Sannu da zuwa!

After a long hiatus...

2010-11-22T08:05:00.000-08:00

I am finally writing a new blog entry. I apologize. A lot has happened in the past few months with little internet or ability to describe it all.

Goat Project: Working with women

It's interesting working with women here because you're never quite sure if they understand what you're talking about or if they are just agreeing with you to appease you. Before buying the goats, I held workshops for the women on financing and goat care. The whole time they seemed distracted and aloof. I was skeptical as to whether they actually paid attention to any of it. The night after the first session, though, one of my women's groups came to my house to talk about what was said because all but one hadn't shown up. The one woman sat there with me, describing all that had been said and gave feed back. It was amazing! Despite having yet another exhaustingly long meeting late at night, it helped me end the day feeling far more fulfilled.

Even during a project targeted exclusively toward women, men always seem to find their way into leading roles, the same roles that push the project forward. Once the women had made their financial contributions and participated in the workshops, we went to market to buy 25 pregnant goats. I asked the help of the local veterinarian of the village. Basically I wanted him to approve the goats that the women chose. Instead, he said it would just be easier for him to go and bargain for all 25 goats himself.

Later, when we realized we had extra money, the vet insisted on giving a workshop on goat maintenance himself. He did not believe the women were fully knowledgeable on the subject despite spending their entire life caring for goats and the previous small workshop that we had for them. In front of him, the women assented to everything he said for the most part. When with me, however, they adamantly stated that they wanted to buy 25 smaller goats with the remaining money and would buy the goats themselves. It was difficult to balance the opinions of an expert and those of my women. I did not know what would be better for them in the long run, what would lead to a sturdy, sustainable project.

In the end, I wanted to empower my women so I listened to them and bought the 25 more goats. Once we reached the market, they did not seem to make much of an effort to go out and select the goats. Here is when my American mentality got in the way because I became anxious to take action. Then the vet showed up unexpectedly and moved things along. Within the hour, we had 25 more goats. Looking back, I am still unsure whether I should have spoke up for my women and said they could handle it. Alas, my fear of losing all the good goats before they could step up, take charge and choose was too great.

Swearing in of the New Newbies

Before I could attend the first bi-weekly meeting with each of my women's groups, I had to leave for Niamey for the new volunteers' swear-in ceremony. The ceremony was nice, and it was wonderful to have new people coming to live in our region. Seven new volunteers came out to Zinder. We timed it so that we would meet them in Zinder with a nice welcome meal and then see them off when they left for the first time to their villages.

Getting back to ville

After arriving back in my village, I found out that the villagers and those of the surrounding villages were in the midst of a cholera outbreak. What happens during a Cholera outbreak? Well, in my village, the streets were mostly empty, everyone staying the one housing areas. When you saw a group of people, it was most likely for a funeral (2+/day). The little work that existed previously in the village was reduced. Many did not go to work save some men who had to harvest their crops. Next to no one came for our usually vibrant market day. The health hut, which I was not allowed to go near, erected temporary housing for the sick to come and stay. As for me, I had to bleach and filter ever bit of water I used, refuse any food offered to me by my villagers, wash my hands more than usual and make sure all food I ate was well cooked and/or well bleached. Of the people that died, I personally knew six of them, but none were close friends (thank goodness for my friends).

A little over a week after I arrived, the epidemic in my village seemed to be clearing up. Nigerien health officials approved the steps taken by regional health care providers, and they declared my village safe again, with only a few more outbreaks in surrounding villages.

Niger Video

2010-09-19T01:27:00.000-07:00

For any who are interested in getting a better feel of Niger, a friend of mine made a video. Here is the address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XoM5bxlVFo.

Newbies, Goats and Rain

2010-08-02T02:01:00.000-07:00

The Newbies are here!!! I’m no longer a Newbie!!! It’s been a while. Peace Corps Niger normally has two groups of trainees a year, one in July (my group) and one in October. Because of last year’s consolidation, the October trainees, those from the agriculture and health sector, were sent to Madagascar instead. Thus, my fellow 2009 volunteers and I have been the newbie volunteers for some time now. It has had its advantages such as the ability to claim ignorance on most things if need be. Overall, though, we’ve been like the little siblings who never really get to grow up… spread our wings and fly sort of thing (to some extent that is).

