Ménage a Cinq(+)

Our household has expanded. We're now 5 people regularly, with some additional occasional participants and a small, yellow, part-time cat called Arnie.

We have two security guards - Ibrahim and Omaru. They arrived with the house. Omaru is Fulani, - a pastoralist people, traditionally wanderers and tenders of cows, and now increasingly settled. When his family first moved to Niamey, they kept cattle here, but there's no suitable land anymore. It's a problem, as milk is an important part of their food, and what is sold in stores is expensive for them. Ibrahim is Zarma - traditionally an agrarian group. He's a more bubbly personality than Omaru, who is a little shy but very keen to offer help in the garden.

Both men are probably in their late 20's, unfailingly courteous. As security guards they are really human alarm systems - they have a stick but no firearms. Last Thursday was Superman's birthday, we invited 'the lads' to eat with us, at the time of their evening shift change. Here's a picture - Superman is blurred out to conceal his Clarke Kent persona. Omaru has the fine -almost European - features of his people, while Ibrahim has broader features and eyelashes to die for!

The fifth member of our ménage is Ester - she is with us three days a week, to clean and teach me Nigerien cookery. I know that may sound like I'm just going to be sitting around with my feet up, in between cooking lessons, but (apart from working) - in this environment literally everything has to be dusted, swept or washed every second day, if not more often. So far we're only working on the cleaning backlog, and haven't got to the cookery lessons part.

Having 'staff' is a foreign concept for many of us, but here it's an important part of the local economy. As well as Ester, Ibrahim and Omaru, we have Douade, who rocks up once a week wearing a fancy colourful shirt (befitting his status as the highest paid team member, on an hourly basis), vacuums the bottom of our pool and adjusts the chemicals, a 'dèchet' collector who stops by once a day to collect the rubbish in a cart, and we almost had a gardener but lost him sort of accidentally. Since the garden isn't big, and Piet, Omaru and I all like gardening, we'll keep it that way for now.

And here is the latest (though non-human) addition to the household - and an important one. The Internet! This massive aerial, about 20m high, is now sitting on our roof. For a mere €350/month (!) I get 4Mbps of internet, with VSat back up.

It arrived on Friday, and was very welcome in a week of considerable turbulence in Niamey, following the Presidential election, which included the local internet being squished.

Mohamed Bazoum - from the governing party, thought he'd won handily. his should be, in principle, the first ever democratic hand-over of power in this coup-prone country,

His opponent was Mahamane Ousmami, (elected President in 1993, ousted by a coup three years later and running unsuccessfully in every election since then), who claimed the election had been stolen from him. Trouble followed.

At first, it seemed like the main victim of the situation was going to be the internet - and, indeed, for days there was none, which made organising protests much more difficult. But not impossible, and throughout most of last week there were sporadic and disruptive outbreaks of resistance.

From our garden we could hear gunshots and see black smoke rising from tire fires. We could hear the chanting of angry crowds. Over the next few days, almost 500 people were arrested, including opposition politicians, much tear gas was used and two people died.

We've felt very safe, we have good security advice and are not particularly targets. And with the satellite back up on the internet, I can stay in touch and work. Some of the protests became anti-French - based on the belief that this is the money behind Bazoum's victory. A French food processing business was burned. The reporter for Radio France International had his house looted and burned. The French Embassy was stormed -- unsuccessfully. The airport road was cut off, and an international bank attacked. But as we came to the crucial Friday prayers - where people would meet each other - it started to become clear that this was not turning into a mass people's protest.

There's a terrible shortage of analysis of the situation, but here's what I perceive to be happening.

The opposition does not seem to be arming, so it doesn't look like it will disintegrate into a civil war. And it's a bit difficult to say who would fund the opposition in such an endeavour. The only strategic interests of Western powers in Niger is the uranium and the country's role as a cross-roads for smuggling - especially people smuggling. These powers seem more happy with Bazoum, who won the election, than with Ousmane, who lost.

Other than foreign government money, or the usual regional suspects (IS, Al Quaeda, Boko Haram -- who don't have an obvious interest in ousting Bazoum), the only group in the country/region with cash are probably the Tuareg - smuggling money - and Bazoum is from that ethnic group.

So I think we are past the worst of it -- though things are still fluid so we could be surprised. Other than an early morning run, with security approval, for emergency supplies (toilet paper and wine, mostly!) we haven't been out for several days, but anticipate a return to 'normal' in the next 48 hours.

And finally - about Arnie - a small cat but with big shoulders, who we ironically named after Schwarzenegger. Very affectionate, very healthy and very fond of milk. A day after getting named, I flipped the cat upside down to find out that he was a she. We decided to keep the name. Take a walk on the wild side. And thanks to Omaru and Ibrahim (not to mention that Arnie has turned out to be a) house trained, and b) a very picky eater) we discover that she is the neighbour's cat. Still, it's nice to have her around. And she seems to feel the same.