le 30 novembre

Holy shit, tomorrow starts Decemebre.

Today

I have...
- felt rushed, or at least felt the need to move swifty, from the moment I woke up until after I finish this, brush my teeth, go to the bathroom, jounral and finally lay down to sleep. On the flip side...baccomplished pretty much every thing that needs to happen in these days
- accidentally ran into someone concession during my run. The road led smack into their concession and I didn't notice it. There were cows on a cart and I paused at the edge of the concession to let them leave and then guy waved me around (in retrospect he was telling me not to come in) and I thanked him and ran around, then realized I was in a concession, stopped and tried to greet everyone to make it look like I was just visiting. Coincidentaly, the woman was making lots of masa, so I tried to make it look like I had been looking for masa, which I kinda had. She offered some, and I said I would return. So, another trainee and I returned after my run, with some hesitation about this woman was actually selling the masa or just making it for her family. But I was happily on my Zarma game and with only the normal level of confusion asked if she was a nerandiko masa (suppossed to be masa nerandiko...a masa vender) and bought some from her.
- for better or worse (probs worse) thoguht again how easily I could slide into the culture of men not doing any real work arond the house (they DO do things like repair rooves and fences and such) and how I would much rather have a meal of sufficient quantity served to me than toil over a meal for any real amonut of time, even if the quality is much higher. Too many things to do.
- had day open and end on high notes, zarma wise with the conversations with the masa seller and after dinner conversation with other trainees and formateurs. Full recovery from yesterday feeling like Ay si ma Zarma chine.
- (from during demyst) thought about when we made cook stoves (simple stove things out of clay that are much more efficient for cooking than using three rocks to hold up a pot) on demyst and how I marveled at the dearth of cook stoves in the village. They only take a few minutes to make and are so much better. Our PCV said that people do their work, but then don't really have the drive t do EXTRA work. I wondered why they don't want to improve their lot, when some improvements, such as cook stoves, seem so clear cut and easy. But then, I thought about at home, how many things are left unpainted, many trees left untrimmed, my room is often left a mess because we do the things that are necessary and most important (here, working in the millet fields) and then correctly feel entitled to rest some before starting it again tomorrow. Same here, expect here, the bare necessities of life take up a disproportionate amount of time, leaving more things in the "luxury" category. Things like cook stoves.
- Learned how to express pain or ailment in Zarma. Interesting they do not say they "have" pain, they say something like pain is here or maybe even part of them. I don't quite undertand the phrasing yet. This could be a life's work...or at least an anthropology thesis...how their lexicon for expressing illness reflects their cultural beliefs regarding etiology and cure...and health in general.
- (over the last few days or weeks or something) embarrassingly noticed how uncertainty over the next meal (what it will be, if it will be enough, when it will come) leads me to be a little bit on edge and little preoccupied with food, and likely to eat waaay bigger meals than I would in the states, where I prefer lots of little meals/ snacks across the day. One thing to look forward to at site is having control over my eating schedule, even if it's PBJ and maka nda fromage watikulu (mac and cheese all the time)
- used all available and appropriate time to organize my notes/ study Zarma
- had an aura of impatient with everything, an attitude of wanting one thing to be completed, from my run to class, to meals, so I can put it in my back pocket and move on to the next thing and so on and so on through the next two weeks especially


I have not...
- succeeded in finding bread. It's hilariously driving us crazy. At the only store in the village, they showed us bread yesterday and other trainees bought some, and since then, we've tried to send kids, we've tried walking around the whole town, and we can't find bread!.
- understood much of what a doctor said when we interviewed him. We were given questions, which we then understood to ask, and we even made up some of our own questions in Frarma (FR + Zarma) on the fly, but he takled mad fast and it was mad hard to keep up
- decided if my focus is more me or more Niger. Among my reasons for doing Peace Corps: experience and intergrate into another culture, gain cross cultural perspective in general and specifically related to health, serve those in need. I wonder/ worry over the past few days whether my focus is more on self improvement than on service, and if I might be more relaxed and actually do better if my focus was service. This is tricky because, in training, we're not doing any service, in fact we're a draw on resources and the self improvement, specifically language learning, that needs to happen during PST is a prerequisite to effective service later on. I need to remind myself that true service has no strings attached; things should be done for people who need them whether or not they help me figure out what to do with my life or make me a better person in any way.

Another day down. If I can manage this kind of schedule for the next two weeks, I think I will reap good benifits down the line.