Pretty soon, our older sister group of volunteers goes back to the United States, the new group gets prepared to become new volunteers, and we are suppose to become the veterans of the crew. Yikes! I kind of find that more terrifying. I do not feel like I have learned enough here to be a legitimate resource of knowledge. My Hausa has also not improved as much as it should have this past year. Fortunately we still have the small agriculture group that arrived the October before us. They are a small group, only two in Zinder, but they will be the true veterans for a while at least.

In the meantime, the 2009 volunteer stage (my group) get to help train the newbies. I am helping with the fifth week of training. During this week, trainees find out where they will be spending the next two years – Site Announcements. In addition, they have a workshop on a participatory development framework called PACA: “Participatory Assessment for Community Action”. It’s a relatively long and tedious workshop, but the emphasis on community participation in volunteer projects is important. Moreover, like any administrative body, Peace Corps needs to legitimate itself by having theoretical frameworks and processes that embody those frameworks. Peace Corps needs to prove that its program brings about desired outcomes to development. Practices such as PACA can help to set measures of success, which can facilitate assessment of the program. So, for the fifth time in my service I will sit through a description of PACA. Hopefully the language trainers will perform a mock PACA session as they did during the preparatory week we had before the trainees came. In addition to being highly realistic (I could see that exact conversation happening in my village), it was incredibly entertaining. I think it would be educational for the newbies.

So I spent one week in Niamey preparing for the new trainees to arrive. We did several team building exercises and had discussions concerning potential dilemmas and solutions during training. They changed the program schedule since my training. In the middle of training, trainees will break into groups of three and spend ten days in a bush village with a language trainer. The hope is that this intensive language training session will prepare trainees even more for life in their villages and provide additional time at the end of training to start an additional language, either national language or French. This experience will be particularly beneficial for hausa speakers who, up to this point, have only had training in the village of Hamdallaye, which is in a Zarma speaking region of Niger (very few Hausa-phone families).

Back in Ville

Before going to help trainees, I spent a good amount of time in my village. School is out, and teachers have left my village and gone home for vacation. I now realize how many kids also come to my ville for junior high because now they are all gone. Many kids also go to other family members for vacation. In my mayor’s family, for instance, most of the smaller children have gone on vacation to other villages, visiting his older daughters in their homes. Hence, any education projects are not feasible. Because it is rainy season (i.e. farming season), doing projects with adults can be difficult as well. In my village, men are almost always out in the fields during the day. When they come back in the afternoon, it is mostly to rest and pray. Since crops have already been planted, women mostly stay at home doing their usual work. Their usual work is incredibly time-consuming and abundant, however, no matter what the season. Considering all of this, I am taking a summer break of my own and not starting any new projects.

My goat project is progressing nicely despite the timing. It is probably advantageous that I am working with women in this case. While they are busy, perhaps more so since they are missing some of their child labor due to vacation, they still are showing a lot of effort with this project. [SIDENOTE: Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone who helped by donating money and good wishes to this project.] The project is now fully funded stateside, and my village women are close to collecting their portion of the project funding. We will be able to buy the twenty-five pregnant goats in just a few weeks. For the workshops prior to goat purchase, I am now collaborating with a Nigerien NGO representative from Aquadev, a Belgian NGO that does various kinds of development work. I am really excited to work with the Aquadev rep. He has a lot of experience is doing development workshops, particularly micro financing workshops with women. When I go into Zinder next, we are going to meet and organize the workshop curriculum. After my return from training the newbies in Hamdallaye, we will conduct the workshops and buy the goats. I will be tracking the project’s progress by attending the women’s group meetings every two weeks, when they pay their bi-weekly dues and discuss any developments such as goat births. Then in December, we hope to hold follow-up workshops. I’ll make sure to keep everyone updated.

