You know how most of the time at zoos they have the giraffe cages below the sidewalk where everyone walks so we can be more level with the giraffes? They don’t seem so tall when you’re looking down at them. However, when you’re standing right in front of about 10 or so of them, they are pretty tall! Just outside of Niamey, there is a giraffe preserve. During mid-term week our supervisors took us there to see the giraffes. There are no fences to hide behind, you just find the giraffes and get as close as you can before they run away. The local guide hopped into the back of the truck and used a long stick to point us in the direction we needed to go to see the giraffes. His stick was skinny and looked like an overgrown grasshopper antenna. So I giggled every time I saw the “antenna” point us in the right direction.
At our first stop there were probably about 5 giraffes eating behind some trees. We got out of the truck, but we couldn’t get a good look at them since they were behind the trees. Our guide saw some more over yonder, so we hopped back in the truck and headed over to another spot. This time there was a large group of them! We took so many pictures! I got a couple videos too. They were so tall, and funny looking. I didn’t realize how much their backs sloped downward; I guess I thought their backs would be more level, kind of like a horse with tall skinny legs and ridiculously long necks, Lol. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen some at a zoo, so I was super excited to see some and be able to get as close as I wanted to. I’m definitely liking the open range out here. I probably won’t if I ever run into a lion, though… ;)
I got pretty close to one giraffe, probably within 20-30 feet. He kept walking away and I would slowly follow him. I was pretty jazzed that I got that close. Later, however, we ventured over behind some trees where some other giraffes had gone. There were about 3 eating behind a huge bush. We walked over to them and they just stared at us. When we got within about 10 feet, one of them looked down and started walking toward us. He walked right in front us! I got a nice video shot of the belly! I’ll try to get the video posted as soon as I can. It was so awesome to be that close! All together, we probably saw around 20 giraffes! When we were ready to go, we decided it would be fun to chase them… It was! I got a video of that too… ;)
During mid-term week we also were able to spend a couple days visiting with our homestay family whom we stayed with our first month here while learning the language. We played scrabble with them one day. They were practicing their English so we played in English, but since we have had Zarma brains for 4 months, we were having trouble with our own language! Especially since we were playing in English but talking in Zarma! If we play scrabble again, we are going to play using Zarma words; that should be interesting…
We also found out that our homestay brother has epilepsy. The sad thing is that people don’t realize what it is. They think people with epilepsy are possessed by evil spirits; they don’t know that it is a medical condition. If anyone has a seizure while they are walking down the road, no one will stop and help them. They just walk around them and leave them be. They are afraid to touch that person or do anything to help them. If anyone finds out you have epilepsy, they don’t want to have anything to do with you. It is a very hard situation, because they don’t really tell their friends if they have it, because once a friend knows, they may leave you alone because of their fear. It breaks my heart that there is so much fear of evil spirits. While some of it is legit, the rest is not even close.
We also got a chance to talk to a friend of ours we met during our first month here. It was crazy how we randomly ran into him. We had just been dropped off by a taxi in the neighborhood of our homestay family. As we were walking down the road, he was coming toward us on his motorcycle. He stopped and we talked for a minute. He said he and a friend of his had some questions for us and we set up a time to meet. We had actually planned on being at our homestay family’s house earlier than we had been able to. If we had left as early as we had originally planned, we would have missed our friend completely! We had a really good visit later that week, and hopefully we will be able to visit with his family during one of our next visits to Niamey.
Well, I’ll sign off for now, but there is definitely more to come!
