Boo!! Happy Halloween

Up in Dosso for a couple days. Had a meeting yesterday and we're having a Halloween party today, but I'm sans costume. Want to say goodbye to our dear friend Katie, who flew out of country yesterday. We'll miss ya and your accent!

Ok, on with the post I typed up a couple days ago:

Since the last time I posted I’ve come into my own in Gaya a bit more. Ramadan has past. I have made some more friends here. I’ve started playing soccer… excuse me, football. I’ve made headway into the ideas I have for projects and I’m looking forward to developing them.

Ramadan.
So Ramadan ended on the 11th here. So that’s almost two weeks ago now. If the internet weren’t so frustrating slow I could make more posts, really I’m just thankful I have it at all…. But I digress….
The end of Ramadan is celebrated with a giant prayer and then people spend the rest of the day eating. I was supposed to go to the prayer with my neighbor in the morning, but we miss-communicated about time so I was in the shower when he came by and didn’t hear him knock and he left without me. I waited for him on my porch for a while and finally found out he left, so I started to head out to see the prayer. It was so strange but the town was deserted, there wasn’t anybody in sight. I managed to find I think the only motorcycle taxi (kabu-kabu) in town to take me out to the field where the prayer was taking place. Unfortunately as we were headed out we ran head long into the swarm heading back towards town. They absolutely swamped the road. I kept thinking of those pictures you see of people fleeing Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war. It was surreal to see so many people heading in one direction together. It really was the ENTIRE town of Gaya.
Spend the rest of the day walking around and eating found with many many different people. It was only a week after I had arrived here and was a good chance to stretch my language skills.

Friends.
Everyone here wants to be a friend of mine. I’m following in the wake of a very popular and friendly guy and so that puts some pressure on me to act just the same. Problem is, everyone remembers Jerry as he was after being here for two years, I’m just starting so the language issue, for one, is kind of a dampening factor. But really it is starting to come along. One of my better new acquaintances here is Lega, or Ibrahim (seems to have two working names). When I first met him, he was charging 50CFA around 10 cents) for kids to take his little motor scooter down a football field length and back. They were lined up for this 30 seconds of entertainment. Lega is kind of typical of Nigeriennes of his age. He doesn’t have a very steady income. Sometimes he works as a Kabu-kabu, has plans to buy motorcycles from Nigeria and sell them here. Left school early, at the primary level. Has lots of free time on his hands so he comes around pretty frequently.
Really though, I am starting to get to know more and more people. It takes ten minutes just to walk down the block because I have to stop to talk to almost everyone on it. People really do get offended if you don’t stop to say hello and chat for a minute or two. It’s hard to have that head down and go way of getting from point A to B that many Americans have. I’m learning to leave early or plan on getting where I want to go later than I expect.

So things are going well here, but this has definitely been a hard week. The novelity of this place is starting to wear off and the first wave of homesickness has sunk in. Much of it has to do with the fact that whatever work I do here, I know that it cannot change this entire country. I can’t even improve this entire town. I can’t just dig a well. So many problems here are structural and I have no way to fix that. But I can make some small progress and I just keep looking towards my project ideas and hope that they’ll come about. It’s also hard to be far from my family and friends and especially Kelsey. It’s hard to be away from [American] football and cold beer and couches, 7-11s, Teriyaki, Indian food… there are so many things that are great about the US. But really that’s one of the reasons I’m here. I knew theoretically before that the whole world is not like the US. Now I have seen some of that and it makes me miss what I had. But it also makes me appreciate what I had more. Anyone who is reading this back home should take a moment to just think about how vastly different lives on this planet can be. Leisurely/hard. Rich/poor. Hot/cold. Not everyone will know first hand, but it’s too easy for us to become sheltered from the realities that face other people around the world. Enough preaching for today. As this week has gone along the homesick feeling has diminished some and tomorrow I will be seeing the rest of the people in my region for a meeting, so that should improve even more.

The above picture is from our old Gaya hostel. Is it a sign that this saying has broken? Kind of poetic I thought. Why don't politicians say things like this anymore?

Thought ya’ll might like this next part, from my journal, dated 10/15

“Holly night of the praying mantis that wouldn’t go away! I noticed a mantis on the curtain inside today so I grabbed my camera to snag a couple of shots. Low and behold it ended up attacking me, I guess it is camera shy. By attack, it really just flew around frantically. So after a bit I shooed it outside and went to putting new music on my MP3 player (sitting in the dark I should add). Out of nowhere something big hits the back of my head (not the first time a giant bug has done that in this country, by the way). I scramble around for light with something clinging to my head. Guess who? Round 2…. Fight.
Tried to get him outside again, only to have him fly off and hide in one of my open trunks. Eventually get him on a plastic sack and outside where he promptly flies off. On the way back in I’m distracted by a spider spinning up a fly in its web, something I’ve been following the progress of on and off today. I’m amazed it can take so long. Well, I’m watching this for a minute when something smacks into my arm and flies off. Then it comes back and lands on my chest. Face to face with the enemy I panic and flick him off. He lands on one of the pillars on the porch and watches as I practically run insides and shut the door. Devil bug, all I wanted was to take your picture. Wonder if he’s still out there. Who knew those bastards even flew anyway?”

He did not come back. I think he took his victory and left.

Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn’t say he but she. Doesn’t a female praying mantis eat it’s mate after the act? This one definitely seemed a little, um… feisty.