My New Housemate

On Wednesday, I inherited a beautiul orange tabby cat . . . I am cat sitting for the year! Sunflower was brought inside until he was comfortable with this being his new home (so he would not run away back to the old house - where no one is currently living). Judging from the above photo - I think he has settled right in!!

Yesterday afternoon, I took him for a tour of my yard to acquaint him to his actual living arrangements. He looked around and dug right in to my arms (literally - I have claw marks to prove it). When I sat on the patio, he seemed to want to get out of my arms, so I went inside to get the cat food to leave on the patio - a sign (I hope) that this is where he would get fed. Once back outside, he bolted from my arms, ran to the door and yawlered to get back in! He then hid under my couch for at least an hour - as if he had just had the worst experience of his life!

Yes, in less than 36 hours, this once outside cat has now figured he is an indoors cat!!

I then tried leaving some tuna on the patio - which he promptly gobbled up and then moved back to crying at the door. Being a softy, I let him back in - kinda hard to relax inside with a crying cat outside.

Not quite sure how he now figures he's scored an inside life, but it is time to move him outside!

(And of course, still being the softy - and cat lover - that I am, he will find his way inside from time to time as a purring lap buddy during movies!)

Expectations & Preparations

This Sunday, the preacher at church spoke on how our expectations impact our preparations and oftimes the outcome. He asked many questions:

• What do we expect from our ministries?
• What do we expect from our family?
• What do we expect from our colleagues?

The easy question - I thought - for my immediate answer was:

• What do you expect from this week?

This question was easy as, aside from finishing the accounting yesterday morning, this week is vacation! Just a week to do nothing and catch up on some rest. No big expectations, no big preparations . . . . just sleeping in and relaxation at the Rec Centre in air conditioning . . . and the desired outcome should be - voilà - rest!

However, today, that plan fell apart: for some reason, the greater world did not get my memo!

Today started at 8:30am. When my neighbour sent their cook over to retrieve something that a colleague had given me last week to pass off to them (they were out East until this week). So, I woke up at 8:30 when my guard rang the doorbell!! This is in fact unusual, it is rare that my guards will come to the door when the hallway curtains are still closed.

By the time I was publicly presentable (house dresses come in handy) he had left. So I figured maybe I could get back to sleep again.

But, my househelp who normally arrives between 10-10:30 came early . . . at 9am!! We discussed yesterday that I was on holidays and she mentioned that she had something to discuss with me. I told her that I would stick around in the morning so that we could talk. Apparently she either wanted to make sure I was still there or she figured early was better so I did not have to wait around too long.

Then, at 9:30 a colleague arrived to check on the workers who are working on my car hangar - who incidently were about the only people not in the yard - and to drop off a dvd. The gardener had also shown up - unannounced and unrequested - I asked a gardener from another organization to come and plant a few new flowers and bushes (last year, I planted those which need sun in the shade and vice versa . . . they don't come with the nifty little plastic information tabs here!). He keeps showing up to do work even though I told him that I cannot pay him to come every week, but he also keeps prolonging the work, so today I told him he has one more day to finish and that's it . . . but another story - back to today. Unfortunately, it does not end there:

At 10:00 I received a call from a Fulani friend - the sister of his aunt passed away yesterday. The family was upset with him yesterday that he had not told me and why had I not come to offer my condolences. So, today he called me and asked me to come. Admittedly, the first thought through my head was: 'Guess I need to learn not to answer the phone on my vacation'. However, relationship building is what I am here for - and this situation is definitely one that calls for giving beyond measures. So I practiced dying to myself today and drove to my friend's house.

I did not stay long - shorter than I would in Canada, but longer than my Fulani tutor tells me is appropriate for said situation. I did today learn of how the Fulani view death - surprisingly, given the mortality statistics for Niger, this is the first funeral (visitation - the actual funeral was yesterday as it is required within 24 hours of the death) among my Fulani friends that I have attended in my year and four months here.

