Stuck in Niamey

So I was supposed to return to post yesterday, in sha allah. But apparently god did not will it. Here's why.

Last week on Friday, the University students here in Niamey staged a protest. I don't know the details but basically the government has been cracking down on scholorship money, trying to make the students actually earn it by doing well. Well apparently they were holding back the money for this term or year or whatever, and the students got pissed. So they took over one of the commuter busses and drove it to the Ministry of Education. Once inside they lit 10 cars, inluding the ministers, on fire. The gendarmes were called in and I believe nearly 100 people were arrested and many were injured.

This is all just what I recall from what our Safety and Security guy told us, so I know I'm forgeting a lot of details and stuff.

Anyway, that over, the middle and high schools decided to stage demonstrations yesterday in support of the university students. They were much more organized and spread to various locations in the city in smaller clusters. So for most of yesterday we were restricted to the area of Niamey between the bureau and the hostel.

The reason this put such a damper on my movements is that to get to my post I have to cross the JFK bridge to the part of the city called Haro Banda (behind water), which is also where the university is located. The bridge seems to be a key location in the periodic protests from the students. So all bureau cars travelling through haro banda were cancelled yesterday and PCV's were strongly advised not to travel through that part of the city. Hopefully I'll get out today.

On a side note, yesterday I mentioned learning how to make demi-lunes and gully plugs. Well someone asked me to explain what those were and it seemed that other people might like to know as well. So here's an excerpt from my email to that person:

Demi-lunes are basically semicircular pits that are dug with a raised wall on
the round side, and the flat side facing up hill. The idea is to catch rain
water as it runs downhill and thus creat a small bit of land that is stays damp
for several days. The ground dries up very quickly here otherwise. A farmer or
forestry agent can then plant a few crops or trees within one of these
demi-lunes. The basic forestry version is about 3m in diameter but can be
much larger for agricultural uses.

To make a gully plug you simply
find a gully that has been eroded by rushing rain water and you build a sort of
speed bump for the water out of rocks or brush. This causes the silt carried by
the water to be deposited on one side of the plug, eventually eliminating the
gully and restoring the surrounding field to fertile topsoil.

So there you are. Hopefully I'll get out of here today.