Tim and Jolene

I haven’t actually read Jolene’s blog(s) that she posted recently, so hopefully this won’t be a regurgitation of what she wrote. Right now we’re heading into a huge section of not being in our village, between coming to

Hmm…. Will should probably add something now ‘cause he just sat down next to me.

William:  I haven’t actually read Jolene’s blog(s) or Tim’s addendum, so I hope I don’t regurgitate what they have written.  Once again, I managed to ride to

Thanks Will, I don’t know about the whole adoption thing, since Will is actually older than both of us. We thought maybe Will and I could adopt Jolene since she’s the youngest, but it would probably put this weird Woody Allen vibe into our relationship that I’m not really looking for. I told myself as I was writing this that I would just go ahead and randomize all of my music on iTunes and listen to every song that played, but the Godsmack song I just listened to added up to 5 of the worst minutes of my life. 

Jolene and I had our scariest cab ride in country last Sunday.  We walked to the taxi station a little later than we should have because we had been waiting for a break in the rain.  When we got to the tasha, we had to wait another 20 minutes or so for the cab to fill up (a full taxi is one with 6 people in addition to driver, all in a car about the size of a corolla).  We left just in time for the rain to start again, at which time the taxi-man switched on the wipers, one of which fell off. He stopped to re-attach and we were on our way again. The driver took my favorite approach in times of dangerous road conditions, which is, “if it’s dangerous out, drive extra fast to make it so you’re not in danger for as long.” Pretty much I felt like I was going to die the whole time. I don’t know if I can describe it any better than that.  Oh and Jolene was holding onto my arm so tight that I think she bruised my bone marrow.  Anyways, I think we’re going to do our best to avoid the whole traveling during rain storms thing from now on.

Other exciting things include me not being sick.  It’s good that I’m feeling better now, but it is going to put a damper on my attempts to lose these last 175 pounds.  I think I’ve been going for about a week straight without having amoebas, which may be a personal record.  I’ve narrowed down my three month bout to a few possible causes.

·         Shaking dirty little kids hands all the time when I walk around from school to school combined with my love of nail biting (I know the kids are dirty, but it’s so hard to resist a high-five)

·         Eating meat that’s not cooked well enough that flies have been chilling out on all day

·         Drinking water out of little containers at schools that everyone in the world reaches into

·         Taking the new amoeba-brand diet pills that I’ve started buying from

Everything else I think Jolene and I both do equally without her getting sick, so hopefully if I cut down on the meat that I don’t cook myself and wash my hands more often I’ll stay a little healthier.

Jolene and I have gone to a few end-of-school fetes lately which have been fun.  We’ve been showing off our sweet dance moves.  It’s funny when the little kids will mimic anything I do, no matter how ridiculous it is.  Kristy (our other Peace Corps village mate) had all of them fist pumping at one point.  I think the best I got was a bit of running man, some Rodger Rabbit, and some shopping cart.  But every time someone talks to me about our dancing endeavors they’re like

“Man, you can dance, but that Jamila, she’s way better than you, she’s got mad crazy dance moves,” which goes something like this in Hausa -> “kai, ka iya rawa, amma jamila, ta hi ka iya rawa. Ta rawa sosai!”

But I feel like if you change dance to any other verb you could pretty much describe 2/3 of the conversations that I get in the village.  Darn you Donna, you and your DNA, why does she have to be so good at everything?

Ok, I guess I’ll leave it for now on that note of Jolene’s superiority, unless I decide to come back to it later.  As an extra treat though here’s what I was listening to during this blog entry:

1.       MxPx - Let It Happen - Move To

2.       Rancid - Indestructible - Born Frustrated

3.       James Brown - James Brown’s Funky People - Think (About It)

4.       Fiona Apple - Tidal - Never Is A Promise

5.       At The Drive-In - In Casino Out - Shaking Hand Incision

6.       Serena Maneesh - Serena Maneesh - Beehiver II

7.       ABBA - Greatest Hits - Honey Honey

8.       The Charming Gentlemen - EP plus one - Sir Isaac Lime

9.       Cat Stevens - Catch Bull At Four - Can’t Keep It In

10.   Godsmack - Godsmack - Immune

Conclusions to be drawn from that… I get distracted easily when I write blogs.

June 6, 2008 – Paul Field is spoiled. Our cat, not the dentist.  Yesterday, the Tantes at the Jardin d’enfants made me and Tim half a guinea fowl with cous cous and sauce. Cat food only exists in Niamey which means that Paul field has to survive off what he catches and our leftovers, so I gave him a bone of the guinea fowl yesterday and then he wined all night for more and this morning again. Spoiled. There’s lizards everywhere in this country, he needs to stop being so needy and catch lizards. Oh and cockroaches.

