Another Band-Aid Post

Dearest Folks,
I promise to get a good full update soon, but I will have more time with the internet in 2 weeks. For now, i have an excellent treat for you all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XoM5bxlVFo
This is a video that someone who just finished made from some of my teammates' video clips. It's really well done and you'll at least get a glimpse of the aesthetics of Niger, even if you don't understand what's going on in the clips.
I just got back from my second vacation. My first was in Senegal and I will have that update for you when i have time to load pics because I supplemented it with graphic novel pages. My second vacation was in Ghana, mostly at the beach which would have been excellent had we remembered to pack the Niger sun with us in our bags. But we got the Ghanaian rainy season sky instead. If we didn't see the sun, however, Accra made up for it in letting us see the movie Inception, which you in the states can go see in theatres right now. I'm so up to date! It was so nice to be in mini America for a few hours and the movie was excellent.
And speaking of America, my third vacation will be in January back home in Ol USA. I didn't think I'd go home during the two years, but somewhere between 115 degrees F in the shade and a hallucinated donut, I broke down. I hope I get to see so so many of you!
But for now, it is back to post and back to work for me. I'll be setting up my moringa classes with my health center, and planning english club with my teacher. Plus I've successfully avoided almost all of Ramadan and I'll be coming back just in time to eat goat with my friends.
Wishing y'all well, ~aj

Between long awaited updates post

I've been really remiss in getting my last update done about my vacation in Senegal and here I am a few weeks away from going on vacation to Ghana. I stilllll havent gotten that update done because i'm biting off more than i can chew, but here is some interesting stuff on the hunger situation in Niger. In my town I havent seen anything really bad, nothing that seems different from last year. But in the north i've heard people have had it bad.
The following are links to an ICRISAT report that a fellow PCV posted on facebook. the BBC version has pictures and compact captions and the ICRISAT page has a lot more detailed info. I'm going to investigate implementing this in my village in gardens rather than crop fields.
PS I love the picture in the BBC slideshow of the woman with lettuce on her head, and incidentially that is the biggest most amazingly healthy and pristine lettuce i have ever seen in niger.
PPS The music sounds native american in the video on ICRISATs page. Music in Niger is not at all like that.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10698153
http://www.icrisat.org/newsroom/latest-news/one-pager/africa-hunger/africa-hunger-crisis.htm
PPPS. Props to Cindy's mom who somehow finagled that girl into bringing back a bag of treats for her poor deprived friends.

New House, etc.

In this post: Alex with his and SLH's apricot upsidown cake, a goat on my neighbors mud brick wall, the view from my porch of my bed and latrine and front door, the view of my 2-wife style house (things look different now because there is a shade hangar and i've rearranged my things a bit), Alex and sean at my favorite restaurant in Niamey-Alex just came up from under the table because he was embarrassed by something Sean said, the last picture is my middle school english clubs who just recived story books that my dad's french class made for them. i can't remember which video this is, so make up your own story

Training Site

this post is about the training site Hamdalleye or "Bisa Dutsi" which means on the rock because it's just outside of Hamdalleye on a mesa. there is a volleyball court (see Ashle serving, Sean spiking a ball and Jesse springing into action), there is also a basketball court and a pingpong table but we didn't ever use the basketball court. there are the beds outside next to the volunteer rooms and you can see the language classroom huts and the vehicle hangar and the map of Niger is on the cafeteria wall.

Shisto Face, On the Set

We get our kicks filming music video spoofs out here in Zinder. We've gotten really good at them and here are some pictures to show you how seriously we take our videos. This one was a spoof on Lady Gaga's Pockerface. Shisto is short for Shistosomiosis and was the best relevant fit for Pockerface.

Niamey Zoo

Niamey has a Zoo and it is also an Art Museum and it is also a Natural History Museum and it is also a Park and it is also an Artisan Center. The cute little dog thingy is what we call "firefox" and i forget it's real name. The man weaving uses a traditional loom and makes what are called 'wedding blankets'. They are long strips of woven pieces sewn together to make a blanket. i cant remember what the videos are about but i think at least one of them is the lion feeding we saw which shocked us. the lions were literally attacking each other and many had fresh scratches and nicks. I'm not enough of an animal expert on natural animal behavior but i really think they don't behave like that on the Serengeti.

My Birthday and Mural Painting

Back in January my friends Sean, SLH, Cindy and Ashle came to Bande to celebrate and the first 3 helped me with a mural project.
Here is my former landlady's daughter bringing me my Bday cake number 2 (of 3).













Here is Sean having bonding time with my kitten Waka. I think it's a quinessential "PC" pic.










Here we are recording a radio show.











Sarah baked my a rediculously good chocolate cake (Bday cake number 1)















We are outside doing Niger style tea-trying to start the fire.














This is a picture of my crazy eyed town minstrel who sang a song about us on the spot. there is a video below of it.









I am taking out SLH's corn rows -we took the picture cuz we wanted to get a pic of the random guy with a gun walking by us. we got a better picture when he stopped to let us take a picture.















The last photo is of us after our picknick in Bande's garden -out in the country side about 2k from bande.

I dont remember what both videos are about, but one of them is crazy eyed town minstrel guy.