Seyni

April 26, 2011

Today I am writing to say good-bye to a dear friend who has passed away. Seyni Soumana, the program assistant/driver for the Dosso region died due to high blood pressure. I had mentioned him a many times before in this blog, but never felt like I did him justice. So I'll try to say more now. He was my best Nigerien friend, one of the biggest supports in my Peace Corps service, and the heart and soul of Team Dosso. Though he was a dear friend, I really don’t feel like I know him well enough to claim I am writing about his WHOLE life, so I will just tell you about the parts of Seyni I knew.

Seyni was really tall. He always wore a pair of Nike sunglasses that make him look like Shaft. He had a huge scar up the side of his cheek to mark him as a member of the Songhai ethnic group. Basically, he would have looked like a total badass if it weren’t for the permanent smile stuck across his face. He’d worked for Peace Corps for more than 25 years when I was moved to the Dosso region, and when I was installed in Golle, he told me a million times “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” And he did. More than anyone else on the Peace Corps Niger staff, I felt like Seyni was there to support me. He would come at any hour of the night to retrieve a sick volunteer. He spent countless days and weeks sorting through “village drama,” like what happened with my drug-abusing landlord, just to allow volunteers to do their work. I can’t even begin to explain the relief a volunteer feels for knowing that just one person is really on her side and is really there to help her. No matter what happened, what trouble I got into, I knew Seyni was only a phone call away.

Seyni was motivated in a way that few other Peace Corps staff members are, and that was that he truly believed in the mission of Peace Corps volunteers. “You guys is doing a really good thing for Niger,” he told me constantly. He also understood why we wanted to be Peace Corps volunteers—something most Nigeriens just didn’t get. After all why would anyone want to leave the comfort and abundance of America to live in a mud hut? “I used to think you guys is crazy for coming to live in the bush with nothing, but one time in America I did camping and I see being away from cities is really doing a good thing for you,” he said. Perhaps most importantly, he loved the volunteers like his own children. And I think for most of us, he definitely became a father figure.

He wasn’t well educated, but he was smart. This was evident to anyone who talked with him and after all self-learned English during his time with Peace Corps. He told me once, “If I finished high school, I’d be the president of Niger.” And, I don’t doubt it, because besides being absolutely adored by essentially everyone he encountered, Seyni knew how to get shit done.

“What the fuck you still sleeping for?” he yelled at me as he was backing his jeep out of the Dosso hostel compound. This is how Seyni let’s you know he’s ready to start work and wants you to come with him. When I took the job as the PCVL/RR in Dosso, I remarked many times how I felt like I’d become his assistant. I did a lot of other stuff, but most of the time I was with Seyni. He would give me a scrap of paper with some phone number on it and say, “Give this back to me on Thursday.” Or he would say, “Call so-and-so and let him know we’re coming to see him.” Other times he would rush me through to get in the car and do errands, only to discover he didn’t actually need my help, he only wanted company.

Once, after a long day on the road, we were driving back to Dosso together, only to get stuck behind the victory procession of Nigerien wrestlers. The crowd took over the road and stopped for several minutes in every village between Birni and Dosso, thereby taking forever and making it impossible to pass. Seyni’s solution was to (at one of the villages) veer off the road and rip through several millet fields, cutting around behind the village, back toward the main road, then racing the procession down the side of the road until he could cut ahead of them. He never actually slowed down for any of this, but when we made it back to the pavement he looked over at me with wild eyes and said something like, “That’s why they call me crazy driver.” I realized quickly after I started working with him it was better to just not look out the window when we were going somewhere.

Another time, we had gone to Kiota together to drop of supplies for a new latrine and had visited the Cheikh there. The Kiota Cheikh is a religious figure, one of the most important in West Africa. People travel from all around to see him, so I was just a little intimidated as I went to meet him. The meeting was short, but Seyni spent quite a bit of time whispering up at the Cheikh, who was seated on a plush sofa, while the rest of us sat on the ground. “What did you talk to the Cheikh about?” I asked Seyni on the drive home. “I asked him to pray for you guys,” he said. “Whenever I see him, I always ask him to pray for you, because you know, he is really powerful guy, the Cheikh. If he prays for you, it works. Unless…sometimes he forgets, but if he does it, it really works.”

I loved the way he would fall over laughing at my friend Katy and me when he came into the hostel to find us with green cosmetic facemasks on. I love the way he loved American food, and the sound he made when I fed him raw cookie dough for the first time. I love that, after picking up a volunteer with a severe malaria and sitting with him all night while the volunteer hallucinated, the next morning he told the volunteer, “Man, I think this guy really going to die.”

When we were evacuated, I watched Seyni’s heart break when I told him we were leaving. In the 72 hours following, before we left, he continued to give his job everything he had and more, though it was plain to everyone how upset he was. Peace Corps was his life and without it, not only was he without money, but seemingly without a purpose. Where else was he going to get a job where he would need to know slangy English, all the roads in Dosso, and how to drive like a madman?

Leaving Dosso for the last time, all the volunteers piled on to the short white bus we always called the magic bus, but Seyni stopped me and said, “You come ride with me. I don’t want to be alone.” I was expecting the usually gabby Seyni or even complainy Seyni, but mostly we just rode in comfortable silence. At one point Seyni, without taking his eyes off the road, said, “Hamsatou, I don’t know what I will do without you guys. I think I will die.” I was horrified to hear him talking like this, so I did my best to reassure him. The only thing that I could think of was the over-used, somewhat cheesy Zarma quip, Irkoy ga ni bana, God will pay you. And even though I felt like an idiot for using such basic words, Seyni relaxed in his seat and said, “You know, there is a God. That I know. I know it. Allah will provide.”