Life in Niger has been quite swell lately- We have had a lot of events to either help with or just attend recently with the school year coming to an end. Last week, we helped the Scouts of Tibiri with an end of the year celebration for the college and lycee students to greet everyone on their efforts and wish them luck if they are taking the tests this year. We spent the entire day at the college/lycee playing games like knock the cans down with a ball, kick that soccer ball through the tire, put together a puzzle in 10 min (which I did in 6 and set the record – I swear I am not competitive), and other fun stuff like that. After the night prayer we went to the MJC where we danced and then watched some great skits on corruption in schools and early marriage. The Scouts are all so motivated and do such an amazing job. We are really fortunate to be able to work with them.

We attended another fete scolaire yesterday at the Jardin d’enfant which was also quite amazing. The directreuse is a really good friend of mine as well as all of the teachers there and they worked really hard as well to put together the event. All of the kids arrived in their best complets and were so precious! Kristy took lots of great pics for us since our batteries died. The kids at the school are between 3 and 6 years old and so adorable. For the past week or so they had been practicing a song and dance to perform for the local leaders. When kids first start going to school in Niger, because of the way their education system works, they begin learning French right away. French is the number one priority therefore things such as reading and writing are pushed back. Kids who attend kindergarten (which in Tibiri is probably 5 percent) have a better chance in school since they have a head start. But watching these children this last year, I have noticed that they have different intelligences then kindergarteners in the States. Their musical ability and ability to memorize is incredible. Their knowledge of money and the market is also so beyond what most children are capable in the States. It is so interesting how much context can affect what is seen as intelligent and also what is valued in a culture. Anyway, the kindergarteners performed their dance and song and then continued to dance away to the drummers. The event was so much fun and it was really cute being dragged out to dance by twenty kindergarteners and my friend Sayia.

Oh one more story… So Tim and I went to dinner with our friend the other night at this restaurant (?) called the Jardin. I always get the salad there because I haven’t been sick from it yet so my mind was already made up. Tim on the other hand was lured into ordering half a sheep head to share with our friend. I alhamdulalayed my way out of it. So, the half a sheep head arrived and Tim and our friend began to dig in along with their corn tuwo. I was slightly bothered by the thought of it, but moreso amused by all the comments I was hearing. “Tim if you eat the eye, you will see better, and if you eat the ear you will hear better.” So finaly I said to our friend, “You know, I don’t want to ffend you, but if I were to tell our family in the States that Tim is eating half a sheep head for dinner, they might think it is kind of strange.” Our friend looked confused and responderd, “Is it because in the United States you would only order a full sheep head?”

That’s all. Oh, my mom and Stuart are having a wedding reception on the 21^st of June at the Descanso town hall. Y’all should go and dance to Old Highway 80 since I can’t maybe it. Give her a big hug for me to say what’s up pops to Stuart.

I need to try and write more often because so much happens in between blogs that I forget…. Last time Tim wrote we were in Niamey. It was a surprise trip that I really didn’t want to have to take but was necessary if we want to go on vacation. So ATM machines, like most things in Niger, are very scarce or pretty much non-existent. The funny thing is that there are ATM machines in Maradi, however they lack international capability and most Nigeriens do not have ATM cards, so they are not even hooked up. So the series of events started when we realized it was a lot cheaper to buy tickets here in country then it would be on line. What appeared to be our only challenge was that we needed to pay in cash, because there is so much credit card fraud here or something. Tim’s ATM card expired in November of last year conveniently so it was up to me to get money out of my account.  There are about 5 or 6 banks in Maradi and I had the great opportunity to visit each and every one of them and ask for a cash advance or a wire transfer. Each bank was somewhat confused or pretty sure that it was impossible for me to do so they would send me to another bank. By then end of the second day of this, I had probably walked ten miles between banks. Echo bank was by far the nicest; it was a great reminder of what it is like to have customer service. Unfortunately they weren’t able to help me and didn’t laugh too much when I filled out both the send and receive forms for western union in attempt to send myself money from my bank account. So on the third day, I spent three hours waiting for the director of a bank to come and help me with a wire transfer which one man said was simple and another said was impossible. Nonetheless, the director never came and frustrated as heck, I began to yell at the man who told me to wait for him. Immediately I had five men helping me, making phone calls, and trying to fix the situation. It’s amazing how good my French and Hausa gets when I am angry, it just seems to pour out of me like a fountain. In the end, they were not able to help me and said that in order to access my bank account in the states, I would have to travel over 400 kilometers to Niamey. So that is how we ended up in Niamey. But the hurdles continued to appear out of nowhere. I had already made numerous phone calls to my bank in the states which in the end calculated to almost $100 since it is so expensive to call anywhere from here. They were very unhelpful and gave me false information and made the situation even more exciting. Finally after three days and more phone calls we had the money for vacation. I wrote some very wordy emails to my bank in the states and was able to get reimbursed $70 for transaction fees and phone calls which was nice. And we bought tickets to Greece!!! So we will leave for vacation on the 12^th of July (Happy birthday Lacey Panties and Congrats on the job), and Rachel and Deanna are going to meet us there. We are staying until the 7^th of August.  I guess maybe since we had to work so hard to be able to get tickets, I am that much more excited about it. This also means we will be spending our one year mark with the Peace Corps in Greece which will be pretty sweet. I hope people speak Hausa there.