Yep, color me thankful

Greetings earthlings!

It's been super long, I know. I'm back in Zinder for a few days to celebrate Thanksgiving (albeit late, but we are used to delays here!) and have a breather from
life out in the bush.

I've been working diligently on a community needs assessment thing that's due in January at our in-service training, interviewing various community leaders and such and trying to come up with project ideas. I still need to track down the head of the likita/health clinic, who, always just as I'm ready to ask him if he has a second for my questions, speeds off to the neighboring villages to give vaccinations. Most days I sit under a tree across from the mayor's office and hang out with the CEG (middle school, essentially) teachers when they are on breaks from classes. Since it's on the edge of town I can also greet the women as they walk out to the fields, or the men as they drive their donkey/ox/some large animal carts.

This past week I visited my friend Liz in her village, located about 25km from mine. She's closing her service this week, so her villagers threw a farewell party. Liz bought a goat to slaughter (of which I of course did not partake), and some of her teacher friends came by for tea in the afternoon. The highlight, though,
was being transported to said village on a donkey cart. 'Twas a long trip - 2 hours through the deep sand. The cow/steer/whatever hadn't made the trip before, so it sort of refused to move about halfway through (conveniently as it was getting dark, and we were flashlight-less), but thankfully we all had enough energy to follow the cart on foot and a Nigerien who led the way in the pitch black. I also got to pet a horse for about five minutes and said hello to a 2-day old goat, which seems like kind of a childish highlight, but have I mentioned how much I miss contact with animals? I just discovered the other day that my neighbors have a camel, so I'm kind of dying to ask if I can pet it. They already think I'm crazy (because sometimes I wear pants!) so I don't have much to lose by inquiring. The camel has these gorgeous eyelashes and just sits there looking kind of smug, not unlike the Sphinx, and it makes me chuckle.

In other news, we had a team meeting today in Zinder and talked about plans for an upcoming girls' soccer tournament that should be a lot of fun. Each of us will bring a team into Zinder, and they'll also tie in some AIDS education. Hopefully I can find 18 girls who want to play, since my middle school is sorely, sorely lacking girls. We'll see how rounding them up goes. I will enlist for sure the assistance of our CEG director, who, frankly, is like the most motivated person I've found so far in a village of 12,000, at least in terms of encouraging education. And Moussa has incredible patience with my combination of broken Hausa and partially functional French. Thank goodness for him, seriously.

I must sign off as I think our Thanksgiving dinner beckons now. Missed the Macy's Parade this year, and of course, all of you. But I'm in good company and loving my little adventure. Toodles!