August 29, 2009
This morning I am in Niamey before returning to Hamdalleye for my last two weeks of training. I came in last night after staying four days at “site,” the place where I will be living for the next two years! In all honesty I couldn’t be more pleased with my placement. The town is very nice, clean, (for now) very green, full of interesting people, and host to several NGOs. It’s big enough that I can buy whatever I might need, especially on market days. In fact, my new home boasts a population that is significantly larger than my hometown, Plains, Montana. I am still debating which is more developed. Also, the people at the mayor’s office where I will be working are incredible nice. I am really looking forward to getting to know them and working with them.
The mayor himself already asked me to be his computer and English tutor, and the Secretariet General (my direct supervisor) is fun in a slightly eccentric way. He talks to himself a lot. One of the big events of my live-in was when the mayor and the S.G. took me to a commune counsel meeting. (A commune in Niger is basically the equivalent of a county in the U.S.) Starting at eight in the morning they loaded me up into a pickup and then drove me (and five other counsel members) out to a nearby town. At the meeting the mayor introduced me as the commune’s new Peace Corps volunteer. The meeting was conducted in French and Zarma, so I had a hard time understanding it—all six hours… That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I sat in an unlit, breeze-less classroom, full of flies and listened to 30 people animatedly debate various subject in two languages that I can barely understand for six hours. My personal goal for myself was to not fall asleep in front of my new colleagues, and you will be proud to know I was at least 87 % successful in fulfilling this goal. Six hours. No breaks. No lunch (because it’s Ramadan and everyone is fasting anyway). At one point the S.G. tried to get me to go buy some water for myself, but I just sat out under a tree and napped. One of the other volunteers had warned me beforehand that, “Nigerien meetings are crazy,” but I had no idea. There was also a lot of yelling… A lot.
On my way to site we had to drop off several other volunteers, so unfortunately by the time I made it to my town it was already dark. The volunteer who was supposed to stay with me my first night in village thought it would be better to wait until it was light to move it, so I spent the first night at a Peace Corps hostel. I was so tired, I was glad to be able to just make a bed up for myself and sleep without worrying about getting settled.
I moved in the next morning and I LOVE MY HOUSE!! It’s tiny, but still much larger than I need. The front room is smaller, but big enough for me to fit a table with a stove and my water filter, a trunk with my food and a mat for me to sit on. (I would like to take a moment to note that as I am writing this I am deliriously tired and just tried to spell mat, m-a-t-t. I apologize for any other strange errors or typos that might be in this post.) The back room of my house is huge—but very much like a cave. I don’t have electricity, so the its almost always dark and mysterious. I think that (in spite of its size) it will just be an oversized closet.
Then there is the magic of my tanda. A tanda is a shade hanger in front of a house and is key to both privacy and comfort. If a person doesn’t have a shade hanger you are forced to nap inside you sweltering house, and everyone can see in your door, or just walk into your house. We were all warned before live-in that all things in Niger move slower than one would think humanly possible, and we should be prepared to show up to tanda-less houses. Sure enough, when I came my house was sans tanda. I was a little disappointed, but accepted that I may be just a little uncomfortable for the next four days.
Later in the morning, after I had moved in, my host PCV took me to the mayor’s office to introduce me to my new boss and co-workers. The mayor and S.G. were surprised and upset to learn that I had already moved into my house and had not waited for them to install me there. “That is just like Americans. They always just go, and never ask,” the S.G. remarked in French to the mayor. I felt bad. I didn’t know that they had wanted to be there when I moved in, but it ended up working out in my favor because it became the mayor and S.G.’s mission to build me a tanda.
I spent the rest of the day speeding around the market in the commune’s pickup, buying tanda supplies. Then the next day, IN ONE DAY, my tanda was built. Amazing. As it was happening, I kept trying to talk my expectations down, not allowing myself to believe the thing would actually get built. And its Ramadan! During Ramadan, everyone is usually so wiped from not eating or drinking that things move even slower than slower-than-humanly-possible. Also, everyone is 74% crankier. I wanted to buy a cold water guy who spent the whole day laboring to build me my tanda, but he wouldn’t have accepted it. So now I have a magical, build-in-one-day-which-says-something-about-the-productivity-of-the-mayor’s-office tanda.
I took pictures of my house for you all to see, but I left them back at the hostel. So, I can’t upload them…maybe in another six weeks.
I spend the rest of the four days setting up my house, sweeping, figuring out how to get water, and getting to know the ladies in my concession. I REALLY like my neighbors. I haven’t figured out who is who yet, but let me tell you I am living with some sassy ladies. One of them is super intense and would burst into my house unannounced, but I think we’re going to be good friends. She brought me dinner one night, gave me eggs, and even brought me a block of ice. She was taken aback to learn that I didn’t have electricity, and insisted that before I return to my house I buy a cooler so that I can keep ice.
The water situation is something else in my town. There are more than 7,000 people and one pump. One pump, no wells. There is also the river right nearby, but it’s not exactly clean. I think that water is going to end up being one of my biggest expenses and already find myself recycling my water in ways that I would never dream of in the States. Water to boil pasta turns into tea water. Rinse water turns into dishwater, etc, etc. Since I don’t have running water, the water that I buy sits in big jug in my house, and let me tell you I have never been more aware of how much I was drinking or washing with.
I told my APCD (the guy in the Peace Corps who is in charge of me) that I was interested in water projects, and I think that that may have had something to do with my placement here. The good news is that when I get set up I can buy river water for washing and showering, but until then I am paying warnaka for one bido—which is outrageous!!
So what’s the plan for the rest of my two years? I can tell you how the next two months will go. I am returning to Hamdalleye for two and a half weeks of training. Allah willing, September 10th I will swear in as a real volunteer and then be “installed” at my site. The first month in village I have to stay at my site—I’m not allowed to travel. Luckily I am the center of a cluster of volunteers, so I still may get visitors from time to time. After the first month, I am allowed to travel, but I can’t start “work” for another two months. Basically I have three months to get a handle on the language and get to know my village. Then I will return to Hamdalleye for three weeks in In-Service Training.
I find “getting to know everyone in my village” pretty intimidating considering its size. My new town is very different from where I’m living now. Instead of open concessions, with low walls and people everywhere, the concessions at my site have high walls and have huge metal doors. As I mentioned, with the fast, most people spend the day sleeping, so it’s hard to find energetic playmates. Though, I’ve been told that it’s perfectly acceptable for me to just knock on any door and say, “Hey, I’m a Peace Corps volunteer. Let’s talk, and you can feed me.” Things will also get easier when Ramadan ends and people aren’t sleeping all day long. Either way, I’m definitely not in Bartcawal any more.
As for Internets, it appears to be working. I am actually using wireless right now at the one café in Niamey where all foreigners and ex-pats get their ice cream, pizza, and air conditioning. I’m going to try and upload some photos too. Hopefully, I will be able to come back here next Sunday, but, as magically as it appeared, the Internet may die again…and it could be another six weeks before I post.
I love you all! And hope that things are going well state-side!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Victory is Mine!
July 29th, 2009
So, from the beginning… Philadelphia was uneventful. I met my training class and had a very brief training on safety. We also went over our itinerary, and the “how to”/ “in case of” of getting to Africa. I ate nothing but pizza and ice cream for three days…
I arrived in Niger without any trouble. The flight from Philadelphia to Paris was really long, and I couldn’t sleep; so by the time we were flying from Paris to Niamey I was delirious with exhaustion and too tired to get nervous. I must admit though, I was a bit worried/skeptical to see how the landscape changed as we approached our destination. For the last half hour of our flight, I couldn’t pick out a single sign of human life in the orange sea of sand below.
The heavy afternoon heat immediately overwhelmed me as we deplaned, and since it’s rainy season, it very was also very humid. My first experience in Niger was being driven the 50 yards from the plane to the airport in an air-conditioned bus. I’m not sure why this was necessary since ours was the only plane at the airport and there was only one gate... Anyway, collecting baggage was no trouble (except for those whose luggage had been misplaced by Air France), and we were met by a mob of current Peace Corps Volunteers and staff, who cheered for us as we exited the airport.
From the airport we were driven to the Peace Corps training site (called Tondibon) in Hamdalleye (Hahm-duh-lie), or as many have come to call it, “mini-America,” complete with flush toilets and a volleyball court. We were all so drained from the trip that they pretty much let us go straight to bed, but the around midnight I awoke to howling winds, announcing the arrival of a storm. After fumbling to shove my mattress and mosquito net inside, I became aware of the fact that my teeth crunched with sand and my hair was plastered with grit to the point that I could make it stand on end. Welcome to Niger.
