I love Stefan’s handwriting. I think it’s so nice for a first grader.
The other day he said, ” I want to be an animal scientist, but I also want to be a rockstar. Can you be more than one thing? Because I know this is a little weird, but I also want to be a cheerleader.”
“President Bush was cheerleader,” was my response, although MANY other questions have come to mind since then, but he doesn’t want to elaborate. Is it a way to meet girls? Or the spangly costume?
Oh, just another weekend when you hire a guide to lead a group, including the Ambassador, on camels to a village famous for its pottery, watch someone make pots from the river clay, look for hippos as you float back in boats, then have lunch of grilled capitaine on the bank of Niger river. Same old, same old.
And the kittens are two weeks old.
One of my favorite things about living in Niger is the quality of the tomatoes, and the produce in general. The tomatoes are this gorgeous in January. The produce here is just super fresh and hasn’t been genetically altered to transport well, it’s grown for flavor by small farms. Le Pelier, an Italian restaurant here, inspired me to make a salad they serve, it’s just tomatoes with basil–we have it in the garden almost year-round–oil and vinegar, salt, pepper and pressed garlic.
Driving down one of the main roads in town, Camille pointed out that she’d noticed when walking that the clumps in the trees are not tangled branches, like I thought, but hundreds, maybe thousands, of bats.
Didja think I’d make it whole week without a kitty cat post? They are one week old today. The white ones are starting to show faint markings, but look mouse-like and aren’t really as cute as the tabby one, don’t you think? I’ll think the white ones will get cuter. I hope. Or I’ll never find anyone to adopt them. They haven’t moved from this spot in about five days. They can’t really walk yet and they’re eyes aren’t open. So the first week, they just nurse and sleep, –as Craig Fergason says, remind you of anyone?
And Stefan reading one of his favorite books, an animal picture encyclopedia. The puppet is afraid of the snakes.
Stefan had two bowls of sweet, ripe strawberries at lunch, he was so happy he did a little strawberry dance. We’ll have them for about a month. We will make ourselves sick on them, because they are the only berries we will have until we go home to Portland this summer. I can’t tell you how much it cheered me up to see these today. I bought a couple pints and they are already almost gone, I had to hide some for Camille. They are picked ripe, are delicious and go bad by the next day. This year I’m going to buy some to freeze for smoothies. Leopold knows where there is a farm and he can buy me a flat. Strawberries.
“The cat had her kittens!” Stefan came running into my room this morning, more excited than Christmas. She had them in the night under his bed. One, two, three, four. Three that look like her–yea!–and one funny striped one. Giselle is eating like a maniac and wants a lot attention herself. One of us sneaks in to check on them about every five minutes. “They’re milking!” Stefan reports.
The best part of Christmas this year was having visitors. Ana, Elliott, Camille and Stefan decorated the tree, I had a control freak mini-attack, but they did a great job. They also made a fabulous gingerbread house that looked like it was inhabited by a family with a hoarding disorder. I made a plate of lemon bars and the kids ate them as fast as they came out of the oven, before I could snap a photo. Christmas morning I made my sister’s orange-cranberry muffins, and some maple sausage I brought from Trader Joe’s and had been hiding in the freezer in the land of no sausage. We enjoyed opening presents together–I especially love my pincushion Ana made. Here is Stefan loaded down with just some of his new swimming pool toys, then they tried them all out for the rest of the day. We keep marveling that next year, it’ll be so different.
Driving around town is like driving through a fairground. Donkey carts, someone carrying a table on their head, small children dragging a box, camels loaded down with woven grass, goats crossing, a family of three, four or five on a moped next to you. Every time you stop the car, boys run to the window to sell you are phone card. Stop lights are merely a suggestion. You can drive over the curb, around any car or cart, pass on the right, stop when you feel like it. It’s crazy, then liberating: you can drive however you want.
Babies wear woolen hats as soon as the tempurature reaches anything below 90.
Went fabric shopping with Ana, my 13-year-old niece. The shop keeper put a veil on her head, covering her hair, then everyone in the store marveled at how beautiful she is. Ana wore the veil for the rest of the shopping trip, and got a marriage proposal. The more modestly a girl dresses, the prettier she is. “At home it’s the opposite,” commented Ana.
Someone asked me yesterday where there is a book store. Um. There is no bookstore.
You say hello, bonjour, fofo many times each day. I love the long exchanges I overhear, fonda this and mate that. How are you? How is your house, your children, the heat? Every day Zoure asks me Comment la fatigue?
If I don’t chat with someone while we wait for our kids to come out of school, I feel awkward. I feel awkward in the kitchen with Zoure, if I don’t make small talk. Here, you have to know each other to chat. Americans have to know each other to not chat. If I’m with the driver, I need to fill the air with small talk. The driver doesn’t feel compelled to speak with me, and can drive me all around town and not say a word because we don’t know each other. I can ride in the car with Peter and not talk, but that’s only because I know him.
The Nigerienne holidays are based on the Islamic calandar, which moves up ten days every year compared to the Gregorian calandar we use. Holidays depend on the sighting of the new moon and we never know when they will be. They cannot be determined by just anyone, you have to wait until the right guy sees the new moon and says it’s the holiday. There will be a holiday this week, Islamic New Year, Muharram, but we don’t know if it will be Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.
Jennifer tagged me with this great topic. You can read hers in her column in the Ashland Tidings here.
Now for the fun part: I tag MamaLana, Amy, and Dakota. Seven things about where you live.
Our kitty, Mademoiselle Giselle, as we’ve been calling her lately, is getting huge. For two weeks I’ve been thinking she was going to deliver any day, but every day she just gets more and more inflated. We were certain she would have the kittens before Helen, Elliott and Ana head home, but with only one day left, I’m not so sure. If you rest your hand on her tummy you can feel the kittens in there wiggling around. It’s so exciting, we can hardly stand it. I drempt she had to have an emergency c-section. Ana drempt her dog at home had puppies and kittens.
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 