This past weekend I spent the night in a village outside of Niamey. It is a potential new village for a volunteer from the current stage, and I was asked to go check it out. Site development is of course done in 4x4s, so no one actually knew how to get there. I was given some marginal information that included “get out at the place with the blue door.”

But all was successful. I took a taxi and then a minibus out to the crossroad, and then walked down a dusty path that looks like more of a temporary motorcycle trail then a road. In truth, it is, because there is only one car that drives that road with any regularity. I had been told that the village was only 6k from the main road, so I figured I’d just walk. It was a nice peaceful walk and did a lot to remind me of things I miss about living in a village. Niamey, like all cities, is a hectic place.

When I arrived I was shown into the volunteer house, where they were in the middle of constructing the latrine. I was given a bed and sheets and even a pillow, and we went out to see the health hut because it is going to be a health post. The hut itself is a tiny little building out on the edge of the village. It looks rather forlorn amidst the millet stalk remains. The health agent explained to me that no one comes to the health hut because there is a clinic by the airport, and even though it is further away, everyone prefers to go there. I didn’t really get an explanation as for why.

They killed a chicken for me and I ate some of the best rice and sauce ever. Really I ate four dinners: copto (a peanut butter mixture with plant leaves), rice, rice and beans with onions, and lastly chicken in sauce over noodles. Dear lord it was delicious.

We stayed there chatting until it was too dark to see anything, and then I did a quick hand-splash bucket bath and went to bed, where I spent the night sweating under my extremely fine mesh bug hut I.

The morning was cool and at six I left to find the car that goes to Niamey once a day, but when we got there the car wasn’t to be found, so I walked back out to the road and caught a minibus back to Niamey.

I had a lot of fun. I also learned that a minibus will take you from the grand marche to the outskirts of Niamey for 100 CFA ($0.20), while a taxi will cost 10 times that. Good to know.

I love Tabaski. When you wake the first day things are curiously quiet. But already thousands, perhaps millions of sheep are being killed in Niamey alone. By 10 or 11 in the morning you can see men on the sides of roads skinning the sheep and getting them ready for the fire. By noon, the fires are going and the meat is sizzling. It looks something like this, and you can see these everywhere:

It is hard work, and they are justifiably proud of their accomplishments.

I spent the morning at my friend Ramatou’s house watching Spanish novellas that have been dubbed in French. They are surprisingly absorbing. We also ate some delicious rice and sauce. People really go all out for these two days. Then she got on her moto and roared off to work:

Later I headed over to El Haji Moussa’s house, where I ran in a short version of the usual thing:

These pygmy goats are all over Benin but pretty rare here. This one was about to pop, and apparently she plays soccer:

The first part of the sheep that gets eaten are the innards. The intestines are braided, and then everything is fried in the melted stomach fat from the sheep. If all this sounds gross, it isn’t. Intestines are particularly crunchy and delicious. I never have been a fan of liver though. You dip the fried meat in what they call “tonka,” which is like cayenne mixed with salt and some other stuff. It’s tasty.

Moussa’s kids are great, and while I was there one of them took a particular liking to my camera. She was young so she didn’t have to do all the work that everyone else was doing. Here she is learning about “bunny ears.” I try to promote cultural exchange whenever possible.

Day two I was out again. I went back to Moussa’s house to eat the meat that was now done cooking. I think meat that has been slow roasted and then fried in fat must be the best stuff on the planet. Then we went to the Museum, which was packed with children. Sadly, I was smart enough not to bring my camera. All for the best though, since I stopped my third pick-pocketing attempt.

And that was my Tabaski 2010. Tabaski is a holiday that commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to God. And thus does the world go round.

One year ago (yesterday?) I was in Guinea on my way back from Kankan headed to my site. Kankan is the regional capital for volunteers, and we’d been there for something (was it the girl’s conference?), perhaps just our monthly visit. It is a 9 hour trip on a good day, and that day was not a good day.