I have continued giving computer lessons to those interested. I actually ran into one gentleman who is extremely interested in getting a few tutorials before he goes off to University in Niamey. He just passed his Bac, the large exam at the end of high school which dictates whether you graduate and can continue school. He has never used a computer and is afraid of how much this will hinder his studies. I really hope I can help him get the fundamentals before he starts school.

Mostly I have just been hanging out with my villagers. There have been a lot of births recently, so I have been attending many baptisms. No matter how much I try, I do not think I have successfully argued why one should have less than ten children. Villagers always argue that if Allah wants them to procreate and if they give birth to ten children, then that is what Allah wants. No logic can defeat Allah in this case. “Allah provides”. I find this argument very frustrating, and I do not understand it. Then again, my villagers may think I’m a blasphemer and crazy for saying that “no, Allah won’t provide for everything and everyone; He’s only one deity”. It does depend on your point of view. I will not give up, however. Perhaps approaching the problem by arguing for birth spacing IS a more effective solution. If women space their births, hopefully they will end up with fewer children thanks to biology. Although making that argument makes me feel like a lawyer, trying to find a loophole in the procreation bylaws.

Now for Something Completely Different

Thanks to rainy season, two of my arch-nemesis (yes, I have multiple) have returned!

1. The flies have invaded every square foot of air and surface in this country. It is highly disturbing. They are everywhere! There is a constant buzz in the air. As I walk through my village, they are attacking anything, everything and everyone. I walk past my butcher, and I can’t see the meat because of the layer of flies. I find it impossible to sit outside without going crazy. So I spend much of the day hiding is my semi-sweltering hut. Sadly, my hut is not the cool sanctuary that it was during hot season since now there is a nice breeze outside, but my hut does keep the majority of flies away from me. Moreover, these flies are a different breed than those in the states. They have no shame. They will go anywhere. Many go straight into my mouth or just hang onto my eyelid until the very last minute, making me whack myself in the eye. At this point, I am pretty positive they are playing with me. “Let’s play chicken with the white girl! Ten points to any fly that actually makes her bruise herself!”

2. I have also discovered while in this country that I really, really dislike frogs. Have you every heard of the species of frog that only come out during rainy season and then spend the rest of the year hibernating underground? They are about the size of my fist, are an endangered species, and are one of the first animals in a very, very long time that have caused me to scream at the top of my lungs. Why is it that I can calmly flick away a cockroach crawling up my leg but freak out when a frog jumps toward me? Well, they are a lot larger and slimier than cockroaches. The sound they make at night is louder than cicada’s in the U.S. on a summer night. I really dislike the way their throats go up and down as they breathe and how they climb up walls. One night I was lying in bed (outside) and saw one crawling up the wall just two feet away from me. Eee-gats! Most importantly, though, they are so incredibly dumb that they jump into your path as you walk. One of these days I am not going to be fast enough and step on one as it jumps under my foot. The idea of squishing a frog and feeling its bone and guts spill out is one of the creepiest things that I can imagine. Going back to my village on one of my bush taxis at night, I watched at least two dozen frogs jump into the light created by the car’s headlights and get smooched. I do not want to be callous, but no wonder they’re endangered.

End of Hot Season

2010-07-13T01:39:00.001-07:00

It is the end of hot season. For most of my fellow volunteers, their villages have had rain, which officially starts rainy season. As soon as a village has a decent rain, villagers go out into the fields and start planting in the fresh, wet soil (a.k.a. sand). They plant as much as they can in one day and then wait for the next rain to continue their planting. I was in the more southern regions of Niger this past week, just above Nigeria, visiting friends. They have already had quite a bit of rain. One area actually had rain over a month ago. The millet is already growing, and it looks amazing. So green. I hope this is a fortuitous sign for the upcoming growing season since the previous year was so bad. Needless to say, another year of famine would be disastrous. Sadly, my village has yet to receive any rain. Hopefully that status will have changed by the time I go back to ville.

