I am fighting a stomach ache that I got from an extremely spicy meal I am partially responsible for preparing...yesterday evening Sara, one of the workshop participants, invited us to her house for dinner, and I helped her make it. This was after an afternoon spent sitting on the patio at my guesthouse with her and a henna artist who created an incredibly beautiful design on my hands and feet. It was nice to spend time with two women when so much of my time here is spent with men...the majority of the workshop participants are male, most of the people I know here are male...it's so complicated. Polygamy is legal, fewer women work, the debate is framed differently...but then again the women I have met here are strong.
The workshop ends tomorrow--we are going to finish with a demonstration of one of the short forum scenes created, this one about a female boss whose power is undermined by a manager below her. Different cultural context, but not an unfamiliar problem...it seems like the workshop participants have gotten something from the workshop, and I have certainly appreciated the theoretical exchange that we have each morning, followed by getting up on our feet.
This afternoon I went to a birth celebration--big tents were set up outside the family's house, where guests come, sit, listen to music and stories, eat (I had just eaten lunch but when the food was put in front of us, Edouard, a theater director who is in the workshop, said here we eat even when we're not hungry...so I ate), and generally pay their respects to the parents. I'm glad I went, even though I stuck out like a sore thumb (an expression that I attempted to translate with little success).
Tomorrow I am going to Maradi to observe a training mission with RAV; so I'll experience a road trip, Nigerien style...
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