le 21 novembre

Between yesterday and today

I have...
- bought a SIM card
- realized my American phone seems to have finally died
- taken the first of two language "exams" and felt pretty good about it. Felt we actually didn't reach the edge of our vocab, though I def didn't know all the vocab I tried to talk about
- helped dropped off some apology biscis for dropping a cake and offered an apology in mixed FR and Zarma and was super proud of us for making the proactive apology
- seen 0-2 people with polio (in Niamey). I'm not sure because I don't know much about what polio looks like, given this is one of the last bloody places on earth one can see this disease
- seen the Niger River...on our security tour of Niamey.
- felt super guilty for retreating to the training site today to nap/ read/ rest...general fulanzam
- spent some time hanging out with the Japanese volunteer stationed in town
- bought a three ring binder and looseleaf...which does not have holes punched for the three ring binder. Also, all the paper here is grid paper. Though I am a fan of drawing graphs to illustrate points, especially when unnecessary, I cannot imagine needing this much graph paper on hand all the time. Poss these purchases will revolutionize/ organize my work here, poss will frustrate the hell out of me.
- spent a redic proportion of our stipend in one day
- been impatient about learning Zarma, starting work in my village, completing a dynamite project, gaining actual knowledge relevant to health or whatever field I choose, etc, etc, etc
- bought a pink t-shirt that says Peace Corps on it
- slept past 0800 (MAYBE...and only by a minute or two)
- was super disapointed my restaurant choice somehow was out of pizza/ pizza ingredients
- drank and orange soda, played kings, and ate peanuts and popcorn in a Nigerien bar/ restaurant while waiting for some of our party to get served, eat their food, and pay the bill. Looked for Saka, but surpisingly did not see him on the premises.
- worried again about cavities
- felt, on my day of rest, that there were so many (too many) things to do
- ended the day with a sweet dancy party for the neighborhood kids with the help of other trainees/ volunteer
- finished Mountains Beyond Mountains
- completed in my first race in many months. A sprint down the street and around the corner with some kids


I have not...
- bought a phone
- evaded the desire to American/ Western food or excitement over seeing the FR and US embassies green with glass nor childhood delight over learning there is a pool and library around these building as well.
- succeeded, at least with the usual level of class, in sending our training facilitator a "birthday" cake at the restaurant. The cake was mistakingly delivered to me, a fair mistake since I ordered it, and then despite our best Zarma and FR, my friend and I could not articulate that the cake should be delivered to the person at the end of the other table.
- succeeded in spending the majority of the day alone, but on the flip side, mostly have not regretted this. People say it is slower here or it's boring and lots of people read lots of books. I dunno. I still feel like there is 1000000 things to do, and if not, something interesting, or MORE interesting always pops up. It takes quite an effort, for me anyway, to try to take a day to just nap and rest.
- does any running (besides the race) or calesthenics (today)
- finished wrestling with whether I want people to send me packages of stuff I "need"/ want or if I can make the tough decision to realize this a huge waste of resources
- (most likely) paid for the mini cake ordered, in part beacuse...
- found it easy for a group to pay for their meal in CFA in FR/ Zarma. Though it was noted that groups of 4+ always find chaos when paying bills in the states, so this comes as no suprise.
- played pool at said bar/ restaurant
- decided if the women dressed NOT to Nigerien dress code were prostitutes...or just American. Haha, no they were def not American, but I'm not sure if they were prostitites.
- attended accepted the general invitation to attend a wedding party

NOTE: did I mention in an earlier post that someone in our group had malaria? This was wrong, so disregard if so. The usual bacteria, etc.

Watched the sun set over the landscape. Tried to write an essay, but distracted the places to be and the things to be done. Distracted also by the setting sun. Juxtaposition, for sure, that in a place where some things, or so I am told, move so slow, that the suns sets so fast? I want to say, in less than a 1-2 minutes, the entire body of the sun dissapears as it does over the Pacific Ocean along the coast in northern California/ southern Oregon.