During rainy season, Nigeriens plant mostly millet, sorghum, beans, and peanuts. Most of the food they grow and consume here is what we would only feed birds and farm animals in the states. For this reason, I sometimes feel a bit awkward when people here ask me if we have this kind of food in the states. They absolutely LOVE asking me if I eat millet in the states because millet is their primary staple and, in their opinion, it is what gives health and strength. ‘Not healthy? You are probably not eating enough millet.’ So how does one respond when asked if we have the primary sources of Nigerien food in America? I do not think that answering “yes, but we only give it to other animals” would be very culturally sensitive. In all honest, millet would be a nutritious form of whole grain carbohydrates if my villagers didn’t pound it to excess. Pounding food with a large, wooden mortar and pestle is a daily task here, which happens to pound most of the nutrients out of the food (kind of like overcooking I think). At least this is what I am told. And yet, currently, all I can do is pray that my villagers grow enough of this horse feed to feed themselves over the next year.

So with the rain, the men are also coming back into the village. They had been on exode to other regions in Niger or other countries. I have certainly seen some unfamiliar faces sitting in the men’s groups, drinking tea as I walk along the road. I had a chat with one guy who had seen me when I first came to my village and then left for Nigeria. He said he was surprised it was me because I am so fat now. Apparently I have gained weight. Thankfully in Niger, someone saying that you are fat is actually a compliment. All the same, it felt a bit odd having that said to your face. I expect to have a lot more random chats with guys in my village as more come home to farm for the season.

Political Divide

To sum up, since the military coup in February, little has changed for the everyday villager. New officials were assigned to run the country, organize elections and install preventatives so that the next president can’t legally set up an administrative coup. Locally, elected mayors were disbanded and communes (kind of like countries in America) were either given new mayors or put under a larger power, the Prefecture.

My commune was put under its prefecture, and my mayor’s office was closed. We didn’t have any hired administrative staff, so there was no point in keeping it open. The interim government has said the by March 2010, a new Nigerien president will be in office. Previous to those elections, though, local elections will hopefully be held. I hope my mayor will be re-elected. Given the opinions from my villagers and those from surrounding villages, I can see he is very popular. But even if he is reelected, I wonder if this new government will be any more effective than the last.

This brings me to my point. I have had several conversations with people here about their politics. When you compare politics here with that of America, our polarized political system looks like playground spats. Because people are from different political parties, they will refuse to do their jobs. The Sarki in my village, for example, will refuse to give the tax money to my mayor’s office because he and the Mayor are from different parties. They’re rivals instead of two pieces of the government working together. This polarization (in addition to the blatant corruption within the government) has not only created an ineffective government, but it has also influenced people’s willingness to participate in government. Why would someone entangle themselves in government business or elections when a) there community is not really getting any benefits from the government, and b) participation most likely means you have to take sides in a conflict between two significant powers? A villager is not going to win under these circumstances. Moreover, how is Niger going to develop when its government is bound thanks to these political rivalries and its people refrain from getting involved? In theory, increased participation via democracy should aid development. In reality, it seems to have made development even more prone to stagnation.

Gathering of Volunteers

Peace Corps Niger just had its first ever all-volunteer conference. Seeing as the areas around Niamey are not as safe as one would like (i.e. higher theft and some political activity), we had the conference out in Zinder. It was a wonderful opportunity for those in the west part of the country to visit the eastern parts of Niger. Western volunteers often do not have that chance. Zinder volunteers came in a few days early to set up for the three-day conference during which various second year volunteers gave presentations on successful projects they conducted while in Niger. Presentations ranged from population education and girls camps to drip gardens and business clubs. We discussed funding opportunities and grant writing tips. While some of these project ideas are covered during our pre-service and mid-service training workshops, this gave volunteers the opportunity to trade thoughts and reactions to those projects as well as offer new project ideas. Like so many things in this world, the theory and the reality rarely mimic one another. Volunteers were able to say how they used the materials given to them and how they adapted those resources to their village needs. It was truly inspiring to see other volunteers’ accomplishments and to see what one is capable of while in this country.

Help Me Buy Some Goats!

2010-06-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

I interrupt my regularly scheduled blog entry for a special announcement...

As stated in my previous blog, I am doing a goat project. Please see previous entry for details. Well the proposal has been approved. Yay! Now all I need is your help. I need to raise $1200. If you would like to contribute...

