Democracy in Niger

It has now been nearly two months since I left Niger.  With the comforts of home again at my disposal, I’ve quickly forgotten how to be frugal and once again started taking luxurious conveniences for granted.

Fortunately, my studies at Haverford have allowed me to continue to think about Niger and the many questions my trip raised.  The Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, which funded my internship, also requires interns to take a course in Development in Human Rights, which helps us tie our experiences to academics.  I would like to share an excerpt from one of my response papers for the course, in which I try to relate the theoretical texts I read for class to my experience in Niger.

“The Problematization of Poverty,” a chapter from Arturo Escobar’s book, Encountering Development, explains when and how modern discourse over poverty and underdevelopment came into being.  Escobar recognizes that the condition we now know as poverty did not exist or was not recognized as such until after World War II.  One part of this process was the undermining of traditional ways of life by new economic systems.  This effect was in evidence in Niger, where during the pre-colonial and even colonial period most rural people maintained self-sustaining, traditional lifestyles, but today they struggle to make ends meet even while simply living off the land.

Since independence in particular, the economics of the global capitalist system have increased costs while lowering revenues for many.  Instead of a maintaining a sustainable and self-sufficient, if basic, economic existence, rural Nigeriens now struggle to pay for essentials, a classic sign of poverty.  For example, a pastoral shepherd could formerly live a comfortable, if simple, life from his animals by eating and selling them to buy other food and staple goods.  Today, this shepherd must somehow earn a bit of additional income, apart from his livestock sales revenue, in order to maintain his lifestyle.  The erosion of this traditional way of life means a slip into the condition we know today as poverty.

Most Nigeriens’ aspiration is not American-level wealth and consumption, although most would gladly accept these things.  More accurately, most Nigeriens hope to earn enough money, often through odd jobs or migrant labor, to finance their families’ continued traditional lifestyle in their ancestral villages.  With such a radically different conception of material well-being, the case of Niger challenges existing global indicators of poverty.  Insofar as they measure abstract and absolute wealth without accounting for the local baseline of economic well-being, such indicators cannot be meaningfully compared internationally.  This situation also challenges conceptions of development, since many Nigeriens seek simply to return sustainability to their traditional ways of life, rather than seeking the strong economic growth that might enable them to approach developed country income levels.

For this reason, poverty has a different feel and connotation in Niger than in the United States.  Here, there is an expectation that everyone should have great personal wealth and access to modern consumer goods.  Factors like affording food and shelter are only relevant for a small, extremely disadvantaged portion of the population.  In Niger, by contrast, poverty is the dominant condition, yet it lacks much of the sense of squalor and misery associated with it in the Western world.  Most of Niger’s “poor” continue to live happily on extremely small “incomes,” according to international economic measurements.

I was surprised during my time in Niger how habituated I became to the presence of poverty around me.  I came to accept this condition as something that will hopefully improve over time but not something that must urgently be resolved to save millions of people from leading miserable, hellish existences.  I still wonder whether I simply became jaded or desensitized, eventually discounting the seriousness of their condition.

My continued reflection continues to raise more questions than it answers, but I think that’s how it should be.

Since I started this blog, I’ve been mostly silent on the one issue that you’d think I would discuss most: democracy.  After all, it’s in the title, and it’s the focus of my internship.  I knew my observations of everyday life would hold your attention, and after spending all day reading and writing about democracy at work, I took a personal approach to balance things out.  Besides, better to throw stones when you’re on your way out the door.  So with the referendum now behind us and my departure two days away, here are a few not-so-flattering observations about Democracy in Niger.

Niger is what political scientists call a semi-authoritarian regime, with a strongman president who cloaks himself in an aura of democracy and fills his proclamations with democratic buzzwords.  Elections are largely fraudulent and, in the best case, ask the opinions of a population spread out among tiny villages, largely illiterate and uninformed, and overwhelmingly apathetic towards the national government.  With yesterday’s referendum, President Tandja claims to have won a fresh mandate to throw out the constitution, with its fast-approaching term limits.

