Still here!

Hello all! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (better late than never right!). As apart of my New Year's resolution I'm going to make a more concentrated effort to update this blog and communicate with all of you at home. But before I look towards the future lets me tell you about the happenings in the past few months since my last post.

The Directors visit was a lot of fun. It was so good to see David Liner and friend of the family and Chief of Staff at PC Washington. To have any bit of home here is always refreshing. Ramadan came and went without too much fan fare. I did try fasting until about day 7 when I passed out. Apparently farming for 3 hours without drinking anything was not good for my body. But all is well now!

One of the highlights was Dadiji which a big party celebrating the chief. It happens once for every chief sorta like a coronation but usually after they've served for several years. Well it was a party indeed. There first was a vote, one going to each household, typically cast by the eldest man. And my dad was victorious! The way it worked was the voter took two pieces of paper (orange and green) and envelope into a room. You discarded the color you didn't want; green if you thought the chief deserved to stay in his position or orange if you were unhappy with his judgements and his command of the village. Only 6 people put in orange and 4 of them came up later to apologize saying they didn't understand how to vote. After that it was just lots of dancing, eating and general mayhem. There were about 700 extra people in my village for the party as well as a Zarma king (really you can't beat that!).

Tabaski was lots of fun this year. Again there was sheep killing but that's to be expected. I ate meat and only meat for about 3 days. It was also neat to see how far I had come from last year. I had friends and family that I hung out with all day. Gift were given and everyone kept reminding me that I wouldn't be there next year for Tabaski.

But without a doubt the best part of my year came at the very end with the arrival of my mom the Niger. Yes that's right Lynn Pharr put down her blackberry from well over 10 days. I'm also happy to report that she didn't check her email. Our original plan was for her arrival on Christmas morning but her flight out of NYC was grounded so she didn't arrive until the 26 but I just held off my celebration until she arrived. And then we hit the ground running with Giraffes visits to the market and getting to my village with LOTS of luggage. She loved my village except the RAT.... and now for a story....

So it was 11:30pm New Year's Eve. I was already fast asleep and my mom wakes me.
Mom: Sarah there is something in here.
Me: ~Groggy waking up from sleep noises~
Mom: No really there is something, you need to get it
Me: Ok, fine. ~Grabs fulan stick and begin to search for 'thing'~
Me: AAAaaaaaaaHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh OH MY GOD IT'S SO BIG! (See's tail of rat and jumps onto chair)
Now I've been known to dramatize things but when I saw large I mean bigger than my cat! It's tail was so long I couldn't fit it in the frame. After repeated beating with the stick it moved further into my house.
Me: Ok we need to remain calm, It's SOOO BIG! DIE RAT! DDIIEE!!!
Mom: Kill it Sarah! Kill it!
Me: Hold on I need to take pictures. (Grabs her camera to photograph said GIGANTIC RAT while perched on her kitchen counter)
Mom: Kill it Sarah! What are you doing taking pictures? Kill it! Throw something at it.
Me: OK! RUN RAT! RUN! (Throws spices- Curry powder, McCormick mesquite, Emeril Italian Sensation!)
~Rat runs out of the hut~ And I close the door really fast
Me: Hey mom... Happy New Year!!!

And then we stayed up for 3 hours laughing. And that's how I rang in my New Year. For the rest of my mom's visit we focused on keeping the rat out. And keeping her healthy. Both were successful. She left just a few days ago and now we're counting down the days until I come home.

But that isn't too far off. My COS (Close of Service) conference is in June and I've already started looking into job possibilities in the states, mostly in DC. But as of right now I'm scheduled to be home at the end of Sept. and that is mind blowing in itself. My time in Niger has gone by incredibly fast and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon.

I'll blog when I can. Take care and have a great 2008!