the heat has also come mangos and they are delicious, especially with solani (yogurt in a bag). I predict I will be spending more time at the pool in Maradi in between everything else and eating more mangoes than I could have ever wanted. Oh yes, and I’ll be wearing lots and lots of sunscreen. Well, it’s time to pack the backpack and get ready to sleep for a couple hours I guess. Miss everyone. So who wants to come visit? We’ve got lots of sun and for the time being lots of rice and beans- hopefully the rice and beans will stay true through hunger season. But we’ve got an extra mat and mosquito net really… just give us a heads up?

Hmmm… I can’t figure out why it says the author is Tim, so my best solution is going to be to call it a liar and tell you all that is not Tim but rather, Jolene. Hey there :) 

Tim decided that we should really get some goats. He wants two little baby goats so that they can grow up to be friends and then maybe someday more than friends so we can have more baby goats. I explained to Tim that this means we wouldn’t be able to have tomato plants because they would eat them, yet he then reminded me that even though our tomato plants grew quite large, the plants did not in fact produce any tomatoes. Like I told him, that’s a pretty good point. One afternoon I was walking back from the college with some boys that go to Kristy’s school (la maison de l’espoir). I told them about Tim’s hopes of owning two baby goats. They seemed to think that it was a splendid idea as well and they decided to start looking for goats around the village for Tim as we walked around. Each time we happened upon a goat, which was about every five seconds, they would ask, “like that one?” Yet at first all of them seemed too large. Nonetheless, a baby goat eventually wondered out of a concession and I quickly said, “There! Like that one!” Before I knew it, the boys were running after this baby goat as the young girl who the goat must have belonged to yelled with an element of confusion and despair in her voice. Old men sitting on mats, sipping tea laughed and greeted the boys on their effort. I didn’t realize how much more difficult it is to scream “uh uh!” (“no” in Hausa) than it is to just shout “No!” until that momet. The poor goat seemed a bit bewildered as it finally escaped back into the concession. I know Tim would have been very pleased to have started his little collection of goats, however I was quite relieved that the goat had at least an ounce of cleverness to flee the hysterical scene. God must not have willed it… be patient.