Pseudobaptism / Wurin suna

At 1:30am I awoke to a few raindrops on my face and arms. I am slowly learning to not react with anxiety to this situation. Every time it happens I am irritated for a slightly smaller period of time. I gathered my cell phone, head lamp, and shoes, pulled the four rip cords on each corner of my mosquito net, folded my mattress in half and carried it into my hut.
Five or so hours later I woke up and headed to the market to meet a few friends, after which we headed to David and Mark's house, otherwise known as Issa and Omar. We were told we would leave their house at 7:30am for a baby naming ceremony, a baptism of sorts. Along with Nigerien tradition we actually left at 8am and travelled as a group 400 meters across the road to David's first mother's relative's house, a veritable compound, with 20-30 mats rolled out all surrounded by chairs in a large square. There were already some very distinguished looking elderly men seated at on end of the square. We, the four men, were directed to sit next to them, which we did reluctantly. Soon thereafter we were directed to walk over to a room where the new baby was sequestered. Apparently only women typically go in and see or touch the baby, but our foreignor status cleared that cultural obstacle. The baby was very hairy, long, straight hair. After leaving the dark quarters of the women and baby, we sat again next to the older men. Here is where things got interesting. Being the first in the line of chairs that the distinguished gentlemen were occupying, we started shaking the hand of each new, well-dressed, elder entering the concession. When twenty or so people had come and twenty handshakes had been given, we were approached by the Chef de Canton, the traditional head of the village. We quickly stood up, shook his hand, and greeted him in Hausa. He responded in wonderful French. David and I looked at eachother and knew we should change chairs to sit with slightly less distinguished guests. We were consequently much more relaxed and comfortable. All the women were shuffled off into quite a small area near the baby, which must have been quite crowded.
Man, woman, and child shuffled in, some shaking our hands and exchanging greetings in Zarma, Hausa, and sometimes French. A pile of gifts started to grow in the middle of the square: bags of dates, bars of soap. A master of ceremonies was al the while spouting out phrase after phrase, pacing around the square religiously. I would catch and 'Allah' here and an 'Amin' there. Eventually he started repeating one phrase loudly and I suspected it was the announcement of the baby's name. I was unsure if this was the case and was deep in thought when the master of ceremonies snuck up on us and asked us for offerings for the new child. David, to my left, gave 1000CFA (2$) and I grabbed for my coins. As is scrambled in my pocket he waid something like "et les Francais...," thinking we were French. I gave him some coins and giggled, enjoying his misconception about our outrageous origins.
Soon things started to quiet down and the men were either laying their hands one on the other on their laps, facing upward, or holding them up, palms inward. It was a grand silent prayer. There was a wonderful silence and we couldn't help but give the child a small blessing of our own. Everyone was in their own head - in a box with God as it were. Soon after the prayer some dates were distributed and they were delicious, dried just enough to be chewy like sugary candy.
I learned quickly that in this culture, being in a chair means you have some sort of heirarchical respect, if only for being a man. Younger people always move and give up the chair, and women always give chairs up for the men as well. It is overwhelming at times and always thought-provoking.

Big Bugs (for Sean Tierney)

I know now why Nigeriens don't take showers later than 8pm, besided the fact that Jinns live in bathrooms and dirty places and multiply at night. While stepping into my small square sanctuary to bathe I battled hordes of cockroaches. No problem though, just one of many small hurdles (no pun intended). It's worth it to look up at the stars and enjoy the cool water in the warm night air.
After the wonderful bucket bath I talked about the big bugs all around and pointed one out to my host mom, who's approaching 60 years young, and she immediately stomps it with the ball of her foot. Then a big beetle happens to come into view and she grabs it with here fingers, it's the size of a quarter, and then throws it over the concession wall, brushes he hands together like a dealer leaving the table, smiles and laughs. The family proceeds to tell me I can do it, too, then they laugh because they know I just let bugs do their thing - maybe after a few more months.
Since I'm talking about bugs I will say that depending on the size of the bug I may or may not kill it. Depending on my mood I will even search out and destroy its family. Big bugs seem to be harder to kill, emotionally and physically. Maybe I can't kill bugs that really fstartle me, i.e. big bugs. Especially the dive bombers. Once I stepped on a beetle in stride with my heel, and all my weight was transferred onto him. I felt terrible as it happened then when I lifted my foot, he ran away. Whew!!

