le 18 decembre

Today

I have...
- felt there was so much to do, but then didn't quite no what to do with myself during free time (did not take long to fill though)
- took inventory of my med kit and restocked
- written more of song. decided we may have to wait to reveal it since the competition is set for monday when lots of our supervisors from site will be coming...and our song, at times, is wildly inappropriate. i think it's pretty impressive we can be wildly inapprorpiate in Zarma. stuff like this is just so much fun.
- enjoyed a heavenly apple pie. just amazing to sit down with some friends who are letting you share their apple pie after working on preparations all day. a good feeling
- asked one of our teachers, poss the best one who fielded all our quetsions over lang immersion, many questions
- felt I have just about all the material resources I need moving to site, which is both exciting and also nervous because then I'm afraid to lose these resources or break them or fail to succeed with so great resources supporting me
- again thought I will be sad to separate from my stage
- felt rusty at Zarma when coming home and talking to baba and my mama's younger bro. maybe because I felt pressure from an outsider to show off my Zarma skills.
- found out another person in our stage is going to a part/ wholly Fulani kwaara. Another FARM so I guess nothing I could do, but jam... I still think that lifestyle would be fascinating to me.
- (I'm pretty sure) killed a bug that was in my pants while it was around my knee area
- at dinner, I was looking at the infanta and thinking that just... six weeks ago maybe when my mama kayne had the baby, I did understand in FR or Zarma exactly what was going on. In fact I didn't even know she had been preg. Now, if someone were to explain to me that one of my mama's was to have a baby, I think I would understand.
- thought that it's kinda a shame that as I settle back into the routine here in this village and feel I have a pretty good routine, I will be making a big move in two weeks and have to restart. Although I'm anxious about moving to site (this down from the pure terror of earlier in the week), I am excited to get to set up camp for the long term.

I have not...
- reconciled feeling intimidated by all the shenanigans that need to be pulled in our final two weeks together
- been happy that our stage will split new years eve day and spend new years in our regional capitals rather than all together
- gotten over that Christmas day evening will probs be difficult
- gotten over feeling frustrated or nervous that we're not doing a lot of language in these last two weeks. I would like at least a 2 hr lang session every day. Don't want to get rusty for Christ sake in the final days before moving to site.
- exactly confirmed I can safety kayak or canoe on the river near my village, but had two people separately tell me it's cool
- played soccer with my kids. Didn't spend much time at home today.

Adventure of the day: my mama berre (the older of my baba's two wives)'s younger brother was in town today. He's the one I chatted with in FR several weeks ago about his studies at university in Niamey. He joked about the annasara he said was hot or something (rough translation) and something about me needing a wandiyo (girlfriend), so I said that we would go look. I am told, and have found myself some, that Nigeriens joke all the time, but someone in this case, I was taken seriously, so after dinner, he and I went walking around town. I felt my Zarma started to loosten up some. First, I think we were looking for his friends but did not find them. We stopped to talk to a few people sitting by a motorcycle and my presence quickly attracted a crowd of kids, who asked me to give them a notebook and/or pen. Besides the fact that people talk waaay faster on the fly, it's harder to understand people at night when you can't really see them. Then we went looking for some of my friends who had gathered to play scattegories, and I did know where they were, so we made an appearance and I was super proud because I could translate some things between Eng and Zarma to keep everyone in the convo for the 3-4 minutes that we were there. I was thinking, as I was walking around town in the dark, that this is the kind of thing that will happen many times at site. A friend leading me around when I don't exactly understand exactly what's going on and cannot understand exactly all that is said. A good reminder that as good as I feel I can be when people talk slowly and directly to me and don't mind repeating and explaining things five times, it is worlds away from understanding people on the fly at normal conversational speed. A fun windy windy though; altough I did not come back with a girlfriend.

This might be a good time to talk about Nigeriens' obsession with people having significant others or being married, but for now I will say that yesterday, we were told the AVERAGE age for a Nigerien woman to marry is 13 (I don't believe this, but it makes a point). Ali, my mama's brother, said in the country this may be true. In the cities, by their early twenties women are married. Keep in mind also that Niger has the highest fertility rate (I believe that is the name for this metric) in the world, with an average of 7-8 births per women. Long story short for this little tibit, as a 23 year old rich white person, it can be quite suprising or incomprehensible to people why I do not have a girlfriend, a wife, or many children.