I don’t think Seyni was forecasting anything when he said he thought he would die without us, but I don’t think anyone was surprised to hear he’d died of high-blood pressure. The man took everything on himself tried to be everything to everybody, and I’m sure the task of providing for his family without the Peace

Corps paycheck was overwhelmingly stressful.

The thing that makes me the saddest is that we can’t be together today to remember Seyni. I'm sure there are generations of Peace Corps Volunteers--we don't even know each other. I imagine if we could gather all the PCVs who knew and loved Seyni, we would cause quite a sceen. I wish more than anything we could all curl up in the Dosso hostel tonight and tell stories about Seyni, share memories, laugh and cry. But the volunteers who knew and loved him are spread all over the world right now. So I invite you to join this group of facebook: Remembering Seyni, and we’ll do the best we can with what we’ve got.

Seyni, Irkoy ma cabe cere.

What Niger Was.

April 11th, 2011

So, before I begin this entry, let me just say that I am definitely more upbeat than the last time I wrote. I’ve had a really positive couple of weeks and am significantly less inclined to lie down on random sidewalks. Don’t worry.

Also, I know you’re all probably very interested in what I’m doing now, in Senegal. (I promise to write one of those entries soon) but lately I’ve felt compelled to write once more about Niger. As I’m sure I will for a long time, I’m still reflecting on my time there and how it changed me and I’ve reached some conclusions I want to share. Quick note: I talk about Niger in this entry as basically being empty and horrible…and I feel weird about that because the place is so full of wonderful, loving people, rich culture/traditions, and interesting places. But, in this instance when I say, “Niger” I am referring more to my 18 months there, my work, and the actual landscape, than the country as a whole/its people.

But let me first say:

St. Louis is simply irresistible. It’s comfortable year round; the streets are significantly cleaner than any others I’ve seen in Africa. The island on which I live thrives with cutesy restaurants, charming hotels, historical landmarks, and handicraft shops. Fresh produce is everywhere. There is a grocery store mere blocks from my house and a café with wireless and creampuffs. The beach is just a short stroll away. I mean, there are actual, goddamned horse-drawn buggies that haul tourists from one end of the island to the other. St. Louis is no South of France, but it is definitely easy to like.

Niger wasn’t. Niger was blistering hot, without apparent charm, dusty, dirty, and largely empty. The first year I was there, I spent as much time hating that country as I did loving it. The Sahel took on the persona of a difficult, quirky relative: often infuriating, sometimes disarming, but always someone you love to hate. During that first year, my calls home were infused with an it’s-so-horrible-it’s-funny sarcasm. I remember thinking too often, why would anyone ever come here? –a thought made more pronounced by sparse offers of loved ones to visit.

As much as I joked about it, a lot of the time I spent in Golle felt vaguely like serving a prison sentence. In spite of my adventures in my village, it was strangely painful to stay in there. I was always counting the days until I got to leave my site for the regional capital, cold soda, and other volunteers. Besides the lack of amenities in Golle, it became clear I would not be able to establish any meaningful collaboration with the mayor’s office. Other projects were slow to follow, and believe me, not having work is impossibly difficult for Americans—most of all me.

Of course, the painful stagnation that enveloped my first year of service disappeared when I took the new position in Dosso, but I was there for such a short time, living in Dosso is not what I will remember when I think back to Niger. I will remember myself, alone—lost in a flat, endless landscape.

When I left for Niger, I remember the excitement I felt at the prospect of spending two years in the desert—an intensely spiritual place (according to many important books I had read). So imagine my grave disappointment when I deplaned to discover the desert was nothing more than a red line butting up against a grey sky. I stuck up my nose at the stark horizon and spent my time day dreaming about the fullness of the Seattle skyline. I thought Niger was ugly and uninspiring. But, what slowly I realized over eighteen months was that one of Niger’s greatest treasures is its unapologetic sparseness. There is no luxury of abundance to soften the edge of reality, no noise to drown out a spiritual warzone: me.

Before Niger, I had always imagined personal transformation to be a fun, inspiring process…like stretching muscles. It’s slightly uncomfortable, but invigorating, gratifying and most of all, easy. What I got in Niger was no pleasant, bendy, oh-I-get-it-now experience. It was more like a deafening, terrorizing dissection of my life that I couldn’t stop any more than I could hold back the dust storms or the downpours: “Why am I not more productive? Why aren’t I better at this? Why aren’t I better at everything? Why can’t I change everything? Why did I make so many mistakes? I wasn’t I kinder, better, smarter, stronger? What am I doing wrong? Why isn’t everything easier? Why isn’t anything easy? How will I ever get through this?” And, many of the most painful questions I can’t even begin to articulate.

But, here’s the question: how did so much pain and apparent emptiness leave me so happy and full?

All of this to get you to read following quote, which (for me) best describes what Niger was. It comes from “The Prophet” a small book written by Kahlil Gibrin, given to me by my dear friend Nick.

“Joy is your sorrow unmasked. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain… When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again into your heart and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say, ‘Joy is greater than sorrow,’ and others say, ‘Nay sorrow is the greater.’ But I say unto you they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep on your bed.”

The desert carved a hole in me that the love of my villagers, Peace Corps friends, and land rushed in and filled. The pain of Niger’s emptiness, the heat and the sand, polished me—made me better. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I would do over in a heartbeat.

Urban Sprawl

March 26, 2011

Yesterday was Friday. I was walking home from work and afternoon errands, and a mere two blocks from my house I was so overcome by hunger, exhaustion, frustration, anxiety, and nostalgia that I seriously felt I could not take another step. My first impulse was to just sit down on the sidewalk, and, in a moment of deep self-indulgence, I really considered doing it. The concrete seemed so sunny and friendly. Why not just sit there and wait for some kind of solution to find me?

