Random Facts of Life and Lies

I love my villagers. They are absolutely hilarious. There are times when I don’t know what in the world is going on and Hausa is so hard that I was to cry, but when my friends in the village joke around with me and I actually know what it is they’re saying, life is good. Have you ever tried using sarcasm with a non-American who doesn’t understand what you’re doing? Put yourself in that person’s shoes and imagine everyone around you using sarcasm. That’s what some of my conversations feel like because people lie about everything. “No, it’s not lying Baraka, we’re playing!” Right. I’m finding more and more people who speak English, especially at my health center. All of a sudden a friend who I’ve been struggling to speak with in Hausa for 6 months will strike up a conversation in English. The doctor often tells me, “I don’t speak English,” then will proceed to explain the logistics of a national polio eradication campaign in Niger. “Only that, that’s all I know how to say.” Oh yes, how could I forget. English 101: Good morning, my name is, this is the tentative route for community volunteers to distribute vaccinations. Then there are the people who speak Broka English at me- which is the street lingo English of Nigeria that travels up into Niger a bit. People don’t understand why it would take me so long to figure out that when they ask, “I be no be so?” they mean, “Do you agree?” Rather than assuming there is a slight linguistic difference between Broka and Gramma (broken English and grammatically correct English) they say, “Baraka, I thought you spoke English!” as if the fault is my own. The more I learn Broka the funnier it gets. But I digress. I was talking about people lying. It’s not just adults. There are three little boys who come hang out with me sometimes at night and love to shout at me that there is a “SNAKE!” or a “SCORPION!” in my yard. When I quickly realized that this was rarely true, they moved on to bigger and better lies. “I just got back from America!” “Oh really, did you greet my family for me?” “Yes. They say hi.” “What was your favorite part?” “The girls, of course!” Evert night as they leave, they yell, “Ok, bye bye girlfriend!” “I’m not your girlfriend!” “Ok, bye bye girlfriend…” and so on. It’s hilarious. Now that I’ve realized just how much Nigeriens joke around, life is getting less confusing and much more entertaining.

Oh Dancing. Oh Man.

I’ve been called many things in my time; physically graceful isn’t one of them. Unfortunately, “good dancer” has also managed to escape my list of attributes. People talk a lot about dancing here, but aside from the kids not many people actually do it. Most people are too embarrassed. I’m always hopeful to see the women dance at weddings, but generally disappointed, as weddings consist of men sitting and talking outside and women sitting and talking inside- all wearing fancy clothes. I’ve long since stopped hoping to see dancing at weddings, which is apparently the key to getting what I want. As I was chatting and eating with some friends at a wedding celebration (day 1 of the 3 day party,) I noticed the women on the other side of the concession get up and start dancing to the fuzzy radio music. I turned to the woman next to me and said, “Oh, I’m happy to see them dancing!” She responded with, “What? You want to dance? BARAKA WANTS TO DANCE! EVERYONE LOOK! BARAKA IS GOING TO DANCE!” Oh crap. I was dragged to a “dance floor” by a woman named Baraka, who shares no other similarity with me besides the name. I watched her dancing with a baby strapped to her back and a full bowl of hot sauce on her head with out spilling a drop and still managed to look awesome doing it. She started out slow with basically just stepping to the beat, which I managed, then (at the delight of all watching) threw in all sorts of crazy moves. I’m sure the laughter I was bombarded with didn’t do justice to how ridiculous I looked. Then came the time to teach the uncoordinated American how to move her hips like an African woman. Oh friends, it was atrocious. But I had a blast and they loved it. I still get comments along the lines of, “Hey Baraka, remember that time you danced? That was hilarious!” Luckily for me, people here really appreciate effort over the quality of the outcome. And they appreciate a good laugh.