Hello city lights…

It was a two hour bush taxi ride that brought me back to the city.  Beginning with a 40 minute wait at the “taxi station” (i.e. the parking spot in front of the hodge-podge stand next to the road) the ensuing trip was filled with frequent stops (helping out other bush taxis who ran out of gas, taking bags of corn from bush taxis who had too much weight and not enough room, and picking up/dropping of people at every village along the way) bumps and jolts (the driving reminded me of my mother’s, who tends of step on the brake at the last minute and always manages to stop just inches from the bumper of the car in front) , and loud Hausa music (quite reminiscent of Middle Eastern or even Indian music).  I arrived in Zinder late this morning after spending a long awaited month in my village.  Surprisingly, when I went to bed last night, I thought to myself “it didn’t seem like a month”.  Now, had you asked me during the first week how I felt about the situation, you most likely would have gotten a response more in the ballpark of “What did I get myself into?  I can’t communicate with anyone, the world outside my door is quite intimidating, and there’s nothing familiar in sight”. 

Fortunately I survived a month without contact with the outside world.  And let me say, I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would.  Don’t get me wrong, the first place I came to in the city (after dropping of my bag at the hostel) was the internet café (I certainly have a greater appreciation for modern technology that enables communication halfway across the world, especially after many a phone call with my family being dropped).  These last four weeks were filled with crazy situations like attending two funerals during my first week at site (neither of the people or families had I met beforehand), discovering that the world pretty much comes to a halt during the daytime hours of Ramadan, and walking 5k into the bush and then taking an ox cart even deeper into the bush to have a hands-on Hausa lesson about garden vocabulary. 

Life is actually quite pleasant in my village.  Life slowly passes by as children play soccer with june bugs, make model cars out of a poo/sand mixture, and attempt to catch the hundreds of grasshoppers that swarm my porch light at night.  I, however, pass the day greeting passserbys in the street, chatting with the teachers at the junior high (who, as of the first day of school, are already on strike), scrubbing my clothes in a bucket, and eating dinner each night with my phenomenal host family.

I’ve found that when I’m strolling through the village streets watching women carrying babies on their back (accompanied with a few feet worth of millet stalks on their head) or see baby goats (that are now starting to resemble puppies) jumping on tops of garbage piles, I often notice that I’m silently narrating my life.  I’m convinced that if I didn’t describe every sight in exquisite detail, then no one back home would believe the reality in front of me.  As of now the narration (life as I know it) continues…