Email - December 9, 2007

December 9, 2007

Family and friends-

Finally made it back to the capital, Niamey, for a weekend of fun in between our 2-week inservice training. It's so great to be back in "civilization," after spending so much time in the bush, although I do miss my village and villagers. I've felt like a king this past week at the training site - we get meals cooked for us (with meat!), snack twice a day, air conditioning where I sleep, Americans to speak english with, my laundry gets taken care of, movies, electricity, and actual showers and toilets. It's amazing what becomes a treat once you've been out in the boonies for a while. I wouldn't change it for the world, though.

So I have one more week of training to go and then I'll spend a couple of days in the capital before heading back to my village to celebrate Tabaski (Muslim holiday) with my villagers. I haven't quite decided what I'm doing for X-Mas but I'll probably head out east because they have a Christmas party at the hostel there. I'm unsure where I'll spend New Year's eve.

I've been trying to put away some money for my trip to Ghana in late January/early February for the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations. Very excited about that! So, a few stories to share with you guys about life here in Niger. Last week I heard rumor of a new "American" restaurant in the capital so a bunch of us went to check it out. BY FAR the best, nicest building/restaurant I have been in country. They had air conditioning, a flat screen tv, clean floors, lots of desserts and some great entrees. I ate some greek sandwich thing and later had some pizza! They even had napkins - no one in Niger has napkins. It was an excellent meal. So, last night as we were heading back from a bar/restaurant where we went dancing, we felt a couple of sprinkles - it was definitely coming down in Niger in December! The taxi driver said he had never seen it before. Once dry season comes around, the rain stops for a good 8 months - it hadn't rained but once since rainy season ended in late September. I set up my bed on the hostel's roof where we all sleep, but the rain started again and I ended up moving inside for the night. Yesterday I also went to the zoo in the capital- it was both a good and bad experience. On one hand it was terrible to see these majestic animals in extremely small compounds with no room to exercise at all, but on the other hand, they didn't have the guard rails set up 20 feet from the actual cage like they do in the states. I could have touched a lioness if I had wanted to; well, I did want to but I was afraid to. I saw lions, baboons- very clever animals, monkeys, an ostrich, gazelles - beautiful, crocs, hyenas - so much bigger than you would ever imagine, and some eagles. Overall it was a good experience and I'm glad I went.

Okay, I know I kind of got long winded on this one but I wanted to catch you all up on my life. I hope all is well back in the states; it's hard to imagine that X-Mas is right around the corner- I feel so distant from it all. I hope you all enjoy the Holiday Season and time off from work/school. Please keep in touch and continue sending letters, pictures, news, anything at all.

Take care,

James aka Zatara