With all these negative posts and my talk about how hard these first couple of weeks have been, its probably time for people to hear some good news. Today I had a pretty good day, though I thought it was going to be terrible for a while. I was finally rid of the rat, so I got a good nights sleep. There was also current last night for several hours, so I got to charge everything, get all my new music organized, and put a bunch of it on my ipod. As a result I stayed up rather late listening to music. Even so, I was up in the morning, drinking tea and trying to pass the time until I left with Cece to the Niger River, where we were going to wash our clothes. Unfortunately I hadn’t asked him what time we were doing that, and so I waited till 14:00 before we finally left, all the while feeling pretty useless and hanging out in my house. I didn’t want to leave because if he came to get me and I was gone we wouldn’t go.

But when we finally did leave, we also went to the carptenter to have a bookshelf and a table made, and then headed to the Niger, which is like a California beach on Sundays. It was pretty amazing. Tons of people were there, washing their clothes or just playing in the river. We stayed there for a couple of hours, washed our clothes, swam a bit (parasites be damned), and I generally had a really nice and relaxing time. I was of course the only tubabu present, so I got lots of stares.

On the way back we talked to another carpenter who gave us a lower price, so I cancelled the other order on the way home and we promised him we’d bring the dimensions by later today. Well the carptenter that we cancelled with came by my house later (anyone who wants to find me can) and tried to say that we had to have him do it because he had already started. This I didn’t believe, so after much argument I went with him, where he tried to show me several boards he had already cut, all of which were a standard size that he had done nothing with. At this point I lost it for the first time, and proceeded to yell at him in French that I knew what I was talking about and that he hadn’t started and that the boards were the same size as all the other boards and that I wasn’t stupid. Cece was cracking up because usually when I’m with him he does most of the talking. Anyway, the guy I was yelling at agreed to the other carpenters price, and I left it at that.

Not that its good to lose your temper, but there is only so much that being nice will get you, especially when the color of your skin dictates you as a wealthy person. As a volunteer I certainly get a lot more money than many people who live here, but its not like its a ton, and I can’t go around paying double what everyone else pays.

It was a sort of changing moment, where I no longer felt beholden to being nice, and had perhaps bien integre, since arguing is how prices are settled here. After that I got some rice and sauce (it is much better here in Faranah, I really like the soup sauce, which tastes like beef stew), and then we headed over to the cremerie, where we got soft serve ice cream. It tasted vaguely of orange or something, but it was freakin delicious anyway, because it was cold.

We finished the journee by wandering around and salueing my homologue’s fiance’s family, and so it turned out that I was very social and got quite a lot done. I suppose its the same in the states, but even though it seems very hard to get things done, I am much happier when I have spent the day doing that then if I’ve sat around and gotten nothing done. Its all about balance I suppose.

Anyway, I want to leave everyone with the sense that there are some days that I enjoy, and that this was one of them, and that the desperation and despair that you may have sensed in my previous posts or over the phone seems to be slowly subsiding for now.