Oh, it's halloween. How about that.
First time trying to write somewhere not a Peace Corps place or an airport. This little computer makes me so excited. I hope can settle into a writing schedule as I get more and more settled.
In the past few days I have:
-jolked with my family and Zarma/ French about returning home with three Nigerien wives and lots of children
- reorganized my booca (hutt), reorgnaized some paperwork and to feel more at home and in command of the situation, set up a mini "library" with the four boooks I brought
- attempted to set up my water filer (it may be filtering, but its not really watering)
- insulted a fellow PCT by admitting I only learned their name yesterday
- learned that travel throughout Niger will be infinitely easier in Zarma/ Hausa groups, sine if I stumbnle onto a hausa speaking village, I will not be able to speak to anyone....unless they speak French
- wished for some three ring binders, some looseleaf, a desk, and a chair, (and now a bloody keyboard that lights up)
- been wowken up by the most ghastly donkey wailing in the middle of the night
With my host family, we talk in French, they teach me about Zarma in French (some English words thrown in). I greet people around town in Zarma and practice specific sentences and phrases with my formateurs and family.
I have not:
- run
- made it through an entire day without a pinch of homesickness one way or another
- gotten sick of fari masa
- read much of anything
- regretted the family's TV failing to work for the past two days
- drilled or studied Zzarma (or French) on my own
I hope when I am settled, I will be able to settle into a good schedule of writing stuff. Tonight, I'm giving up some or all of journaling time to get another post written down. Want to describe yesterday. A prettty good portrait of the sine ways of the days.
Woke up yesterday feeling comme ci, comme ca. Was quickly picked up by a solid morning language session, from eight ish until noon. Our group is doing pretty well I think (our teacher says we're the best Zarma class but I think she's just stroking our egos). Yesterday morning, we got some basic and important gramittical concepts, whic I sometimes find more easily to pick up quickly than the bloody innumerable vocab. I had a quick lunch, with sometimes takes a long time, and then I set out to walk to one of the small villages around where we are which also houses some trainees. We got a nice little group together and set out of town, past the pooled water left in the low area just beyond town, left over from rainy season and likely to dry up completely during the hot season. We didn't know exactly where we were going, but we could see a little village not far ahead. At some point it hit me that we were basically just wandering around in Africa, and this is pretty cool. The small villages were all Zarma speaking (hence why most of the Zarma trainees are housed there), so me and two classmates got to lead the expedition. We stupidly forgot how to say "where", so we had to circumloquate this crucial interoggative. At some points it seemed like we were just walking through backyards, but it's hard to tell. We did find the town for which we set out, were led to the home of one of our fellow trainees...only to learn she had left earlier in the day for our village. Hilarious! On our way back, we took a slightly different path around the "watering hole"...though I would not recommend partaking of the water (hari au Zarma) from these pools) and we passed some women at a well or two. This was super exciting because one of the women in the village had showed us their well...
Shoot. Battery had died. Picking this up on 11.02. Need new strategy for posting stuff. Maybs going to try writing just a little bit each day (the "I have", "I have not" Saka style) and avoid longer stories, prose, commentary most of the time.
So...we were on the way back from the village and passing some women at a well. I greet them excitedly as we pass, throwing out the Zarma word for water to ackowledge their well. They call back and start laughing....and then as we passed them someone noted that they were probably washing (had there been some women partially naked near the farther well?) and guys are not supposed to women washing themselves. Whooops.
So, this little adventure had me really excited. We went back to the formateurs (sp? teachers) house to relax, and things slowed down. I kinda did some studying, but people were mostly just hanging out. One of our group asked me to run, and this put me off balance. I haven't been thinking about at all; figuring my body has enough to adapt to without the added training stress. At first, I thought no, but odd to say no, then I said yes. I went back to by booca only to find that I had not even taken my running shoes (either pair of sneakers actually) out of my second bag from the Peace Corps site (not open on days we don't go there). So, I had gotten all ready to run, and now a no go. It was a pretty big low because it reminded me of the me I left behind and how all that that me worked for has no real bearing on anything here. I have to earn my stripes all over again. I also felt like no one could really empathize with my odd feelings here; I don't think there are any (maybe one) competitive runners in the group. I also cannot help notice how the pullups callouses I have had since....forever, are fading away. Haven't done any sort of calesthenics in 6 weeks or so maybe thanks to the back. Someone mentioned yesterday or two days ago (be fo in Zarma) that everyone here seems not very competitive or athletic. Burn! I dunno, I'm always evlautating my progress in relation to the rest of the group (i.e. judging people), but that's just why I'm an asshole.
So, that's how many days go. Ups and downs from little things each day.
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