...home...

Ah, Niamey! Showers, chocolate, electricity – the wonders never cease.

Except today, I’m irritated that the showers have very little water pressure, the chocolate is mostly vegetable oil, and the electricity goes out every few hours. That’s because I was just in America.

America! Where everything was clean and cool. Where I could eat or drink anything I wanted whenever I wanted it. Where the sweet sound of Spanish being spoken over the PA system at O'Hare welcomed me home.

I was so overwhelmed with the constant availability of everything that after less than 24 hours of amazement, shock and gluttony, I could think of nothing I wanted. I had no cravings to soothe. Good thing I made lists while still in Tamtala; but I still found myself looking at them, wondering why I listed “sleeveless but modest
shirts” – wouldn’t sleeves be okay? It can’t be that hot in Niger.

The Niger I had so recently left at 118 degrees. Oh, how soon we forget!

Everyone kept asking how it felt to be home. Well, I positively laughed with delight when I saw the mountains again. The guy next to me, changing flights at SeaTac to go to Alaska, thought I was crazy. “I just love it here,” I told him, trying to control the cheesy smile. But beyond that…

“Is it totally weird to be back? Are you freaking out?” Well, I guess I would, if I had the time to react. But there was next to no time to reflect on the year-plus I’d just spent away, and certainly no time to put it in perspective, to create coherent sentences about what I’ve learned so far. It was all I could do to manage the constant stream of information and interrogations coming in. Answering questions isn’t so hard, and it was really often quite interesting and fun, but my previously keen ability to tell if people think I’m crazy has dulled. I actually unwittingly led a group of people to think I had converted to Islam. Not that that’s unheard of or bad – I just haven’t, and it didn’t occur to me to clarify that.

I need to step back for a moment and give thanks for a billion things. I’ve only today gotten the chance to slow down, and for that I’m grateful. But more than that, I’m indebted to a whole slew of Americans and Canadians who teamed up to fill my trip to the brim with activities that will now serve as cool memories – was I really shivering by Lake Mendota on Shannon’s graduation day? Was it really cold enough to make dipping my toes in Puget Sound not only impractical but undesirable, despite the fact I hadn’t seen it in a year and a half?

So. Here we go.

To my parents, for the funding, the transport, the beds, the encouragement, and the patience when I whined about driving a very big car (and other things).

Especially to Mom, for the “Mother’s Day” party that was also for me – she didn’t get to rest a moment. And all who came to chat me up and enjoy the delicious food.

To Cathy Scherer, the do-everything woman, for the cheerleading, reassurance and chauffering, and to Dave for the scones.

To my Whidbey parents, Clyde and Marcia, for throwing a great party! And to everyone who stopped by and added to my joy on a dreary Wednesday evening, including and especially Laura, who drove 2 and a half hours for it, and Kristian, who came while he was "at work," and the Adamses and the Petersens for understanding. And to Bayley for being herself, and Peanut for dancing these days.

To Bridget and Shannon, for gracefully performing the flip-flop job of hosting their older, less fashionable sister, with extra points for patience. Props to Bridget for the perks and the spotless Public Market, and to Sha for letting me sleep on her featherbed.

To Kristy, for laughing too.

To Meggie, for being so charming, as always.

To Bean, for driving up early from Portland to enjoy the Emerald City with me like no time had passed.

To Gramma, for doing the Gramma thing and also speaking passionately about Survivor. The pretty pink shirt has received many compliments already (sleeves are okay when you have air conditioning at the Peace Corps bureau).

To Jenny and Steve, for loving the ecovillage idea and constantly evolving.

To the Gallaghers (and McGraths) who made the trip from Chicago or Fontana - always wonderful to see you guys. To Joan and Jim and the dogs. To Meg for bringing her girls and surprising us!

To Sean and Sara, for their continued excellent taste in everything, their good humor, honesty and steadfast friendship.

To Tyler, for being so cool.

To Matty, Ryan and Seabass, for also being weird, and not quite at home in America. Especially to Seabass for the movies.

To the Rotarians on South Whidbey and at the White Rock Millenium Club, and all the District 5050 folks who made the extra effort to come and hear me speak about Niger.

To Jay Hudemann, who is, always has been and always will be there for me in a pinch.

To the 5th-8th graders at St. Francis, who asked great questions.

To my cousins, especially those who came to the party, and especially Eric and Zach, for being genuinely interested and quite remarkable dudes.

To anyone I've forgotten to thank who fed me or bought me fancy cocktails, or held his or her tongue when I made no sense, or who wished me well despite thinking I'm crazy.

---

I landed in Niamey Hamani Diori International (all two gates of it) at 4pm and walked into a 100-plus-degree oven, much more like what I’d expected as an arriving trainee back in January 2007. My first adventure consisted of rapidly losing my temper with the suspicious cus…

(Wait, this will be one of those censorable stories you’ll have to email to get. Sorry.)