While foreign governments have recently put time and energy into trying to reinstate Honduras’ deposed president and have Iran’s questionable poll results reconsidered, Niger has hardly registered a blip on the international scene.  Weak statements of condemnation and a few vague threats of withheld development aid, that’s about it.  There are a lot of reasons for this, but one major reason is that there are only a few big countries really interested in Nigerien affairs.

The big ones, France and China, are interested because of their investments in uranium mining, a hydroelectric dam project, oil exploration, and so on.  Such financial motives instill an affinity for continuity and peace, to which the people’s democratic rights become, sadly, an afterthought.  Even more devastatingly, Niger’s neighbors have failed to take any action whatsoever, likely because they too are semi-authoritarians and might try similar schemes in the near future.

The ruling party monopolized the campaign in the run-up to the referendum, filling Niamey at least with signs and banners along the lines of “Population Niamey: OUI Massif!”  Not one opposition sign or demonstration allowed.  Twelve hours after the polls closed, all of the billboards had been replaced with a presidential message, “For your renewed confidence, thank you all!”  It is a nice victory message, delivered well before any election results were available.  It’s easy to be confident when you make up the results.

Debate now centers on the participation rate.  Having justified the referendum on the claim that the Nigerien people were overwhelmingly calling for him to stay on, Tandja needs a high turnout.  A low figure would suggest the success of the opposition boycott.  The government claims they need more time to determine participation numbers slowed, they say, by Niger’s rainy season.  I assure you it’s blazing hot and not a puddle to be seen.  But somehow, they already have enough ballots counted to declare a massive YES vote in the “general range” of 95-96%.  As several Nigeriens have observed, the stalling gives them more time to falsify an acceptable participation rate.

In any case, we’ll have the official results within a couple of days, bringing the political crisis to an end.  The military has apparently sided with Tandja, a former colonel who originally came to power in a coup, rather than staging a coup d’état of their own.  Nor is the not-so-democratic opposition likely to overturn this fait accompli.

What keeps this whole debacle from being a major defeat for democracy is that Niger wasn’t really a democracy to begin with.  When democracy does arrive, it will come through education, economic development, decentralization, and improved local governance.  The current political élites, of whom even the opposition are mostly former and future supporters of those now power, are unlikely to push for genuine reform.

On the positive side, most informed, impartial Nigeriens consider the referendum illegitimate.  Tandja will continue to hold power, but he has lost whatever democratic credibility he once held.  Perhaps his barefaced autocracy will be an easier target for reform-minded democrats.  And most importantly, there has been no violence, Alhamdulillah.

This is how we got to Dembutan.

Camel belongs to the cousin next to me, turban wasn't just for the photo.

Pictures are pretty hard to upload here, and I am often hesitant to pull out my camera on the street in Niamey, but at long last here are a couple of images of what I’ve been up to!

If it’s been a while since I’ve updated, you’ll have to excuse me at least for the last week. I was in the north of Niger, a region to which the US State Department discourages travel due to Tuareg rebels and Al Qaeda operations along the border with Mali. Fortunately, I look just like a Nigerien so I was safe. Okay, maybe not. But as I was accompanied by Tuaregs, I decided to take my chances with Al Qaeda. An encounter would have been good fodder for my terrorism research anyway.

As many of you know, I’ve been living with a Tuareg family in Niamey, the relatives of my friend Alissa, who I met in Paris. The Tuaregs are a nomadic people from the Sahara desert and surroundings, mostly in northern Niger and Mali. I’ve mastered only the greetings and a few random words of their language, Tamasheq: mess imin Nicholas, naku amerikan, oiye wan? Most important to our American imaginations, they wear turbans and ride camels.

The trip up to Tchinta baraden, the nearest town appearing on a map, was a complicated affair. It began with my host brother Ihya and I leaving the house at 4am to walk to the nearest Rimbo bus station. From there, we took a shuttle to the main Niamey station, where we transferred to the Agadez route. Agadez is traditionally Niger’s main tourist attraction, a Tuareg city in an oasis on the edge of the desert, but current safety concerns mean that all unnecessary travel is restricted to foreigners.

