A go waani Zarma cine!

A couple of words about living in a paper-poor world:

Some obstacles posed by this situation are so apparent they need not be said: School began a week late this year as students waited for their notebooks to be delivered. Books, the sweet rotten-smelling pages of infinitely valuable books, are desperately scarce. Children here cannot draw. I've spotted only one Nigerien newspaper since moving to Ville, and I live just outside the capital. I received coloring books from my (endleslly generous) aunt and have since given them to my two favorite teachers for their students. Both asked specifically for them when the rumor arrived that I had coloring books, and after I handed them over, both flipped through and gazed at every page. Fifteen million lifetimes without a single journal. This nation suffers a shortage of crossword puzzles, cookbooks, dictionaries, magazines and the simply delightful transfer of letters. Oh, and I don't know about you, but my memory has become quite reliant on the sticky note.

Okay, I can wrap my mind around--and adjust my habits to--the lack of napkins and papertowels, but I honestly miss toilet paper. And tissues. It's cold season, afterall, and everyone is sick. What else is there to do but blast snot rockets? In public? No problem! (There is at least some chance I will be regarded as a heathen when I return.)

Still, I draw the line at shootin' shit ou'cha nose on bush taxis. C'mon man, there are five of us on this bench made for there, and the windows of this van are cracked and jammed shut. Oh, that little girl lacks health, you say? Oh yes, there she goes, puking into the same sort of thin, plastic bag that I purchase my eggplant in. At least her mother managed to catch it, I suppose. Both of my feet are asleep, and the shrill speakers of that guy's cell phone can't mask her heaving with their atrociousity of Nigerien popular music. There is a bowl of millet spewing across my numb toes with every leap and jump we traverse and another spilling into my lap, where it pools in the dip of my zarra. Now you're going to act disgusted by the vomit odor trapped in here, Mr. Booger? The more force you use to push yourself as far away as possible, the further I am shoved on top of the hot, swollen body of the sparkly woman next to me, whose baby, drawn on eyebrows smeared in a comic arch, is now playing in my crotch's sandbox of millet grain. Yes, perhaps now is the perfect time to answer your phone, sir. Assalum Aleikum, indeed.

There is a reason that 45-minute ride barely costs more than one USD.

Two months ago I saw a camel in one such vehicle, and I thought, "wow, that's absurd." Now the memory only makes me wonder how much money the camel's keeper must have been receiving to justify purchasing so many seats on the taxi.

And to address the question on everyone's minds: no, I have not yet ridden a camel. Rest assured that when that happens, there will be pictures.

Because I do have a camera in country, now. After the unfortunate death of my Nikon during Ramadan, I was left with no choice but to attempt to describe this crazy world in print, a frankly impossible feat. Even photos, of course, fail. Still, they help, and I promise they are coming. In Sha'allah. And I promise to make a genuine effort to resist posting the beaucoup of pictures I take everyday of my dog.

I will be returning soon to Hamdy for IST (In-Service Training) where I will spend the better part of a month in the happy company of the other members of my training class, the vast majority of whom I have not seen since Steph's memorial. I'm dreading her absense, and that of the couple of others who have returned to the States, but I'm more than a little psyched to go. After, I am permitted to begin funded projects, so watch out Ville-I-cannot-here-name. Djamila will be comin' back with force.

In light of this long-awaited work, I would like to report what we're grappling with here, just to get everybody up to speed.

Some facts about Niger:

Land size:489,678 sq mi with the majority of the population concentrated in sourthern portions that lie within the Sahel, an arid region of Africa to the immediate south of the Sahara Desert, which covers 80% of Niger.
Population: roughly 15 million

Let's begin with the most dire statistics:
Average children per woman: 8 (highest in the world)
Population growth rate: 3.6% (highest in the world)
Population below the age of 15: 49.9% (US: 21.7%)

As an education volunteer, the following statistics must also be noted:
Adult literacy: 16.5% (take note that this is literacy, not illiteracy)
Children in primary education: 30%
Children in secondary education: 5%

And, well, these are just sad:
Children malnurished: 40%
Population living on less than 1 USD/day: 61.4%
Population living on less than 2 USD/day: 85.3%
Per capital GDP: $175
Doctors per 100,000 people: 4 (US: 276)
Life expectancy: 45.6

(CIA WorldFactbook, Niger; UN Report)

The next time you see one of those Sponsor-a-Child commercials on late night television, look a bit closer. Chi'kin Niger.
So yeah, to, kala tonton.

Mate ni go?

I just simply cannot sit through this much television anymore. I used to be able to, I admit, with the recollection of Big Bang Theory hangovers and Always Sunny Sunday afternoons fresh in my mind. I can't anymore; my head spins too quickly. I've grown unused to the habit, to the unblinking gaze at a television screen.

And we watch old television and movies constantly in Niamey -- constantly.