The Weather
Since that first night there have at least a few more that have been interrupted by rain. The first time it rained after I moved into Bartcawal (Bar-cha-wall), my homestay dad was kind enough to wake me up before I got drenched. Now, every night before I go to bed I assess the humidity, cloud cover, and wind to guess if I’ll make it through the night without making the mad dash inside. No matter how bad it looks I always end up staying outside until it actually starts raining. It’s a real traged
y to miscalculate and spend a sweaty night inside your hut for no reason.
There are many theories aiming to predict the weather patterns here. For example, if the wind comes from the Northeast it will rain, or if you can see the stars as you go to sleep it won’t. I’ve also been told to listen to the animals, which are supposed to get especially restless before a storm. All of these theories, however, haven’t proven themselves; the wind blows from all directions before a storm, which can cloud the sky over in minutes, and the animals make noise all the time. The other night I was staring down a 180-degree panorama of lightning, but still made my bed outside. (That time I made it through the whole night without a drop, another similar night I made it until around 11:45 before waking up to a sand blizzard.) My family hasn’t been much help in getting a feel for weather patterns either. Whenever I ask any of them if they think it will rain I get one of two responses: “I really don’t know” and “if Allah wills it.” Really, I’m thrilled to have such an exciting sleeping routine. When hot season comes around in February I am going to be sorely missing the desert thunderstorms.
My Homestay Family
Throughout the day I read, study, converse, etc. on a small woven mat in my host family’s concession. The concession is very nice, shady, and far enough out of town to afford me a great deal of privacy. One of my fellow Bartcawal volunteers has his hut right in the
middle of the bush taxi stand. He told me it’s rare if ten minutes pass without someone poking their head over his wall and to check on him, or invite him to come and work in the fields. My family only shares a concession with one other family, who is very nice. The mother is a schoolteacher. I was surprised to learn that she and I not only shared a name, Hamsatou (my Nigerien nickname), but are also the same age. Needless to say she and I have experienced a very different 22 years.
My homestay family is great. The father, Jzbrilla, is the local authority on the Koran (a marabou). He is basically a mullah who teaches Koranic studies, but he isn’t officially ordained. After farming all day, my father oversees the eldest two boys’ (Soumalia who is 18 and Yoga who is 12) practice of Arabic. I was impressed to find out that the boys could read and write in Arabic, but thus far, know no French. (I should mention that since it’s rainy season right now so the whole family is very busy keeping their millet fields in good order. During the rest of the year men hold the same rigorous schedule, but replace farming with drinking tea.)
The most I’ve interacted with my father is when my class did a cross-cultural session on Islam. Since he is a marabou, I thought it would be good to ask him about Islam and how to pray, etc. He got so excited at my question that he did a full demo for me. He got half way through and then decided I should be taking notes, so he sat me down and explained it all again, but this time he paused every other sentence to be sure I was writing. Of course everything he was saying was in either Zarma or Arabic, so I could barely understand, let alone take notes. Nevertheless, he and Soumalia insisted I write everything down and became exasperated with me when I would stop. I was glad to have a real conversation with my homestay dad. As a consequence, however, I have a whole page of absolutely incomprehensible (even to the most adept linguists) phonetic renditions of Arabic and Zarma.
Yoga and Soumalia are brothers, but could not be more different. Even though he’s younger Yoga is a lot more confident in himself and didn’t even skip a beat when I asked him (as a joke) if he had a girlfriend. Soumaila, on the other hand got really embarrassed when I asked him the same question. Yoga is almost entirely preoccupied with asserting his masculinity, and is always trying to act tough. Soumaila is much more relaxed, plays with the younger children, and even helps carry water from the well—a task that is usually reserved for women. Every night for the first two weeks, these two boys would drag themselves back from the fields and ask to look at the photo album Karin gave me as a departure gift. I thought they would get bored with it, but they and all the neighborhood kids seem to be endlessly entertained by it. Their favorite game is to flip through the book and point me out in each picture (even the ones I’m not in).
I had a really hard time explaining hang gliding, rock climbing, and snow. But as my language skills improved I think they finally got the generally idea. They love the picture of me holding the chainsaw, and everyone asks if my senior prom date is my husband. My two brothers were also very excited to hear that my father was a farmer like them. Soumaila always stares at the picture of Dad and Nicholas in the field, but is baffled by the fact that we choose to grow trees, which you can’t eat and are dirt-cheap here.
My homestay mom, Ramatou, has her own plot of peanuts, which I believe she is planning to sell after the harvest? Ramatou is really in charge of the whole circus, and runs a tight ship. She’s a great mother, as shown by how much her children seem to love her. I tell Ramatou where I am going everyday, and if I deviate from my plan by the time I get home, she already knows where I’ve been and asks me about my detour. She is a woman in constant motion. If she isn’t pulling water from the well, she’s sweeping, or bathing Abdoulai (the baby), or working in the fields, or pounding millet, or sifting millet, or cooking millet, or scrubbing something. I told her yesterday that she was always working, and she just smiled then shrugged…
Most of our interactions consist of Ramatou telling me that, even though I’ve eaten four cups of rice, I am in fact not full. Moreover, she tells me I had better eat more so that I can gain weight and get a husband. (The whole village was shocked to find out that at the ripe old age of 22 I was not thinking of getting married or having children. They are kind enough, however, to constantly suggesting possible husbands.)
Then there is my name-twin sister, Hamsatou. She holds more responsibility than the average ten-year-old as she is in charge of the goats and takes them out to graze everyday. Hamsa is a complete sweetheart, and patiently listens to me as I attempt to talk in Zarma, then faithfully replies “Ay man faham”—I don’t understand. Finally, there is Abdoulai—the baby (he’s two and chubby). Once I asked each of my siblings what they had done that day, after listing their chores, the kids reported that Abdoulai’s job is to stay home and eat. This is true. They kid is always eating something, weather it is leftovers, lutu (kind of like cake), a grasshopper, his shoes, his shirt, or anything he can find on the ground. Most everything in our concession, at one time or another, has been in Abdoulai’s mouth.
The kid used to burst into tears whenever I would get to close to him, but I’m winning him over slowly. Lately he’s been especially friendly, but I think that may have something to do with the fact that I brought him candy back from Niamey. His favorite toys include a plastic bag tied to a string, which he drags around everywhere and a shard of mirror, which he chews on, then bursts into a fit of laughter upon seeing his own reflection.
The family has more, older children who live and work in Niamey, but I’m not sure how many or what their names are.
Life with my homestay family is pretty relaxed. I see them mostly in the evenings after a day full of language, medical, and technical training. I get home between 4 and 6 pm and will sit out on my mat until dinner at 8, receiving more language training from my homestay siblings. As I mentioned above I am not yet learning French. I will later, but for now I am learning Zarma. It’s a pretty fun language that is related to Arabic and has less than 1,000 words. I thought at first that this would make things easier on me, but with so few relations, each word takes on double and even triple meanings. For example, “haw” means wind, cow, or to tie, depending on how you say it. “Bi” means black, shade and yesterday. And there are other words, with less harmless homophones…
My Living Situation
So, where am I living exactly? I live in a 10-foot-in-diameter mud hut with a six by ten concession around the front door. The concession is small enough that I don’t do too much in there, except sleep and hide from children. The town I live in is 11 km from the Peace Corps training site, so twice a week, four other volunteers and I bike in to Hamdalleye. At first, I was nervous about biking on such deteriorated roads.
I remember having a conversation with Sara C. (there are three “Sara”s and three “Katie”s in my training class so I have to be specific) debating which side of the road would be the best to ride on. She thought with traffic, as we do in the USA. I was arguing to ride against traffic, since most cars have to drive slowly over the crater-sized potholes and this way we could see them coming. As it turns out, it doesn’t matter which side you ride on because cars, truck, buses, and bush taxis all drive on whichever side of the road seems to have the fewest obstructions. Some of the time they just drive down the middle of the road for no apparent reason. Anyway, I think I’ve got it down now. The first days I was wobbly, nervous and slow, now I can ride my bike at top speed while gawking at camels, waving at everyone I pass, shouting greetings, and navigating the lunar-like terrain. As a special bonus, most mornings we get to watch the sunrise over the desert.
