Category: Niger life

Okay, so you know Leopold, you’ve heard us rave about our fabulous cook. While he was cleaning this fish for us this morning I thought about what my friend Elisabeth’s mom, who was posted in Cameroon, said. “It’s not that I needed a cook, it’s that I didn’t know how to pluck a chicken.” Now I don’t have Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods to clean and cut up my fruits and vegetables–and fish–for me, I have Leo. But maybe not for long.

Normally you can get a sandwich or a plate of pasta for lunch at the embassy, they will even bring it to your desk. A month or so ago the guy who ran the “snack bar” as it’s called, saved enough money selling me fruit salad and ice tea to move to another country and open a restaurant. What country? Rumors abound. Okay, okay, Ghana. Or maybe the US. At any rate, the chef at the snack bar has a captive clientel of hungry workers who can’t run to Whole Foods (ah, Portland), or in Peter’s case, eat lunch off a patient’s unwanted tray.

When we heard they would be hiring a new chef to run the place, we encouraged Leopold to apply. Once he wrote up his CV, which he’d never done before, we discovered he is already running a small restaurant on the other side of the river, and has cooked four meals a day for 30 people at time for weeks at time when the cloud research group was here. And the missionary community orders his capitaine brochettes by the hundreds. So it’s not just us convinced of his fabulousness.

Many applicants submitted CVs and application packets. From that group, Leo and two others were chosen to each run the snack bar for a week on a trial basis. After all three have given their performances, everybody at the embassy will vote to choose which of the candidates is their favorite. And that person will be awarded a record contract, I mean, that candidate will be the proud new manager of the snack bar.

This week is a Ghanaian guy, next week a French guy, named Jul, and the last week, alas, the week we are in Rome–won’t be able to accuse us of ballot stuffing!–is Leopold.

We know Leo has the yo factor. Can he bring it to the snack bar?

Fall in love with 9-year-old Marie Ange, like I have. She lives at the Orphanage Notre Dame, and is so lovely and reaches out so much, in spite of the fact that she is deaf. The Orphanage Notre Dame isn’t so much an orphanage as it is a home for unwanted children. Most of the kids are not available for adoption, they have been taken in by a priest and a nun named Sister Brigette and will live there until they are grown.

Go through the big gate and you’ll find a house with bunk beds–a donation from the American Women’s Club–stuffed animals scattered around, newborn Naomi sleeping in a basinette, a big sunny kitchen with some workers spreading peanut butter on baguettes and twenty-seven kids who all want to be picked up and carried around.

There are three three-year-old boys who want to be pushed in the swings. One of them is Ousani who has no shoes that fit, he wears his loafers with the backs folded down. When the Orphanage can afford it, the bigger girls take english classes at the American school on the weekend, it’s Mary Fatima’s favorite activity. The eighteen-month old twins have something wrong with their legs and don’t walk. Anna’s mother is a crazy woman who lives down the street. The kids smell like soap, and they all need lotion on their skinny little arms and legs. They have a pet, a dog named Bambi.

The dolls based on the kids below are made and are almost ready for homes–all the profits will go to the American Women’s Club, which supports Orphanage Notre Dame as well as other grass roots organizations like this in Niger. I’ll be posting a website with pictures of the dolls soon. Meet Yasmine, Ibraham, Zara and Ousani.

Our charming next door neighbors, the Fulbrights, have started a blog. It’s so well written that I’m angry, and I’m loathe to pass along the address, because then you’ll know where I’m stealing all my jokes from. But it’s too good to keep to myself. www.4kindsofhot.blogspot.com

Jennifer: What are you going to name the blog?
James: Four Kinds of Hot.
Jennifer: Meaning me?

For me right now, it’s dolls, dolls, dolls. And marketing materials for the upcoming dinner and auction for the American Women’s Club. We found out we are staying at the Marriott Grand Hotel Flora when we go to Rome next month, woo-hoo! And the movie! I’m working on the movie.

This morning I went running at the stadium for the first time in three weeks. Someone on the Nigerien football team said to me “du courage.”

It’s always nice when Niger is in the Times.

Monday was Zaoure’s first day to come and work on dolls. She came, but later than we’d agreed on and all dressed up, explaining that she’d visited a friend in the hospital. We talked a little about the friend, that the doctor’s were ruling out meningitis,–can you believe here there is a meningitis season? Thank goodness there is a vaccination for those that can afford it–but the doctors didn’t really know what Zaoure’s friend had. Tuesday I asked her if her friend was better and she said, “She went home.” Today the guard came to the back door with a message for Zaoure: her friend died.

Of course, Zaoure is crying and upset, and won’t stop mopping the floor. “Your friend that was in the hospital?” “My friend!” she says. I was in over my head, French wise, so I had Jennifer come over. (I hate to admit it, but her French is so much better than mine, she knows the word for vomit and condolences.) Not only is this Zaoure’s friend, it’s her roommate, from her village in Benin, the person with whom she moved here to Niger.

Sunday her friend worked until 8 pm, came home and was watching tv. She got up and went to the bathroom, and came out and started throwing up. Got so weak she couldn’t stand up. They took her to the hospital. The hospital never told them what was wrong with her. They said she should try a local healer. Which I guess means: there isn’t anything we can do. Her two aunties took her by bus back to her village, she died once she got there. She was 28 years old.

I feel like such a jerk for not asking more about the situation earlier in the week. I just thought some friend was sick. It didn’t occur to me that someone who worked all day would die three days later.

Special message to my mother: Whatever it was isn’t contagious, no one else is sick like this. Peter suspects a dissecting aneurysm which finally ruptured.

Zaoure came to work today. I asked her if she just wanted to go home, she said she’d rather be here doing something. It’s so sad to have Zaoure’s tear-stained face sitting here making dolls and folding laundry. Niger has the lowest life expectancy in the world.