You may be wondering how I am able to post a blog so soon after leaving for language immersion. The simple answer is: I got giardia! The title of this blog rings true as I am now sitting comfortably in the Niamey bureau - in air conditioning - instead of sweating through six hours of Zarma class a day. I'll be right back to it tomorrow...but we won't think about that just yet.
My language immersion site is very beautiful, set in the south of Niger on the Benin border. The village is surrounded by a yet-unknown source of water - really, I have no idea where it comes from - and thus has arable land and gardening potential. The only drawback I can see to being posted there is its daunting distance from the rest of the "civilization." After a harrowing four hour drive down the worst, most pot-holed road I've ever seen, we turned off the road (literally...off-roading) and plunged through the African bush for another hour (fording a river at one point, I might add) before reaching this little tucked away oasis. I would enjoy my life in this site but I would not enjoy trying to leave it...as I can attest to today as I was brought on the return trip to the Niamey infirmary.
To help you understand what this week has been like, I should start from the beginning. We arrived, as I described, on Sunday only a little worse for the wear (and green around the edges). The recipe for language immersion is essentially one hundred billion kilos of Zarma class sprinkled with a bit of local interaction; visiting the tailor, shadowing a housewife, going to the market. To fulfill this last requirement we rode on an oxcart for an hour to another village on the coast of Benin, right along the Niger river. We forded another spot of waterlogged land to get there and I had a brilliant flashback to the PC game "Oregon Trail"...fording a river in my oxcart! Who thought I'd be living "The Oregon Trail" in West Africa? Life is truly weird sometimes.
Back to this market village; it is really breathtaking. After a month of viewing only sand and sparse vegetation, the sight of a sparkling blue river was quite startling, but very welcome. I was about to jump in one of their huge canoes and paddle off for the afternoon but apparently Peace Corps regulates that we need life jackets...as if! Another time.
After the market I began to experience my giardia symptoms, making language immersion a bit less fun. On Thursday I realized I effectively hadn't eaten in two days and something needed to be done, so after much finagling to find a cell signal (think back to the Verizon commercials...'can you hear me now?') I managed to get in touch with the Medical Officer. Not having any way to test my symptoms in village, he sent a car out to bring me in, just for tonight.
Let me describe for you the following scenario. I am lying on my mattress, surrounded by local village kids who have never seen a white woman and have consistently followed me for the past week, trying to drown out their chattering voices. I hear the sound of the Peace Corps car tearing up vegetation and sit up warily. I see the Dosso region driver step out of the car.
Now, the Dosso region driver is a large Nigerien man whom I have only ever seen wearing a crisp black suit with black undershirt, bold Nike sneakers and Matrix-reminiscient sunglasses. His driving style could be compared to that of, well, nothing I've ever experienced! He dominates the aforementioned bad roads as well as the African countryside with little concern for what might be in his way, casually swerving at several intervals to avoid a particularly bad pothole or sheep. On the way to our site I hit my head on the ceiling of the Land Cruiser five or six times while jouncing about in my seat. I'm sure you can appreciate the dread I was feeling this morning at the anticipation of another such ride...with a roiling stomach.
I'll spare you the details, but for most of the ride I was decidedly uncomfortable. The driver seeemed determined to get me to Niamey as quickly as possible (perhaps a shorter ride with more bumps is better than a drawn out one...?) and I arrived in record time. Considering the man made a full six hour trip to pick me up and is probably going to do the same to take me back tomorrow, I'm certainly in his debt. But I'll probably feel more grateful when my stomach stops telling me off!
That's all for now - despite giardia and our malfunctioning gas stove that singed off the bottom half of one of my skirts (a story for another time) language immersion has been surprisingly pleasant. I'll report back at the end of next week and hope to talk to many of you soon!
<3 Phoebe
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