Pangea 2008

Have been in Niamey for about a week to work with the Pangea music/dance/theater festival that some PCVs have organized in association with a local music school (the only one that I know of actually). Monday was focused on traditional music, Tuesday was focused on blues, jazz, soul and funk, Wednesday was hip-hop, Thursday was theater, and Friday was the closing ceremony and concert. It was fun to hang out while some of our PCVs jammed with the Nigerien musicians. I wish I had more music ability, especially on guitar. Kinda a lame description of events, check out Will's page, he actually has interesting things to say; I just take pictures

Check out the link to my Pangea photo album on Picasa
Or
Facebook (with more pics of friends)

So in the week since my last post we’ve had rain maybe twice. I’ve played football once. I’ve gone to the inspection a handful of times. Nothing super exciting.

Finished “The Corner,” the book following people living in inner-city Baltimore; living the corner life of drug use, abuse, and sales. Good book, a lot of what I studied in College is in there and it makes me wonder if anything has really changed in the ten plus years since the book was written. We certainly don’t talk about it anymore with terrorism and elections and the Iraq war grabbing all the headlines. Though we really, as a country, need to do some real soul searching as to how we want to shape the future of our land. Do we want an institutionally entrenched underclass or are those who have willing to give a little to even the tables with those who have not? If not enough to achieve equality, at least raise themselves up to discredit and disband the economic motivations behind the open air drug markets; the corner.

Jobs. Real rehab programs (which need to include jobs). Improved schooling with support and real post K-12 opportunities, like jobs and continued education. These are the things that we need to be addressing. Why aren’t these things that any of the new presidential candidates talk about? Why isn’t there a national discussion on how to revitalize our urban centers from their post-industrial distress?

I always thought we should employ people from these urban centers to help rebuild and refurbish them, kind of like a New Deal jobs corps.

Though I guess the reality of the situation is that in a post-industrial America is that jobs have divided themselves into two categories: high paid jobs requiring high education and service sector jobs, tending to be low pay and with a low educational demand. To increase the ability of the service sector workers to make a decent living we need to increase wages and provide health care to protect everyone from the knockdown punch of catastrophic illness or injury, or in the case of my last book, drug addiction.

Plenty of time to ponder all this in much more depth, but for now I’d like to have another coffee, a main reason I’m rambling on with this issue.

This week is just about up. It’s been fun to hang in the NY, to eat good food and see my Annasara friends. Today I’m back off toward Gaya, though with a stop in the bush to visit a friend, climb his mesa, and hit some golf balls. Smart kid had a couple of irons sent to him and pays village kids pennies to go chase the balls down and bring them back. Should be a good time. Gonna go grab a bush taxi, catch ya’ll later,

JK

We're not in the US anymore

Feeling good tonight. Maybe it was the grand Guiness I drank with Okey, or the pork I ate for lunch (Malanville is amazing... ah, Benin), or the completely understood conversation I had just now while getting a post-beer tea and egg sandwhich... Or maybe it's that this place has really become home. I feel comfortable here. Not like in the US, but it's nice and safe, and puts me mostly at ease.

That said, let me relate my day and its expansion of the intrinsic knowledge that this is notthe US and maybe never will be anything like it.

Awoke early to a phone call from Kelsey. Always a welcome awakening and today like none other as I was excited (scared?) for her airplane jumping and especially excited for the 6 weeks before I see her.

Did laundry and then hopped on my bike for a quick jont the 7km or so down to visit Megan in Malanville. Nice ride; cloudy, not too hot. Only slightly drenched in sweat by the time I got there. The purpose: to eat PORK. Living in a muslim country (98% officially) pork is pretty much non-existant. I miss it. I miss my hogs and swine. Hence the early rising for a pork lunch. The place we went was nice enough. It attracted a lot of people from the bar across the street, and you'd be surprised how many people can be DRUNK by 11:30.

We did get to pick out our own piece of meat and eat it while watching the lucky living pigs wander around and munch on decomposing trash, happily unaware that tomorrow it couls be them we're eating. Note if you come: get here early or be ok eating fat, though PORK fat is pretty darn good-tasting after a 10 month hog-fast.