1. Go to http://www.peacecorps.gov.
2. Under "Resources for", click "Donations"
3. You can search for my project using one of the following:
- Last Name: Lyon-Hill
- Country: Niger
- State: Ohio
- Title: Women's Goat Microfinance Project

Hopefully the link will be up by Monday, June 7th.

Whoa it's hot!

2010-05-20T00:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it is officially hot season in Niger. It has been hot season for some time now, and it certainly shows. Midday until four o’clock in the afternoon, no one can do a thing. I went out a little before two the other week and saw next to no one. Those I did see were sleeping or barely moving in the shade. For me, I can barely go past eleven in the morning before I feel the signs of heat exhaustion. I did not actually register that what I was feeling was heat exhaustion until I read the symptoms in this month’s country newsletter. Now I am trying to rest even more than before and drink more (deliciously hot) water, just in case. The idea of fainting in front of my villagers does not sound appealing. Even the nights are hot, and you wake up drenched in sweat. While this experience has certainly helped me overcome my fear of heat, my distaste for it still remains. I am not planning to move to Alaska when I go home, but the deep south or south west are certainly not on my list of places to live. I miss cold wet rains, chilly winds and snow.

Of course, when I have these thoughts, part of me yells profusely at myself because I am only here for two years. In the meantime, my villagers have to live here their entire lives. Even when I am here, I am not living like my villagers do. While I am guaranteed water no matter what (it’s in my village agreement), I am sure there are some people in my villager who are certainly not getting enough water, particularly when considering this heat. When ice or cold water is available, usually a couple times a week, I buy as much as I can. My villagers can’t do that. I also do not do half the amount of physical labor that the people in my village do. I spent one day sitting in the shade with friends in my market, watching five guys build a four-room, mud brick building to house small shops. They were still working by the time I headed home for lunch, and it was probably 105 degrees out or more.

More importantly, I am not starving and suffering from malnutrition. Many, if not most, of my villagers are malnourished all year around. Now, during hunger season, conditions are ten times worse. The last rainy season was not very good, and not nearly enough crops were harvested. Even with subsidized food from the government and humanitarian aid from the UN and other countries, people are not getting what they need. This is the first time in my villager when I have been regularly asked for food by ten or more villagers a day; that estimate does not include everyday beggars or the koranic school kids who beg for food as part of their, for lack of a better term, studies. With the starvation and the heat, it seems as if the death toll in this country has jumped significantly. I literally hear of at least one death a day somewhere in or near my village. These are certainly arduous conditions. And yet, my villagers just go about their days, heads held high and proud. Sure they complain about their wahala (hardship and tireness), but who doesn’t complain in the U.S.?

Now for something completely different…

I am doing a relatively large project and, depending on the success of my proposal, I may need help from all you wonderful people in the states! Yes, I am begging for help and for that, I apologize.

The project is pretty much your basic income generating goat project. Here’s the official project description:

Niger is one of the most underdeveloped countries in the world, ranked least developed out of 182 countries according to the 2009 UN Human Development Index. Among other things, Niger suffers from lack of human capacity, few natural resources and increasing desertification. This project will provide resources by giving goats to fifty women, who will then work together to breed and sell the offspring. Through workshops, the project will increase participants’ ability to breed and manage livestock as well as improve their knowledge of financial planning. While the community can provide the training, it does not have the means to buy the goats. Twenty-five pregnant, healthy female goats will be bought and given to fifty women, one goat for every two women to ensure initial cooperation and teamwork mentality. These women will work together, and once the goats give birth, each woman will then have at least one female goat to breed and sell the offspring. A portion of the money gained from this venture will go to the women and their families for food and living. The remaining profits will be saved in a group account to be used for other development projects. Within eight months, participating women will gain the knowledge and confidence needed to make good business decisions. They will have the means and know-how to continue their goat breeding business as well as pursue other income generating activities.

