Wednessday

4/29/09
Woke at Megan’s house in Malanville, slept real well with belly full of taco and beer.
Made a trade of bike maintenance on her breaks for coffee and bread with Nutella, then off to Gaya. I decided to take the ‘back road’ once on the Niger side of the river, but even with no semi-trucks to threaten flattening me, it was a bad idea cause I had to fight the sandy path the whole way, mostly up hill. I went straight to the inspection and was pretty much soaked in sweat by the time I got there. Rinsed off at the tap nearby, but that just added to the look of a drowned rat.
Chatted, made formalities with the inspection peoples, and then was asked to get their new computer in order.
It was a computer brought from CEGII, one of our middle schools which was granted a couple of computers by an NGO, but has no power… Typical. So someone had the idea to use it at the inspection, and they need a computer, so this is good. Unfortunately, someone also had the idea of first using it at one of the local cyber cafes. (Well, only one works now, so I guess it was the cyber café). This is bad, since it was taken there without any anti-virus software installed and began its career at the inspection chalked full of viruses.
Had a hell of a time with it, every time I tried to install the antivirus it would crash and restart; some virus defending itself by preventing the installation was my guess. Had to revert the computer to it’s initial state to get Avast installed, then scanned the hard-drive: 437 infected files of some 4000 scanned. Over 10% filled with viruses.
Now that it’s protected, we have to figure out a way to get office onto the computer – I had to delete it, reverting to a previous-to-installation date to get Avast to work. They have a pirated copy of Office 2007, but it won’t install until we get Service Pack 2 installed, which is difficult when there is no internet…
Said I’d come see what I could do in the afternoon. For now, lunch.
Went to Illiasou’s shop for a water and ended up eating lunch with him. He gets food from his brother’s wife who is a great cook, so I like to eat with him and it’s always African style, with our hands, which I also like. Hung there for a while, then back to my place to do some laundry: sheets, 1 of the 2 pairs of pants, 3 of the 4 pairs of boxers. Can’t bring myself to buy more – rather would save the money for the trip, besides I have some…. They’re just in Niamey.
Watched some of How I Met Your Mother and slept a bit during the hot part of the day and by 4 was back at inspection to try to do Avast and Windows updates.
My Inspector actually has an internet connection which works over one of the the cell phone services. It’s just REALLY REALLY slow. But even though it was too slow to get the updates downloaded over a three hour time frame, I was able to check my email and prepare the first three days of this “week of posts – a week late” for the blog. I count it a success then.
Then I got a text from Sommer, a fellow volunteer who was coming down to visit, saying that she was at the bus station, so I made my way there on my bike (scary night-time ride). Went back to my place, made curry, caught up on life, and then, 9:30PM, time for bed. Tomorrow, James and Serette are coming and we’ll be headed to Malanville for pool and pounded yam.


I guess that makes a week of daily posts. I did get a little long-winded in the end, talking about nothing much, but, regardless, I hope y’all enjoyed it and have a better idea of what my day to day life is like. I may actually take to writing more often if I stay here in town for a while, though I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.