Bus travel in Niger hardly meets American safety standards, with drivers bringing their passengers repeatedly within inches of death before jerking back on course, roaring over bumps and potholes sending passengers flying out of their seats. After a seven-hour trip, the bus dropped us off at Tahoua, a little nothing of a town on the edge of civilization, where we relaxed at Alissa’s dad’s house. After a couple days, he kindly drove us the next few hours north to Tchinta baraden, first on a paved road, then on well-worn dirt. After a brief siesta and lunch, we boarded a bush taxi bound for Dembutan, the village Alissa’s family calls home. Bush taxis are a new level of unsafe and uncomfortable, with upwards of 20 people piled with animals and luggage on the back of a 4×4 pickup.

Tuaregs living in the bush are pastoral, not agricultural, so they raise animals and use the proceeds to buy their millet and other needs. Traditionally, this was sufficient for survival. With increased costs, however, many young people now head off to Niamey or to Libya for a few years or more to earn money to support their families’ traditional lifestyle back home. In any case, a Tuareg village is bound to be full of cattle, goats, sheep, and a few camels.

Despite having no electricity and very spotty cell phone coverage, most people have cell phones, which they often must pay to charge with a gas-powered generator. One night, a couple of Pull (another nomadic ethnic group) women passed by our compound, passing the night on their plastic mats and dining on our family’s hospitality. They appalled us with their rudeness by demanding the use of a cell phone, refusing our offer to let them borrow one to ‘beep’ their husbands (hanging up after one ring so your contact will call you back, at their expense).

Incredibly, given the middle-of-nowhere feeling you get standing outside the house, visitors are commonplace here, arriving every day. Another Pull visitor told us his family had long been living right nearby. When he got back from the market at Tchinta (a couple of days by foot), he found that they had packed up and moved on without telling him. He rested under our tent for several hours before continuing his search. While families often stay in one place for years, building mud huts and compound walls, they will not hesitate to pack up their tents – traditionally made of animal skins – and lead their animals quite literally to greener pastures.

Innumerable unspoken rules govern Tuareg social interactions, rules which I surely broke time and time again. At one older (thereby more respected) man’s tent, a twenty-five minute walk from our compound through completely empty bushland, I caused mild shock by sitting down right next to the gentleman – well beyond the limits of respectful distance. As it turned out, this man averted his eyes while speaking to younger men, and they did the same, out of respect. Fortunately, as a foreigner I was largely exempted from these expectations.

I could go on for days about my week in the bush, but since internet access costs 1000 CFA an hour, I’ll leave my summary at that – for now anyway. I really encourage you to write or comment with questions or reactions. Salamu alaikum.

As some of you may have noticed, Niger made it big yesterday, scoring a New York Times article  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/world/…) about the political crisis here. The article is pretty good, although it fails to mention what I consider two important points relating to the August 4 referendum (which is set to take place 3 days before I leave, so that will be an interesting time for me). First, while the article makes it seem that everyone is against the president, public opinion polling doesn’t exist here, so it’s impossible to know for sure. Second, there is a good chance that rural, illiterate, and largely uninformed communities will support Tandja, whether due to misinformation, bribery, intimidation, or a simple lack of commitment to democracy. And there’s always fraud. So in the end, a Tandja victory is likely, so there is real reason for alarm.

On a lighter note, I rode in a taxi the other day – a small, old Toyota Corolla – with four other people and two goats, which I didn’t even notice until five minutes in, when one of them let out a loud bleat. People buy chickens live here, not as shrink-wrapped, boneless, skinless filets, and you see those in taxis as well, in people’s laps or between their legs. I prefer that over the mice we’ve been hunting down at the house, not to mention the myriad insects that the rain has brought to life.