Hamdalleye is the big city compared to Bartcawal. Not only do they have electricity, but some of my fellow volunteers are living it up with spoons, actual dinner tables, and television. In Bartcawal, the people not as accustom to hosting PCV (Peace Corps Volunteers) as in Hamdy, which has been home to something like 40 training classes over the past 20 years. In fact, we are only the second group of PCT (Peace Corps Trainees) to live here in Batcawal. As a result, everyone is eager to interact with us and help us practice our language. After a villager greets me, I am routinely quizzed on my vocabulary as I walk to and from school. It was really exhausting at first, but I’m glad to be in Bartcawal, even without electricity and running water.
As a side note, I find it funny that I took so many hot showers in the days before I left America. It was my way of saying good-bye to my old life. I remember staring up into the steam and thinking, say good-bye to such luxury as heated showers. After coming to Africa, I have discovered there is an abundance of everything hot. Now I long for just one cold shower.
What is it like in Bartcawal? Sweaty, but really very nice. Everywhere we go, we are greeted profusely. I can’t walk more than ten feet outside of my concession without someone calling my name and waving me to come over and chat. The children are in total awe of us, and for the first few weeks would actively tried to herd all the Anasaras together (literally Anasara means something like “colonizer,” but it’s what the Nigeriens call anyone who is not Nigerien). Thus, any time I went anywhere in Bartcawal, fifteen kids would jump up and down and get really excited and start pointing me around corners until finally we would come to another group of fifteen kids and an another Anasara. The now 30 children would then jump up and down and marvel at their handy work. Two Ansaras in one place! It was great, however, if I was lost and looking for another trainee. Also, when going home I just ask a kid to take me to my house.
Anasara. This is my second new name. Not really, but everyone yells it at me all the time. Or at least they do before they learn my real name. Everywhere I go…Anasara! Anasara! Anasara! I always know when one of the other volunteers is coming to visit before they even get close, because off in the distance…ANASARA! I have come to conceptualize this phenomenon as something like a motion-detection alarm system that detects the movement non-Nigeriens. I was annoyed and even a little offended by this in the beginning, but now have come to just shake it off. I remind people that my name is Hamsatou, not Anasara, and most are happy to adjust. Or, sometimes, when people are talking about me in front of me like I’m not there, I will add in something like, “Yeah, the Anasara doesn’t understand anything.” This is usually hilarious to them.
Class in Bartcawal is the following: four metal chairs under a tree in the middle of town, with a chalkboard leaning against the tree, and a goat off to the side announcing every twenty seconds that he does in fact exist and would like some recognition. There is usually a herd of cattle meandering through, a woman yelling to another woman about everything she did that day, some other women pounding millet, and about 30 children staring at the Anasaras in not-so-silent awe. (I’m not sure why, but the children really find us unendingly entertaining. They are happy to sit and stare at us for hours while we do absolutely nothing. There is one little girl who sat and watched me clean my whole hut and sweep my concession without seeming the slightest bit bored.) My fellow volunteers and I are usually slumped over in the metal chairs, fanning ourselves, and complaining about the flies. And, whenever possible in our study of Zarma, we make references to all the things we would eat if we could. (Interestingly, hamburger in Zarma means “maybe,” though it’s really pronounced hambagar) This is what I spend 15 hours each week doing.
My language trainer is a Nigerien named Abass. During class he is pretty good at ignoring the scene around us, but is also very good at making children be quiet. He is pretty quiet himself, young, not married, and speaks excellent English. Abass is very interested to learn about life in America, and is always asking us questions. He thought it was really strange that my family all live in the same town, but in different houses…Also three weeks into PST it came out that his favorite musician is Michael Bolton.
How I am in general.
In general, I am very well. I surprised myself at how easily I made the transition into this lifestyle. It helps that Nigeriens are the nicest, most helpful, and generous people in the world. Moreover, I have already survived my first bout of violent and quick-onset diarrhea. (It was nothing fancy like amoebas, just some good old-fashioned bacteria.) I am enjoying getting to know my training class, and am progressing slowly, but surely with my language.
In week (or actually when I post this) I will have a cell phone. I’m not going to post my number for obvious reasons, but email me if you would like it. (I would love to hear about life on the home front!) I’ve heard that the best way to get a hold of me is with Skype (a computer program you can download and makes calls with) BUT if you have slow Internets then you may want to invest in a calling card (Mom). That’s really all I got for now, I will post more when I get the chance!! I LOVE YOU ALL!
-Katie
August 7, 2009
Looking back over the weeks, I see that we’ve done a lot since our arrival. The second weekend here we were given a break from classes to go on a demystification field trip and see life as a real PCV. My team also lost by a mere half point in the Gender and Development Olympics, which consisted of a water-on-head-with-fake-baby-on-back relay, a peanut butter making competition (we hand-pounded the peanuts), and a tea-making competition. There have also been countless games of cards, catch phrase, and volleyball. Tomorrow, we will go on our first official tour of Niamey, after which, we will be allowed to go to Niamey any Sunday.
As I mentioned before, Tuesdays and Fridays are core days when we have all our classes at the Peace Corps training site and usually get some kind of injection. So far I’ve learned how to make a malaria slide, how to cook for myself in the bush, which modes of transportation I can trust, and how decipher the many kinds of diarrhea. (Side note: Niger boasts more cases of severe diarrhea per year than any other Peace Corps country. In 2008, there were 175 cases per each 100 volunteers, making Niger by far the most-you-know-what country in the Peace Corps.)
On core days, we all become worshippers of a thing called “Pause.” Pause is a half hour break between session, which is nice, but the really amazing thing is the snack we get every Pause: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, candied peanuts, cookies hot chocolate, tea, coffee, popcorn, and honest-to-God slushies; and by honest-to-God slushies, I mean semi-frozen hibiscus juice, which tastes remarkably like bubblegum. If a session goes over its allotted time, everyone begins to shifting uneasily in their seats, craning their necks to see if the Pause snack has already been set out. If we actually witness the container of juice go by (which I have to mention is dripping with condensation because it’s so amazingly cold) we erupt into storm of physical and verbal protests, begging to be let free to partake in the very short lifespan of frozen liquid.
If a session finishes before Pause is served, all the trainees start to hover by the door to the dining hall. Everyone tries to act like it’s no big thing, but once it’s clear that Pause it on its way, we all half-run like kindergarteners to line up first. Lunch is equally delicious. Sometimes we even get pizza, which isn’t actually pizza, but is still the most amazing thing I’ve tasted. (Recall what the Cervantes once wrote: “Hunger is the best sauce.”) It’s on core days that I’ve discovered how much I can actually fit in my stomach. I am usually stuffed on the bike ride home and can barely peddle myself the 11 km home.
It’s not that I don’t love the food that my homestay mom fixes for me. I actually have discovered that I enjoy an especially fancy and diverse menu compared to many of my friends who eat millet and okra sauce (we have another name for it) twice a day, everyday. For lunch and dinner I have usually eat one of the following dishes: rice and sauce, rice and beans, spaghetti, rice and spaghetti, rice and onions, rice with tonka (a pepper topping), or rice. It’s always delicious, but honestly I would do terrible things for a hamburger or ice cream. I also plowed through my stash of candy and drink mix like there was no tomorrow. And, I’m not the only one. I’ve noticed that recently almost all of trainee conversations center on food…either coming in or going out.
Many people asked me prior to my departure what kind of work I would be doing in Niger, and I told them all I had no idea. This is still true, since so much of what I will be doing depends on my site placement; however, I do have a clearer picture than I did before, so I will elaborate as much as I can…
I am here with a group of 32 trainees. Sixteen of us are MCDs (Municipal and Community Developers) and the other 16 are CYE (Community and Youth Education). As an MCD I will be placed in a medium-sized village, and as a Zarmaphone I will be placed in either the Tillaberri or Douso regions. Zarmaland (these two regions) is much more liberal than the Hausa-speaking eastern communities. Nevertheless, I plan on wearing full-length skirts and covering my head until I am settled enough in my village to know what’s what. I’m no floozy. I will get my site announcement in about one week, and shortly after that will go and stay at my site for five or six days by myself to get a feel for everything.
Where I am placed will greatly dictate the kind of work I will be doing. For example, if I am placed closer to Niamey, I may work with International NGOs on various projects. The second weekend here I got to go and visit a real, live PCV (you might as well get used to the acronyms now). This endeavor is known in PC lingo as Demystification, or Demyst. Anyway, my Demyster, Mary, introduced me to another veteran MCD about to COS (Close of Service). This MCD and other MCDs I’ve met have done a lot of work with their local mayors office, have mapped their communes, filled out birth certificates, helped train auxiliary municipal agents, helped fund computer labs, libraries, and sewing trainings centers, AND ran student government programs. For the first three months at site, I am not allowed (nor would I want to) plan projects, but what I do plan will depends entirely on where I am and what is needed.
