I have
- been super thankful for all the support from home, family and friends and everyone. A trainee today said her parents supported her about 30%.
- thought that I think I want to be at a site where I will be the first volunteer.
- found out I will participate in some way with the vaccination day.
- mixed manure and sand to make little plots of land on which we will practice growing stuff
- watered this empty plot of land to encourage the weeds to grow so we can pick them before we plant the actual crops
- been mad jealous of the FARM trainees since they get to do lots of cool outdoor stuff (yesterday they did a sesson on composting....I'm going to try to get a copy of this handout)
- been superintimidated by how much there is to learn and/or the prospect of spending two years here and/or the prospect of pulling off a project
- repeated myself in these updates
- woken up before alarm due to excitment and not a call to prayer
- gotten super pumped by the CHA (remember? Community Health Agent) sessions and rereading some pages of Mountains Beyond Mountains
- forgotten and remembered and forgotten and remembered and...etc. why I wanted to do this
- been called by name by lots of kids on the street that I don't really know by face. Combination of soccer buddies and people knowing the annassara (white person/ foreigner), but I like to think it's my rep (this happens to like everyone)
I have not
- gotten tan. Most often wear long sleeves. Always long pants. Wore some short sleeves the past few days and often roll up shirt, but always try to avoid direct sunlight cause sun (wayno) mad hot (dungay).
- decided if I would want to do some psych like work at my placement or get to do something totally random
- acquiesced to patience when it seems like we spend a decent amount of time talking about doing stuff, or even better talk about talking about doing stuff. This happens a few times a week.
- taken an xc pic (crap! I will get on this!), though I have lots of other sweet pics
Yesterday, was a totally baller day. Felt on top of the world. So the day gets in own little section:
I completed lots of little errands I won't bother to list here but that kept the momentum up during the day. Gave one of my special lollypops to a friend who hadn't been feeling well the day before and it was very well received and made me feel good. Our language group (I'm in a class of four) had a awesome morning language session. I am on the "birthday comittee", and we are in charge of doing something (basically getting a "cake"- really a cornbread) for the birthday person during lunch. I was kinda regretting taking on extra responisbility but had signed up for it to try to transfer some U.S. dh magic to Niger. For several reasons, we were not prepared, but had to deliver a cake yesterday. So, I fell back on the oldest trick in the book and sang You've Lost that Loving Feeling...to great applause, many compliments, and a hug from the training director dude. What's funny is that people thought it was pretty novel, but you all know it's literally the oldest trick in my bag of tricks. During snack, I helped a dude pour tea and he was disproprtionally grateful. He thanked me, said I was a really good kid, and then prayed for me to learn the language well when I went to pick up our breakfast allowance from him later in the day. Though I was jealous of the FARM peeps doing the compost session, CHA talked about the Nigerien health care system...with various levels of on-task discussion and specifity. I saved some comments for the end and these comments were met with several "a boori"'s (it's good) and applause. Not sure if my questions were answered or requested processed, but applause is a big confidence booster. During lunch, we went to the market that comes to town every Tuesday. I wanted material for pants. I ended up getting some material, but it's not specifiically for pants. Whoops. I successfully negioted the price down from 3000 CFA to 2000 CFA in very very bad French, some random Zarma words, and gestures...mostly by me saying a,a (no) and starting to leave. I would feel mad uncomfortable at a market like this at home, but here it's so obvious I'm out of place and how no idea what's going on, it's much easier to handle. In the late afternoon, I returned to the market to get the actual pant material and one of my kanye's (means little, often used to mean little brother or little sister) accompanied me. I couldn't find more material, and my little bro wanted a soccer ball, and at first I said no cause I don't want to be the habit of buying a soccer ball every week (the one I gave them last week took a puncture wound early on and is out of commission already), but then I thought about the obvious good in current well being, and turned us around. I succesfully bought the soccer ball (got it down from 2000 CFA to 1500 CFA...still think I got hosed) using many confused expressions, some very bad Zarma, a pinch of French, and definitely charm. Dropped off my materials (and the Ecuador pants! Fianlly going to get hemmed!) at the tailor (the host mother of one of our kids) and figured this situaiton out with a mix of broken English, French, and Zarma. Back home, played some soccer, some cards (I have taught them war and now go fish. Both good for practicing numbers and the last few Go Fish games have been super legit. Also good for practicing saying "do you have?" (ni gonda?) and "i have"/ "i don't have" (ay gonda/ ay sinda)). I was trying to escape to bed when they asked me if I knew one of the songs from teh World Cup which led to me dancing a bit to their delight and then singing the chorus of Waving Flags. Gotta love soccer. I did make it to my hutt (oops, sp, like Jabba the) and then was called out when baba came home and brought us some meat. Hope it was good to eat! Day kept going with good things. Did some blog stuff last night. Only down to the day was got to bed late.
Lastly, clarifying point: we have language, technical, medical, safety and security, and culture sessions. Last time I tried to list these basic sessions I listed one or two and then left it with an "etc." or something.
Does my blog show it? I'm feeling a little better organized.
Hope I caught up on the basic info.
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