So here’s where I need help: fundraising. I have to raise a little under $1200. The fundraising for this project is run through a program called Peace Corps Partnerships, one of the most commonly used funding sources in Peace Corps. The community contributes at least twenty-five percent of all project costs (in this case, it’s 27% not including the cost of caring for the animals). The Peace Corps volunteer writes a proposal, which then goes through the country office and then the National Peace Corps office in Washington D.C. If they accept the proposal, they will put the project up on a website (I will give you the address when I can), where people can then contribute money online. Peace Corps Partnerships is funded through Peace Corps, so all proceeds raised for this project will go to the project and not elsewhere. You are also able to get a tax deduction from this contribution.

I feel fairly awkward asking all my friends, family and possible other random people for this. But I also figure you may feel more comfortable giving to charity when you know (100%) where that money will go (to my village via me!). Of course, my proposal is still waiting for approval from Peace Corps, so this whole project may blow up in my face even before it’s begun. However, I wanted to give you all time to think it over and ask me any questions that you might have. As soon as my project is approved and put on the website (knock of wood), I will be sure to advertise it anywhere and everywhere I see fit.

I would really like this project to be successful. My women in my village are so incredibly excited. They’ve even started raising their own funds to care for the goats. Originally I said they each had to contribute 1000cfa (about $2) each by the time we buy the goats. That is 100cfa a week for ten weeks. Of course they decided to start now. So by the time the project starts, they will certainly have more than the 50,000cfa that I specified as part of the community contribution on the proposal. Having heard from other volunteers about their villages’ lack of motivation, this demonstration of dedication has really inspired me. I love my villagers!

So there it is: another blog entry. I will try to make the next one more interesting. For now, sai anjima!

April 2010: Projects Galore

2010-04-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

Toe… I don’t know if being in Niger has lowered my expectation in terms of accomplishment, but I do feel like I have accomplished much in the last few weeks. Here we go…

Girls Camp

Several volunteers in the Zinder region brought 1-4 girls to Zinderville for a week long workshop. Most of these girls were junior high age and (happily) still in school. The first day we made name tags, played games and had a health fair. I really hope to do a health fair at some point in my village now, but I would have to improve my health vocabulary. I was helping out at the food station, where we taught the girls about three different food groups: starches, meats and fruits/veggies, and why each is important. In the starches section, I was suppose to explain how these foods provided durundakum (energy), but I often screwed up the pronunciation. The following days were filled with other classes such as civics education, geography, learning about women from around the world, sensibilization mural paintings, practicing good study habits, and going to the radio station to tell what we’ve been doing and greet our villages. Greeting one’s village and friends is very important and exciting to most Nigeriens. Each girl was able to go up and say, “Ina son gaida…” (I want to greet…) and then they would spew off a list of names. Normally Hausa radio seems a bit tedious because of this aspect, but in this case, the girls’ greetings were adorable. Overall, the entire girls camp was a great success. The volunteers who organized it, those who came a year ahead of me and my stage mates, were amazing! I only hope that we can do as good of a job, if not better, next year.

Kindergarten

My village has started a kindergarten in town, and the director/teacher asked me to see if I could find funding for school supplies. Since this is exactly the kind of work I want to do – providing assistance to community organized and run projects – I was thrilled to help. Luckily the community was not simply asking for handouts. With any funding project, the community has to contribute at least 15% of total project costs. My villagers had already planned to build the kindergarten facilities (a grass hut), each family was paying 100cfa a week per child for the teacher’s services, and the local primary school was already helping out by providing some supplies such as a chalkboard. I did hold a meeting with the traditional head of my village, the sarki, to reinforce these obligations. I emphasized that without this, there’s no money. I also tried to point out that this is a one time thing and that if supplies needed to be replenished at a later date, another solution would have to be found, namely starting a collection or looking for an NGO that specializes in school funding projects.

