Live from Niamey

Hi All,

This morning the thunder woke me up at 2:30. Wow. I can see how religion is born. To me, lying in bed, the crashing did indeed sound like Zeus hurling thunderbolts. Nothing in Oregon can compare to the fury of this downpour. Lying there in the king sized bed with my snuggly boy, under a mosquito ne,t in my water tight (mostly) home, I thought about two things. The first and most disturbing thing was the dwellings of all the "settlers" in Niamey. Unlike Kouna, these houses are not made of mud or banco, they are nomadic looking tents of bamboo mats lashed together over poles. They are quite pretty and round and they romanticize the nomadic life of Touaregs with their echos of caravans through the desert. But can they survive a real honest thunderstorm that rages on and on for hours? And even if they hold, what happens to everything on the floor? Are the beds raised up and does the whole bottom of the house turn into a muddy swamp? Because I haven't actually been invited into one of these dwellings, I can only speculate.

The second thing that filled my mind was heaven sent thanks for the rain. The farmers need the rain in the most real way. We all need it, because if the farmers fail, so does the country. That is the difference between the Sahel and the rest of the world. Like Mali, Niger has no safety net. I realized that in Kouna. When people are farming this difficult land, every good growing season produces enough, but no more than will be immediately consumed. We are always one to two yearsaway from potential famine if the rains don't come. And so, knowing the hardship they cause, everyone gives heartfelt thanks for a good rain.

I just found our friends' blog yesterday, it's livefromniamey.blogspot.com. This is BJ's dad who's writing it. I enjoyed reading his perspectives on Niamey and his comments about everything from the colors of the city to the food we eat. You may get some additional insight into our every day life by reading about theirs.

Yesterday, I realized exactly how small our international community is when I ventured out to meet our Irish neighbors. When the mom met me at the door, I realized that we have already met and she's not Irish. Small world. Karim didn't play much with her son, who was feeling a little shy, but he attracted the adoration of the 9month old baby. They were playing on the floor and I was talking to the mama when suddenly Karim yells "Mama, the baby bit my toe!" and indeed she had. Not hard, just enough to attract his attention away from the playmobile boat that had captured his imagination. K was a little disturbed, but forgave her quickly.

Today, We've spent most of the day inside, since when we did venture out, we both got about six mosquito bites each in the space of ten minutes, after I'd lathered us with bug repellent! Blood thirsty little beasts! Anyway, we'll try again later since the sky has cleared and the sun is out again. Even in this land of light, I can't seem to get enough of the sun.

Love to All.

Follow the kids . . .

Hello All,

As always, I am actively stalking potential friends. This time, I watched Karim at school to see who he plays with most. Immediately he started playing with and talking about two brothers, Ron and Ijan. After some sleuthing, I discovered that their family is Congolese and just moved here 4 months ago. Positive they needed friends too, I gave their nannie my number and sure enough, a few hours later, I had a date. Yay! We met up for drinks and kid fun at the Grand Hotel last night. It was a refreshing bit of mom-to-mom time. We've also met a 4yr old Irish boy who lives 4 doors down from us- he also has a skuut bike with no pedals! I can't wait for Karim's to get here so they can terrorize the neighborhood together. We're planning to pop over later this afternoon to try to meet the parents.

Good news! Our stuff has made it off the boat in Benin. It should be here within the next month- assuming it clears customs and the truck doesn't break down or get hijacked on the way here- oh and assuming that everyone it competent- always a risk.

Cheikh left for Agadez yesterday morning in the middle of a particularly violent thunder storm, so I was relieved when he called to tell us he'd arrived safely. We're expecting him back for lunch on Wednesday. We have a new, amazing cook who made Cheikh feel like he'd finally come home when she made one of his favorite Senegalese dishes on Friday(with actual palm oil!)

I'm doing well. Lots of running and yoga. Quite a bit of journaling and prep work for my novel, but not too much actual drafting yet. We're all gearing up for Ramadan to start around the 20th of this month. This week we bought tons of food since all the prices are expected to double this month in observation of the holy month. Does that seem charitable and communal to you? Anyway, such is life.

Cheikh is still working a ton, but we're all adjusting to it. It's nice that we're able to have lunch together every day as a family(when he's in Niamey of course:0). We've found a car we like, now we just have to figure out how to pay for it! yikes. Like I said, things are not cheap here- especially imported things like cars. Cheikh will most likely have to report the update of the final bargaining once we get to that point, since my very presence in the car lot would up the price by 20%.

