Today highlighted some of the frustrations faced here.
Language barriers leads to miscommunication/ confusion. Something about one of my mom's going to Niamey, possibly having a baby. Baba (dad) went to Dosso, unrelated to baby? Some other younger dude was here last night and today, during lunch I leanred he's a student at university in Niamey...not sure how he's related to family. Came home in evening neither mom or dad here. Everyone in Niamey? Another young girl here....does not speak at all? Poss mute? Poss using some sign language? Last night, one of my kayne's mentioned a party tonight, poss a baptism (does this make any sense in a Muslim country?). When I tried to clarify last night, I was met with confusion. Today I thought it was mentioned, but the evening has come and gone and I am def not at a party. Wtf$&% as I would say.
Lack of control over one's schedule/ lack of personal time and space. This will/ can get better once I'm at my post, but for now, living with a host family, it can be frustrating. I was disproportionately tired all day and worried I'm coming down with something. If I were in my own place, I would have early dinner and quickly to bed. Here, I have to wait for dinner, parry any conversations after dinner, now it's quarter after 8 and I hesitate to leave my concession to shower/ hit latrine for fear of being dragged back into a convo or other activity. Did baba just come home? I dunno. Would prefer to be sleeping soundly right now. Relatedly, came home after PC stuff and wanetd to get some cals done that I didn't have time for this morning, which again attracted quite a crowd and turned into me lifting one child after the other into the tree where I would do pullups. Then, I decided to use the chalkboard (i.e. the area painted black on the side of the family's adob-ish house) to study Zarma again, which again let to a group study session with most of the kids, including some very confusion pantomine exchanges with the new girl who apparently does not talk.
Lack of confidence about skillset/ specific training. We visited a "health hut" and a clinic today, and I was again reminded I don't really have any skills for that setting. After, we had time to plant our gardens, which I had started yesterday, but today, without anyone really experienced in agriculture around, I was especially lost, despite the suppossed session on gardening we had yesterday, during which I did not really learn/ was zoned out for the specific "how to" of planting all this stuff.
Side note: money (CFA's) in Zarma is exceedingly complicated and whoever invented the system should be punished with a huge fine and then forced to translate the amount of the fine into lots of different languages and units of currency.
Ah lastly, or rather, first, during 20min run this morning, was a bit dissillusioned with Nigerien landscape proximal to our host village. It IS vast, but not really spectacular beyond its expanse and harshness. I cannot help but recall the cliffs of Yosemite, the lushness of the Redwoods, or the mist over the river in Yellowstone. Like the walk up the mesa over the weekend, I will have to try to find the "crystal cave of Africa" here somewhere because I often think it looks very similar to America's southwest, like some part of Arizona I have seen or maybe around Carson City, NV where Shoopie, Drew, and I ran.
To end on a high note, the sunsets and sun rises are pretty specatular, and I should climb the...I will call it a mound, that is near the training site early in the morning after the call to prayer to watch the sunrise. One of my best pics so far is of the setting sun over the road that runs through town. These suns seem less harsh than...mystifying.
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