The little things

I forgot to expand on the little differences I’ve seen. While in Burkina Faso I ordered a glass of coffee. What came was a bowl of black soup with a spoon. That was my coffee! They drink their coffee like soup, with spoons and all. It was really confusing the first time I ordered. In Mali that didn’t happened, and neither in Niger – only in Burkina Faso.

Also, on the bus ride to Niger the first stop we had while crossing the border still had the usual vendors coming to the windows trying to sell items, but with an interesting twist. Usually it’s women selling fruits or vegetables, children selling bags of water, or young men selling little trinkets. Nope. None of them. It was all grown men selling animal carcasses! Want a lamb? He held up the skinned carcass to the window for me to ‘inspect’. It was skinned and gutted, with two sticks making a cross to expose the insides to those who want to see the rib cage. You want a full animal or half? Half? No problem, here’s another man carrying two halves on each hand. One customer in the bus only wanted a quarter, so the man went to the table took out a machete and cut the half carcass in half again. He then wrapped it up in old paper and passed it through the window. Good thing I wasn’t sitting by him.

Don’t want any meat? Other men were walking around with liver, heart, lungs, intestines; all for sell on a platter. With all transactions through the bus window.

Truth be told I have seen more meat for sale on street here in Niger then in any country I’ve been to so far. You can get brochettes down any major street in town.

Then there's the taxis. It's both annoying and intriguing what new system of taxi usage each country uses - especially when travelling into that country without knowing. In The Gambia there are set routes, if you want to deviate you buy out the taxi. In Senegal it's just like New York, you buy the whole taxi but at a set rate (sometimes you can barter). In Burkina Faso you tell them where you want to go, barter the price and you get in with the other people all going to different locations. Each person pays a different price.

And now there's Niger. Same scenario but with a twist. The unit price of a taxi seat is 200 Francs. If you're going very far they might ask for two, meaning your paying 400 Francs. Here's the scenario:

You're at Point A, and want to go to point B. You wait. A taxi pulls up, and you say you want to go to point B. The taxi driver thinks to where he is going (point C), where the other passengers are going (points C, D, and E). If your destination isn't too far off the mark he'll tell you to get in, otherwise he'll drive off leaving you standing there (sometimes in the rain). The set-price system, with all passengers going in possibly all different directions, gives getting a taxi an interesting experience. Since everybody pays the same amount, and not all going to the same destination, you have to wait for a driver to accept you.

Another thing I found out was how far out of proportion the news of the Nigerien famine has been. Speaking from the volunteers who live in the same neighborhood as the ‘famine’ victims it’s mostly political. The news agency stresses that they live off of a dollar a day. Well, that’s their normal budget! Think of it this way: A wealthy country, where every citizen is a multi-millionaire, sees a report that the average American family lives off of $X / day. They might think we’re starving if X is significantly less than a few thousand – which is probably their quality of life in that imaginary country.

Food is available, but it’s less than usual – correct. Las years rainy season wasn’t good and this year they had the locust invasion. Some families have sold their cattle for money to buy more food, but their usual lifestyle is to store food to last the dry season. Usually it’s rice or millet. One volunteer even commented that the ‘famine’ actually helped in some small way. It forces the family to stop eating their millet and rice and go to more nutritious food like their cattle or fruits and vegetables they pick off the trees (they usually sell the fruit to buy rice, now since there’s little rice they eat the fruit).

I’ll see first hand in a few days when I go upcountry. Right now just trying to get over being sick (watching a few movies in the meantime), and then researching how to get to Libya from Chad – or even how to get to Chad.

If you want to see a good movie about troubles in Africa, and the turmoil that could occur – rent “Hotel Rwanda” about the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This was my second time seeing it and it was just as powerful as the first.