Of course, Niger’s main pest is the malaria-vector mosquito. As a “rich American,” (with a grant from Haverford) I am able to afford the very expensive 2670 francs CFA per day ($5) for the latest malaria medication and, of course, repellent spray. I also set up a treated mosquito net each night – you’d be impressed watching me tie the knots and whip that whole setup into place on the porch every night. Still, I manage to get at least one new bite every day, so I’m grateful for my Malarone. Malaria causes high fevers that can definitely kill you, and African kids – lacking anti-malarial medications and often simple bednets – are infected an average of 2.3 times per year! If you’d like to help, an organization called Nothing but Nets  http://www.nothingbutnets.net) works to provide kids with the nets that can prevent malaria transmission.

I recently had a series of typical “summer” experiences, Nigerien-style, involving basketball, haircuts, and everyone’s favorite, ice cream!

I watched a women’s basketball game at the Palais des Sports on Saturday, while a football match went on next door at the Stade Général. I was drinking a Fanta on my way over, and among the various requests for money, one kid just pointed to my five-sixths finished bottle and asked “cadeau?” It felt odd giving it to him, since few American parents would let their children accept it, but the nice thing is that you never have to waste food here because people on the street will gladly take care of your leftovers.

Last week, in order to reap heat-reduction and cleanliness-improvement benefits, I got my hair buzzed short. Oh, the other reason for this choice was that that’s the only hair style Nigerien barbers know how to do. I went to the local guy and paid more than three times the
normal price (okay, it was still only $2) because “white person” hair is like the DaVinci Code to these guys, a total mystery. The next day, I passed by and found the coiffeur I’d visited locked up, with a government sign declaring it “Closed for failure to pay taxes.” This seemed serious until I noticed that half the shops on the block were in like state, and most opened up again that afternoon. I guess tax avoidance shouldn’t surprise me in such a poor and poorly-governed country.

I made an intriguing discovery Saturday night, walking home from dinner at Chez Chin, a tasty Chinese restaurant. The shop at Total gas stations (a French company, bien sûr) sell mostly imported French stuff, making these convenience stores some of Niamey’s finer shopping
outlets. It totally made my day to discover they sell Magnum ice cream bars, which I discovered in Europe, even if the price was steep even by Parisian standards. Nigerien ice cream is available in a number of places, but it’s relatively expensive and doesn’t hold a
candle to American or European stuff. A tub of Dreyer’s (Edy’s, eastcoasters) Cookies and Cream is going to be one of my first projects back home.

Kala ton ton!

Life in Niger is certainly different, and I have a lot of time here to sit around and talk (causer, as they say in French), drink Tuareg tea and read.  I work at my internship from 9 to 5 each day, taking a break for lunch whenever I feel like it.  Often I meet up with Lawali and we stop by La Grillade for riz-sauce, rice and sauce with a piece of beef in it, at 600 francs a plate.

I’m working on a research project regarding the role of international organizations on democratic development and defense in Niger, especially how they relate to local NGOs and how they are dealing with the current political crisis here.  Although I’m hoping to interview people from USAID and NGOs in Niamey, so far I’ve been doing mostly internet research.  Lawali and I just registered at a local think tank’s documentation center, aka library, so that has opened up a number of valuable book sources as well.

One aspect of life here that takes getting used to is people constantly asking for money and assuming that you are rich.  As an anassara (white person), I am presumed to have immense personal wealth, and strangers aren’t shy about trying to take some of it from you.  I’ve had a woman ask us to pay for her taxi for her, simply because we’re American.  A teenage boy came up to me one morning as I walked near Niamey’s Grand Hotel, “Bonjour!  How are you?  Remember me?  I saw you yesterday, when you were coming out of the hotel with your friends!”  I’ve never been to the hotel, but he was looking for a cadeau, or handout.

Another annoyance is the regularity of power outages.  Electricity usually goes out at least once every day, sometimes for fifteen minutes, other times for a couple of hours.  The UPS, or emergency backup battery, is a standard computer accessory here, found on almost every desktop.  One appliance impervious to the power outages is the cell phone, just one reason people here love their mobiles.  Every Nigerien’s cell phone is nicer than mine, and many people have several phones, among which they trade around their four or more SIM cards – Niger appears to have at least six mobile service providers.  Such features as flashlights, cameras, and radios all come standard, even while many cell phone owners don’t otherwise own a radio or camera.

