Well.....
I am back. Standfast is over and I made it 28 straight days in my village. I think I could have made it another two weeks, but my batteries were starting to wear out and no radio means no connection to the world. It is amazing how much I have come to rely on BBC.
Vacation in Niger was wonderful. I did not get time to write on my way back. I have found my new favorite way to vacation. There is just something so different about seeing a place from the perspective of someone who lives there. My two college friends were patient amazing tour guides. Abby's village is called Tiguey and is a full days journey from their workstation in Dosso, Niger. We got lucky on the way in and caught a ride with a Peace Corps Car. The relationships she has made in her tiny village literally in the middle of the bush almost pale in comparison to the integration I have acheieved in Badjoude. She speaks their llocal language fluently and perhaps most importantly these women trust her. The trip out was two hours on an ox cart, one hour wait for a truck with took us two and a half hours to the main road and another hour to Dosso. Abby is one of the most remote volunteer and is truly so courageous, I dont think I coule did it as well as she is doing right now. After Dosso, Abby and I went off to Konni to see Al. Her village is a lot easier to get to and they belong to another ethnic group. Al's house was so cute and she too is fluent in Haussa. She has done gardening projects and has also so much work towards a health camp initiative. I loved meeting all her neighborhood kids who made sure to see us around everywhere - pretty much following us wherever we went.
From Konni it was off to the desert and Agadez. The ride up as I wrote in Agadez was tiring, but worth it. Agadez is truly an Oasis and very rocky, mountainy, and green in its own desert way. It was so cool seeing turbans around the head of all then men and women blocking the blazing sun. I wore one too for the camel ride, which took Al and I two days in and our of the AIR TRAN mountains. We camped in a dry seasonal lake near a squating settlement of Twaregs. Camel riding is not the most comfortable thing in the world, but I am so glad I did it.
The trip home was tiring and stressful, just because I had a short amount of time to get back to Badjoude. Not only because schhol started, but also because our lock down began before the elections. At first I was dreading it, but it gave me time to fuinally do alot of things for myself. I read a lot of books, wrote a lot of letters, and in general just thought about a lot of things. I am sure I have said this before, but I was always soo intent on getting as quickly from point A to B as possible. Sometimes I still do this, but I also think the greatest change I see in myself my nex ability to compromise my time and guard a little for me.
Anyway, the election went off. Peace; no violence; and for all practical purposes a little boring given the hype we got. I am proud of Benin, demostrating that a democracy of fair elections really can happen in Africa where military coups still happen on a yearly basis. YaYi Boni will hopefully do all that he promised the 75 percent of people who voted for him. President Kerekou seems to be bowing out gracefully, another lesson.
Okay, I am off to post for another week of school and then Easter break begins. We will be, hopefully, building a basketball court - a very selfish secondary project on my part. But, the students seemed to be intrigued enough to humor me. Then, after that I will be headed for a festival in Nikki and then off to Cotonou for our annual all volunteer conference. I will be presenting a paper I wrote about incorporating teacher training formations into the jobs of TEFL volunteers. I hope it will be a good blastoff to my application process for a third year continuing similar work.
Alrighty..............love you all and think of you oten. More than you know.