The whole idea of a decentralized government is very new to Niger. In fact, the first municipal elections were held in 2004. The next set of elections were scheduled for this year, but have been postponed. As part of the decentralization, each commune (a commune is essentially the equivalent of an American county) elected their own government, which consists of a mayor, vice-mayor, tax officer, general secretary, and commune counsel. At least ten percent of the counsel members are supposed to be women. Each commune had to write a PDC (stands for something in French), which lays out a five-year plan of development for each commune. This document will be useful for any MCD PCV, since it contains a needs assessment and goals for development.
Of course, this is all, “en principe” as they say in French; which is to say theory and reality sometimes have nothing to do with each other. While in theory each commune would have all of these municipal agents and planning, reality presents quiet a few challenges. For example, many of the municipal agents are not literate; other communes cannot fill every position. Since few of the positions are paid well, many agents spend the majority of their time looking for paid trainings. The list goes on… Regardless, I am very excited to get to post and get to know my community.
Things I’ve Learned in Niger:
1. You can get sunburned in the shade.
2. You can get sunburned if you wear anything less than SPF 50.
3. You can get sunburned if you don’t reapply sunscreen every 20 minutes.
4. Bedbugs are real and they will eat you alive if you aren’t careful.
5. Most cars can carry twice their mass in passengers and three times their mass in cargo piled on top of the vehicle.
6. Five cows on top of a VW van is too many.
7. Refrigeration is the most amazing thing ever invented, after flypaper.
8. Nigerian women give birth while squatting and often continue working until the contractions are unbearable. Nevertheless, women rarely cry out during delivery, as it is a sign of weakness.
9. The rice here provides you will your daily value of iron (as it contains a reasonable portion of sand and small rocks).
10. How to aim when pooping.
11. It costs a man three camels to get married.
12. While polygamy is permitted, a Muslim man can only wed as many wives as he can love and provide for equally.
13. Mohammed says you can only provide for and love four wives equally.
14. One out of four Nigerien children will die before the age of five, most frequently due to diarrheal disease.
15. You can’t take things too seriously here. If you do you are done. Laugh at yourself or be laughed at.
August 12, 2009
Today I am wearing wool socks and a sweater. This new attire is my response to the sub-arctic front that swept into Niger this morning, bringing with it a truly impressive amount of precipitation. Only a few days ago, as I was sweating into my pot of rice, I scolded myself for being so foolish as to pack wool socks when going to Africa. Today, however, I scolded myself for only brining one pair. It’s chilly.
I admit that my sense of temperature may be skewed, considering—as I was shivering the other morning—someone told me it was 80 degrees out. Nevertheless, I am surprised and somewhat mystified by this sudden, new sensation that has over taken me today. As a personal record, it’s noon and I haven’t yet broken a sweat.
I realize, reading over what I have written, that I may seem mildly obsessed with the weather here; but for this, I am unapologetic. A storm is often the most exciting point in my day, and not just because I am sans TV and starved for stimulation. I find Niger’s weather unendingly entertaining and remarkable because it is.
Each storm is preceded by several, suspenseful days of growing heat and humidity. Every day, as we sit in class fanning ourselves, someone will inevitably remark about the heat. We will then evaluate that day’s temperature, humidity, and cloud cover in comparison to the days before, and then with the weather back home. The “heat” conversation will eventually end with one of us announcing, “I hope it rains tonight, or even better, this afternoon.” We all nod in agreement and then go back to fanning. This some form of the conversation manifests approximately every 20 minutes.
A storm brings more than reprieve from the sun. If it rains during the day, class is canceled, abridged, or not taken seriously. Also, sometimes it’s nice to have the excuse to sit in your hut and do nothing. If it rains at night, we often witness a spectacular show of lightning; matched by thunder so loud it makes the earth grumble with vibrations. I also have come to love the adrenaline rush that comes when I awake to find a storm only minutes away, and thus have to go to the bathroom, take down my mosquito net, move my bed in, seal my hut before getting soaked or unintentionally exfoliated. Since the horizon lays flat and unobstructed, a person can watch a storm grow from a cloud on the horizon to an overwhelming velvet curtain that can hide the African sun from the desert.
What’s more, each storm that comes has its own, distinct personality. The storm this morning, for example, seemed no-nonsense and rushed. It was a wall charging toward us, not even bothering with the usual prelude of distant lightning. There was barely 10 minutes from the time I realized it was going to rain until I was sprinting for cover with a curtain of water on my heels. Other storms are more aloof. They spend hours flirting, but never actually materialize. Some storms come steadily and without wind. Others move painfully slowly.
I must say, though, two nights ago marked the scariest storm I have experienced thus far. Here’s what happened: I was uncomfortably warm and humid, even at 10:30 pm. Though there were heavy clouds on the horizon, it had rained the night before and so I was convinced it would not rain again tonight. I lay in my bed hot and miserable, as I realized I was sweating enough to turn my dusty sheets into muddy sheet… I woke up two hours later to gusty winds. Determined not to spend another night sleeping inside if it was not absolutely necessary, I pledged to stay outside until I felt actual raindrops. As the wind got progressively more aggressive I started lying sideways on my bed with my feet hanging outside the mosquito net. This way I could have my shoes on and therefore spend every possible second outside, where it had actually begun to cool down. When the wind grew strong enough to untie my mosquito net, I conceded defeat and moved inside, but left the door open slightly so that at least I would get some adequate ventilation. I tried to go back to sleep, but the wind and thunder were so loud, I only catnapped for another hour. Around two a.m. the wind got bad enough that I realized I was going to have to close my door. Right as I was pulling it closed the wind reached a ferocious strength, and when I lay back down I sincerely wondered what I would do if my thatched roof were to blow off my hut. That’s when things got bad.
So, take a moment to recall the demonic “wall of sand” you always see during desert-adventure and other planet Si-Fi films. In these movies, it’s always extremely tense as the protagonist rushes toward shelter—her only chance of survival. Your stomach tightens. Your fingers grip a pillow in sympathetic stress. You think, she must make or she will die and the movie will end unfairly and evil will prevail. Well, in my little hut the night of that storm, I’m pretty sure I experienced the equivalent of stopping in font of the W.O.S., sitting down, and then holding up an umbrella to protect you.
Sand exploded into my hut, which I discovered at certain wind speeds is more than adequately ventilated. Furious, I jumped up to throw a piece of cloth over all my clothes, books, etc, then began madly brushing my sheets clean. I finished just in time for another assault from the desert, spraying sand all over my bed again. This time I covered my work with my top sheet as I brushed, to protect it. I lay down, and then came yet another shower of sand. At this point I just pulled the sheet over my head to keep the sand out of my eyes, and waited. Soon enough, the clouds burst and rain started pounding on my walls, settling the dust outside, thereby giving me a chance to settle myself. I cleared my bed one last time and lay down to sleep. At this point it was around four in the morning and I had only really slept for about two hours.
Just as I was dozing off, I felt a drop of water fall squarely between my eyes. My roof was leaking. Great. Rather than trying to move my mattress out of harm’s way, I just flipped around and let my feet get wet instead. Near 4:30 a.m. I finally fell back asleep in my still-sandy sheets.
Through that night was reminiscent of various “harsh interrogation techniques,” I survived the next day, but I was cranky. Several houses, walls, and trees throughout town did not fare well either, but there was no serious damage.
The moral of all this weather talk is: I like the rain. I’m from Seattle, after all. Yet, in the wake all this excitement, I am continually reminding myself of greater purpose of all this rain. For many, a year’s sustenance depends on the amount of rain that falls from June to September Remember, it does not rain outside of rainy season, and so if enough rain doesn’t come during this small three- to four-month window, there is no second chance or back up irrigation. The harvest may be inadequate. Wells and rivers may go dry. It is a critical time in the cycle of the seasons. I’m sorry to report that, in spite of the numerous storms I have experienced, the rainfall has been very modest this year. Many people have expressed concern about the size of this year’s harvest. So, please think wet thoughts for Niger.
August 16, 2009
After that last post, Niger seems to be trying to prove a point to me. Currently I am pinned into my hut, unable to go to Niamey to post this, because it’s raining SO hard. I still have an hour before the bus is supposed to come, so maybe it will work out…maybe not.