The one advantage America holds is that while BlackBerries are available here, mobile internet service is not.  At an internet café or in the office, even high speed internet service is never as fast as regular service in America, ranging from acceptably fast to excruciatingly slow.  I am now an expert on which sites offer low-bandwidth versions (e.g. Gmail, BBC News, MLB.com) and which don’t (e.g. WordPress, the site for updating this blog)!  Even waiting for news sites to load can be painful, given their graphics-heavy layouts.

Every morning, I take a taxi to work.  Taxis here are mostly white Toyota Corollas, old ones, with dirty, worn out interiors and myriad dents and scratches, if not missing headlamps or door handles.  The upsides are the cost – 20 cents to be dropped off at the door of your destination – and availability – just stand by the side of the road with your hand out and call out your destination as the taximan rolls by; he’ll stop if he’s going your way.

Most weekends, I hang out at home reading and chatting, with occasional visits to such tourist attractions as the Musée National, home of an underfunded museum and the world’s most depressing zoo (mangy lions bored and underfed in tiny cages, baboons with barely enough space to move).

Friday, the US Embassy had a Fourth of July celebration.  Rather than the homestyle, American BBQ I had expected, it was a diplomatic function full of dignitaries.  Fortunately, there were also some young people, Peace Corps volunteers, and the embassy’s Marine security detachment.  They also had free drinks, American flag cake (only small pieces were available, but still, cake), and sparklers.  An ‘afterparty’ at the Marine house was another slice of America.  They have A/C, big screen TV with a wide selection of DVDs, lots of care package items like Vienna Fingers (thanks to APO shipping), a pool, and a driver.  Still, Niger is one of the least desired posts in the Marine Corps, likely a result of the temperatures and tame nightlife.

On Independence Day proper, I was invited to join a weekly game of softball at the Embassy rec center.  It was a really fun way to spend the Fourth of July, accompanied by Americans and playing a sport from home I hadn’t seen in months.  They also had a pool (although I didn’t go in), air conditioning, and a big screen TV with Wimbledon on, so I caught a little bit of the gentlemen’s doubles final.  Overall, it was a nice day, even if it was devoid of fireworks.

If you have never experienced true culture shock, let me tell you, it is real.  After five months in Paris without any major signs of it (rejection of language or customs, depression, that sort of thing), I was convinced that I would be able to handle Niger without being dragged through the “four stages of culture shock” that Haverford tells you about.  Upon arrival, I enjoyed a week or so of what you could call a honeymoon phase, where although I was homesick from five months abroad, I was happy to be here.  The next week or two were rough, as I started getting frustrated with the local language (not French, but AFRICAN French, which I still have a hard time understanding), questions of personal space, various “rude” social interactions (by American standards), strangers trying to get my money, the extreme heat, and an overwhelming desire to be in Southern California eating In-N-Out.

Finally, now halfway through my experience, I am moving through to the later stages of culture shock, what you could call the recovery phase.  I am becoming comfortable in my new environment and learning to enjoy the positive aspects of life here without letting the frustrations dominate my outlook.  Every day I find myself enjoying the many wonderful aspects of Niger, the community, the people, the culture, even some of the food.  This morning I had a baguette with butter, my first taste of that dairy delight in a month.  Sure, it wasn’t real, pure butter, but it tasted just fine.

As for the political crisis, it continues.  Tandja continues to consolidate power ahead of the August 4th referendum he insists will happen.  To give you a sense of the way things are going, Nouhou just passed by and glanced at my computer screen.  “Ça n’existe pas,” he said. ”It doesn’t exist.”  He was pointing to the title of my blog, “Democracy in Niger.”

As I found when I started telling people about my trip, if most people know that Niger and Nigeria are separate countries, they don’t know the difference between them.  It’s a common source of confusion, since they have ridiculously similar names.  Complicating matters, the Niger River flows through both countries and its delta, which is in Nigeria, is the site of a violent conflict at the moment.  Nigeria was a British, so they speak English over there, whereas Niger was controlled by the French.

