Ganji yo (Giraffes) in the Midst

Sometimes a broken down bus means that you get to see giraffes crossing the highway. Today I was on the way to Niamey from a friend’s house and the bus broke down about 20 km from my starting location. Another friend and I waited on the side of the road for about an hour and a half. It had been the most annoying stranded-on-the-side-of-the-highway experience so far because busses kept stopping for us, about five people would pile into two seats and there would be no more room for the two of us. This happened three times. Finally we scrambled onto one and headed to Niamey. I was drifting off to sleep about five minutes later when the bus began to slow down again. I thought, WHY MEEEE? and then I opened my eyes and saw that four full-grown giraffes had bounded across the highway in front of the bus. They began making their way into the bush on the other side of the road as we drove closer. They are huge! Well I guess most Americans have seen giraffes in zoos or maybe even in Calistoga. It was still cool to see them running around free. Free as a bush camel.

Easter Sunday: The day before the giraffe run-in I spent Easter with five friends from my new region. We wanted to dye eggs and hide them around my friend’s huge yard but couldn’t find any eggs. Or dye. Or places in the barren yard to hide the eggs. So instead we hung out all day singing along to Disney songs and then cooking chili (with macaroni! And Slim Jims!). After we were full and content we built a big bonfire in the middle of the yard and started to do a fire dance around it. The noise and screams of “ayayayayayay!” attracted the attention of the local boys who started climbing over the 8-foot walls to take a look. At one point a little girl walked into the yard and closed the corrugated iron door behind her. Little did she know that the door gets stuck and you have to push it open from the top. She got a little freaked out by the fire dance of six sparsely dressed white people and tried to open the door quietly to get out. The door wouldn’t open. She got more and more scared and banged on the door while looking at us with embarrassment and fright. The volunteer who owns the house went over to open the door for the girl, who was extremely grateful to zumbu (get out of there) as fast as she could. We ended the night with a freeze-dried pack of chocolate cheesecake and balloons.

One more thing, my bug situation has pretty much resolved itself (of course with my contributions and the help of the village women and chickens). The horrible ant situation from before my in-service training has cleared up almost entirely. There have also been no more spider problems. In all, my area is virtually bug free and I don’t even have mosquitoes like some other volunteers. However, in my region the rainy season is supposed to start at the end of this month. Then there is an “explosion.” Explosion of life. Explosion of green. Explosion of bugs. I’ll let you know if it’s all just hype. Boy I hope so.