I didn’t sit. I kept walking, mostly because I knew that sitting on a sidewalk would in no way make me less hungry. Nevertheless, I am still a bit awestruck by such an intense feeling of I-can’t-go-on. Part of the problem is that I have started running again, and—out of shape as I am, all the exercise makes my legs feel like they are made of jelly. It was also a Friday, after a week of work at the Talibe center, where I split my time between tedious data entry and feeling deeply inadequate, mostly because of my lack of language. I am throwing myself into learning French and Wolof as best I can, but learning a language takes time and communication is difficult. That morning had been especially frustrating, as I had spent at least an hour watching my boss edit my beautiful, equation-driven Excel spreadsheets with hunt-and-peck typing and a hand calculator. Explaining Excel is hard in French.

The nostalgia is easy enough to understand. I miss Niger, and my friends. (I think about you all the time.) I miss being the pro, the old blood, the wizened sage.

The anxiety stems from a combination of boy-troubles and the fact that, with regular Internet access, I am able to spend several hours a day reading the news. Though there is a great deal of unrest in Northern Africa, things are stable in Senegal, minus a few some anti-government protests. I can’t pinpoint the one crisis that is making me so uneasy, but I’ve realized the single greatest psychological impact the Peace Corps has had on me is that I am constantly anticipating the next disaster: site closure, coup d’état, faulty latrine, crazy landlord, friends dying, evacuation. Things never stay settled for long. We live in a constant state of flux.

Here’s the thing, though: Really, my time in St. Louis is going very well. I don’t LOVE my life here, but, walking around the cute colonial streets, I feel like I really COULD. It’s beautiful, comfortable, and I feel like my work at the talibe center will eventually be very fulfilling. The fact is I’ve been flung back in time to September 2009, when I was first adjusting to my site in Niger. I barely spoke Zarma and really had no idea what I was doing. I constantly questioned my decision to join the Peace Corps, was agonized by the fact my days weren’t caulked full of clearly meaningful, gratifying, baby-saving work.

I’ve forgotten how my first months in Niger were peppered with debilitating frustration and doubt, as well as glorious little triumphs that filled me with such a light of joy and clarity. And now here I am, the new kid again, suffering the same extremes: landlady scolds me + so-and-so doesn’t understand what I’m saying = I have a bad morning and question why I’m even here; later, a cute, so-shy-he-can-barely-look-at me talibe does a Winnie the Pooh puzzle with me + I say something sassy in French = I feel like a million bucks and daydream about living in Africa for the rest of my life.

You’d think that things would be easier the second time around. I think that too, and I think that thinking is making it harder. In other words, as a Peace Corps savant, master-integrater and language learner I wonder: I’ve been here three whole weeks, why are things easy yet? Also, I need to remember I don’t even have the strong support network of volunteers I developed in Niger. I’m sure I will find good friends here too, but I’m just getting started. And until I get to a point where I am comfortable with the language and established in my post, I need to resist all urges to sprawl on the sidewalk and wait for the end to come.

Training, WAIST, Toilet Issues and My New Post (not in that order)

March 5, 2011

Right now I am sitting in a third-floor, sunny apartment overlooking the Atlantic. It’s warm, but not hot; and while the apartment isn’t exactly clean, the view more than makes up for it. I’m in St. Louis (San Louie, in French) Senegal—not to be confused with St. Louis (Saint Louis, in English), MO. Even though I’m sure St. Louis, MO is very nice, I am more excited about things happening here in Senegal—this is my new post.

(It's ok if you're jealous)

First, let me tell you a little about the city I will be living in. St. Louis was the colonial capital until Senegal gained independence in 1960. It is located in Northwest Senegal, where the mouth of the Senegal River meets the ocean. The city itself splits its 200,000 residents between the mainland and an island, reachable by bridge. Several bird reserves and a bunch of postcard-worthy beaches also surround the city.

As for weather, St. Louis only has two seasons, the rainy season from June to October, characterized by heat, humidity and storms, and the dry season from November to May, characterized by cool ocean breeze and dust from the Harmatten winds. Basically, it’s great weather year-round, never experiencing the stifling heat of the Sahel.

I look out the window and I can see palm trees, in front of turquoise water and a beautiful sunset.

Also St. Louis

What about my job? I’m going to be working on the island with a Senegalese NGO called Enfance Claire. Enfance Claire’s mission is to provide services to “Talibes" (pronounced tal-EE-bays) Koranic students sent from the bush to study with a marabout (a Koranic authority). As part of their studies, the children are sent to the streets everyday to beg for food in order to learn humility. Unfortunately, often times the marabouts do not have enough money to feed their students at all and the children end up spending all their time on the street begging. In these cases, the children may stay with the teacher for years only learning to recite several Koranic verses, without understanding their meaning. The children rarely learn to actually read and write Arabic and, since they are not home helping their families farm, do not learn any practical skills. After three or four years of studying the Koran, the student may return home to attend public school, but more often they end up as adults without any skills or knowledge to maintain a livelihood.

In other cases, if the marabout is corrupt, he will send his students to beg, and then collect their earnings at the end of the day. Many students are beaten or punished for not bringing back a large enough sum, and so eventually run away. The Human Rights Watch estimated 90% of the homeless children in Dakar are former Talibes.

Talibe in Dakar

It is important to point out that not all marabouts are corrupt. What’s more, in recent years parents have started sending their children to Koranic school only on the weekends or holidays. This modernized system allows children to gain both a formal and religious education. Also, it ends the tradition of sending a child away from his or her family to study the Koran; this way a student still has the support and care of his or her family.

I think this is a very positive change. My language trainer, Sakhir, was former talibe and while he openly condemn the old practices and corrupt marabouts, he is sending is daughter to Koranic school everyday after school. (Girls enrolling in Koranic school is also a recent phenomenon.)

