Obamamania in Niger

Most of this last week has been taken up organising something called a ‘Stakeholder workshop’. Since the team is running quite a big media project, making radio programmes about issues surrounding good governance and youth – before we begin it’s important to invite everyone who is anyone to do with either of these topics in Niger for a workshop to get chatting. So we had men and women coming from far and wide around the country to give their thoughts and views about the radio programming. It’s scheduled for Thursday and Friday and there’s a lot to sort out.

I had a good laugh with the team since one of them had written ‘Le Steakholder’ all the way through his document, and we imagined all the participants clutching onto a huge sirloin or maybe even a cow. He said he must have been hungry when he was writing it.

Either side of work, I’ve been trying to work out how to save as much money as possible. The hotel meals are expensive, and although I did sample ‘La Capitaine’ (Catfish) straight from the river Niger one night – I was keen to have other options.

With the help of our drivers, Aziz and Ibrahim, I found a supermarket ‘Le Score’ where I found plenty of things to keep me going and to help avoid eating at the hotel bar every day – therefore reducing the risk of more evenings with trainee Uranium seekers.

Unlike in Kabul where the dreaded Nestle has filled almost every supermarket shelf with products, here you can find many things actually made in Niger – so I did my best to support the local economy where I could. There is also French bread and patisserie everywhere, and mornings and lunchtimes, you see men and women wandering the streets with stacks of baguettes balanced on their heads and children running home carrying bags bulging with croissants.

So I’m managing to be quite frugal. If only I could be that controlled in clothes shops (not many of them round here, although I could probably buy back some of my own things in second hand markets). It’s funny how I’m happy to survive on raisins and nuts in Africa for months to save up and buy a lampshade or pay off a bit of the mortgage. And yet wave a Diane Von Furstenberg dress at me in London, and I’ll buy it without a second’s thought. Oh well…

Having some food in the fridge in my room also means I manage to avoid breakfast in the hotel restaurant where about 10 gloomy looking ex pats – mostly men – who sit on separate tables all on their own not smiling and not talking. It’s not a fun atmosphere and makes me want to start throwing fruit salad about to see if anyone will react. I’d rather eat a bowl of ‘Mille' (millet) with the locals outside, but we’re not quite on those terms as yet.

The atmosphere in Niamey is quite appealing. As I’ve said before things move pretty slow. And although there is a regular call to prayer from La Grande Mosquee – you don’t really notice this is a Muslim country. Or at least with my untrained and uninformed eye you don’t. I am, remember a beginner too so don’t take my word for gospel quite yet…

But women and men can kiss hello and wander about together, even if they’re unrelated; women wear pretty much what they like, and can ride motorbikes and scooters. Anything goes with the male dress code too, although most wear some kind of headgear – from the multicoloured skull cap to the flowing turban. Alcohol is also readily available and many people drink.

Although 90 per cent of the country is Muslim (the rest are Christian or Animist) people can intermarry; the government is secular; and they don’t use Sharia Law in the courts. So it makes for an uninhibited vibe and a huge range of customs and holidays.

There are apparently a few fundamental folk knocking about, but from what I understand, the main problems in this country originate from less religiously motivated issues – the regular droughts and famines (which the president Mahmadou Tandja occasionally refuses to acknowledge meaning people die un-necessarily as they are forced to go without foreign aid); and from the Uranium deposits in the north of the country near Agadez. The Tuareg people in this northern area want the government to give them a bigger share of the loot from the sales of Uranium (30 per cent of Niger’s export) since it’s under the terrain they consider their own. But it’s not working in their favour; so they’re planting mines and getting themselves and many others hot under the collar…to say the very least.

If you remember the Nigerien Uranium (or ‘yellow cake’ as it’s sometimes known) was at the centre of one of G W Bush’s false pretences for going to war with Iraq, and resulted in various scandals, not least the war – but also the revealing of the name of a member of the CIA whose husband lifted the lid on the yellow cake affair…Or something like that.

But onto more positive moments in history. L’investiture du President Obama. Niamey moved fast for the first time since I arrived. The whole city rushed home at 3pm to listen to the inauguration on a crackling radio; or to watch it on a fizzy TV. People seemed enraptured and enthralled.

One man at work put it in a nutshell as he described his views about the latest figures in politics.
‘Bush is stupid but I don’t think he messes up on purpose; Sarkozy is even worse as he is calculated and does everything on purpose. But what really impresses me is that the US press are still yet to find anything dodgy about Obama. This could mean two things – either there is nothing to find; or he’s really really ‘malin’ and has hidden everything so cleverly that they never found it. In which case, he deserves to be president anyway…to have got one over the sneakiest press in the world.’

I watched the inauguration on the little telly in my room. It made our royal weddings look like village fetes. What a crowd.