Seriously?

I have tried and failed to find an internet connection fast enough to upload photos from my moto-trip north. So you're just going to have to believe me, for now, when I tell you I made it - on a little 110CC scooter made in China. I braved the rains of northern Benin and the heat of the Sahel, I dodged the goats and the camels crossing the road without a care in the world, I zigzagged around and sometimes through the potholes of the more desolate areas on the map, I raced against truckdrivers who didn't like the idea of a yovo girl passing them on a scooter. And, ironically enough, it was at the Nigerien border that I had to pay my first bribe. With my moto papers in order and all, the authorities naturally asked for the next thing on the list, proof of insurance. I chuckled. Proof of insurance falls under the same category as driver's license and respect for traffic laws in Benin: optional. But the Nigerien border officials were not laughing. In fact they were "very serious": Niger, they said, was very serious about this sort of thing. And they shook a menacing index finger in my face. Strange, then, that when I finally payed and stroked their egos, they issued me a ticket for my inability to produce my moto ownership records, not my proof of insurance. When I informed them of their mistake, they explained that they were doing me a favor, that failure to provide proof of insurance could lead to prison. Yeah, right. Or maybe proof of insurance is not a fine-able offense, except if you're a white girl with a new moto in West Africa.

If that wasn't enough to sour my arrival in Niger, my friend and I arrived in Niamey triumphantly on a Saturday evening only to get stopped by the Nigerien police, again. Apparently, when we finally stopped to check our map and figure out where we were spending the night, we had parked right in front of the National Headquarters for the Nigerien Police Force (seriously?). And that's as bad as taking pictures of the American Embassy. Take note: in Niger, do not park in front of official buildings, ever. You might be mistaken for a Touareg planning an insurgency. Seriously. The police took our passports and considered keeping them over the weekend (apparently Sunday is a day of rest for the police, too). They smirked when I told them they'd have to take me along with them because there was no way I would separate from my passport for that long, especially since the Nigerien authorities seem to enjoy asking for my papers on a daily basis. Good thing my Beninois friend was with me. Not only is he "African", he also happens to be a man, a quality that can take you a long way in this part of the world. According to him, there is always a solution... it may include a CFA2,000 dash or ridiculously hypocritical banter with your friends the cops, but there is always a solution. So I let him do the talking while I tried to put on my best don't-hurt-me-I-am-so-sweet-and-exhausted face (since the don't-mess-with-me face I tried at the beginning didn't work all that well).

In the end, Officer Kassoum, the ranking officer in the pack of cops who had descended upon us, accepted to keep with him a mere photocopy of our passports, "for the record." He quickly became a close friend, warning me about the dangers of pick-pockets in the city's open markets, refusing to take the CFA2,000 olive branch I offered as thanks, and even giving me his personal cell phone number just in case I had any more problems in Niamey. We chit chat on the phone on a regular basis now. I even brought him dates the other day to help him break the Ramaddan fast. I think I'm getting the hang of this.

So I made it to Niamey in one piece and I didn't have to cram into a bush taxi for 15 hours to get there. I'm still enjoying the look on people's face when I tell them what I did. They stare at me, their mouth half-open in disbelief, they look at my little moto scooter, and back at me. And then they laugh and ask me how many kamikaze bugs I caught on my face and in my teeth on the way. Yeah, that was definitely my biggest concern.

Niamey is hot. Seriously hot. Every day I devise new ways of making my nights slightly less unpleasant. My latest solution is to keep the mattress on the floor, the window open, the curtains drawn, and the fan blowing all day, and to put the mattress aside, open the curtains, and set up the sheets on the cool spot on the floor where the mattress used to be at night. Now you might wonder, why not just get yourself a place with air-conditioning, you silly girl? And this is where the developing world makes life very difficult for people with lower middle-class budgets. In countries like Niger and Benin, you're either ridiculously rich or desperately poor. People with A/C also have pools and SUVs and maids and tend to work for industries I'd prefer never to frequent in my life, like NGOs and oil and private military training services. I don't have the pool, I don't have the SUV, I certainly don't hire maids... so no A/C for me. Instead, I shower, I air-dry (very quickly) and I set up camp on the tiled floor. I am not losing hope though - October marks the end of the hot and muggy rains and the beginning of a cooler, windier season, my very own, all-natural, air-conditioning system. Hey, I take my luxuries wherever I can find them, or whenever they are offered to me. Call me a cheap grad student, but I prefer to save my stipend money for things like enumerator salaries and moto-scooters and dried dates.