Several of my villagers have clearly expressed to me that they are motivated and want to do projects, but they simply lack access to funds. This kindergarten was such a case. When talking to my mayor about this problem, he explained to me why funding is such an issue (besides the obvious fact that it’s a poverty stricken country). In most developed countries, government support is provided for many community development projects. My local government cannot provide this assistance. Its tax collecting capabilities are limited. Because people have never benefited from public assistance, they do not see the point of paying taxes. The few taxes that are collected, are traditionally collected by the sarki. According to several villagers, in the case of my village at least (although this may be the case for many others), the sarki and my mayor are from different political parties, which has caused some animosity between the two. As a result, the sarki refuses to give the tax money he has collected over to the local government (or so I am told). Most of the tax money that is collected then goes to the department capital, where in theory it should be redistributed among the various communes (my village is the head of one of those communes). This does not happen however. Of the ~25,000,000 cfa that should go to my mayor’s office for the past few years, they have received less than 7,000,000 cfa.

So this is the situation that my villagers seem to find themselves in. Since I am a white person who can read, write, and who has access to resources that most villagers do not, I am definitely inclined to help financially if I can. I just hope this whole thing does not blow up in my face, i.e. the funds I do get for these projects do not go to the projects and end up being pocketed or wasted on personal expenses. There have been many cases where a volunteer will do a project, such as finding funds and building a water pump, and the village doesn’t take care of it or takes the money for something else. The percentage community contribution is meant to create a sense of ownership for the village so that they are more willing to maintain and cultivate the project. This contribution is sometimes ineffective. The end result is a failed project. I guess the kindergarten will illustrate how much my villagers are actually motivated and how much of their motivation is just talk.

Other projects

I have gotten my first round of pen pal letters almost done! Girls in my junior high school have written letters to girls from my home town junior high. We have just now gotten replies, and I am excited to go back to my village and read the letters with my girls. Even with me translating the letters into French, some explanations will be required. For instance, many of the American girls said they liked to play outside. This seems like a perfectly normal activity in America, but here one might ask, “Play outside? As opposed to what?”. Life here is spent almost entirely outside. If one is inside, it is mostly to sleep at night during cold season or rest when the flies are annoying and it’s actually hotter outside. The buildings here are definitely a lot smaller (one room usually) and don’t even have what we would think of as traditional windows or doors. Little stuff like that is going to be really fun and interesting to talk to my girls about.

I am heading back to my village in a couple of days with some fellow volunteers to do a health mural at my doctor’s office. I plan on painting three different images: 1) a women holding her child for the doctor to give the kid a vaccination; I want to have little pictures illustrating the different times that a child needs vaccines (this is a wonderful idea brought by my artistically talented friend Audrey. Thanks Audrey!); 2) a family with three children who are of different ages to illustrate proper family planning; 3) a pregnant woman sleeping under a mosquito net because pregnant women are actually far more susceptible to malaria, and their babies are at higher risk of death. Hopefully the mural will take only a few days to paint, but will then be used numerous times as visual aids for health sensibilizations. Inshallah!

Since coming back from a fellow volunteer’s town where we did participatory development workshops using theater, my plans for radio in my village have changed somewhat. In Sarah’s village (the volunteer who we visited), we took women’s and men’s groups, and asked them to act out a common problem about village life. Some of these problems dealt with health, cowife issues, lack of food, and problems inherent in the microloan system. We then asked them to think about possible solutions to these problems. The point was trying to visualize these problems as a group in order to better understand them and their potential solutions. For the most part, the results were interesting and informative. Some groups understood what we were trying to do and came up with very detailed, enlightening skits. Others did not quite understand and either mimicked the examples given or went into diatribes describing why they need money. Hausa villagers are not often exposed to activities which encourage creative thought and acting. The idea of thinking in abstractions is a foreign concept in many cases. For instance, if I were to get a group together, ask them what projects they want to do, and then provide an example of a project, they would most likely choose the example I just stated rather than innovating their own project ideas. By using theatre to express real life problems, perhaps abstract ideas and concepts can be merged with reality, creating a bridge of communication and collaboration in some respect. That is the idea at least.

I am hoping to take this experience and translate it into radio shows. I had already decided that using groups in my community, particular the young girls group I am working with, to do radio shows was a good idea. My Hausa is still fairly mediocre. There are some things concerning pronunciation at the very least that I know I will never get. So working with groups to convey messages such as hygiene, family planning, supporting your government, might be the better approach. If they can make these skits up themselves and do them over the radio, that would be even better.