So here’s the news that is the news: (1) I found out where I’m going to live for the next two years; (2) I talked to my dad on the phone last night and he gave me the answer to “15 down” on the crossword I’ve been working on for two weeks (Russian Auto = Lida). Thanks Pops. If any one know the “Black like me actor, James ____” or “Don of Cocoon” that would be very helpful. My friend Susannah sent me this crossword as a way to pass the time; little did she know it is ungodly hard. I’m coming down the homestretch though.
Yes and SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS! I KNOW WHERE I AM GOING TO LIVE FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS! But for reasons of national security I cannot reveal the name of the town on this website. (I’m not making this up). Instead I will give you the unspecific specifics.
First, I am in the Tillaberi region, about 85 from Niamey, which is equal to two or three hours of travel. I will be living in a mud house, with two whole rooms (such luxury I am not sure what do with). I will have my own smaller, concession, but I will also be situated inside another family’s larger concession. I will not have electricity or running water, or access to the Internet. I will be by the river, and have to take a ferry to get to Niamey. I know it sounds cool, but judging how the infrastructure in this country normally functions, I have a feeling the boat crossing may become the bane of my existence. The area is supposedly pretty liberal, and there are even small clusters of animists in the area, which means I might get the chance to watch drumming ceremonies, etc.
What will I be doing? I still don’t really know much, except that I am suppose to help the mayor’s office. Do I have neighbors? Yes, I am the center of a cluster of volunteers. Am I happy? I couldn’t be happier. Everything is wonderful.
For those of you who want to know the name of the town, ask my sister. She knows. But, it is simply unwise for me to post where I will be living on the World Wide Web… Please note that this means I will have a new mailing address, available for my friends to see on facebook and available for my family via my mother and sister.
Tomorrow I will meet the mayor I will be working with, and the week after that I will go and live at my site by myself for a whole week. I will move in for good after I swear in as a volunteer, mid-September.
Allah willing, I will be able to post these 11 pages of text to my blog today and you will know everything I am doing and how happy I am. Then you will have lots more questions, which I didn’t answer. And you should send them to me! Because I am not sure what I have said thus far, or what you all will want to know.
ALSO HERE’S THE DEAL WITH MY PHONE. I can’t ever call you ever. Well I can, but for one minute of talking time, it costs me about two U.S. dollars—this is equivalent to an entire day’s living allowance. I can text the U.S. for only slightly less money. I would, however, love to chat with all of you, so call me if you can.
If you do call and I don’t answer it may seem as though it didn’t go through because I am too lazy to set up my voicemail. Also, if I don’t answer, please try again in 5 or 10 minutes, as probably just missed the call.
August 22, 2009
So Allah was not willing and has not been willing to let me use the Internets since I got here. Please note that this lapse in connection is the longest I have ever, ever gone with out checking my email and I am starting to manifest physical signs of agony.
Tomorrow I will stop off in Niamey to shop for my weeklong trial run at site, “Site Live In.” After shopping I will be taken to my site to live for one week. Basically I am going to be dropped off and given the chance to scope out the town and see what is what. It’s a big step in this whole process and I am very excited to finally see the place where I will be for the next two years!
Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to my first official blog post! As of today I have officially been in Niger for three weeks. I am writing now from the Peace Corps training site in Hamdalleye, a small village about 30 km outside of Niamey. I won’t actually be able to post this for another two weeks, so reading it now, you may be a bit behind the times…or, I am behind the times…either way, more has happened since I wrote this. (Author’s note: it’s now August 12 and I still haven’t had the chance to post this. I’m going to Niamey this Sunday and if God wills it I will get the chance to use the Internets. I apologize for the untimely delivery of all this blogging. Read it slowly. It might be a while before I can post more.)
My Arrival
Welcome to my first official blog post! As of today I have officially been in Niger for three weeks. I am writing now from the Peace Corps training site in Hamdalleye, a small village about 30 km outside of Niamey. I won’t actually be able to post this for another two weeks, so reading it now, you may be a bit behind the times…or, I am behind the times…either way, more has happened since I wrote this. (Author’s note: it’s now August 12 and I still haven’t had the chance to post this. I’m going to Niamey this Sunday and if God wills it I will get the chance to use the Internets. I apologize for the untimely delivery of all this blogging. Read it slowly. It might be a while before I can post more.)
My Arrival
So, from the beginning… Philadelphia was uneventful. I met my training class and had a very brief training on safety. We also went over our itinerary, and the “how to”/ “in case of” of getting to Africa. I ate nothing but pizza and ice cream for three days…
I arrived in Niger without any trouble. The flight from Philadelphia to Paris was really long, and I couldn’t sleep; so by the time we were flying from Paris to Niamey I was delirious with exhaustion and too tired to get nervous. I must admit though, I was a bit worried/skeptical to see how the landscape changed as we approached our destination. For the last half hour of our flight, I couldn’t pick out a single sign of human life in the orange sea of sand below.
The heavy afternoon heat immediately overwhelmed me as we deplaned, and since it’s rainy season, it very was also very humid. My first experience in Niger was being driven the 50 yards from the plane to the airport in an air-conditioned bus. I’m not sure why this was necessary since ours was the only plane at the airport and there was only one gate... Anyway, collecting baggage was no trouble (except for those whose luggage had been misplaced by Air France), and we were met by a mob of current Peace Corps Volunteers and staff, who cheered for us as we exited the airport.
From the airport we were driven to the Peace Corps training site (called Tondibon) in Hamdalleye (Hahm-duh-lie), or as many have come to call it, “mini-America,” complete with flush toilets and a volleyball court. We were all so drained from the trip that they pretty much let us go straight to bed, but the around midnight I awoke to howling winds, announcing the arrival of a storm. After fumbling to shove my mattress and mosquito net inside, I became aware of the fact that my teeth crunched with sand and my hair was plastered with grit to the point that I could make it stand on end. Welcome to Niger.
The Weather
Since that first night there have at least a few more that have been interrupted by rain. The first time it rained after I moved into Bartcawal (Bar-cha-wall), my homestay dad was kind enough to wake me up before I got drenched. Now, every night before I go to bed I assess the humidity, cloud cover, and wind to guess if I’ll make it through the night without making the mad dash inside. No matter how bad it looks I always end up staying outside until it actually starts raining. It’s a real traged
y to miscalculate and spend a sweaty night inside your hut for no reason.There are many theories aiming to predict the weather patterns here. For example, if the wind comes from the Northeast it will rain, or if you can see the stars as you go to sleep it won’t. I’ve also been told to listen to the animals, which are supposed to get especially restless before a storm. All of these theories, however, haven’t proven themselves; the wind blows from all directions before a storm, which can cloud the sky over in minutes, and the animals make noise all the time. The other night I was staring down a 180-degree panorama of lightning, but still made my bed outside. (That time I made it through the whole night without a drop, another similar night I made it until around 11:45 before waking up to a sand blizzard.) My family hasn’t been much help in getting a feel for weather patterns either. Whenever I ask any of them if they think it will rain I get one of two responses: “I really don’t know” and “if Allah wills it.” Really, I’m thrilled to have such an exciting sleeping routine. When hot season comes around in February I am going to be sorely missing the desert thunderstorms.
My Homestay Family
Throughout the day I read, study, converse, etc. on a small woven mat in my host family’s concession. The concession is very nice, shady, and far enough out of town to afford me a great deal of privacy. One of my fellow Bartcawal volunteers has his hut right in the
middle of the bush taxi stand. He told me it’s rare if ten minutes pass without someone poking their head over his wall and to check on him, or invite him to come and work in the fields. My family only shares a concession with one other family, who is very nice. The mother is a schoolteacher. I was surprised to learn that she and I not only shared a name, Hamsatou (my Nigerien nickname), but are also the same age. Needless to say she and I have experienced a very different 22 years.My homestay family is great. The father, Jzbrilla, is the local authority on the Koran (a marabou). He is basically a mullah who teaches Koranic studies, but he isn’t officially ordained. After farming all day, my father oversees the eldest two boys’ (Soumalia who is 18 and Yoga who is 12) practice of Arabic. I was impressed to find out that the boys could read and write in Arabic, but thus far, know no French. (I should mention that since it’s rainy season right now so the whole family is very busy keeping their millet fields in good order. During the rest of the year men hold the same rigorous schedule, but replace farming with drinking tea.)
The most I’ve interacted with my father is when my class did a cross-cultural session on Islam. Since he is a marabou, I thought it would be good to ask him about Islam and how to pray, etc. He got so excited at my question that he did a full demo for me. He got half way through and then decided I should be taking notes, so he sat me down and explained it all again, but this time he paused every other sentence to be sure I was writing. Of course everything he was saying was in either Zarma or Arabic, so I could barely understand, let alone take notes. Nevertheless, he and Soumalia insisted I write everything down and became exasperated with me when I would stop. I was glad to have a real conversation with my homestay dad. As a consequence, however, I have a whole page of absolutely incomprehensible (even to the most adept linguists) phonetic renditions of Arabic and Zarma.
