hungry hungry hee-pohs

Day Five. YAY I'M ALMOST DONE WITH THIS. So day five, Wednesday, was our second day in Niamey. After eating a breakfast of leftover pizza because the idea of eating three real meals a day was now strange to us, we decided to head to Boubon, a village outside of Niamey where there was supposed to be a market with fantastic pottery and the chance to ride on boats down the river.

We read that in Niger people dress as formal as they can afford to, which we saw as our cab driver wore a striped suit with nothing underneath. The ride took about a half an hour, so we were able to see some amazing views of the country - all this orange and red and dried up lakes and rivers. We drove into Boubon and it looked like something out of a National Geographic magazine - all the buildings and houses were made of clay and mud but there were so many of them it created this network of pathways. When we drove up we were approached by a group of guys who started asking where we were from and who told us that if we really wanted to see the real Boubon, we would need one of them as our guide. We started negotiating prices and after telling them that we were poor students, they told us that we could pay whatever we had. "I have nothing, so I will pay you nothing." I told him, and he responded with, "You pay me nothing, I will still be your guide. WELCOME TO BOUBON!!" And we were best friends.

The first thing that our guide, Soumaila, showed us was the animal market. Which was lots and lots of animals herded together with lots and lots of people standing around them. Donkeys, cows, goats, and then a little bit way was a group of about six camels hanging out. They were the epitome of chill and all I wanted to do was ride them until I saw their skin that was all raw and exposed from carrying around people like me all day. So I left them alone. I did find out, though, that camels are worth about 500,000 CFAs (about 1100 dollars), but that they don't eat camels because their meat doesn't taste very good. Goats cost about 50,000 CFAs - they're pretty much disposable. In fact --> horror goat story - when we were riding on the bus home we passed this motorcycle that was driving with a goat tied up on the back of it, and I got to watch the goat fly off the back of the motorcycle and land on the road, still all tied up, after the driver went over a little bump. It was disturbing.

So anyway, after we saw the animal market we went to the regular market, where there was lots of fabric and scarves and clothes to buy. I was bartering with a man for some fabric and he was arguing with me that "even a black woman would pay 6,000 CFAs" - but he still gave it to me for 5,000. There were lots of children running around looking for bottles because bottles are like the "it" thing among children. Not everyone spoke French which was nice for us - our guide told us that common languages in Boubon were Hausa and German (through all of our travel in West Africa we were often asked if we spoke German - I don't know if it was because we were white or because we gave off the European vibe, probably a combination of both).

After the market we went down to the riverbank and got in a canoe to cross the river - yes, a canoe. It was made of wood and I got to sit next to our guide who would very nicely scoop out the water that was collecting at the bottom of the canoe and would grab onto me when we were tipping back and forth. It was very fun. Across the river was an old campground where there were all these huts you could sleep in and a pool that had not been used in several years and a restaurant. We were pretty much brought there to spend money, which we did, and to get to know our guide. We started talking to him about if he was married and if he wanted to be married, and he told us about how he was pursuing his psychology degree but was working as a teacher now and hating it. He also said that he wanted to get married but that women required a lot of things, so he needed a steady job first, and that he was also looking for a woman who was educated like he was, not a village woman. He looked like he was in his late twenties, but when we asked him his age he told us he was thirty-five, and we were all shocked and demanded to see his license. He was born in 1968, so he was actually not 35...he was 41.

Once we had gotten to know our guide a little too well we got back on the canoe in search of hippos - by this time the sun was right overhead it was ridiculously hot and all I wanted to do was jump in the mud brown river water but I couldn't because we had read in the guidebook that hippos are incredibly dangerous and love eating people. Fun fact about hippos - according to our guide they're really good-tasting. We had been paddling around for quite a while without anything happening, although we did get to go past lots of people on the shore taking baths in the water. There were two young guys who were the ones bringing us around in the canoe, and they would randomly yell out "HEE-POH HEE-POH!!!" and bang the oars against the boat. Soumaila also got in on the hippo calling - he started yelling out some nonsense song in another language, and when we asked what he was doing, he answered "I'm singing to it,", as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The first time they called out "hee-poh" in a normal voice I expected to see it lurking over to our boat to topple us over and eat us, but we saw the head and the little ears and it seemed to just be hanging out and swimming. After awhile it went back underwater and swam some more, and it was quite a bit of a wait before we saw its head pop up again. After we were able to see it about three times our canoe-ers started asking us, "It is good? It is good?" - they were bored and ready to go back. When we got back to the water we had a photo session with our Soumaila and the canoe boys and then got ready to go - we did end up paying Soumaila even though I had promised him I had nothing, because he did an excellent job and we wanted to contribute to his 'find a wife' fund since he was 41 and getting really old.

We spent the last night in Niamey at the Grand Hotel watching the sunset over the Niger River, which was lovely and a good way to end our time in NIamey, which was my favorite place we went over the whole week. An extra add in about Niger - the people in Niamey were so nice. Everyone was really helpful and always wanted to chat with us and made sure we said "Bonjour" before we asked them a question or started talking to us. Later that night we went to an ATM to get money - all the 24-hour ATMs are guarded by one or two police officers, and in Niamey after saying hello to us they literally stood outside of the door while we got our money and made sure that we had locked the door behind us. Such gentlemen. The next day we were planning on going to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Our time there would be just as dramatic as the first half of the week, with another visit to the hospital and (gasp) a theft!