2/12/09

This past weekend we celebrated Tabaski in Hamdallaye and said goodbye to our host families. I wasn’t very excited about the holiday since most of the activities center around slaughtering goats and sheep and preparing, sharing and eating the meat. As a vegetarian, not the best holiday to partake in. It was interesting to see the prayer service in the morning, though. Basically all of Hamdallaye and some people from the smaller neighboring villages gathered out in a field. There were several horses with decorative saddles as well as a camel. Everyone was dressed in their nicest outfits, many of them made specially for Tabaski. In the afternoon, people slaughtered and roasted goats and sheep over large fires. They also cleaned and fried the innards of the animals and shared the food with neighbors. Luckily I managed to avoid any actual slaughtering and I didn’t feel obliged to eat any of the meat either. I’m actually glad I didn’t eat any of it, because a bunch of people got sick the day after Tabaski.

It’s been a really slow past few days up at the training site. We’ve been doing French class to stay occupied, but I just feel so anxious waiting to get to Madagascar, especially since we’re not leaving until Sunday evening. This afternoon was really fun, however. We organized an American-style Olympics for the language trainers so we could share with them some of the traditional games we play in the U.S. Among the events were an obstacle course, pin the tail on the donkey and musical chairs. The Nigeriens were so funny. I was surprised at how competitive and into it they got. I will really miss all of the training staff here. Tomorrow we get to go into Niamey, which should be interesting and a change of pace. I’m excited to see the bureau and hopefully some of the city as well. Then it's off to Madagascar on Sunday.

New mailing address:
Maya Rao
Corps de la Paix
BP 12091
Poste Zoom Ankorondrano
101 Antananarivo
Madagascar

Some pictures of events over the past few weeks:\

Nigerien Fashion Show at the training site!


Host family pictures

Scenes of Niger