I'm glad you enjoyed the giraffe photos. Unfortunately, our friend with the camera won't be back until Sept 29! Thinking of all of you- Especially of Heron on his rafting trip and Rachel as the wedding approaches. Congratulations and lots and lots of love from here.

Family Portrait

How tall are we???

Fiber optic cable or Loch Ness Monster?

Hi All,
Sorry for the long silence. No internet connection for a while. I heard that it was because a fiber optic cable broke off the coast of Benin, but that seems far fetched, since the election results came out yesterday and now it's working . . . slowly. Coincedence? It is with great sadness that I tell you that Rosella and Deb were not able to fly out yesterday to visit us due to State Department warnings of an imminent coup in Niger and strong advisory not to travel on non-urgent business. yikes. Well, no sign of that yet, but as the situation could flare up, it's probably better to wait anyway. Many neighboring countries are denouncing Niger's president and cutting relations- pretty dire for a landlocked country. So, in the calm, we are awaiting whatever happens next. We still have hopes that our shipment will arrive in due time with Karim's toys, our kitchen gadgets and our beloved wall hangings that make a house a home. And, the ultimate sign of settling in, we have started looking for a car to buy. I'm still dreaming of a Rav4, but we'll see what we find. (Leftist guilt be damned!) Funny, it's like when W won and everybody was so upset, but life just went on as usual. Our new cook/ chef de menage started this week, so this morning we traveled to the market together. To buy a mortier(susu) we pretended not to know eachother so she could get a decent price for the thing. Boy was that man mad when I paid him. He insulted us for tricking him as if he had every right to charge me double simply for being white. argh!

It is a known fact that women dress to impress other women, so with that in mind, I am preparing for a playdate with a beautiful Senegalese woman and her lively 3yr old daughter. We are meeting at a playground that Karim and I visited yesterday for the first time. New places are always good and this one is a gem. Nestled by the river is a restaurant called La Flottille, where they have a public play area with swings, a merry-go-round where the kids ride in little airplanes and cars, a play structure and rocking animals. The whole thing is not big, but big enough. We are doing well now that we've recovered from Tuesday night in the hospital with food poisoning. Note: beware of pizza at the Grand Hotel. Karim was a real trooper, and Cheikh was an angel through the whole thing. He brought us the most wonderful soup and "slept" the whole night with Karim in his tiny bed.

Anyway, love to all- time to rouse the little guy for our date!

Froggie Serenades and Power Coupures

Hi All,

We are knee-deep in rainy season, but without much rain. Two nights ago, we were kept up by the incessant croaking- singing? of frogs in our pool. I thought my buddy was joking when she said they sounded like a car alarm. But no, really, they are loud! So, yesterday morning, our guard netted 4 frogs out of the pool and several long beaded looking strands, which he explained were eggs. eeewww! So, needless to say, I called our pool guy yesterday to come chlorinate the pool, which I suspect he has neglected doing for the past few weeks. Today, we were able to swim again, which was just what K and I needed. And for the first afternoon this week, we also have electricity. For the past few days, the power has been shutting off at lunch time to return at about 5 or 6pm, which seems kinda hinky to me, to lose power everyday when the heat is at its peak. This is why the pool is crucial.
Karim and I have spent a lot of time this week "gardening", which really means ripping out everything I don't want growing in our yard from volunteer mango trees to grass and K pushing it outside in a full sized, John Deere green, wheelbarrow. We earn lunch though and our yard is starting to come into focus a bit.
Last night, K and the guard, Remy, and I had a spirited game of street soccer. K is just like his dad, grabbing my shirt so he can get to the ball first! He's toughening up quick though and his footwork is nothing to sneeze at either. He holds his own pretty well with the 5yr old, Hamir, who he plays with across the street.
It's funny how Love in the Time of Cholera (yes, it is an amazing book) has made me think so much about aging and about mortality. The other day, I met a Nigerien woman who seemed ageless to me, but if I had to guess, I would have said mid forties just by her mannerisms and the things she talked about. In the course of our conversation, I learned that she is actually in her mid twenties. Younger than me and already bored and resigned to life! Wow. That moment shifted my thinking again. Aging is inevitable, but it can be done enthusiastically and it is the energy of our goals and our dreams that keep us vibrant at any age.
I have so many things I want to do, so many projects to plan for and so many things yet to achieve, sometimes the toughest thing is patience. Everything takes so much time, especially here. (Loading a video, for example. Still waiting . . .)

