Zerma: Ay ma Amanda. Ay ay Amerik boro no, amma soho ay go Niger ra. Ay gonda jiiri waranka cindi hinka.
English: My name is Amanda. I am an American person, but now I am in Niger. I am 22 years old (or I have 22 years).
Oh, wow! I have a long update this time! Shall we start with a funny story? We are more than a week into our homestay, and already so much has happened! We had already spent one night and 2 days with our homestay family at the beginning of the week to get to know them before moving in. Saturday night, our first official night with them, I lost a flip-flop. Can you guess how?............... Well, I went to the latrine to take care of business and to nu may (shower). I happened to drop my right flip-flop into the latrine hole! Ewe! I started laughing and was hoping someone had an extra pair of shoes until our supervisors could bring me one of mine on Sunday. I finished my shower and walked out barefoot, holding my lonely flip-flop. They began asking where my taamu (shoe) was. I told them I dropped it in the hole and made a circle with my hands. They repeated what I said in Zarma and used hand motions. I nodded, giggled, and said, “O’o” meaning “yes”. They all started laughing and every time someone else came home, they told them what I did… They would look over at me and start laughing. Crystal and I still think it’s hilarious. I would much rather lose my shoe in the hole than fall in myself. ;)
We also had our first experience with a rain storm. That was a hoot! You know when it’s coming: the sky turns red-orange because it’s blowing a dust storm at first. After the dust storm, the rain may or not come right away. Sometimes it comes the next day. The other night, we were all snug in our cots, but the wind was blowing and the air smelled like rain. So I kept waking up and looking at the sky. One time I woke up and the sky was orange. I looked over at our friend’s cot next to us and she was rolling up her mosquito net. She looked at me and said, “Get up.” So I woke Crystal up and we folded up our cots and ran inside just before the dust storm hit. About 20 minutes after the dust storm passed, she told us we could all go back outside because it wasn’t raining. We were glad to go outside because it was very hot inside. Because of the weather, it was nice and cool outside. They laid a mat on the ground for us and we rolled our cot mattresses on it and tucked in the mosquito net. We were sleeping very comfortably in the cool weather when I woke up and felt rain drops. I woke Crystal up again and told her it was raining. We started to pack up again and our friend woke up and started laughing and we were all laughing as we ran back inside just before the rain hit! Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep that night, but the weather was so nice and cool the next day! Which also made for a very cold shower that morning. ;)
We’ve also completed our first week of language classes. Whew! Our brains hurt! Lol We have 3 weeks left of language learning and our homestay before we go to the village. By the time we get there, we should be able to have a good conversation with a comfortable flow. Between our language teacher and our homestay family, we are learning a lot, and they won’t let us revert back to English! We have to find a way around our limited vocabulary to answer questions. It’s really good for us and it helps us to try and think in Zarma. Our orientation supervisor told us that for a while we were going to be like 2 year olds because we were learning a culture and learning a language. We have to have people teach us and correct us like parents have to do with toddlers. It makes sense, but I realized that real 2 year olds have it a bit easier: 2 year olds don’t already have a set vocabulary and way of doing things. They aren’t trying to forget what the English word is for something so they can remember the Zarma word for it. One word we have learned very well is “Anasara!” It means “white person”, and the kids holler it every time we walk by. We just smile and say “Fofo!” (hello). Now when the kids call out “Anasara!” we say back “Boro bi!” which is “black person”. They get a kick out of it and keep wanting us to say it again. The other day we had a large group of kids following us. When they shouted “Anasara”, Crystal hollered “Boro bi!” So they came up to us and were holding our hands and arms. They pointed to their arms and said, “Say color.” Crystal said, “Color.” They pointed to their arms and said, “No, say color.” So she said, “Boro bi” and they busted up laughing again.
Friday we sat outside and visited with people around our age. We didn’t realize at first that they spoke mostly Hausa instead of Zarma. They knew we were learning Zarma and tried to talk to us in what Zarma they knew, but we didn’t understand everything they were saying. We would respond in Zarma, and they would be confused too. Then we realized they were speaking Hausa and Zarma together! We were catching words here and there, and they were catching some of our words, but none of us were able to completely understand the other. It was crazy and funny, but we made it through and they wanted us to visit with them again, so we felt pretty good about it. We were able to have some conversation, it just didn’t flow nicely, but, hey, ya gotta start somewhere!