Energy

Whether it was the barometric pressure change from the incoming storms or the fact that I only drank 6 liters of water yesterday instead of 8, I had a wicked headache by about 8pm. I decided against the Hausa language study session and instead opted to go home and try to get some extra sleep. After twenty or so minutes of feeling the wind get stronger, watching the trees sway violently, and hearing a dull roar in the distance, I finally stood up and slowly untied my mosquito net and hoisted my mattress inside my hut. In retrospect, it is easy to see why I got heat rash when I was sleeping in my hut every night during my first week - because yesterday night the wind shook the hut so much that a thick layer of dust came loose from the thatched roof and coated my body. Somewhere deep inside I knew I wasn't going to get any sleep under by dust blanket. Despite the discomfort, the next hour and a half went by pretty fast, near the end of the storm I stood outside, swatting myself with my Arizona flag bandana (thanks Shimoni), enjoying the incredibly cool breeze. My family emerged one after the other from their respective rooms and they began to make tea. I asked the older daughter Mariama if she could wake me up if more rain came. "Ca fait rien!!!" No problem!! She's very expressive. I replaced my mattress outside on my wooden bedframe and strung up my net. One of the ties I made was upside down, but I left it anyways (a regretful decision). I slept like a smal boy for seven hours or so and when I awoke at 5:15am I decided to listen to my iPod to preemptively drown out the roosters, the prayer call, and the women pounding millet. Oddly, the song that came on, a very startlingly high energy bluegrass song by the band, Trampled by Turtles, came on. Energy akin to Charlie Daniels Band's Devil Went Down to Georgia. No more than five seconds later I felt a raindrop, then three more, then seven more. I scrambled again and as I was getting inside I heard my brother Ali say: "Sa'adu, Ruwa!" "Babu Kyau," I said (no good.) "In sha Allah," he replied, if god wills it. I didn't try to get back to sleep before class, I just read a few chapters of Grapes of Wrath and marvelled at Steinbeck's brilliant ability to express emotional realities through language. Soon thereafter I decided to have a small Bose earbud jam session/dance party by myself in the dark of my hut, with only the light of dawn peeking through the cracks around my door. Today will be a good day.

On the Importance of "Sai Hankuri"

Depending on the intonation one might translate the phrase "Sai Hankuri" as anything from 'have patience' to 'chill out dude!' But generally it implies the necessity to let the waiting fill. So often today people cannot wait well. They try to fill their waits with something other than the waiting itself. Older brothers often have little patience with younger brothers, and younger brothers have even less patience with their sisters, Niger included. Despite being a foreignor in my host family I find that I bring an attitude that often corresponds with this most Nigerien of expressions.

A fellow volunteer pointed out a quote to me today:
"Don't worry about tommorow, for tommorow has worries of its own." -The Gospel of St. Matthew

Demystification Weekend

The weekend long "demystification" visit to a current Peace Corps Volunteer's site was not quite what I expected. My host, the lovely Kathryn Evans from Colorado, welcomed us with a relaxed attitude into her new home in Guecheme, in the Dosso region of southern Niger. Her former house had been burglarized while she was sleeping outside so she was just moving into her new space when I arrived. She was part of the group that was relocated when there was a kidnapping in late 2009. This sounds pretty scary but it's not. She went from having electricity and running water to having neither, which she described as "not so bad." Consequently we got to experience some very funny moments in the kitchen as she tried to juggle flashlights and spatulas while making us our pesto pasta (pkg. sent from her mother) with crushed almonds (from my roadtrip stash).
As a PCV she was probably the most recognizable person in the village of 5-6,000 people. The consequences thereof included the desire of almost every villager to greet and be greeted by her when passing on the street. It didn't seem to take much energy out of her though. In a culture where each greeting is not a nod of the head, but instead a six part dialogue, this can be very overwhelming. I was amazed at her ability to roll with the excessive attention. The fact that she had two other "anasara" with her didn't make it any easier. Overall, I was left with an excitement to get to my own village and represent my entire country and culture through my unique set of interactions.