Yoga and Soumalia are brothers, but could not be more different. Even though he’s younger Yoga is a lot more confident in himself and didn’t even skip a beat when I asked him (as a joke) if he had a girlfriend. Soumaila, on the other hand got really embarrassed when I asked him the same question. Yoga is almost entirely preoccupied with asserting his masculinity, and is always trying to act tough. Soumaila is much more relaxed, plays with the younger children, and even helps carry water from the well—a task that is usually reserved for women. Every night for the first two weeks, these two boys would drag themselves back from the fields and ask to look at the photo album Karin gave me as a departure gift. I thought they would get bored with it, but they and all the neighborhood kids seem to be endlessly entertained by it. Their favorite game is to flip through the book and point me out in each picture (even the ones I’m not in).
I had a really hard time explaining hang gliding, rock climbing, and snow. But as my language skills improved I think they finally got the generally idea. They love the picture of me holding the chainsaw, and everyone asks if my senior prom date is my husband. My two brothers were also very excited to hear that my father was a farmer like them. Soumaila always stares at the picture of Dad and Nicholas in the field, but is baffled by the fact that we choose to grow trees, which you can’t eat and are dirt-cheap here.
My homestay mom, Ramatou, has her own plot of peanuts, which I believe she is planning to sell after the harvest? Ramatou is really in charge of the whole circus, and runs a tight ship. She’s a great mother, as shown by how much her children seem to love her. I tell Ramatou where I am going everyday, and if I deviate from my plan by the time I get home, she already knows where I’ve been and asks me about my detour. She is a woman in constant motion. If she isn’t pulling water from the well, she’s sweeping, or bathing Abdoulai (the baby), or working in the fields, or pounding millet, or sifting millet, or cooking millet, or scrubbing something. I told her yesterday that she was always working, and she just smiled then shrugged…
Most of our interactions consist of Ramatou telling me that, even though I’ve eaten four cups of rice, I am in fact not full. Moreover, she tells me I had better eat more so that I can gain weight and get a husband. (The whole village was shocked to find out that at the ripe old age of 22 I was not thinking of getting married or having children. They are kind enough, however, to constantly suggesting possible husbands.)
Then there is my name-twin sister, Hamsatou. She holds more responsibility than the average ten-year-old as she is in charge of the goats and takes them out to graze everyday. Hamsa is a complete sweetheart, and patiently listens to me as I attempt to talk in Zarma, then faithfully replies “Ay man faham”—I don’t understand. Finally, there is Abdoulai—the baby (he’s two and chubby). Once I asked each of my siblings what they had done that day, after listing their chores, the kids reported that Abdoulai’s job is to stay home and eat. This is true. They kid is always eating something, weather it is leftovers, lutu (kind of like cake), a grasshopper, his shoes, his shirt, or anything he can find on the ground. Most everything in our concession, at one time or another, has been in Abdoulai’s mouth.
The kid used to burst into tears whenever I would get to close to him, but I’m winning him over slowly. Lately he’s been especially friendly, but I think that may have something to do with the fact that I brought him candy back from Niamey. His favorite toys include a plastic bag tied to a string, which he drags around everywhere and a shard of mirror, which he chews on, then bursts into a fit of laughter upon seeing his own reflection.
The family has more, older children who live and work in Niamey, but I’m not sure how many or what their names are.
Life with my homestay family is pretty relaxed. I see them mostly in the evenings after a day full of language, medical, and technical training. I get home between 4 and 6 pm and will sit out on my mat until dinner at 8, receiving more language training from my homestay siblings. As I mentioned above I am not yet learning French. I will later, but for now I am learning Zarma. It’s a pretty fun language that is related to Arabic and has less than 1,000 words. I thought at first that this would make things easier on me, but with so few relations, each word takes on double and even triple meanings. For example, “haw” means wind, cow, or to tie, depending on how you say it. “Bi” means black, shade and yesterday. And there are other words, with less harmless homophones…
My Living Situation
So, where am I living exactly? I live in a 10-foot-in-diameter mud hut with a six by ten concession around the front door. The concession is small enough that I don’t do too much in there, except sleep and hide from children. The town I live in is 11 km from the Peace Corps training site, so twice a week, four other volunteers and I bike in to Hamdalleye. At first, I was nervous about biking on such deteriorated roads.
I remember having a conversation with Sara C. (there are three “Sara”s and three “Katie”s in my training class so I have to be specific) debating which side of the road would be the best to ride on. She thought with traffic, as we do in the USA. I was arguing to ride against traffic, since most cars have to drive slowly over the crater-sized potholes and this way we could see them coming. As it turns out, it doesn’t matter which side you ride on because cars, truck, buses, and bush taxis all drive on whichever side of the road seems to have the fewest obstructions. Some of the time they just drive down the middle of the road for no apparent reason. Anyway, I think I’ve got it down now. The first days I was wobbly, nervous and slow, now I can ride my bike at top speed while gawking at camels, waving at everyone I pass, shouting greetings, and navigating the lunar-like terrain. As a special bonus, most mornings we get to watch the sunrise over the desert.
Hamdalleye is the big city compared to Bartcawal. Not only do they have electricity, but some of my fellow volunteers are living it up with spoons, actual dinner tables, and television. In Bartcawal, the people not as accustom to hosting PCV (Peace Corps Volunteers) as in Hamdy, which has been home to something like 40 training classes over the past 20 years. In fact, we are only the second group of PCT (Peace Corps Trainees) to live here in Batcawal. As a result, everyone is eager to interact with us and help us practice our language. After a villager greets me, I am routinely quizzed on my vocabulary as I walk to and from school. It was really exhausting at first, but I’m glad to be in Bartcawal, even without electricity and running water.
As a side note, I find it funny that I took so many hot showers in the days before I left America. It was my way of saying good-bye to my old life. I remember staring up into the steam and thinking, say good-bye to such luxury as heated showers. After coming to Africa, I have discovered there is an abundance of everything hot. Now I long for just one cold shower.
What is it like in Bartcawal? Sweaty, but really very nice. Everywhere we go, we are greeted profusely. I can’t walk more than ten feet outside of my concession without someone calling my name and waving me to come over and chat. The children are in total awe of us, and for the first few weeks would actively tried to herd all the Anasaras together (literally Anasara means something like “colonizer,” but it’s what the Nigeriens call anyone who is not Nigerien). Thus, any time I went anywhere in Bartcawal, fifteen kids would jump up and down and get really excited and start pointing me around corners until finally we would come to another group of fifteen kids and an another Anasara. The now 30 children would then jump up and down and marvel at their handy work. Two Ansaras in one place! It was great, however, if I was lost and looking for another trainee. Also, when going home I just ask a kid to take me to my house.
Anasara. This is my second new name. Not really, but everyone yells it at me all the time. Or at least they do before they learn my real name. Everywhere I go…Anasara! Anasara! Anasara! I always know when one of the other volunteers is coming to visit before they even get close, because off in the distance…ANASARA! I have come to conceptualize this phenomenon as something like a motion-detection alarm system that detects the movement non-Nigeriens. I was annoyed and even a little offended by this in the beginning, but now have come to just shake it off. I remind people that my name is Hamsatou, not Anasara, and most are happy to adjust. Or, sometimes, when people are talking about me in front of me like I’m not there, I will add in something like, “Yeah, the Anasara doesn’t understand anything.” This is usually hilarious to them.
Class in Bartcawal is the following: four metal chairs under a tree in the middle of town, with a chalkboard leaning against the tree, and a goat off to the side announcing every twenty seconds that he does in fact exist and would like some recognition. There is usually a herd of cattle meandering through, a woman yelling to another woman about everything she did that day, some other women pounding millet, and about 30 children staring at the Anasaras in not-so-silent awe. (I’m not sure why, but the children really find us unendingly entertaining. They are happy to sit and stare at us for hours while we do absolutely nothing. There is one little girl who sat and watched me clean my whole hut and sweep my concession without seeming the slightest bit bored.) My fellow volunteers and I are usually slumped over in the metal chairs, fanning ourselves, and complaining about the flies. And, whenever possible in our study of Zarma, we make references to all the things we would eat if we could. (Interestingly, hamburger in Zarma means “maybe,” though it’s really pronounced hambagar) This is what I spend 15 hours each week doing.