Nevertheless, the problem of marabouts abusing, exploiting and neglecting their students remains. In St. Louis (remember SAN Lou-EE, not SAINT Lou-IS), there are an estimated 30,000 homeless/begging children. So, as I said before, Enfance Claire works to provide these children with basic services. For example, their office doubles as a drop in center where the children can shower and play, but the organization also offers programs to provide counseling, enroll kids in public school, and to provide them with vocational and life skills training.

I’m not sure what my job will be exactly, but I have a meeting with the organization and my Peace Corps supervisor on Monday to figure that out. My best guess is that I will work to improve certain programs, while at the same time trying to provide some over all managerial support.

Housing is still up in the air too, but it’s look like I will have my own apartment. (This is very exciting news.)

In other news, the rest of training went well, largely because Hailey and I discovered a hotel with wireless and a pool mere minutes from our houses. I fell into a comfortable routine with my homestay family: breakfast, class, lunch, class, afternoon walk/run/internet time, dinner, bed. The cement-block house was very comfortable, even if the neighborhood—full or partially constructed homes—gave off a wild-west, ghost-town vibe. We chatted and joked a fair amount, but whenever the power was on, the mother (a widow and her four kids) were always squatted in front of their TV. Also, after having lived with five different families/neighborhoods in Niger, I just don’t have the let’s-be-really-good-friends energy I used to.

I must say, I’ve developed a much stronger dislike of MTV since coming to Senegal. Why does that have to be the one channel broadcasted around the world to represent America? It’s pretty embarrassing to be sitting with a conservative Muslim family while they watch a 17-year-old girl talk about her sex addiction. Granted, this is what the family chose to watch thereby sort of excusing the programming, but I was still embarrassed—especially since the family kept asking if I knew the people on the screen.

Besides MTV, the family’s familiarity with western culture made the homestay easier. In the evenings, I would sit around with the four kids and we would all do our homework together. My host mom was completely understood why I would want to spend entire afternoons swimming and using the Internet. And, I swear to Allah, the family slept in on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Funny how I never noticed my families not sleeping in in Niger, but such a small detail so Senegal makes it seem infinitely more like America. Also, unlike my families in Niger, this family was less timid about interacting with me, while at the same time still very respectful of my privacy. The mother would ask me questions about my life in America and Niger. The kids would correct my French grammar and play catch with me. (The kids here wear clothes and have toys!)

The food was amazing too! Sorry Niger, Senegal’s got you beat. Rather than just millet pate and sauce every night, the Senegalese eat a lot of fresh fish and vegetables on rice or couscous. They also make an amazing lemon, onion sauce with chicken and an equally amazing peanut sauce on rice. For breakfast, I would just eat a piece of a baguette with Nescafe, but would supplement that with a mid-morning snack of yogurt mixed with grain, which you could buy on the side of the road.

All in all this was one of the best homestays I’ve ever had. The only fly in the ointment was the minor difficult I had with the family’s toilet. Now…after having spent nearly two years in Africa, I can poop just about anywhere, which is to say, I have low toilet standards. So, as I expected, I was perfectly comfortable with the family’s Turkish toilet (see image). That wasn’t the problem. The problem was I kept accidentally dropping things in the toilet, and then being forced to fish them out.

Turkish Toilet
Photo courtesy of Linda Huff Taylor

The first time it happened, I dropped a bar of soap in. I was trying to wash my hands and have the water go down the drain, but this is trickier than it sounds since there is no faucet. So, I had to pour the cup of water with one hand, while clutching the large bar of soap in the other. And, you know, soap is slippery.

I know what you’re thinking: what was so special about this bar of soap that I felt the need to rescue it from the six inches of poop water it rested in. The answer is: nothing. But…if I left it there, my family would surely discover the soap in short order. And I don’t think I would have survived the why-is-there-soap-down-the-toilet conversation. So, I stood there for a moment, gave a grim nod to the toilet and did what had to be done. I laughed about it later with Hailey, but mostly because I told her the story after she used the soap in question to wash her hands.

Funny as this incident is by itself, another bar of soap was down the toilet within a week. And then the cap to my water bottle… But the real winner was dropping my cell phone down the toilet. It fell out of my jeans pocket when I was taking a shower in the next stall over. This was much more traumatic than any of the previous incidents as there was clearly a turd (not mine) floating next to the phone (mine). But that phone cost me money, dammit! So I DID WHAT HAD TO BE DONE. After this, phone went through a very stringent decontamination regiment, involving water, q-tips and a lot of bleach…but I still hold the thing and inch or two away from my mouth when I talk.

Is this all an over-share? This is my life. Plus, Hailey and Sakhir thought it was hilarious.

Other than that, the only really exciting thing I’ve done is to participate in the West African Intramural Softball Tournament (WAIST). This is not just a Peace Corps thing, but rather a three-day event that brings expats, NGO workers, embassy staff, and PCVs from all over west Africa together.

Peace Corps volunteers seem to have a different idea of what the tournament should entail than the other participants…as in they play in costumes and not by the rules, so the tournament is organized to insolate the rest of the participates from Peace Corps as long as possible. Thus, in the beginning PCVs only playing other PCVs.

Since there were only eight of us, Niger Refugee couldn’t be it’s own team. This turned out to be a good thing in the end, because we were grouped with other volunteers from Cape Verde. The Capeverdians were all super cool (they brought capes). Together…we developed an unbeatable team chemistry that allowed us to win our division! Though, as I suggested above, the games weren’t really softball games at all. In our first match, we played a Peace Corps Senegal team dressed up as “Hot Cops.” There was a lot of thrusting. Also, they had at least 20 outfielders, and the hambugler kept stealing second base—I mean, actually picking up the base and running a way with it. Our team was accused of being too competitive, because for our first game we were all sober (at 8:30 am) and actually tried to win with the same effort you might see in a high school P.E. class. Though we did play one or two “too competitive” Peace Corps teams as well.

