Settling Back In

Hey. I’m gonna make this quick cus though it’s been a while, I’m feeling kind of sick (nothing serious, don’t worry) and I’m anxious to get back out to Matameye. So here’s the blitz:

The last month has been great, finally getting back to Matameye for a significant chunk of time and getting back into a rhythm with everything. When I got back to Matameye, there were still ten days left of Ramadan, and so, loving self-abuse, I decided to do the last ten days of fasting. I did about 6 days last year, and wanted to do a bit more this year. Well, to remind you of what that means, it means you get up at 4:45am drink about two liters of water and eat as much as you can before the sun rises at around 5:30am. Then, you go back to bed and try to sleep away some of the day, but inevitably need to get up every 15 minutes as a result of having exceeded the capacity of your bladder by about a liter and a half. So trying to sleep tends to be pretty unfruitful, but you’re basically too tired to do anything else.

The early part of the day you can be somewhat productive, but as 1pm rolls around, you’re both hungry and getting dehydrated. Being hungry is the shockingly easy part of the fast. Once you get used to your stomache growling, you just stop thinking about it. But it’s the dehydration in this preposterously hot country (temperatures climbing up to 120 or so in the sun at this season) that’s the kicker. The second half of the day, ambition drops. You take a multi-hour nap, you grab a book, or you sit around and chat, but everyone moves slowly, is tired and feels week. You can see everyone’s eyes slightly sunken. The last couple hours before sunset at 6:30pm people are literally just sitting and waiting.

Normally, people will go drink water and break fast with their families. One of my favorite parts of doing the fast this year was getting to break the fast every evening with my neighbor and best friend Lawali, just the two of us. I can’t speak highly enough about this guy. I’ve described him before as “Nigerien Barton” for those who that means something to. Just the sincerest, most kind, good friend you could imagine. Anyways, it was just really cool getting to share that time each evening together. Oh, and there is honestly no feeling quite like that first sip of fluid (its usually a millet, water, and sugar mixture). Its amazing as you can tangibly feel your body getting stronger within moments of your first sip…

So, that was good times… Sort of… But definitely worth doing. Everyone, even a few weeks later asks me how many days of the fast I did, and when I answer ten they usually say, “No way. Are you serious! That’s great. Ka yi kokari.” The last sentence being one of my favorite complements in Hausa, when someone tells you that you gave something a good effort. So, that was a nice way to come back to Matameye after a lot of time away, to get close again with my friends, and with the rest of the town…

And now its suddenly the beginning of the school year. It’s a mix of exciting and sad. As I mentioned before a couple of my friends can’t go back, and a couple others have left town to go to school or to do programs elsewhere. Actually, in the last week I got served a double blow. First, my friend Roukaya left Matameye for Zinder because her dad decided she was going to enroll in the Ecole Normale, the teacher training school. Its good for her, because it will give her a somewhat secure job (nothing is truly secure here, but there is always a need for teachers), but she had really wanted to continue the lycee and isn’t excited about teaching… She’s a superstar, so in some ways for her going to Ecole Normale while awesome, in her case may perhaps be settling for something less than her potential.

Losing her is definitely a bummer, but it became devastating when Nouria called me the other day and told me her dad was affectated from Matameye to Zinder, meaning his job transferred him. I’ve raved and gone on plenty about Nouria, so I don’t really need to again at this point, but as most of you know, I count Nouria as one of my very best friends (outside of my fada, perhaps the best friend I have in Matameye).

Basically, in the span of just a couple days I lost perhaps my two closest female friends. The good news is that they’re both gonna be in Zinder, so it doesn’t mean I have to say my goodbyes to either of them. When I come into Zinder I’ll be sure to visit both of them (and with Roukaya who is already here, we hung out the other afternoon and had tons of fun trooping around the city and meeting some of her family who lives here). But it means that when I’m out in Matameye (which is most of the time), I won’t be able to just swing by and hang out like I’d done and valued so much before. I put up a picture of Roukaya in the black and white shirt, and there's a couple pictures of Nouria in the last post...

OK, and here’s the last noteworthy tidbit. I’m in Zinder today because another volunteer had his fiancee from home visiting him, and with her here, he had a big traditional marriage ceremony done for him out in his village in the bush. So we all went. It was awesome. This tiny village of about 500 got invaded by about 6 truck fulls of foreigners, and they were going crazy with excitement. It was really really cool, one of these pictures is of the amuriya (young bride) watching a kind of crazy lady dancing in front of her, and another just of some people watching the ceremony… Really it was awesome. Oh, and that’s just a fun picture of me messing around with my friend Zach.

And that’s it. I’m off to Matameye. Hope everyone’s well.

You know what... These pictures just aren't gonna go through today... I'll try and put them up next time I'm in town. Rrrrrrr....