Professor Kight asked a very good question: how do you distinguish between a Nigerian from Nigeria and someone from Niger?  In English, people here are Nigerien, with an e.  It’s pronounced with a French j sound, as in /knee-zher-ee-en/, to distinguish it from Nigerian.  The French demonyms are the same, but pronounced French-phonetically so that the “-ien” vs. “-ian” differentiates them.

As one of my former teachers liked to say, moving right along!  I won’t go into the details of latrines, no toilet paper, no garbage cans, shared plates and cups, and so on, but suffice it to say that sanitation standards are very different here.  You do get used to it though.  I avoided getting sick for a week, but stomach trouble hit last weekend.  I’ve been mostly avoiding local water (full of unusual bacteria that don’t agree with western stomachs) but it’s so hot and bottled water is so unreliably available, that sometimes you have no choice.  Then yesterday, I REALLY got sick, laid up in bed all day barely able to eat plain rice.  But I’m already feeling a lot better, and I should have a better tolerance now.

Nigerien cuisine is also quite different from what I’m used to.  In my family, we eat beignets (fried dough balls, similar to a hearty, unsweetened, greasy, roughly spherical donut) and plain baguettes for breakfast.  With several servings of tea, of course!  Lunch is often a couple of bags of drinkable yogurt (traditional African lunch is rice and sauce from a nearby stand).  For dinner, we usually eat rice and beans or pasta with oil and garlic, as most people’s staple food is rice, with a millet substitute available at lower cost and couscous as a higher-end option.

African restaurants commonly serve brochettes, which is meat on a stick (tasty).  Other restaurants offer certain foreign foods, and there is one rather western-style place called Amandine that is very popular.  They even have a “Philly cheesesteak”!  I’ll try to get a picture of that posted when I get a chance.  It doesn’t look or taste like Gino’s, but it was actually quite good.  Food is generally very cheap, so an “expensive” meal in a restaurant will still come out under $10 USD.  I don’t really mind the lack of culinary diversity; that’s what France was for!

As for currency, Niger uses the West African Franc, known as Francs CFA (pronounced: say-fah).  They’re worth about 500 CFA to one US dollar, so my abovementioned yogurts are 20 cents each, a taxi is 40 to 80 cents, and manufactured bags of filtered water are about 5 cents.  Of course, most Nigeriens aren’t exactly raking in the dough, so these are real costs.

Niger is over 90% Muslim, so the call to prayer wakes me up early each morning.  Many of you have probably heard a beautiful recording of the adhan, a lone voice cutting through the tranquility of the recent dawn, chanting the beautiful words, Allahu akbar, God is great.  Yeah, it’s nothing like that.  A better description would be several men shouting guttural noises through competing, peaking loudspeakers, reminding me more of chaos and disaster than the greatness of God.

Niamey doesn’t grind to a halt five times a day, but you definitely see a lot of people out praying, particularly in the evenings and at noon on Friday.  Quiet alcohol consumption is tolerated, and they even have a national beer, Bière Niger.  That said, you won’t see MTV Presents Spring Break Niamey anytime soon.  The party scene is mostly confined to relatively calm outdoor bars and a few nightclubs.

I’ve so far neglected to mention one aspect of Niger that has made my entire stay possible: the French language.  Schools here are taught in French, businesses and government use it extensively, and most people in Niamey speak it at least passably.  This allows me to communicate quite well with people, especially since Africans tend to speak a lot slower than Parisians.  The downside is their crazy accent, which still confuses me after more than a week of hearing it every day.  It actually sounds a bit like Quebec French with a rolled R.

In part so that I can refresh myself listening to French accents from time to time, I recently bought a cheap, Nigerian-made (i.e. in Nigeria) radio.  I had to haggle over the price, bringing it down 50% from the original offer, but I still paid twice what it was worth.  Curse you, white skin.  When foreigners bring Nigerien friends along to help us negotiate prices, vendors will even chastise them, “Why are you helping them?  You should be helping me get more money!”  People in Niger have the impression that all white people are rich, and so we should pass our days handing out coins, but that’s an issue for another post.