In one of the back rooms in which I tuck myself during these marathons on the couches, I sat grumpy and frustrated that our time together is dominated by such mediocrity. We have such limited time together outside of our solitary lives in our villages, and I would really prefer to rally the troops for a treck out for an afternoon beer or to wander around and rifle through the stacks of fabric at the Grande Marche. I'm sure I'll eventually find allies in this, but for now at least the hostel has a coffee maker.

In Ville, I've recently rid coffee from my list of habits as well, which might just blow the minds of my friends from Ball State and Louisville. It's been at least six years since I've been without a regular coffee shop to haunt. Now I'm in Africa and I have less access to the rich coffees of this land than I did when I lived on the other side of the planet. It's a lesson in world trade, if you'll give it some thought.

But my extraordinary parents recently sent me a porceilen mug from Heine Brothers and a pack of Starbucks instant coffees, which surpass other brands because they actually smell like coffee. And as I wrapped my chilled fingers around my first steaming cup this morning (cold season is wonderful!), and pressed the ceramic to my lips, I realized I'd missed the feeling without even knowing it.

In five months I haven't once drunk from anything besides tiny tea-filled shot glasses, metal community water containers or, most often, brightly-dyed plastic cups. The weight and smoothness of that Heine Bros mug filled me up, and I revelled in it. Being so far away isn't describable. Being in such a foreign place can't be captured in words, no matter how many nights I spend spilling out over pages. So the best way I can find to explain it to you is to say that nothing feels more like home, more beautifully reminiscent of my life Before, more overwhelmingly comforting and reassuring, than a simple coffee mug.

The good news is that I'm finding things like these to reinforce my sanity here, a tricky balancing act. Julia loves my shortwave radio, the new-to-me bicycle we bought off the side of the road, a puppy I've named Charlie (my kitten is named The Waitress), a stack of out-of-date New Yorkers I swiped from the hostel, nine different types of American flower seeds I'm attempting to nurse into life in the sand (thanks to a bucket of shit I spent the better part of an hour collecting yesterday afternoon from the paths around my house), a Rastafarian Ghanian tailor in the capital currently custom making my first American dress, a cheap gold Christmas wreath I bought in a ex-pat grocery store in Niamey, embarassingly cheap boxed wine, my iTunes library five months out of date, and, most spectacularly, a growing box of letters and cards I've receieved over my time here. I am so blessed to receive so much support.

Djamila, however, knows nothing of these things. Djamila is an American, that's undeniable in light of my white skin and unwed status and education level, but she lives out in the ville, drinking tea, speaking French and Zarma, Frarma, and being greeted by name (and bowed to) by students around town. She wears Nigerien clothing, she covers her hair, she's mastered eating Cous Cous one handed, she wears Fleece and socks in 70 degree weather. She spends huge portions of her time worrying over the failing education system and cholera. She has never drunk alcohol or held hands with a man. She laughs at all the simple humor of Nigerien women. She delights in the days she can find potatos in market and the afternoons she splurges on ice. She is responsible for voting against toilet paper in the hostel (it was our biggest expense!). She can type on French keyboards. She leads a primary school P.E. class on Tuesday and Thursday shoeless. She is Google-less (Google-less!). She's also incredibly desensitized.

Cassie and I were standing in a village along our road on Sunday, outside a house being readied for one of the new volunteers who will be sworn in on December 30th. As usual, children were everywhere, and we noticed one, a baby with wobbly legs, teetering around. Bored as Moussa publically shamed the men who had failed to build the house's shade hanger on time, we watched this baby, commenting on her uncommonly chubby legs, which were naked beneathe a winter coat. We laughed a bit about her clothes, although mostly because all Nigerien children are dressed so irrationally during cold season. We pointed out the difference between her fat butt and the skinny baby next to her. We stood and stared. And it took Djamila and Malika a relative eternity, by the standards of Julia, and I'm assuming Cassie, to notice that she was playing with scissors, broken scissors. Oh you know, just a regular day for Djamila.

They told us during training that we would develop these split personalities, so I hope you won't judge my callousness. I guess its a survival technique. I've now lived in two countries: the most wealthy and the least. My perceptions and thought processes and imagination are confusing and warped. Obviously, I am both Djamila and Julia, but the two aren't really on speaking terms as they lack a lot of common ground. Julia, admittedly, isn't even really the same person who existed in America, who passed hours outside the MT Cup pounding on my Mac and guzzling dollar coffee refills between text messages before hopping on my Schwinn and taking off to my tutoring shift at the Writing Center. In retrospect, the scale of Braken Library or any given Wednesday night's list of possiblilities would likely overwhelm present-Julia.

That's okay too. She couldn't sanely handle standing in line either or sitting in traffic on 465.

Peace Corps is, foremost, a cultural exchange. So I guess I've traded coffee and Google for patience and stamina. And I hated grocery stores anyhow.