Category: Niger life

About a year ago I asked our gardener Pierre if he could put in a banana plant (Jim, your plant expert, says don’t say tree, it doesn’t have wood so it’s a plant.) He came to the house with two small, small plants that had just a few leaves each. I was a little disappointed. Now one tree, I mean plant, is at least twelve feet tall, waving its fronds–I think they are fronds–way over our nine feet tall walls. The other plant is a different variety I think, and is about five feet tall. Both made huge flowers when we arrived back here in September. We check on the progress almost daily. The plant grows fast, but the bananas take forever to ripen.

Marine Corp Ball time. We have a girl marine here, and I really like her. She is adorable, but also as tough as the boys. I grabbed my dress from the online sale rack at Anthropologie–I think it is so diplomat’s wife, 1950s. The music during dinner was great, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and matched my dress perfectly, but the dance music was chosen by the marines who were all born when I was in college. I think we need to have an eighties dance party. Thanks for the good time, Marine Security Guards, Detachment Niamey, Niger.

I helped carve pumpkins with Stefan’s class at the French school. Ahhh… the universal appeal of Halloween: costumes, candy, jack-o -lanterns, screaming “trick-or-treat.” I know Americans didn’t invent Halloween, but we did make it into the goofy thing that it is. To me, this school celebrating Halloween shows something about how easy it is to embrace American culture. Why do do we celebrate Halloween? Because it’s fun–that’s reason enough for Americans.

As they say in French: Appy Alloween!

Monday, Peter’s bid list had to be in. Hopefully it all got sent in right and we won’t be sent to Ickystan by default. Hong Kong and Domincan Republic were last minute options that we decided against. Let the bidders remorse begin. “Anywhere but Africa,” was Camille’s request. Stefan wants somewhere with snow. Check back for the actual ten-city bid list, which we will be posting soon.

I have a bunch of dolls done and plan to open a store at Etsy.com. I’m really excited about this prospect.

Last night Peter was up all night giving IV fluid to a patient with amebas.

Stefan’s teacher said that she asked if any students could describe Halloween. Stefan’s waved his hand wildly, was called on and announced that it’s really weird, but it hurts when he pees.

Today we went and demanded restitution from Air France for the ill-fated lost bag. First they have to make sure it isn’t in their lost and found in: Dubai. We really felt like we had accomplished something, just getting to Air France and talking to a person.

Our 400-pound consumable shipment arrived and kids ate three kinds of cereal for lunch.

Baseball tournament at the Embassy this weekend. As we are driving in, Stefan sees the teams on the field. “Baseball is like tennis, right?” he asks.

Our favorite part of the tournament: camel rides.

On the way home from school yesterday Stefan says, “There are three people at school I hate, Adam, Walid and Abdoul-Karim.” Peter and I start in on a short lecture of how “hate” isn’t a good word to use. “Oh!” Stefan says, winding down the window and waving manaically at someone like a friend he hasn’t seen in one hundred years, “There’s Abdoul-Karim! Hi! Hi, Abdoul-Karim!”

I always loved that line in “Out of Africa” where Meryl Streep/Karen Blixen says, “the african moon, lying on her back.”

Here in Niger the moon really does lie on it’s back. It doesn’t wax and wane side to side, but top to bottom.

And we are so close to the equator the sun goes down about the same time every night, and comes up around the same time in the morning, all year. It contributes to the disorienting feeling of not having any seasons. The sun blares brightly when the kids go to school in the morning, and goes down between 6:30 and 7 pm, on Christmas eve, the last day of school and today.

Last night was the 27th night of Ramadan, Lailatoul Quadr, and everyone took turns praying all night, you could hear the prayers from the mosque, under the African moon, laying on her back.

Groceries are limited here, you can forget about yellow bell peppers, broccolini, ground turkey, whole wheat flour, coffee beans, enchilada sauce, marshmallows and mushrooms. Of the limited supplies, usually there is at least one item not available at all. Once it was eggs. Other unavailable items have been: milk, bananas, orange juice and swiss cheese.

When we first got here I wished I’d brought an egg carton. Now I’m use to buying eggs like this, $6 for thirty at a time, “un plateau.” Always brown, except around Easter when they import a few white ones for coloring, and always with the feathers and all.

Last year, when the car arrived, there were two surprises inside. We had tossed Stefan’s bike in the back, and it was still there. And at the last minute, when we left the car in MamaLana’s driveway in Virginia, instead of throwing away the empty cup in the cup-holder, I put a plastic venti Starbucks cup in the glove box. (I had another one that I brought with me on the plane, but I’ve since dropped it and it broke.) The one in the glove box survived the trip and more.

For one year, I’ve used the same Starbucks cup: to the computer in the embassy CLO lounge, ice water to the stadium, iced tea to go fabric shopping, to the pool when I watch kids swim. Drinking out of a venti Starbucks cup is like a vacation and a mini-home-away-from-home all in one. Since summer 2006, here in Niger, I have used the same cup, lid and straw. As you can see, they are in perfect shape.

At a Starbucks in Davis, California this summer, I bought a lovely peice of low-fat banana chocolate-chip coffee cake, and asked for a glass of water.

“We have paper cups over there for water,” said the Starbucks cashier.

“Can I have it in a big venti cup with a lid, please?” I asked.

In an acusing voice, rolling her eyes, the cashier said to me: “Are you going to recycle it?”

The extreme irony of this question sort of stunned me. “You’re asking the wrong person,” I said.

I told her my story. She had me re-tell it to her co-worker in charge of recycling, who was touched. I was sort of hoping for low-fat banana chocolate-chip coffee cake for life, but really, cup-reusing is it’s own reward.

Seeing all those cups thrown away in the trash this summer made me feel sort of sick and helpless. I had planned to save all my Starbucks cups I used while home, and bring them back here. I did reuse them at home, but piling them up to pack and bring here made me feel like I was collecting trash, it seemed neurotic, so I didn’t send them. Now I regret that. Funny the difference a continent and a culture make.

I’ll see if the only Starbucks cup in Niger can make it another year.

This time adjustment thing has been going VERY badly. Last year we had been in Washington DC for six weeks, so this was our first time adjusting to a.) a 26 hour plane ride, b.) a 9 hour time difference.

Lots of screaming and crying in the night, mostly by me.

All of us are awake ALL night, we all hear the 5 am call to prayer, THEN fall asleep. The first day we forced ourselves awake and were a little shocked that it was 3:30 in the afternoon. Since then we have been trying to be more Finnish and manly and dragging ourselves up by 9:30 or so, but still no one is sleeping at night.

Yesterday, I took Stefan out for a bike ride around and around the stadium, then home for a swim. I thought maybe he would sleep if he were worn out, but no. He fell asleep at nine, woke up around midnight, was awake ALL night, hungry, thirsty, going to the bathroom, picking his nose until he had a nosebleed, afraid of the air conditioner, afraid of a bug he’s seen in Camille’s room two days earlier that he was sure had migrated to his room and was now “ticking” unseen, unsee-able, in a corner, then he got up to ask me, “Which is bigger, an ant or a spark?”

He was all smiles for his first day of first grade though, clapping he was so excited, even on two hours of sleep for the past three nights.