Love to all!

This week's highlights

Hello All and happy quatorze juillet!



First, I appologize for burying myself in Love in the Time of Cholera and for avoiding almost all internet usage for the past couple of weeks. I might say I didn't feel well, or that I put all my energy into settling into our new house, or into settling Karim into school, or the plain truth is just that I couldn't scrape together the wit and inspiration necessary to intrigue you all with tales of insane taxi drivers, flooding green sewers or the most incredible mangoes on earth, but I feel up to the task now, so here I am.



So, road insanity first. On our way to Cocochouland last week, Karim and I witnessed the motorcycle crash we've seen narrowly averted a thousand times since we arrived. As K and I crossed the street, we let a moto pass in front of us (we don't even joke about right of way here!) only to watch that same moto collide with a moto coming from the left. This was an intersection with a light, mind you. And yet, I still don't know who had the green or if it was even working. Believe it or not, it is actually safer to jaywalk here- then at least you only have to look two ways! So, K and I watched, a little shaken up, but morbidly intrigued, as both riders staggered to the side of the road, bikes abandoned in the middle of the intersection. No helmets, flip flops on their feet- but they walked and that was a relief. Cheikh has diverted his rants from SUV's in Ptld to all drivers in Niamey. They are our single greatest fear. We just watch and wonder as they cut each other off, accelerate when a pedestrian steps into the road and drive way too fast generally.



In spite of all this, or because of it, I am pursuing a Nigerien Drivers License. It's all I can not to ask how I can possibly take a driving test here where nobody obeys traffic laws and signals may or may not work. I am going to go to a local driving school so they can prep me for it, since they do apparently have laws and those laws are somewhat different than they are in the states. I guess the process is not too cumbersome as long as I manage to pass the tests- both written and driving in French and on crazy roads. I'll channel you, Rosella!



On Saturday, K and I attended our first birthday party last weekend for a little German baby turning one. It was a lot of fun- lots of parents and kids and German party games. Karim enjoyed playing with all the other kids with punch balloons and a Nemo ball. But, the highlight for him was either chasing the other kids barefoot around the yard or cramming a whole brownie in his mouth before I could stop him. No harm done though, since the party wore him out enough for him to sleep at night.



Cheikh came home from Agadez with some great stories and some sad ones about a strangled tourism trade in a place famous for desert excursions. He rode in an armed caravan, with three armored trucks strategically spaced among the 40 or so vehicles making the trip. He said that the average pace was about 120km/hr and if a car couldn't keep up, then too bad. It's the only safe way to travel on the road from Taoua to Agadez, so they took the plane back to Niamey on their return trip. Cheikh was disturbed to learn that REI sells travel sheets, but that I'd been too cheap to buy them, since in his first hotel he'd been forced to cover the bed with his excercise clothes in order to stomach lying on whatever the stains were on the mattress. He confided later that he suspected the hotel rents by the hour.



Last week I got over my timidity out of sheer desperation to find a kid for K to play with in our neighborhood since now he's only going to school three days a week. So, I took him across the street and knocked on our neighbors' door. Their grandson, Hamir, is 5 years old and although I'm told he speaks French in addition to his native Djerma, all I've gotten from him is a whispered "ca va." So, armed with car noises, he and Karim spend lots of time either in our courtyard on in from of our house playing with Karim's cars or Hamir's soccer ball.

a few hours later. . . I just got home from a much needed Appreciation Walk. I used to take them at sunset in Kouna- just walk and think about all the things that I enjoy. I started with simple things, the way the sun looks on the clouds, the feel on warm wind on my skin, sandals all year, then as I walked, more and more things came to me and I found myself walking through a village. Not too far from our house, the cement walled compounds give way to mud brick houses along muddy roads. These roads spilled over with life. Kids rolling tires, a barefoot toddler dancing by a milk crate. The soccer field brimmed with bodies of every age from men on teams to kids kicking half flattened soccer balls. Everyone smiled and greeted me when I passed, though I heard them saying "Anasara" every other word. Of course, Gao familiarized me with the Songhay/Djerma word for whitey. It was all I understood:) Although there is nothing glorious about dirty streets and bloated baby bellies, the smiles that lit up the faces before me touched my heart and made me smile too.

Well, it's Wednesday morning now, almost 24hrs after I tried to load the video of our house, so I am officially abandoning it, since it failed to load. I will try another video tonight.

Love to all.