Note the "Hot Cop" on first

I scored two runs.

Unfortunately, the Niger group couldn’t stay for the last day of games, because we had to return for language classes. This was also a blessing in disguise, as the rest of our team reported to use they were destroyed 31 to three by a bunch of really competitive high school students. Also…our team tried to play the game on three hours of sleep. No problem.

WAIST sounds like a big shitshow…and in a lot of ways it was. But it was also really amazing to see how much creativity PCVs put into their costumes, how much fun PCVs can have together, and to have the opportunity to get to know volunteers from other countries. For all the shenanigans, I had a lot of amazing conversations with other volunteers about the work they were doing, what life is like in their country, and the commonalities of our experience. All in all, it was a good time.

Senegal, The Basics

February 7, 2011

As soon as I arrived in Dakar, I immediately felt washed with relief. I’d traveled thousands of miles, was still several countries away from my Nigerien home, but somehow felt I was back on familiar ground. We deplaned directly onto the tarmac, but were forced to ride little, air-conditioned buses 50 yards to the airport entrance—same as Niamey and something I’d always found amusing. Same overwhelming heat. Same style of sign on top of the terminal announcing the airport’s name. At the door and though customs, I was blatantly cut and had to push to keep my spot in line. Yes. I am back in West Africa.

Getting to the Casablanca airport from Rabat is—in itself—another hilarious story. Somehow, in spite of the fact Peace Corps usually gets its volunteers to the airport tragically early, our car had departed nearly 40 minutes late from the hotel and we were under serious pressure to make our flight.

Team Senegal Leaving Morocco

The eight of us transferring to Senegal half-joked Sylvia would send us home for missing our flight. No one believed it, but after a week of her constantly reminding us we should consider our transfers purely speculative until she said so[1], I worried missing the flight might make things more annoyingly complicated.

We grew more and more tense as the drive continued. Sweaty hands gripped the velour seats as we peered into the darkness for helpful road signs. I asked for the time at increasingly shorter intervals. We strategized how to most efficiently maneuver through the airport. You know, the usual useless impatience…

The Moroccan chauffer, apparently, did not share our stress. After hitting then subsequently infuriating a Moroccan motorcyclist at the beginning of the drive (it was more of a tap really), he had continued at a vigilant, borderline inert pace. At a certain point in the drive, he took a turn so slowly my friend Hailey thought we had broken down. Since none of us spoke French, we debated at length how to ask the driver to go faster. Yeah…actually he spoke English too…

Our minivan pulled up to the airport curb approximately 15 minutes before check-in for our flight ended. In an attempt at stratigery, I was sent ahead to figure out where we were supposed to check-in while the rest of the team unloaded our inordinate amount of luggage. In the three minutes I spent running around the airport antechamber, I learned nothing. But, I did make it back to the doorway in time to see a flustered Minnie try and push her entire luggage cart (with baggage) through the mental detector. I apparently missed Shelby capsizing her cart when making a particularly sharp turn.

I’m not going to give you a play-by-play of the rest of our journey through the airport, but some of the highlights include:

- Eight Americans stampeding toward the check-in counter with their overburdened luggage carts.

- Eight Americans having to unpack and repack overweight bags, thereby fully monopolizing the area in front of our (and at least three other) check-in counters.

- A quick side trip to a completely different part of the airport to pay for our overweight baggage.

- Going through customs in French, in spite of the fact none of us actually speak French.

- A very stressful last push to make it to the gate in time.

- Sitting on-board the plane for an hour, waiting to take off.

So now I’m here. In Senegal. Learning French. Living with my fifth Peace Corps host family.

Here’s the plan: The other seven Niger transferees and I are going to go through four weeks of language training while staying in a homestay family. We are spread across three different villages, based on the language we are learning. Hailey, a third-year volunteer, and I are staying in Thies (pronounced Chez). After two weeks of French, we’re going to switch to learning Wolof—the principal local language in Senegal. We have class everyday in the morning and study time in the afternoon.

Our language trainer, Sakhir, is a rockstar, though slightly goofy and uncoordinated such that he always looks like he is walking in sand. He has worked for the Peace Corps for the past ten years and so is a total pro at accommodating Western learning styles (which makes things easier for everyone.) I asked him the other day how to tell someone nicely you think they are lying. His reply was, “You say they are telling the truth.” (In Niger there were one or two culturally appropriate ways to softly call someone out. Apparently, it is not the same in Senegal.) He also almost fell of his chair laughing when I told him the story of how I fell in my latrine.

Anyway, after arriving, I talked with the country director, a retired CEO from the Pacific Northwest, about my new post in Senegal and what work I will do. He laid out about seven options—all partnerships with NGOs—for Hailey and me to pick from. We told him what we were most interested in and he disappeared back to Dakar to get more detailed job descriptions. Right now I’m waiting for those before deciding where I want to go. All I can say for now is I am likely to be in either Dakar or St. Louis, both of which are major cities and have beaches. I will have an apartment and an amazing (AMAZING) job. I’m not even exaggerating my excitement as a way to cope with leaving Niger. I am genuinely overwhelmed with excitement for my new position.

We are going to finish with training February 26^th and start work at our new sites in early March. Inshallah. Really, inshallah. Until then, I’m in Thies.

And Thies is good. It’s actually a pretty hopping town. In a bit of synchronicity…or irony…the hippest nightclub in Thies is called “The Dosso,” which I’m sure has more going on in it the entire city in Niger. I haven’t been yet. Full report later.