My language trainer is a Nigerien named Abass. During class he is pretty good at ignoring the scene around us, but is also very good at making children be quiet. He is pretty quiet himself, young, not married, and speaks excellent English. Abass is very interested to learn about life in America, and is always asking us questions. He thought it was really strange that my family all live in the same town, but in different houses…Also three weeks into PST it came out that his favorite musician is Michael Bolton.
How I am in general.
In general, I am very well. I surprised myself at how easily I made the transition into this lifestyle. It helps that Nigeriens are the nicest, most helpful, and generous people in the world. Moreover, I have already survived my first bout of violent and quick-onset diarrhea. (It was nothing fancy like amoebas, just some good old-fashioned bacteria.) I am enjoying getting to know my training class, and am progressing slowly, but surely with my language.
In week (or actually when I post this) I will have a cell phone. I’m not going to post my number for obvious reasons, but email me if you would like it. (I would love to hear about life on the home front!) I’ve heard that the best way to get a hold of me is with Skype (a computer program you can download and makes calls with) BUT if you have slow Internets then you may want to invest in a calling card (Mom). That’s really all I got for now, I will post more when I get the chance!! I LOVE YOU ALL!
-Katie
August 7, 2009
Looking back over the weeks, I see that we’ve done a lot since our arrival. The second weekend here we were given a break from classes to go on a demystification field trip and see life as a real PCV. My team also lost by a mere half point in the Gender and Development Olympics, which consisted of a water-on-head-with-fake-baby-on-back relay, a peanut butter making competition (we hand-pounded the peanuts), and a tea-making competition. There have also been countless games of cards, catch phrase, and volleyball. Tomorrow, we will go on our first official tour of Niamey, after which, we will be allowed to go to Niamey any Sunday.
As I mentioned before, Tuesdays and Fridays are core days when we have all our classes at the Peace Corps training site and usually get some kind of injection. So far I’ve learned how to make a malaria slide, how to cook for myself in the bush, which modes of transportation I can trust, and how decipher the many kinds of diarrhea. (Side note: Niger boasts more cases of severe diarrhea per year than any other Peace Corps country. In 2008, there were 175 cases per each 100 volunteers, making Niger by far the most-you-know-what country in the Peace Corps.)
On core days, we all become worshippers of a thing called “Pause.” Pause is a half hour break between session, which is nice, but the really amazing thing is the snack we get every Pause: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, candied peanuts, cookies hot chocolate, tea, coffee, popcorn, and honest-to-God slushies; and by honest-to-God slushies, I mean semi-frozen hibiscus juice, which tastes remarkably like bubblegum. If a session goes over its allotted time, everyone begins to shifting uneasily in their seats, craning their necks to see if the Pause snack has already been set out. If we actually witness the container of juice go by (which I have to mention is dripping with condensation because it’s so amazingly cold) we erupt into storm of physical and verbal protests, begging to be let free to partake in the very short lifespan of frozen liquid.
If a session finishes before Pause is served, all the trainees start to hover by the door to the dining hall. Everyone tries to act like it’s no big thing, but once it’s clear that Pause it on its way, we all half-run like kindergarteners to line up first. Lunch is equally delicious. Sometimes we even get pizza, which isn’t actually pizza, but is still the most amazing thing I’ve tasted. (Recall what the Cervantes once wrote: “Hunger is the best sauce.”) It’s on core days that I’ve discovered how much I can actually fit in my stomach. I am usually stuffed on the bike ride home and can barely peddle myself the 11 km home.
It’s not that I don’t love the food that my homestay mom fixes for me. I actually have discovered that I enjoy an especially fancy and diverse menu compared to many of my friends who eat millet and okra sauce (we have another name for it) twice a day, everyday. For lunch and dinner I have usually eat one of the following dishes: rice and sauce, rice and beans, spaghetti, rice and spaghetti, rice and onions, rice with tonka (a pepper topping), or rice. It’s always delicious, but honestly I would do terrible things for a hamburger or ice cream. I also plowed through my stash of candy and drink mix like there was no tomorrow. And, I’m not the only one. I’ve noticed that recently almost all of trainee conversations center on food…either coming in or going out.
Many people asked me prior to my departure what kind of work I would be doing in Niger, and I told them all I had no idea. This is still true, since so much of what I will be doing depends on my site placement; however, I do have a clearer picture than I did before, so I will elaborate as much as I can…
I am here with a group of 32 trainees. Sixteen of us are MCDs (Municipal and Community Developers) and the other 16 are CYE (Community and Youth Education). As an MCD I will be placed in a medium-sized village, and as a Zarmaphone I will be placed in either the Tillaberri or Douso regions. Zarmaland (these two regions) is much more liberal than the Hausa-speaking eastern communities. Nevertheless, I plan on wearing full-length skirts and covering my head until I am settled enough in my village to know what’s what. I’m no floozy. I will get my site announcement in about one week, and shortly after that will go and stay at my site for five or six days by myself to get a feel for everything.
Where I am placed will greatly dictate the kind of work I will be doing. For example, if I am placed closer to Niamey, I may work with International NGOs on various projects. The second weekend here I got to go and visit a real, live PCV (you might as well get used to the acronyms now). This endeavor is known in PC lingo as Demystification, or Demyst. Anyway, my Demyster, Mary, introduced me to another veteran MCD about to COS (Close of Service). This MCD and other MCDs I’ve met have done a lot of work with their local mayors office, have mapped their communes, filled out birth certificates, helped train auxiliary municipal agents, helped fund computer labs, libraries, and sewing trainings centers, AND ran student government programs. For the first three months at site, I am not allowed (nor would I want to) plan projects, but what I do plan will depends entirely on where I am and what is needed.
The whole idea of a decentralized government is very new to Niger. In fact, the first municipal elections were held in 2004. The next set of elections were scheduled for this year, but have been postponed. As part of the decentralization, each commune (a commune is essentially the equivalent of an American county) elected their own government, which consists of a mayor, vice-mayor, tax officer, general secretary, and commune counsel. At least ten percent of the counsel members are supposed to be women. Each commune had to write a PDC (stands for something in French), which lays out a five-year plan of development for each commune. This document will be useful for any MCD PCV, since it contains a needs assessment and goals for development.
Of course, this is all, “en principe” as they say in French; which is to say theory and reality sometimes have nothing to do with each other. While in theory each commune would have all of these municipal agents and planning, reality presents quiet a few challenges. For example, many of the municipal agents are not literate; other communes cannot fill every position. Since few of the positions are paid well, many agents spend the majority of their time looking for paid trainings. The list goes on… Regardless, I am very excited to get to post and get to know my community.
Things I’ve Learned in Niger:
1. You can get sunburned in the shade.
2. You can get sunburned if you wear anything less than SPF 50.
3. You can get sunburned if you don’t reapply sunscreen every 20 minutes.
4. Bedbugs are real and they will eat you alive if you aren’t careful.
5. Most cars can carry twice their mass in passengers and three times their mass in cargo piled on top of the vehicle.
6. Five cows on top of a VW van is too many.
7. Refrigeration is the most amazing thing ever invented, after flypaper.
8. Nigerian women give birth while squatting and often continue working until the contractions are unbearable. Nevertheless, women rarely cry out during delivery, as it is a sign of weakness.
9. The rice here provides you will your daily value of iron (as it contains a reasonable portion of sand and small rocks).
10. How to aim when pooping.
11. It costs a man three camels to get married.
12. While polygamy is permitted, a Muslim man can only wed as many wives as he can love and provide for equally.
13. Mohammed says you can only provide for and love four wives equally.
14. One out of four Nigerien children will die before the age of five, most frequently due to diarrheal disease.
15. You can’t take things too seriously here. If you do you are done. Laugh at yourself or be laughed at.
August 12, 2009
Today I am wearing wool socks and a sweater. This new attire is my response to the sub-arctic front that swept into Niger this morning, bringing with it a truly impressive amount of precipitation. Only a few days ago, as I was sweating into my pot of rice, I scolded myself for being so foolish as to pack wool socks when going to Africa. Today, however, I scolded myself for only brining one pair. It’s chilly.
I admit that my sense of temperature may be skewed, considering—as I was shivering the other morning—someone told me it was 80 degrees out. Nevertheless, I am surprised and somewhat mystified by this sudden, new sensation that has over taken me today. As a personal record, it’s noon and I haven’t yet broken a sweat.
