Niamey!

This will be a short blog post written (hopefully) the evening before it can be read on my blog.
The referendum was fairly uneventful. After seeing military uniforms around Hamdallaye and ‘vote taxis’ departing and arriving, I still didn’t feel nervous. I just today found the complete results of the elections: something like 92% voted yes for the referendum, ‘approving’ President Tandja’s dissolution of parliament and the constitutional court as well as his decision to surpass the constitutional two-term limit for another three years of service. One of my formatrices (language teachers) said that she found all the foreign press attention regarding potential opposition violence funny, as Nigeriens wish to preserve peace more than anything else. More than anything else, I sensed that life for the average Nigerien town remains largely unaffected by national politics - Nigerien families are more autonomous than their counterparts throughout much of the world today.
Today we received our Niamey safety and security tour, a bus tour of much of the city, and experienced a grocery store and restaurant for the first time since we left the States. Our Chinese food was amazing and the fruit, A/C and candy bars made for quite the reverse cultural shock. Tomorrow (today) I plan to go back with much of the group to catch a bit of internet access and a swim at the American Recreation Center pool. Quite the treat of a weekend!
Cheers,
-Thomas