Over lunch I got some scarry news from Megan and the main recollection that I am not living in America anymore:
Apparently the police in Malanville caught five bandits who had been working the road south of town, riping off trucks that rolled through. After arresting them, a mob show decended on the station demanding the prisoners as it was believed they were responsible for the death of a driver. The police, fairly enough, declared the prisoners would go to a jail in Kandi, 150km South. The mob was none too happy, but left.
Now I don't know if it was an attempt to be sneaky or an attempt to give into the mob demand in some way, but the police apparently decided it was best to send the suspects to jail on a rented bush taxi with only two officers as escort. They didn't make it 100 yards. A reformed mob stopped the car, dragged the handcuffed suspects out and BEAT THEM TO DEATH with clubs, sticks, fists, and feet. Each was killed in a mob frenzy, save for the escorting officers who were apparently too afraid to even get out of the taxi and a woman apparently involved with the bandits, who was only badly beaten.
This happened not fifty feet in front of Megan's house, and had she not gone to the market she would've been there to witness the bloody scene, which was apparently so bad people were running away and blood stains were left until the next day's heavy rain.
It's been hard trying to explain to people why this was wrong. "But they deserved it" is the response. Mob rule. Africa is really in the hands of mobs. Mobs and those who can stir them up. Look at Kenya's recent elections. South Africa's anti-immigrant riots. Rawanda. The only places mobs fail to achieve their goal is where they're crushed or subdued by strong government and police/military support, employing superior firepower.
The concept of organized justice, the attempt at fairness, level-handed and level-headedness is missing. Blame it on weak governments and judicial systems. People will automatically consign the fate of individuals with little or no debate or viewing evidence. What good is all that? Especially to a mob stirred to a frenzy. Never mess with angry Africans mobs. Scary.
Safely back in Gaya now where only student protests have actually hinted at this facet of African life, though people in Niger have equally been known to beat to death people accused of thievery. Though in all fairness, I doubt this is an "African" thing as much as weak police/judicial/governmental problem. It's just that this, poverty and frustration, and heat all add together for a dangerous stew that can easily boil over here.

Ok, but really I do like it here and I do feel safe... that was just a little ranting about mobs. Even Italy has mobs, and they're fighting over TRASH. That's so lame.

Return to Gaya

Been back in Gaya for about a week. Had a good time out in James' village helping him get his world map project up and going. We got almost all of the painting done, save for the Pacific Islands. What a pain they are to paint. It's a fun project and one that has obvious and seeable results. The map looks great.

So today is a day that harkens back to Seattle: drinking tea, eating pancakes, listening to Nirvana, and watching the RAIN drizzle down constantly this morning. It stormed last night, starting around 4AM and it's now 8:39 and the rain has greatly slackened but still here. A good excuse to take a long morning, making a good breakfast and to have a warm cup of tea. I even took a break from my morning workout routine.

The only disapointing part was when my cat shat in my hamper because it didn't want to go out in the rain. Yuck. Not that my clothes smell great, but they didn't smell like cat poop. Now... well now they need to be washed even more.

Oh and the flies are also sheltering from the rain on my porch and they're never too much fun to hang out with. Too many of them.

Roof leaks in the kitchen and the back bedroom, will go talk to the prefet about getting it fixed.

Currently reading "The Corner" about inner city street life, drug dealing, and heroin addiction in Baltimore. By the same guys who write for The Wire TV show (So I'm told), which I've watched a bit of and enjoy. This book takes me back to the University days cause it's basically a sociological study along the lines of much of what I studied there. Makes me wonder how things are going there now. Cities in America have pretty much treaded water the past eight years as the nation's attention has become more externally focused with the threats of terrorism and all. I hope whoever is the next president will bring more light to the problems. More likely the democrats as Barak will have to pay attention to his black base or Clinton will have to pay attention to the working class base; both of which will definately have a stake in what's happening in the US's inner-city, post-industrial environments.

Definately, these places have to re-invent themselces as technology, turist, financial, service, and administrative centers in the new economic times. Seattle was lucky as our traditional labor hasn't totally changed. Timber has moved North, and Boeing is out-sourcing more and more work, but on a whole we're pretty well off. Better than Baltimore.... Detroit, D.C., Chicago, Flint.... these places are in need of jobs. It's a long book, I'll have plenty more time to think about all this.