So, I know it’s deeply unfair and unwise to compare Senegal to Niger, but such thoughts come unprompted. Let’s see if I can do it in one sentence: Senegal is more developed, more westernized, more ethnically diverse, more filled with tourists, more shaped liked a pac-man; less conservative, less Muslim, less friendly, less landlocked; smaller, richer, wetter, mosquito-ier, prettier, yet equally overrun with trash. Also, there are pigs here. DAMN! Two sentences.

So, minus the pigs, which are huge and scare me, life here is pretty plush compared to Niger. In fact, I estimate that Senegal is ten times more developed than Niger. Here’s how I know: The other day a kid on the street asked me for a thousand francs. In Niger, they never asked for more than a hundred. Yeah! Take that Social Science. I live by Bruce Science, though the United Nations Index of Development may beg to differ.

There's A Beach!

But seriously, it is plain to the Niger-adjusted eye that Senegal is doing well for itself. Even in small village shops have storefronts and houses are made of concrete. Diarrhea isn’t the number one killer of children here, as in Niger, but rather Malaria, which suggests villages have better access to clean water. There are grocery stores outside the capital. Wireless is everywhere. People have health insurance! Hailey’s homestay family has a computer. …and I haven’t even seen Dakar, which is the most developed part of the country. Also, I spent last Sunday laying on the beach under a palm tree and swimming in the Atlantic. Niger was all sand and no beach, if you know what I’m saying.

Obviously it’s not fair to compare Senegal to Niger based on the one city I’ve spent time in, Thies. I’m fairly certain the analogy “Thies is to Dosso, as the Senegalese bush is to the Nigerien bush” doesn’t hold, which is to say small villages in Senegal probably struggle just as much as those in Niger. But, the urban centers of Senegal are leagues ahead of what Niger has to offer.

I’ll give you more toilet anecdotes and homestay insights later. I'm trying to make more frequent, shorter blog posts, which is possible now that I have regular access to Internet...

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[1] (and she never said so)

Dad asked for more pictures...

This one is older...from Gotheye
(Tom took it, not me)

My Family's Concession

Cow Cart!

Inside my house in Golle.

The kids of my family digging a trench so my concession would drain...

This is Benin, actually.

Some PCV Friends

One night of bed bugs...
(not my back)

Katies with Giraffes

My Family's House in Golle

Henna Disaster

Souleymane at Obama's Truckstop

VATs with Tondi

My Dosso Family

The Thing About the Worse-Thing-Ever (Peace Corps Transition) Conference

February 3, 2011

WARNING: This blog entry is a critique of various politics and processes within the Peace Corps and is therefore boring. It is also full of my opinions, which I find largely hazardous. Further, let me preface this entry by saying, I’m not trying to give Peace Corps bad press. I wrote this largely as catharsis. After everything I still think the Peace Corps is a good, valuable program. I love being a volunteer and would enthusiastically encourage others to apply. I also want to point out I was a bit (completely) emotional during this conference and so recognize I am less than objective when talking about it. Finally, I want to say, in spite of my frustration with the conference, every member of the transition conference staff was nothing but sympathetic, respectful, and honest (though artfully evasive) during our time together. No one behaved badly. But that doesn’t change the fact the conference was bad.

Here’s why: Things move slowly out in the Peace Corps world. So, when trying to find new posts for evacuated volunteers, it takes time (like more than a few hours) for a country director to verify a post is ready or investigate potential sites. The transition conference I attended, however, gave country directors one weekday, eight work hours (plus a weekend, but nothing happens on the weekend in Peace Corps) to find posts for transfers.

Volunteers were given four days to simultaneously close their service, see a Peace Corps shrink to process the evacuation, decide whether or not to proceed with Peace Corps, find out if they could proceed with Peace Corps, and come up with a number of contingency plans in case something or everything didn’t work out. (Please note: closing service is a long process involving medical exams, lots of paper work, career and readjustment sessions. The sessions alone normally last a week. The volunteer then has three months to make next-steps plans and prepare to readjust to America, which is widely acknowledged to be the hardest part of Peace Corps.)

You may ask, why the rush? According to the Peace Corps, they didn’t have enough money to host a longer transition conference.

But, here’s the thing: I understand the Peace Corps doesn’t have an unlimited budget and things are especially tricky right now under continuing resolution; but how can the Peace Corps expect its volunteers to remain committed to the institution and thus, to their work and thus, the very idea of Peace Corps, when the Peace Corps is seemingly apathetic towards its volunteers?

Bottom line: The Peace Corps should have given ALL interested, medically-cleared volunteers at least some option to transfer to another country and finish his or her service. Even if it took time. Even if it cost money.

What actually happened: The conference was rushed, making the process exponentially more stressful for volunteers and preventing country directors from being able to find direct transfer posts. Whenever and wherever possible volunteers were discouraged and disqualified from direct transferring. The process of granting direct transfers itself was painfully bureaucratic and not at all transparent. In spite of the enduring commitment displayed by the 98 Niger evacuees, the transition staff made it abundantly clear to us they would rather we just go home and start the 27 months over if we wanted to continue with Peace Corps. Finally, the Peace Corps wasted an absurd about of money lodging 98 volunteers, plus staff in a super fancy hotel while telling us they didn’t have enough money to host a longer conference. A longer conference would have made more transfers possible. Balls.

