oh, niamey

Today, I traverse through a typical open-air market ducking away from the persistent vendors who associate my skin color with money. I just want to get what I need and leave. Today just the basics: rice, maca, tomato paste cans, garlic, maybe some onions if I get a good price, they are expensive this time of year. Do I want your cheap watch? No. The Barack Obama Flip-flops? Tempting but not for that price… And no I dont want to take your child to America with me. The afternoon heat is suffocating as I rush to get my errands done so I can go to the pool. I hail a taxi and make it to Niger’s little piece of America. The American school Rec center only 1 mil cfa to swim and watch TV. In the A.C. I buy a milkshake and an overpriced chicken Cesar salad or cheeseburger. Here I can through my Nigerianane acquired modesty to the wind and jump carefree into the chlorinated water.

Ay go ga ma kani kan ay ka neo

As I walk through the African bush on the way to begin my first month in village all I can think is “wow… good call on doing this in the middle of the day” and “I sure hope this is the right way…the river is still to my right so this must be right....” I arrived in my village after the 18K walk from Gotheye without mishap and eager to begin work…that is after I take a rest. Upon waking from my nap I left my house for my afternoon “windi windi” (walk from concession to concession) my neighbor, Fati, informed me that her daughter died the day before. Shock mixed with quick remembrances of protocol for nigerien funerals swept over me as I responded with the phrase “Fonda tilas” (greetings on what must be). The 2nd time I was “touched” with death in 24 hours. The night before while crossing the river on the ferry a man fell off and drowned. The ferry stopped and circled around for about 30 min but eventually gave up and we all went on our way minus one man. Death is common everywhere, a fact of life, but here it is accepted differently. I must begin to accept it in the same way.

On a less morbid note, approximately a week into my stay in village I was laying in bed reading, thinking, “my village sure is loud tonight what is going on? But being too lazy to actually go and see what the ruckus was about I continued to read. About an hour into these “unknown” festivities a knock at my door. Come see the video and “fire”(electricity). “What?” “Come see”. “Ok, i'm coming”. Ah ha! Someone brought a TV. and generator from Gotheye…all the noise makes sense now. The village was extremely excited so I stay outside to watch the video, which I find out, consists of various DVD’s. The first one? A new usher video…wow, this is something I never expected having to watch scantly clad women dancing while my Muslim villagers watch and ask me “is this what all of America is like”. No, no it is not. So I continue to watch various “videos” under the Nigerian night sky until I could take no more of such modernity mixed with stale West African cigarette smoke. I went to bed, praying the generator and TV would disappear soon. They did, much to the dismay of my villagers but the delight of myself.

Throughout my month, I went to quite a few baby naming ceremonies. Aka. elaborate celebrations where said baby receives a name 8 days after birth. Villagers come and give money, eat sub-par West African candy and sit and sit and sit. Then we eat and sit some more, most of this time I spend sitting and eating things that are handed to me while only understanding 50% of what is being said.

I carry water on my head every morning the first few weeks were spent with wet clothes. But now I can successfully make it to my door with little to no spillage, a personal victory. I love walking along the river around sunset. The women and children are bathing, washing clothes and dishes. And as I look at my town a top a mesa the light is a perfect soft orange glow. Beautiful. I then walk through the rice fields, swat mosquitoes and look at the various birds, wishing for the first time in my life that I were the bird watching type.