I realize, reading over what I have written, that I may seem mildly obsessed with the weather here; but for this, I am unapologetic. A storm is often the most exciting point in my day, and not just because I am sans TV and starved for stimulation. I find Niger’s weather unendingly entertaining and remarkable because it is.
Each storm is preceded by several, suspenseful days of growing heat and humidity. Every day, as we sit in class fanning ourselves, someone will inevitably remark about the heat. We will then evaluate that day’s temperature, humidity, and cloud cover in comparison to the days before, and then with the weather back home. The “heat” conversation will eventually end with one of us announcing, “I hope it rains tonight, or even better, this afternoon.” We all nod in agreement and then go back to fanning. This some form of the conversation manifests approximately every 20 minutes.
A storm brings more than reprieve from the sun. If it rains during the day, class is canceled, abridged, or not taken seriously. Also, sometimes it’s nice to have the excuse to sit in your hut and do nothing. If it rains at night, we often witness a spectacular show of lightning; matched by thunder so loud it makes the earth grumble with vibrations. I also have come to love the adrenaline rush that comes when I awake to find a storm only minutes away, and thus have to go to the bathroom, take down my mosquito net, move my bed in, seal my hut before getting soaked or unintentionally exfoliated. Since the horizon lays flat and unobstructed, a person can watch a storm grow from a cloud on the horizon to an overwhelming velvet curtain that can hide the African sun from the desert.
What’s more, each storm that comes has its own, distinct personality. The storm this morning, for example, seemed no-nonsense and rushed. It was a wall charging toward us, not even bothering with the usual prelude of distant lightning. There was barely 10 minutes from the time I realized it was going to rain until I was sprinting for cover with a curtain of water on my heels. Other storms are more aloof. They spend hours flirting, but never actually materialize. Some storms come steadily and without wind. Others move painfully slowly.
I must say, though, two nights ago marked the scariest storm I have experienced thus far. Here’s what happened: I was uncomfortably warm and humid, even at 10:30 pm. Though there were heavy clouds on the horizon, it had rained the night before and so I was convinced it would not rain again tonight. I lay in my bed hot and miserable, as I realized I was sweating enough to turn my dusty sheets into muddy sheet… I woke up two hours later to gusty winds. Determined not to spend another night sleeping inside if it was not absolutely necessary, I pledged to stay outside until I felt actual raindrops. As the wind got progressively more aggressive I started lying sideways on my bed with my feet hanging outside the mosquito net. This way I could have my shoes on and therefore spend every possible second outside, where it had actually begun to cool down. When the wind grew strong enough to untie my mosquito net, I conceded defeat and moved inside, but left the door open slightly so that at least I would get some adequate ventilation. I tried to go back to sleep, but the wind and thunder were so loud, I only catnapped for another hour. Around two a.m. the wind got bad enough that I realized I was going to have to close my door. Right as I was pulling it closed the wind reached a ferocious strength, and when I lay back down I sincerely wondered what I would do if my thatched roof were to blow off my hut. That’s when things got bad.
So, take a moment to recall the demonic “wall of sand” you always see during desert-adventure and other planet Si-Fi films. In these movies, it’s always extremely tense as the protagonist rushes toward shelter—her only chance of survival. Your stomach tightens. Your fingers grip a pillow in sympathetic stress. You think, she must make or she will die and the movie will end unfairly and evil will prevail. Well, in my little hut the night of that storm, I’m pretty sure I experienced the equivalent of stopping in font of the W.O.S., sitting down, and then holding up an umbrella to protect you.
Sand exploded into my hut, which I discovered at certain wind speeds is more than adequately ventilated. Furious, I jumped up to throw a piece of cloth over all my clothes, books, etc, then began madly brushing my sheets clean. I finished just in time for another assault from the desert, spraying sand all over my bed again. This time I covered my work with my top sheet as I brushed, to protect it. I lay down, and then came yet another shower of sand. At this point I just pulled the sheet over my head to keep the sand out of my eyes, and waited. Soon enough, the clouds burst and rain started pounding on my walls, settling the dust outside, thereby giving me a chance to settle myself. I cleared my bed one last time and lay down to sleep. At this point it was around four in the morning and I had only really slept for about two hours.
Just as I was dozing off, I felt a drop of water fall squarely between my eyes. My roof was leaking. Great. Rather than trying to move my mattress out of harm’s way, I just flipped around and let my feet get wet instead. Near 4:30 a.m. I finally fell back asleep in my still-sandy sheets.
Through that night was reminiscent of various “harsh interrogation techniques,” I survived the next day, but I was cranky. Several houses, walls, and trees throughout town did not fare well either, but there was no serious damage.
The moral of all this weather talk is: I like the rain. I’m from Seattle, after all. Yet, in the wake all this excitement, I am continually reminding myself of greater purpose of all this rain. For many, a year’s sustenance depends on the amount of rain that falls from June to September Remember, it does not rain outside of rainy season, and so if enough rain doesn’t come during this small three- to four-month window, there is no second chance or back up irrigation. The harvest may be inadequate. Wells and rivers may go dry. It is a critical time in the cycle of the seasons. I’m sorry to report that, in spite of the numerous storms I have experienced, the rainfall has been very modest this year. Many people have expressed concern about the size of this year’s harvest. So, please think wet thoughts for Niger.
August 16, 2009
After that last post, Niger seems to be trying to prove a point to me. Currently I am pinned into my hut, unable to go to Niamey to post this, because it’s raining SO hard. I still have an hour before the bus is supposed to come, so maybe it will work out…maybe not.
So here’s the news that is the news: (1) I found out where I’m going to live for the next two years; (2) I talked to my dad on the phone last night and he gave me the answer to “15 down” on the crossword I’ve been working on for two weeks (Russian Auto = Lida). Thanks Pops. If any one know the “Black like me actor, James ____” or “Don of Cocoon” that would be very helpful. My friend Susannah sent me this crossword as a way to pass the time; little did she know it is ungodly hard. I’m coming down the homestretch though.
Yes and SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS! I KNOW WHERE I AM GOING TO LIVE FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS! But for reasons of national security I cannot reveal the name of the town on this website. (I’m not making this up). Instead I will give you the unspecific specifics.
First, I am in the Tillaberi region, about 85 from Niamey, which is equal to two or three hours of travel. I will be living in a mud house, with two whole rooms (such luxury I am not sure what do with). I will have my own smaller, concession, but I will also be situated inside another family’s larger concession. I will not have electricity or running water, or access to the Internet. I will be by the river, and have to take a ferry to get to Niamey. I know it sounds cool, but judging how the infrastructure in this country normally functions, I have a feeling the boat crossing may become the bane of my existence. The area is supposedly pretty liberal, and there are even small clusters of animists in the area, which means I might get the chance to watch drumming ceremonies, etc.
What will I be doing? I still don’t really know much, except that I am suppose to help the mayor’s office. Do I have neighbors? Yes, I am the center of a cluster of volunteers. Am I happy? I couldn’t be happier. Everything is wonderful.
For those of you who want to know the name of the town, ask my sister. She knows. But, it is simply unwise for me to post where I will be living on the World Wide Web… Please note that this means I will have a new mailing address, available for my friends to see on facebook and available for my family via my mother and sister.
Tomorrow I will meet the mayor I will be working with, and the week after that I will go and live at my site by myself for a whole week. I will move in for good after I swear in as a volunteer, mid-September.
Allah willing, I will be able to post these 11 pages of text to my blog today and you will know everything I am doing and how happy I am. Then you will have lots more questions, which I didn’t answer. And you should send them to me! Because I am not sure what I have said thus far, or what you all will want to know.
ALSO HERE’S THE DEAL WITH MY PHONE. I can’t ever call you ever. Well I can, but for one minute of talking time, it costs me about two U.S. dollars—this is equivalent to an entire day’s living allowance. I can text the U.S. for only slightly less money. I would, however, love to chat with all of you, so call me if you can.
If you do call and I don’t answer it may seem as though it didn’t go through because I am too lazy to set up my voicemail. Also, if I don’t answer, please try again in 5 or 10 minutes, as probably just missed the call.
August 22, 2009
So Allah was not willing and has not been willing to let me use the Internets since I got here. Please note that this lapse in connection is the longest I have ever, ever gone with out checking my email and I am starting to manifest physical signs of agony.
Tomorrow I will stop off in Niamey to shop for my weeklong trial run at site, “Site Live In.” After shopping I will be taken to my site to live for one week. Basically I am going to be dropped off and given the chance to scope out the town and see what is what. It’s a big step in this whole process and I am very excited to finally see the place where I will be for the next two years!
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