I don’t remember much of that day. Rumors began flying about halfway between Kankan and Kissidougou, which is the biggest city on route. People were rioting, I heard. Or maybe the military was killing some people. The military had arrested all the candidates. No it was just two. Or maybe none. Messages started coming in from other volunteers. We are leaving for sure. No, we are staying, there is no reason to worry. Are we on standby? If we didn’t leave for the coup we aren’t going to evacuate because a few protesters got killed. Wait are we? We are on standby?

I arrived home thinking not much would come of it. The number of killed were getting bigger, but it had been in Conakry and everyone knows that what happens in Conakry stays in Conakry. That is to say, the rest of the country was rather tranquil. I don’t remember if Sajay stayed at my house that night. I think he might have been consolidated there. Or it could have been the next day. We slept and I woke up cursing the little bugs that like to bite me while I dream. For a few days we had not a lot to do. I went to my business club meetings. We ate corn porridge with lime juice. I forget it’s real name now. It’s called coco here, and made with millet. That stuff was so delicious, eaten piping hot at four in the afternoon. I would sweat my shirt through in five minutes.

We ate brochettes and potato salads with boiled eggs. We had a few sodas. We joked around with my friend Cece, who is 15 and a refuge from Cote D’Ivoire. We met this American named Mike who was volunteering with the chimpanzee reserve not far from my site. He was finishing up his time and had been ravaged by various illnesses. He also liked this woman that I had a little crush on myself. We went to visit her and afterward talked about her smile.

A few days into this consolidation (it wasn’t official consolidation, because then I would have been in my regional capital I think) we heard from Mike that the Embassy was evacuating. He had called them to see if he needed to worry about security. They told him to GTFO. He gave them my number as a contact since he didn’t have a phone.

Rumors of evacuation had been building for days as we stayed on alert. When Mike told the embassy to contact him via my number and that I was a Peace Corps volunteer, the guy on the phone said something like, “Oh that won’t work. They won’t be here after tomorrow.” And thus was all the Peace Corps secrecy exposed. This was a Saturday, and of course we couldn’t get confirmation that we were leaving. Sunday afternoon we received the official call. We waited a couple of days as other volunteers came into my town to meet up with us, and on Tuesday we left. We spent that night at a hotel in Guinea and Wednesday crossed into Mali as a big group.

I remember most that I couldn’t find my kids the morning we left. They were 2 and 5 years old and I loved them. One day they woke up and I was gone. I hope they understand why, or at least that I didn’t abandon them. In all honesty I was kind of glad to leave, but I had to hide my tears as we drove away. I had had such a hard time in that site, but I was sad to be so suddenly leaving my friends and my family. What would be next?

The RSO in Mali was an exercise in ridiculousness. What happens when you pay someone to be responsible for the security of all Americans but then encourage him to stay behind the safe bars of the embassy? Yeah, you can guess it. We nicknamed him Captain America and he promptly started hitting on some volunteers. They wouldn’t let us change money because of “security.”

A month later I arrived in Niger and a month after that I moved into a lovely little village that suited me much better. Or maybe I had just learned how to be a better volunteer by then. And that closed the Guinea chapter of my life.

If I sound critical of staff at the Embassy, it should be qualified. I don’t know what those guys go through, what kind of information they have. I don’t know how many threats are real or not real. But I do know that living in a village, living normal life in Guinea or in Niger, the threat is incredibly minimal. To me, real security assessment should involve living closely with the local population, forming real relationships, and getting a feel for the attitude of the population. It doesn’t seem like you can do that very well from behind multiple security measures. This leads to warped perceptions, like the RSO in Niger telling us that we would see herders with AK-47s on a regular basis. I have seen many herders. None with an AK-47. I don’t know any volunteers that have seen one. Maybe their job is just to scare us. Or maybe if you look for shadows too long you start to see them whether they are there or not. From my incredibly uninformed view, there seem to be some lessons in all that with respect to our current struggles.

So adieu, Guinea. Here’s hoping the new group going to Guinea gets to stay.