Notes, comments:
Yesterday, I thought of the word of which I was trying to think after I sut off the computer: gawk. People gawk at us.
This morning we visited a tailor to talk to him (in Zarma). His small office hut was dim, he was as really nice guy to talk to (well traveled in his own right, he had been to Ghana and spoke some English), and it was neat to watch him work on his foot pump sewing machine to fix a mosoro (women's head wrap thing) for one of us. In this village in Niger, boy that machine looks like magic. An older trainee said she could do it herself in like five minutes and I was reminded that I have little functional skills here.
Outside, two kids were playing. One had fashioned a kind of..."toy" to push out of two sticks maybe a box thing and two wheels...or things that functioned as wheels. Terrible description, but I've seen these kinds of things a lot. Think like a measuring wheel...woohoo, what fun. An older kid (P.S. wearing a pink winter coat) was playing like driver of this cart, poss hitting the younger kid (the cow/ donkey we presume) with a stick.
Yesterday, thought (maybe again) that maybe I should take a legitimate vaca (2-4 weeks) in Niger instead of heading out for all the places I want to see (other parts of west Africa, east Africa, France/ Italy, Morrocco/ Spain, U.K....etc, etc.) to tour all the other volunteers' villages and get a broader sense of this country I will call home for a few years. I think it would only be far. Gaya is so different from Agadez it seems (though I will not be allowed to go to the latter), I'd hate to leave with a very myopic understanding of the country.
Walking to the street to buy chicena, a little boy saw us, and starting crying and running away. This happened to us on demyst some too. THe PCV said our white skin may appear ghost ish to them, and there were stills some kids in his village (he finishes his service tomorrow after two years) that are still scared of him. Many places do not often (or ever) see annassaras, wala?
A moth fluttered aroud my headlamp/ into my face/ head this evening. Quite annoying but I tried to swat it away and it left some gold pixi dust on my notebook and on the couch.
One latrine here is mostly full. I am pumped there are no cockroaches here, but the excrement MOVES in the latrine (i.e. there are all sorts of bugs/ larva moving around in there). Yikes.
We are learning a real lot on lang immersion. In part, we have the best teacher at our site. In part, we're working real hard. We're not sticking only to Zarma, but I am super grateful for the chance to go over my notes/ actually study...for which I have no time at our training site village. People were saying how much can you absorb in only two weeks. I think you can make a real legitimate jump.
Today, I discarded our trash....by dumping it over the wall of our compound...onto the ground of...whatever or whoever's compound is on the other side of the well. This was nice of me...not to just discard it onto the ground of our compound.
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