So, now let’s back up and I will tell you how why I think all the things I think. But first…

…What was the Transition Conference? The Transition Conference I attended in Morocco was lead by a team of Peace Corps savants from all over the world. They wrote out goals for the conference. I remember there were three of them…

Several administrative whosits and whatsits officers came from D.C.; medical professionals from Morocco and already-evacuated Mauritania were there to take our blood and look at our poop. The proverbial feather in the team’s cap came all the way from southern Africa—we’ll call her Sylvia. Sylvia is a Peace Corps evacuee herself, and now the country director of some African country. She was very no-nonsense and likable, minus her overuse of dramatic pauses in presentations. She seems to have earned a name for herself as Peace Corps’ go-to, lead-a-transition-conference woman. Now I see she really earned a name for herself as the go-to, lead-a-transition-conference-for-cheaper-than-anyone-else-can woman. And of course, several staff members from Niger were there, including the country director, Valerie, and our beloved Tondi, the training manager. (Note: except the country director’s thumbs up or thumbs down, the Niger staff was completely excluded from the transfer process.)

My experience: I was “lucky” and left Niger on the first group flight, arriving in Morocco Friday. My group spent Saturday and Sunday taking care of medical exams and taking our first deep breaths since receiving the call. I got to see the ocean. I don’t know what I would have done without those two days to reorient myself outside the vacuum of the evacuation.

(Me showing how sad I was.)

The other group got to the hotel late Monday. It was then we were told in few words the Peace Corps didn’t have enough money to give all those who wanted them direct transfers and most of us were going home. It was then I understood Sylvia’s talent as a transition conference leader. Not only did she come across as (dramatic pause) empathetic, she managed our expectations in the same way you could say that iceberg managed the Titanic. Nonchalant, but decisive. Despondent as I was then, I now see how strategic it was to sink all our transfer hopes. After convincing us we were already on our way out the door, she made transferring and staying a PCV seem like something we should be lips-on-the-ground grateful for.

I think this manipulation of perception made most of us forget the obvious: we already were PCVs.

Yeah, that was Monday evening. Tuesday we closed our services. Wednesday afternoon we heard what our options for continuing service were. Thursday we had to tell the transition team our preferences. That afternoon, we heard whether or not we could stay or if we didn’t make the cut, and had to go home. Saturday by eleven AM, we had to be out of the hotel. Please rearrange your life in four days, while at the same time processing a major life trauma and saying good-bye to your principal support network…no big deal.

What was this like? It was like being caught in a blinding, hotel-shaped vortex, in which my power to plan beyond the next day, sometimes the hour, was zapped away. It was one of the worst experiences of my life…up there with falling off the chairlift in ski school. I imagine everyone, like me, felt a thousand things at once: panicked, traumatized, horrified, alone, overwhelmed by the crowd, aching with hope for a transfer, inconsolable, needing to be consoled, heartbroken, cranky, anxious to seize our last hours together, and unbelievably exhausted. And, underneath it all, there was this vague “hum” of competition over who would get what post. Especially, we wondered which training class would get preference for new posts. Do they want the new kids who still have two years of service ahead of them or the old kids who have more experience?

The different training classes had all been in-country for different amounts of time: 18 months, six months, and three months, plus a handful of third-year volunteers. Those in country three months were only in their villages for eight days before being evacuated. Naturally we all had very different reactions to the evacuation, but the one common thread amongst all the training classes was the resounding desire to continue with our service. Upon arriving in Morocco, I am aware of only four or five volunteers who were certain they wanted to close their service. We loved it. We wanted to stay.

What bothers me: Rather than the staff being heartened by this display of commitment to the Peace Corps program and goals, whenever and wherever possible volunteers were discouraged and disqualified from direct transferring. Worse, somehow they made it seem like an honor and a privilege to remain what we already were, Peace Corps Volunteers.

No matter the reason, there were some low blows: One of my friends wasn’t medically cleared because of a skin rash that would heal within a couple weeks. Another friend was disqualified because her lab tests would take too long for a direct transfer…as in they wouldn’t be done in four days. Yet another friend was in America when we got evacuated and wasn’t even given the chance to talk about direct transferring. It was clear during the “counseling sessions” we were being mentally screened. We had to get a positive recommendation from our old country director, who I love, but who’d only been in country six months. (I don’t think that’s enough time to make a life-changing recommendation for all 98 Niger volunteers.) Finally, in spite of the fact we’d all successfully passed the yearlong application process, we had to interview with a placement officer, which felt a great deal like interviewing for a job we’d already gotten.

Not to mention the process of declaring our transfer preferences for transfer posts was a hilariously nonsensical display of bureaucratic rigidity. Let me ‘splain: When a volunteer joins Peace Corps she is assigned a number, which indicates her assignment area. For example, she might be assigned as a NGO developer and given the code 145. In spite of her strong public health background and the fact her work in Niger had nothing to do with NGO development, this volunteer can only work at posts with the same code. Keep in mind the codes assigned to posts are often as arbitrary as codes assigned to volunteers. So, basically, Peace Corps assigns a volunteer a code that has little to do with her qualifications and then, based on that code, assigns a volunteer to a post with the same code, which has little to do with the actual work the post will require. We had to limit our transfer preferences to posts that matched our codes. Sylvia told us (in so many words) the fires of hell would rain down upon us if we dared request a post that didn’t match our code. For many volunteers, no matching posts were offered.

An example of how little sense this made: At my new post in Dosso, the Peace Corps had all but approved me to partner with an orphanage as my primary assignment. I, however, was not eligible for a post in Rwanda working with an orphanage because the codes didn’t match. I understand the Peace Corps needs ways to organize its volunteers and the work they do, but this kind of inflexibility boarders on stupidity. (Another fun quirk: administratively, the Peace Corps doesn’t recognize Morocco part of Africa.)

(Me & My Friend Nick in Fes)

After all that, the procedure for selecting who would be offered direct transfers was not at all transparent. No exaggeration: we gave them a list of our preferences and the transition staff locked themselves in a room and emerged four hours later with a list of transfers. To frustrate us further, if a volunteer who’d been offered a post decided he didn’t want to transfer after all, his post wasn’t offered to another interested, eligible volunteer.

