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.