The luxury of leaving

I left Africa for five days last week and checked into the Novotel. My mom, who never ceases to surprise and impress me, decided to come to Benin for the sole purpose of seeing me. I was certainly excited at the prospect, yet I was also apprehensive. What would my mom think of this place, of my living conditions, of the moto-scooter we bought back in June, of my personal hygiene? Did I smell and did I fail to notice anymore? Clearly, I needed to prepare for her arrival.

I informed my landlord ahead of time to make sure he payed the electricity bill enough to keep power on during her stay. I swept and mopped the entire apartment. I hand-washed the sheets in hopes of getting rid of that oppressive smell of humidity that hovers above my bed and seems to have impregnated every item of textile in my room. I stocked up the fridge with multi-grain bread, low-fat butter, and instant decaf coffee to make the place feel slightly more like home, at least in the mornings. I did it all... all that was in my control, that is. But running water, it appears, is not at all in my control. I was not too worried when the water went off the afternoon of my mom's arrival - the government tends to do that in the middle of the day (clearly when no one needs water) and turns it back on by 8pm. But the water had not come back by the time we went to sleep that night and woke up the next morning. We waited for the 24-hour mark, and when that inevitably hit, we suddenly thought a short hotel stay entirely justifiable. We packed and we left.

And I had my first hot shower in over eight months. And all the CNN I could ever ask for. And sheets that felt and smelled clean. And no mosquito net. And no mosquitos. And silence... precious precious silence at night. We had a view of the ocean from our hotel window. I could stand there and watch from a distance families, friends, lovers, heading to the beach. I wasn't the immersed field-researcher living with and among the people anymore. I was the removed scholar watching them from my third floor window (My advisor would not be proud). I could even take my very own computer down to the lobby and instantly access the internet: no cyber cafe, no USB sticks, (almost) no sporadic internet connection, no sudden power outages. It all seemed so luxurious and yet so normal at the same time: that's what my life usually looks like after all. It hasn't been like that at all over the past eight months, but it's been like that otherwise and it will be like that when I return (except maybe for the CNN part). It was so easy to forget what that felt like and so easy to fall back into it as well.

As much as it pains me to admit it, maybe the kids here are right to scream out "Yovo!" every time they see me; hard as I try to blend in, I don't. I sweat more than everybody else, my skin turns white to red to brown to red again, my hair dances uncontrollably in the wind and, at the end of the day, I can always just leave this place.

I took my mom around on the little moto-scooter. We played tourist for a few days, visiting old European slave trade forts and cities on water, zooming through the open market without really stopping, buying over-priced gifts even after negotiating down to half the original offer... and at night we retreated into the Novotel, enjoyed decent wine and stimulating conversations, and I pretended I wasn't in Africa anymore.

My mom left too soon and I went back to my cold showers, my mosquito net, and that smell... but the transition back wasn't as difficult as I feared after all. That Novotel escapade must have been revitalizing in many ways. Or maybe we are a lot more adaptable than we think...

... which is fortunate if true because I am taking my backpack and that little moto-scooter on Monday morning and I am heading North. One local and trustworthy chaperon, two bottles of sunscreen, one pair of kick-ass H&M sunglasses, one helmet (yes yes, I am wearing a helmet), two Bradt guides, one pair of rain pants, one bottle of Cipro, one big backpack, one week, one thousand kilometers.

Seriously, how else was I going to get myself up to Niger?