Here is a picture of my new cat, whose name is ruckus:

She is pretty awesome. Her mom brought her into the hostel one day and left her there, so I brought her to the house I am staying at.

Speaking of which, I still don’t have a house. I can’t really complain, because my roommate is pretty awesome, but I still have all my stuff packed away and I’m living out of the closet. I would like to have a real house one day.

The second ruckus is this past weekend, during which it seemed like nearly every white person in Niger freaked out as a result of information that was released over two weeks ago (to the extent that AQIM might be planning retaliatory attacks after the French raid that happened at the end of July). They flew a whole bunch of aid workers out of the east and into Niamey, even borrowing planes from Chad to do it. But as of right now, according to the US embassy, there is no reason for them all to be reacting now any more than they should have been two weeks ago. I get the feeling that someone finally got around to reading the warden message two weeks later and they reacted in a CYA kind of way.

As volunteers tend to do, we gossiped a lot and acted superior because we didn’t think anything was going to happen and everyone was overreacting. Come to think of it, I should have made some bets. In short, it was a lot of ruckus over very nearly nothing. The Reuters article is in keeping with creating panic. To be honest I don’t think I’ll be able to read anything in the news about Africa again and think that it is anything more than management trying to make sure no one gets hurt on their watch. I know that is kind of their responsibility, but they get a little carried away sometimes. Its sort of like a farcical comedy.

So we said goodbye to a COSing stage, and that was sort of sad except that I didn’t really know them, but it was sad for some other people, and it was a hint of what we will likely be going through a year from now. I am having a ball living in the capital and working for this NGO. And when I read about things like the controversy over the mosque that is going up two blocks away from ground zero, it makes me wonder whether I really want to go back. So much posturing by politicians. Muslim does not equal terrorist people…

It is pouring rain here, and I am exceedingly happy to have found a rain jacket in a COSing volunteer’s stuff (thanks Mary!). You may have read the other Niger news about flooding, which is sort of just like a cruel joke on the heels of the food crisis. The mosquitoes are out of control ridiculous. I killed at least seven in the bathroom this morning, and all of them had my blood in them. Gross.

I have started at PLAN Niger now. It took several days to get a computer up and running, but now I have one and I have hope that things will speed up at work. The project that I am working on is called Youth Economic Empowerment, and I am in charge of the Life Skills component. Life Skills is a set of trainings put together by Peace Corps several years ago aimed at equipping youth with skills to make good decisions about their lives. En fait, it includes sessions on communication, decision-making skills, relationship and gender issues, and HIV/AIDS. My job now is to plan and administer a training of trainers in these subjects, as well as create a program of sessions that the trainers will give to the groups of youth with which they are working. The life skills portion of the project is essentially mine to design as I see fit, so I get to decide which sessions we have time for, how the sessions should be modified to fit Niger, what order they should be taught in, etc…
Its an exciting post and I am looking forward to the next several months. I expect they will pass rather more quickly than I might like.

On the other hand, I still don’t have my own house. I am rooming with another volunteer, which is fine, but I have been there two weeks now and we both need out space. Progress on the housing seems particularly slow, which is frustrating because in the chaos of the summer I have not had my own house to myself for at least two months. I have generally been fine, but it is good to have your own space too and I am starting to get ancy.

I think that I will have skype on this computer, which should mean free talking with those of you who have skype in the evenings after work.

I also got Giardia from something in Niamey, or at leat I think it was Niamey. It is easily fixed, but I shouldn’t have waited two weeks to see if my body would exercise the demons on their own. Niamey itself is a big change. There are fruits and veggies and meat. There is in general electricity. I ride my bike, which in the insanity of the roads is a little crazy, but I am getting used to it. I am trying my best to save money so that I can go on some vacations, but it can be hard with volunteers coming in from their sites and wanting to go out to eat. I have had to limit myself on my purchases of sodas and fan milks (which are like an ice cream).

So things are going well and work is, as of today, exciting and fun. I hope everyone is doing well back in the US.

Much has happened since my last post. Eric came to visit, and we spent several days in various Nigerien villages, seeing the life of Peace Corps volunteers and, too a lesser extent, of Nigeriens. Then we headed to Benin for a week of cheap millet beer, cheaper sodabi (distilled palm wine, which tastes like death and will in fact kill you) and a few days at the beach. The undertow was fear instilling, and we got up to our waistes before we decided we liked life more than being stupid.

Benin is full of crazy stories, like villages held at gunpoint by mercenaires from Nigeria, men dressed in haystacks that run around killing people in the night, stolen penises, and burnings as a punishment for theivery. Then there’s all those Peace Corps related issues, which if you don’t know about I’m not going to tell you here. I wonder if the biggest trait shared by Peace Corps volunteers is the ability to stick through adversity? Anyway, fortunately we avoided all of those things and were able to visit museums, python temples and sacred forests without any trouble (none of which were particularly awe inspiring). Did you know that Voodoo started in Benin? And there was huge slave trade as well. We did buy fresh pineapples and avacodoes and dried coconut, all of which was delicious. Benin is very green and lovely. We also benefited from the help of some awesome Benin volunteers (thanks guys!). But then we ran out of money and energy and decided to come back home.

I probably wasn’t the best host, dealing with some other things that are happening and just generally feeling kind of low, but in an soft undefined way. I don’t really know what is going on, but as usual things will cycle back one way or another.

Okay, next up, I have bed bugs. I spent two nights in my village and am covered in giant red itchy bites that I only get at night. I am glad I am moving, but first I have to show three new volunteers my village without getting them bit, and I have to warn the new volunteer so s/he doesn’t get them too quickly. When I move I am going to hang everything in the sun and hopefully not bring any bugs with me, but of course they will probably follow. They are nefarious.

Also, I start work for PLAN tomorrow. I will only work a couple of days before returning to my site for demyst (in which I show new volunteers my life and ‘demystify’ them). Then when I get back next week the real work begins. They haven’t found a house for me yet so I will be living with a fellow volunteer who also works there for a few weeks. Things promise to be good. Then there is the possibility that I will be going to Senegal in August for a week long conference, which would be awesome but I am trying not to hope too much for because it isn’t set yet.

That’ll do for now. I also highlighted my hair in a fit of ridiculousness, so now I resemble some unknown amalgamation of The Backstreet Boys and NSync. I will upload a picture at some point.