A day by the sea

Today I fulfilled a 24 hour shift (I work in a home for handicapped people), which involved cleaning, cooking, washing up and shopping; but also a lovely walk to the beach. It was raining and my poor companion was drenched in his own sweat trying to hold up with my tempo, but we had a fun together and the sea was beautiful...

I was in a kind of pensive mood and the vastness of the sea hit home. I'm a sahara/savanna girl when it comes to it; I'm used to seeing the horizon in all four directions. In contrast to my mother, who grew up on a little island off the West Coast of Sweden. Her father was a sea captain and used to take her own on long sea trips on his boats. The sea has always meant something very special to her which I have never really quite been able to share, because I on the other hand grew up surrounded by the freedom of a sandy horizon, one that you could walk on, drive on, and as I discovered later, conquer on horseback.

The sea did evoke a sense of longing and desire today; and when I came home, I knew it was time to call Niger again. Luckily for me, Skype has made phoning to Niger not so expensive, and so I talked on the phone for more than two hours. First, I called my good friend who is known on this blog as the Snow Man. I was happy to hear his voice again and he told me over and over how much they were missing me and how the race track wasn't the same without me.

I asked him to pass on a message to Yaronbaba, my jockey, as my Hausa has been deteriorating these past few months, rendering communication a little bit difficult. Sure, no problems, he said, and lol, when I called YB about 15 minutes later, he was at the Snow Man's place, being informed of what we had talked about. We talked about the horses, laughed about my poor Hausa and then the job was done: the relationships had been maintained.

I am still smiling from my phone calls. I thought about a fellow African blogger that I met these past few days, who wrote that he did not like romanticize over Africa. I know I do, but knowing what the Western world is like, I have reason to romanticize because there are just some things about Niger that touch my heart and I fall for it. I can't really explain what it is, after all, there are a number of issues about this country that makes most Westerners go mad, but the overall picture appeals to me. With a little bit of humor and large portion of self-distance, you can do so much in Niger. I guess that's what I love about it. That said, I will not romantizice over reality, because I know that regardless of how much I long to go back, the two first weeks adapting to this slow-slow pace is always a dreadful process. But THEN, once you're through it, the real fun begins!

OK, enough musings for tonight!
Ishtar