When I got the item in question home, it turned out that it didn’t even work.  The tuner spun, but the station didn’t change.  Miraculously, I managed to take apart the whole thing with my Swiss Army knife, repair the tuner, and get the whole thing back together, minus the needle indicating which station is playing.  So I now enjoy Radio France International (which broadcasts in French and Hausa), BBC Africa (English, French, and Hausa), and a slew of local news and music stations.

I’m trying to get a few pictures uploaded, but as I may have mentioned, internet access speed in Niger leaves something to be desired.  I’ll see what I can do.

At the one week mark here in Niamey, I’m going to try to give you a sense of la vie Africaine, the very non-Western style of living embraced here in the Sahel.

Quick background: Niger is poor, large in landmass but not in population, extremely hot, and dusty.  To some scholars, Niger is a state that, landlocked and multiethnic, should never have been, a colonial mistake more than a nation.

If such pessimism exists in Niger, I haven’t seen it.  Nigeriens are more likely to point to their role as a model democracy for Africa and rich cultural diversity.  Even now, as the president tries to defy Niger’s highest court in pursuing an unconstitutional third term in office, Nigeriens remain postitive.

I’ve encountered four major ethnic groups here in Niamey.  The Zarma are from the area surrounding the capital so they and their language are prominent here.  It’s also relatively easy to learn, and Lawali has made excellent progress in it during his 5 months here.  Hausa is the largest ethnic group in Niger, and their language is a common trade language throughout the region.  I don’t know much about the Fulani people, but they’re around, and finally we have the Touaregs.

If the word Touareg reminds you more of a car than a people, don’t worry.  I didn’t really know either, but now I live with a wonderful Touareg family and spend much of my time listening to Tamasheq, their Arabic-sounding language full of difficult to prounounce gutteral sounds.  They are traditionally desert nomads, known for drinking tea, keeping camels, making silver jewelry, and wearing turbans.  There has been a “Touareg rebellion” since the early 1990s, and this is one reason why travel to the north of the country is extremely difficult for foreigners.

Niger is extremely hot, like one of the hottest countries in the world, 100+ most of the time.  There is also extremely little A/C.  Despite this, only little kids wear shorts, so pants it is!  A cultural decision I’m happier with is that no one wears closed shoes, just sandals.  I quickly realized that my cheap plastic flip flops weren’t going to cut it for daily use (even though many Nigeriens wear these around the house and even around town), so Tahi brought be to the Grand Marché to buy some Nigerien-style shoes – actually synthetic leather sandals from China.  They’re quite comfortable.

The most prominent feature of African life is the focus on rest, sometimes to the detriment of punctuality.  Sitting for long periods of time, occasionally talking, but mostly just sitting, is the national pasttime.  In a country drowning in sunshine, Nigeriens are masters at staying in the shade.  During the heat of the afternoon, most people consider it too hot to work, so they go to sleep.  Most people sleep out side at night, myself included.

Niger is what they call “infested” with mosquitoes and “endemic” with malaria, so I set up a mosquito net around my sleeping mat out on the porch each night.  The dry season is actually so hot that it kills most of the mosquitoes, but as we enter the rainy seasons, everyone assures me the mosquitoes will be back with a vengeance.

Now if this entry seems like it has strayed from its central theme (the African take-your-time-and-relax lifestyle), au contraire mes amis!  I counter that I wrote this whole entry and more, in pen, while sitting around with Ihya ALL afternoon, otherwise doing nothing.  There was a little music, sure, and some conversation, but it was sporadic.  Certainly you couldn’t say anyone here did a single “productive” thing (in the American conception of the term) all afternoon.  Except for me, the American, not yet fully adapted to my new environment, unable to just sit back and relax.

NOTA BENE: This blog is intended to help relay some of my experiences to friends, family, and the Haverford community.  Others are more than welcome to read on, but please note that this is a personal account and NOT a researched, fact-checked report.  Facts and figures herewithin are based mostly on hearsay and my personal experiences.  I’m not going to lie to you, but don’t quote me on this stuff!