… One overloaded, overpriced taxi ride later, back at the hostel, some fellow PCVs happily received their American market-gifts. Powdered donuts, anyone? How about 150 movies? Wireless internet?

Then the sky darkened, and we were instantly in the middle of a dust cloud – indoors. Everything was hazy, our teeth were fuzzy with dirt, and then the clouds opened. Sweet, sweet rain. The temperature dropped 20 degrees and we went outside and danced in the downpour, which lasted hours. I ended up falling asleep on the porch and getting rained on, which probably didn’t affect my nasty cold at all. Seriously. Two more good rains and it's time to plant.

Welcome back, though. The second day I was here there was a big but orderly demonstration in Niamey protesting the rapidly rising cost of living here (read: World Food Crisis). For more information, send me an email and I’ll forward you the documents provided to us about this year’s “hunger season.”

For one reason or another, I didn’t talk much about this at home. I suspect this is because it’s a huge, awful problem with no easy solutions, and I was having a difficult enough time making myself understood as it was. People at home want to know how they can help, and all I'm able to say is "donate to the World Food Program," because what I really want to say is going to offend them. Because the problem is, worldwide - there's not enough grain to feed everyone on the planet this year, unless some of us give some things up right now, and adjust our lifestyles for the long term.*

In Niger, for example, we'll need at least an additional 120,000 tons of rice, millet and sorghum to get everyone through September. Rice is currently about $100,000 a ton, almost three times its cost this past December, and importing from Asia is not an option this year as it has been in the past (as anyone who's been watching the international news wouldn't be surprised to hear. Thanks to Chris Burns for these numbers, as well as this sage advice, applicable to everyone worldwide: "the food crisis may indeed be of immediate concern, but it is unlikely to go away any time soon. Longer term solutions are just as critical at this point in time." (emphasis is mine)

What we're doing here this year to mitigate some of the effects:
- Planting lots and lots of my favorite tree, Moringa Oleifera (the miracle tree)
- Intercropping fields to protect against disaster if one fails
- Planting Nitrogen-fixing trees to increase the nutrient content of the soil
- Planting rainy-season gardens (lots of tomatoes) and using small-scale irrigation

Bigger changes in other, more developed parts of the world need to be made to ensure this kind of thing doesn’t keep happening. For example:
- Drastically reduce use of fossil fuels (but don't automatically turn to biofuels - read up on your options and keep an open mind)
- Stop eating so much meat (if you live in the developed world). Grain-fed cows consume TONS of cereals, grown on land that could be used to feed people.
- Reduce the birth rate (yes, here too, of course). We say the developing world is causing the most problems in this area, but I'd like to call to mind that ten Nigerien kids use fewer resources than one American.

In the interest of not getting too preachy, I'll stop there. But I'm serious, folks. I haven't seen much in the way of effects myself beyond what I talked to many of you at home about (I've only been back a few days), but fellow PCVs have already been talked into giving food loans to Nigerien friends, and it's not even June.

I was only kind of amazed to see that gas is $4 a gallon at home. I guess I'd expected it to be even more by now. How expensive does it have to get for people to stop buying it?** Here it's 700 CFA a liter (almost $2) these days, up 50 CFA from 6 months ago. This might not seem like much compared to what drivers in the US are facing, but relative to income, the mild form of extortion practiced by taxi drivers here is downright excusable.

I admit I fell right back into old habits in the States, cherishing the freedom that comes with a car, and the ability it gave me to squeeze in as many visits as possible in as little time as possible (ie, driving rather than taking the bus to Madison). But therein, too, lies a problem. Understandable under the circumstances - perhaps we all need to just slow down.

Allrighty, it's time for some mad grant-reporting action on the millet grinder project. Another big THANKS to all who donated, and a heads-up to all who didn't get a chance: you will have a chance to fund a grain bank, so check back over this summer.

For those of you who just can't wait to send me things - don't worry, I'll always have enough food. It's not fair, but that's how it is. The problem is dealing with how to not be giving away something-for-nothing, which only strengthens a culture of dependency already rampant and growing like a cancer in countries like Niger, where
outside aid is one of the main sources of income. If you want to help my village, hang on a bit to donate to my next project.

If you want to make ME smile, make some CDs with any great-to-mediocre music that's come out since January '07, or send DVDs of your favorite movies. It looks like I've missed quite a bit of culture in the past 17 months. I thought American culture was available everywhere... but apparently not in Tamtala, except through me. Big thanks to Sara for setting a great example.

With that attempt at lightening the mood, I bid you kala ton-ton.

*This isn't a sacrifice. This isn't a bad thing.
**(Very strong effort applied here to continue with the paragraph's original plan rather than going down a tangent about the need for a system-wide transportation revolution in America. Refer to the need of a dramatic reduction in the use of fossil fuels in the World Food Crisis section.)