I really love being out here, but I’m starting to have cravings. Like, right now I drink powdered milk in the mornings… I’m dying for a nice, cold glass of vitamin D cow’s milk! And with the heat, I would love some DQ right now! Reese’s blizzard or cookie dough! Yum! Awe, just pure chocolate ice cream would be amazing! The ice cream here is $8-$10. So the craving goes away rather quickly. I’ll probly break down around August or September and get some. I don’t know, we’ll see. Oh, and iced tea, not hot tea. It’s hard drinking hot tea when it’s 115 degrees, lol. The funny thing is though, I LOVE black-eyed peas, but I don’t have them a lot in the States. So, I actually crave them a lot. On the plane over here I thought, “I won’t be able to buy black-eyed peas or grits!” Well, I’ve had black-eyed peas at least twice a week, and oh, man! I love it! And we found out that our supervisors brought a LOT of grits with them because he loves them too. They brought so many that they haven’t gone through them all in the 2 ½ years they’ve been here. So they said I could have some grits. J
I think food is the only American thing I’m missing right now, because I get to be outside all the time. We hang out outside, go walking, eat outside and sleep outside. And even though our language learning is in a building, the doors are wide open and the table is right by the doors, so we basically have class outside. And being outside means there are kids and animals everywhere! My two absolute favorites! Crystal makes fun of me because of all my animal pics. And I can name most of the animals in Zarma! I do miss dogs though. The dogs here are all wild, and people don’t like dogs at all. They eat livestock and are not pets. So the only dog I’ve been able to pet is our director’s German Shepherd. But our homestay family has a cat who likes to play and cuddle and catch lizards and mice.
Heehee there were 2 little boys Friday that would peek into the door of our gate and either stare at us or say “Anasara!” and giggle and run away. So we started playing peek-a-boo with them and peeking our heads around the other side of the door and they’d run away and giggle and come back. One of them was really brave and would come really close to us before running away. Sometimes he would walk into the compound and walk to the other side. As he would walk by, he would turn his head and not look at us, and just before he would get on the other side of the building, he would quick look, then walk faster cause we were looking at him. A few times he crawled under the bench we were sitting on and we would tickle him. He would squirm and giggle, but he scampered away rather slowly… he wasn’t in a hurry to run away. He’s been walking back and forth in the compound the last few days. He makes us laugh. We know his name too, so when we call to him he grins and runs away.
We’re getting anxious to head out to our village and start the literacy training, but we are enjoying our time here as well. We started our 2nd week of language learning today, which means we only have 2 Mondays left! Today was hard starting out; we were tired and our brains weren’t quite ready for language study. But he had a lighter load for us today, so that was nice. Tomorrow we should be ready to dive right in! We are doing pretty well when it comes to conversations, we just have to think about it or ask people to repeat themselves. It’s especially hard when they throw in a new word! And it helps when they use hand gestures Lol
The heat isn’t too bad; either that or I’m getting used to it. I really don’t know what the temperature’s been, but I don’t really want to know. We bathe 3 times a day. Once in the morning after we wake up, once in the afternoon after naptime, and once in the evening. It’s nice because we can rinse all that sweat and dirt off and feel refreshed throughout the day. At first they used to carry the water bucket in for us; I think they thought we were fragile because they carried everything for us. I just giggled to myself because I had to carry two of those water buckets at one time to water my horse twice a day in the winter Lol.
Yesterday we made lunch, which was mo (rice) and foy (sauce). The foy is a tomato-like sauce, but mixed with peanut butter! Don't make an "ick face", I promise it's really good! It's sounds wierd, but it's amazing! :)
Well, I hope everything is going well back home. We have heard some news and are thinking about those a lot. It would be nice to hear some happy news about our country, so if you’ve got any, please let me know! You are yall in my thoughts daily and I miss you all! Wish yall could be here to share all this with! Take care!