There was no open mourning or grief - the Fulani do not cry. Yet, the statements of some aunts resound with fatalism - 'this happens, it is a road that none of us can avoid'. Definite truth in this though. On the flip side, I saw the hopelessness of death in the shock and trauma of my friend. It appears that this was somewhat unexpected despite her being sick. My friend was at the house with his cousin and in the end was holding his aunt in his arms when she died unexpectedly. He says that he suffered heart palpitations all day yesterday and could not stop being physically ill until his family took him to the clinic today to receive injections to stop his body's reaction to vomit. My going today was probably more for him than for the rest of the family.

Yet despite all this - and the grace of God through my selfish desire to not have my vacation interrupted - his aunts have now extended an open invitation for me to come and visit any time of any weekend to practice my Fulfulde. I have been praying for language partners as my previous family (that I found in January) spoke a high percentage of Djarma mixed with their Fulfulde. I have been hesitant to visit this family because my only contact is this young man, but now the door is open that I can go without needing an intermediary and the breaking of any social protocol or expectations!

So, indeed, the outcome of today was not as expected nor prepared . . . yet the outcome has not only fulfilled my grander expectations, beyond needing a week of rest, but surpassed my expectations and preparations.

WOW . . . It's been one month??

I cannot believe it has been one month since I last wrote! This month has been different than expected and life has just preoccupied. No excuse really, but here is a summary of the last month:

The Grand Marché in Niamey caught on fire. This was an interesting day as we all stood in our streets and watched the smoke rise on the horizon! Praying for rain, we could see a dust storm coming in - which usually precedes rain, but we were also concerned that the strong winds which precede a rain would spread the fire further. The fire raged for hours and the rain did help bring it under control. About 3/4 of the market was lost to the fire. Sadly, the panic and chaos of the situation also sparked rioting - as people entered the marketplace to loot whatever they could. One of our guards opinion sums up this side of human nature: 'If the merchant can not save his stock, it is better that someone has it than that it burns and is useless to no one'. My guard tells me of a gentleman on my street who has a stall in the marketplace - he hired a truck and some workers to carry his merchandise . . . and they made off with his entire inventory!

One of my friends posted a link to a television video of the event - it was heartbreaking to see the policeman fighting the raging fire with small fire extinguishers and to see that the fire fighting efforts were useless as the water was aimed at the flames and not at the base of the fire.

I have heard that the government has announced grant funding to rebuild the marketplace. I wondered about the merchants who lost all - a new stall to sell is useless without all the inventory they lost. I have also heard rumour that there may be some insurance type funds to recompense the merchants a portion of their inventory.

On the work side of life:

The accounting program on my computer crashed - leaving me unable to work on the books for two weeks! However, after many days and hours on skype with (and patience on behalf of) my contact in head office - Toronto - we were able to get the program up and running again! I was particularly concerned that I may have to re-enter the last 1.5 years of data (since the last upgrade) but the backup data file sent to me installed correctly and all data to April 30/2009 was present! Praise God!! This week I will be working on the accounting between language classes.

On the language front:

I have tackled and been making progress on some of the most difficult aspects of Fulfulde. Depending on how the word (noun) ends, the majority of supporting words change . . . thus creating anywhere from 15 - 21 variations of:

• the
• which
• that/this
• possessive pronouns (his, hers, it's)
• personal pronouns (I, you, he, she . . . plus variations for things and animals). 21 variations x 2 - one set for present affirmative tense and one set for future, past, interrogative, and negative tenses.
• emphatic pronouns (in English we do this by vocal emphasis, those who know French: moi, toi, vous, lui . . . )
• object pronouns (eg: I spoke to him).
• demonstrative words: 1) this here, 2) that there, 3) variation of first two if pointing to said object
• colours: there are only 8 colours in Fulfulde - white, black, red, yellow, bleu, brown, green (which literally translated is fresh herbs), and colourful (multi-coloured) . . . and all but green has 15 variations!
.
• all descriptive adjectives: good, bad, big, small, long, short, clean, dirty, etc... Basically any word that can describe a noun or person has 15 variations!

I received most of these words within the first month of class - my tutor gave me a chart with all but the last 3 categories listed:

I had been counselled by previous Fulfulde language learners to not study on 'the' day . . . and I kept waiting for 'the' day. But a few months ago, I realized that the above chart - which my tutor gave me within the first month - not only encompassed 'the' day, but added all the other articles!! On one day, my tutor gave me all 153 articles and instructions for another 98!! Unfortunately, it was too soon in the process and the chart came with very little instructions for implementing.