The really painful thing is, as volunteers, the Peace Corps constantly reminds of the commitment we’ve made. Our country director even handed out actual wallet-sized cards with a list of Peace Corps’ expectations for volunteers. Things like: you’re expected to serve for the full two years, you’re on duty 24/7, you’re obliged to present the Peace Corps positively, you must stay in your village as much as possible (this isn’t a vacation).

They also ask us to be flexible: flexible when applying, flexible about when you go, flexible about where you go, flexible about the work you will do, flexible when adapting to the new culture, flexible when getting posts, flexible when moving posts, flexible when moving posts again because you have a crazy landlord, flexible when falling in latrines, flexible when being evacuated. And the truth is, we don’t mind. In spite of everything, I still think Peace Corps is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done.

But…after being so flexible and committed for 18 months…then arriving in Morocco and hearing the Peace Corps was likely to cut my service 9 months short (for others 21 months short) with seemingly little consideration, I had to ask, isn’t the Peace Corps willing to be flexible and committed to its volunteers? Rather than going the it’s-easier-and-cheaper-to-send-everyone-home-route, shouldn’t they have worked to find posts for these obviously committed volunteers?

Every volunteer knows readjusting is cited as the hardest part of a Peace Corps service; but being sent home early is more than just emotionally disruptive. Imagine having to rebuild a life for yourself, including finding a job, apartment, a city to live in, etc. while facing no-longer-deferred student loans, and with a smaller readjustment allowance than you’d expected. (Please note: the Peace Corps does give returned volunteers one month of free heath insurance.) My point is cutting our service short is a big deal—both emotionally and financially disruptive. This is no small thing.

Regarding volunteer care: to be clear, I do think in general the Peace Corps does enough for its volunteers. And I don’t mean “enough” as in they go above and beyond, can’t do more. Rather, I mean to say they do enough to keep going—they keep us healthy and safe and offer some career help afterward. (Sorry ABC news, but I felt safer in Niger than I do in Seattle.) But, looking at how much the Peace Corps asks of its volunteers, I think they should add to its list of minimum commitments finding a way (in times like these) for volunteers to complete their tenure. Basically, I think the Peace Corps is obligated to uphold their end of the deal: two years.

Again, let me concede accommodating every volunteer may not always be possible, but the Peace Corps staff should make their best effort. And, in our case, I don’t think that happened. The mismanagement of the transition conference grew more evident as time passed. Most volunteers recognize pretty quickly how ridiculous it was for the Peace Corps to cite the budget as a reason we couldn’t transfer while lodging and feeding 98 volunteers plus staff in a 200-USD-per-night hotel. We got catered snacks in between sessions; including fresh squeezed orange juice and artsy cookies. There was a gym and a spa. I enjoyed the hot baths, but would have been just has happy take cold showers at another country’s training site if it meant more people getting posts.

Sylvia talked a lot, but one thing she didn’t tell us is: it is actually possible to find everyone posts if you are willing to wait more than four days. Yes, there is a direct relationship between time waited and available posts. If we’d been able to stay somewhere cheaper, longer, directors in other countries could had more than a day to find more posts for transferring volunteers. After arriving in Senegal, I heard many Peace Corps countries were scrambling to find posts for us, but just needed another 48 hours or so. Even more upsetting, I learned one country director who was already taking some direct transfers said, if only she’d known there were more volunteers wanting spots she could have taken more.

One of my good volunteer friends was evacuated from a Peace Corps country before, and was given a direct transfer to Niger to finish his service. He ended up extending, only to be evacuated again from Niger. BUT, at his original transition conference everyone who wanted to (and was medically cleared to) finish his or her service was given the opportunity to direct transfer. It took four weeks, but I think the time was worth it. I know plenty of now Returned PCVs who would have been willing to wait.

Hearing how obtainable posts really were just makes me feel as though the Peace Corps sees its volunteers as completely disposable. “Don’t worry about these volunteers, we can get new ones.” During the conference, I kept brainstorming jokes about the Peace Corps giving us paper cuts or kicking us in the shins, just in case they were looking to add injury to insult. I still haven’t come up with a good one.

In the Peace Corps defense: Volunteers are eligible to start over, and for the newer kids that’s not such a pain. Also, they did invent a whole new process from transferring evacuated volunteers just for us. I won’t go into the specifics (boring), but let me say this creativity and flexibility did give more volunteers the chance to transfer. Also, a member of the transition staff told me I had the right to be angry. (Thank you, I am.) Also, the admin lady was very flexible about giving us cash in lieu of a plane ticket. Also, one of the shrinks recognized we were moving too quickly. Thanks.

Nevertheless, I still found the conference to be manipulative, damaging, and rife with nonsense. It was like the transition staff filled a room with Peace Corps volunteers, stood in front of us, then told us they weren’t sure who would be selected to become Peace Corps volunteers. (I thought about putting last clause in active voice, but the transition staff really made it seem like getting a transfer would be an act of God. Sylvia talked a great deal about stars aligning as a reason for us getting a transfer, so I left it in passive.) Even when considering assignment codes, medical screening, general likeability and astrology, it’s still completely unclear to me why a lucky 30-some volunteers were offered transfers and the other 60-some were sent home. They are all great volunteers. I know some dedicated, highly qualified PCVs who were sent home.

I just hope the process of deciding was more sophisticated than pulling names out of hat, though I’m fairly certain it was less just. We’ll never know; we weren’t in that room. What is clear is the Peace Corps just jaded a large number of volunteers who at one point were willing to set their lives aside to serve.

Full disclosure: At the end of the conference, Sylvia handed out evaluations as a way for us to give feedback. I definitely forgot to fill mine out.