Tim and Jolene

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.