Later on I received a chart for the colours and multiple charts for the descriptive adjectives!

And a few weeks ago, to the above chart, he added instructions for another 3 variations (the demonstrative words) - another 42 articles! Hopefully there are not many more that he is holding off to teach later! Phew!

However, after the survey project in February, as my understanding of the language progressed enough to recognize the words and how they change, I went back to the chart and started memorizing and praticing these variations.

I started with 'the' - and posted all of the variations on my study wall to reference as I practiced sentence after sentence . . .

my 'the' wall

'the' for words ending with 'a': one for 'a' words that are animals and a second for 'a' words that are objects (things)

the first one: neutre - is used if the word is borrowed from another language and thus is not strictly Fulfulde. The second word is how to change 'the' into 'the others' - instructions for another 15 variations, basically. The last card is 'the' for plural words - those ending in 'i' and 'e'.

I am now currently working on memorizing and using 'the' and now 'which' and all demonstratives ('this/that/these here'/'that there').

I've also made up some nifty little flash cards with one object in each of the possible endings and some with the colours and adjectives. My tutor and I now spend time each week practicing each of these: yellow truck, green shirt, black cow, small red pen, long road, the good blue book is large. Quite the brain workout, but the shifting words are starting to sink in!!

I also made another discovery, that I wonder why it took this long. While studying in French, my flash cards were French one side and English the other. However, I have discovered that it was much harder to memorize this way in Fulfulde. I've decided recently that it is because some verbs and objects are unfamiliar in English. Sure - we have words for mortar and pestle . . . . but how often do we use them?? There are also verbs (1 word) in Fulfulde that we would classify as a sentence. So, I decided to make flash cards out of pictures with the Fulfulde word on the back. This has helped immensely!!!

Example:

rootude: to scoop the sauce out of the pot over the fire and pour it onto the big serving dish

ƴoogude: to go fetch water for the family

This set is washing:

1) lootede: to be washed (eg: the child is washed)

2) loonude: to wash clothes

3) lootade: to wash yourself

4) lootude: to wash something (eg: hands, children, table)

This set is to carry:

1) hampude: to carry on your back

2) joogade: to carry in your hand

3) rondade: to carry on your head

The pounding of millet is important to the lives of the Fulani - this is their main staple. While we just have one word for this - to pound, they do have a main word (unude) to encompass the entire process . . . but each step of the process is broken into 5 distinct verbs:

1) sokkude: to pound the millet stalks

2) ƴarade: to separate the grain from the chaff

3) sottude: to pound the grain with water to lift off the bran

4) seɗude: separate the grain from the bran (which the animals eat)

5) bukkude: pound the separated grain into flour

I use these flash cards in class with my tutor as well - thankfully, we were able to get to work with not too much laughter over my attempts at drawing - an artist I am not, but the cards work (notice: I have not shared the drawing with my person milking a cow! - admittedly, this photo did need explaining to my tutor!)

With these cards, I am using a technique that I learned at the language training course in Toronto before heading to Niger. This helps with learning to congugate the verbs into past, present and future tense:

Today, they do not work in the field, but they milk their cows.

Hannden, ɓe remata, amma eɓe bira na'i maɓɓe.

Yesterday, they worked in the field, but they did not milk their cows.

Kenyan, ɓe remi, amma ɓe ɓiray na'i maɓɓe.

Tomorrow, they will not work in the field because they will wash their clothes.

Janngo, ɓe remata gam ɓe loonan kolte maɓɓe.

I took these flash cards out to the village with me one day, and the ladies and I had a ton of fun looking at the pictures and making sentences (I was happy that the ladies understood most of the pictures). They excitedly looked at each picture and helped me with sentences. Though, when we got to the set of photos for pounding millet - they grasped my hand and showed me that I did not have a callous from pounding . . . and mentioned that order to really learn and know the words, I had to learn by doing! I am hoping to go out for a night one week and spend some time talking with the ladies and hoping that they will allow me to help with their daily work in order to truly 'learn the words'.