Wednesday, March 11, 2009

And yet again another change of schedule

From Early 2009 Randomness


First off, Happy Birthday Vicky since you're sitting in the room here and all. P.S. subscribe to my blog and make me more web-popular.

So then, after writing a bunch about leaving Niger turns out I'm not leaving after all. I won't get too much into the details, but the potential teaching job in Kuwait fell through and Kelsey thought that it would be best if we just stayed where we were for now and meet up in the US in June.

And William J. says hello (you can find a link to his amazing Niger blog to the right)

From Early 2009 Randomness


So I'll be here in Niger until June. Just wanted to let all y'all know.

So that means you can feel free to once again send me care packages! Or now would be a great time to start!

Just came back from FESPACO, the biggest film festival (only film festival?) in west africa. It was in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. What an AMAZING city. It looked like a REAL city. Irikoy Beri! And they have PAVED streets, and STOP LIGHTS, and a BOWLING ALLEY, and people spoke FRENCH!!!!!!! There was pork! And of course movie theaters, although the number of theaters in Ouaga has fallen from 30 to 10 in the last ten years, sad fact for the film industry of Africa. But we had a grand ol' time, me, Vicky, Will, Josh, and JT. Good food, good drinks (Ginger Rhum, various home-made wines such as bissap, baobab, date and other varieties).

Don't really feel like writing a bunch tonight, just to let you all know I'm not leaving so please send me goodies to help get through hot season (M&Ms, gatorade packets, anything americanized that will last through the mail)

Still want to post my long rant about development which is written out, but waiting for me to feel more motivated, which I don't feel at the moment. Been a hard and hot couple of days since coming back from Burkina.

New Pictures on Picasa, but didn't bring all the ones I wanted to upload from Gaya so only a sampling of the photographical goodness that awaits y'all.

From Early 2009 Randomness

Teaching some girls at student government elections to arm wrestle


UPDATE 10-12-09

Finally got the pictures uploaded to Picasa (or at least most of them). Here are some of the 'mugshots' I took of students at one of the colleges in Gaya. Nigeriennes generally don't like to smile, but it's amazing what "Say Cheese" will get you:

From Early 2009 Randomness

From Early 2009 Randomness

From Early 2009 Randomness

From Early 2009 Randomness

From Early 2009 Randomness