Hey, how are things goint in eastern Montana these days? Things here are not too shabby nowadays. Anything interesting going on there back @ home ("home" being the general US of A)

You wrote about not having any exciting adventures to write about - actually "exotic" is the word you used. I think being here is helping shape my concept of exotic - someplace with warm temperatures (but also cool ones to balance things out), with trees, with water (that you can maybe lay by, rather than pull out of a well), and oh yeah, with modern conveniences like electricity and air-conditioning and refrigeration for cool and refreshing beverages (none of wihich is where I am in Niger).

Right now, I'm in my village of Safatane, which is something like 2-3 hours north and west of the capital, Niamey, by bush taxi (depending on the operating hours and/or functionality of the only car ferry in Niger; I guess alternatively there is the one bridge over the Niger in the country). It supposedly has a population of 2000, but it seems less that that @ the moment (many Nigerien men go down to the coastal countries to make money during the "cold" season, and don't come back until the rains are about to start in May - supposedly). The village provides me with a home, which is pretty fair sized (maybe 25' x 18' for the house, and the "concession" [basically like a lot, except with 6' mud-brick walls to demarc it] is maybe like 40' x 40'), and it's not a terribly long walk from the pump to my house, carrying water on my head (sorry, no pictures yet).

As I just took my oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and got installed in Safatane on the 10th, my "job" as a Peace Corps Volunteer entails me learning the language and the culture. The primary language is not, however, French - it is Zarma (which is spoken in parts of Mali [yes, in Timbuktu], Niger and Benin, I believe). This has been moderately challenging, as I'd never heard a lick of Zarma in my life before coming. Happily, I do have the experience of living in another country before (and memories of unnecessary freak-outs over language incomprehension), so that I've adapted the smiling demeanor of the blissful idiot - I try to hear things people say, but the no. 1 response people get from me is, "(laughing sigh) Ay man faham" - "I don't understand". This means that, so far, a lot of time when I'm out amongst the people has been spent with me sitting down and listening to others talk, or answering questions as best I can when they're posed to me.

Thus, a "good day" depends almost wholly on the amount of language I heard or picked up in that day. Take, for example, last TUE. Viewed objectively, it was a terrible day. I left our transit house in Gotheye (40 km to the E) @ 9 in the morning. This is a bad idea, because the heat starts around 10 or 11, and it should be a 2.5 hour bike ride. But, because of the heat, I didn't get back til noon. And then I went into my hut for 3 hours and could simply not stop sweating - I just sat there, with the sweat a rollin' down my body. But, in the afternoon, I went out, and the men in the village taught me a bunch of new words in Zarma and Fufulde ( a language of the herder peoples). Thus, because it ended well, it was a good day.

25/03/05

Other days can just be terrible. Take THIS pas TUE (22/03). Without going into too many details, let's say it was 1:30 (around the hottest part of the day ~110 degrees), I had been walking since 8:30 with 8+ km to go, had 750 ml of water, no food, and my bike tube was flat. Miraculously, a man of guardian angel status guided me through the bush and back to safety - but it wasn't a good day overall.

However, things in Niger are pretty good. I am missing people back home, but, with being away at Whitman as preparation, it's not been too bad. And the physical things I'm missing about America aren't the luxuries (movies, TV, etc...), it's the basics. I would give anything to be able to raid a grocery store's refrigerated section right now; and while Taco Bell and Slurpees might not count as "basics", the notion of convenience upon which they're based in America pretty much is basic.

Anyway, I hope this letter finds you well. Pass on my well-wishes to all of the family members you talk to after getting this.

 F.N. Michael