In other news

On the other side of things, I haven’t spent much time in my village. Most volunteers tell me that both I and my villagers should get use to me coming and going. It’s natural, particularly when I am working, trying to get projects off the ground. I am hoping for a cool down soon, though. I hope to spend the majority of this coming month (as in all but two or three days) in my village. People also say that volunteers can’t do much anyway in the upcoming months because the heat makes you not want to move, you’re villagers are probably beginning to starve because supplies are starting to run low from the previous harvest, most men are somewhere else try to work and earn money, and it’s summer break for the kids. So really, it will be just me hanging out in my village, doing what I can.

With any luck, my mayor’s office will get funding for writing a community plan, and we will travel around our subregion (kind of like a county) and talk with communities about their needs and resources. This process may be hampered, though, by the recent political changes. As of April, all elected officials have been stripped of their titles and disbanded. In reality, the elected terms of these officials, namely the mayors, expired a few months ago. With President Tandja changing the constitution and then the military coup, the term was lengthened. But now the new regime has decided a let go all of these officials and have the local governments run by civil servants until new elections can be held. One would think that this would have a large impact on my work. Since there are no civil servants even in my mayor’s office, only elected officials, the local government should technically not exist for the time being. My feeling is, however, that my mayor and the elected commune officials may ignore this official disbanding for the most part. It is not like they were even paid to work in the first place. They recognize that their commune needs help developing and establishing infrastructure. I do not think that this motivation will end just because the national government says they may not officially work. At least I hope they will still show effort.

March 15, 2010

2010-03-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

I have just come into Zinder after a week and a half in my village. Not very long, I know. Honestly, I was very tentative about returning to my village. I had not been there for about six weeks. I was also going back with full authority to initiate development projects. While I had many ideas about kinds of projects to implement and different questions to ask my community concerning future endeavors, the idea of actually returning and starting my life as an active, project-doing volunteer was a bit overwhelming. While I try to keep my irrational fears of failure in check, they are definitely always there. Once I actually returned to my village, however, most of those fears and trepidation melted away.

I was lucky to have my friend, Audrey, accompany me back to ville. She was having work done on her house, so we decided she could come with me to do a radio show. Having another volunteer at hand while I immersed myself yet again into Hausa culture was definitely comforting. I hadn’t spoken Hausa much for the past two weeks or so. I was definitely out of practice. I picked it back up pretty quickly though with Audrey to back me up. Seeing and greeting my villagers again was also a wonderful reminder of how great they actually are. I love my villagers. They are very sweet and considerate people. They are definitely more forward than I am use to at times. For instance, they say welcome back and then ask for their zigaygay (present you give when coming back from a trip). In a village of seven thousand people, you kind of wonder how much they expect you to bring back. [Side note: this is a shout out to three wonderful and amazing friends in Toledo (Jayme, Jen and Kim), whose recent package filled with Valentine’s day goodies was much appreciated. My villagers thank you for the zigaygays.] But for the most part, it’s wonderful to have people come up to me, ask how my trip was and say that they missed me while I was gone.

While I was in my village for only a week and a half, I was able to get a few activities underway. First, my grant proposal for a health mural at my doctor’s office went through. I was able to get paints and work out ideas and sketches with the staff members there. They want at least some of the mural to focus on family planning, childhood vaccination and nutrition. I am hoping to actually start the painting in mid-April as my time over the next few weeks will be spent in Zinder and another volunteer’s village doing workshops. Second, I set up a pen pal group with girls at my village’s junior high school. We wrote our first set of letters that I will translate and send off to my middle school in America this week. Third, I got two girls signed up to go to a girls camp with me next week in Zinder. We will be participating in workshops on self defense, physical health, nutrition, entrepreneurship, career building, and more. Finally, I got back into the habit of village life. I visited my radio station, my schools, the doctor’s office, the mayor’s office and houses of various friends. I helped my mayor’s office write birth certificates. I helped out in a few English classes. I also had the chance to help out my medical staff dispense prescription drugs on market day. Overall, good stay in ville.

When I was in my village, I received a call from one of my sister’s college friends. She is writing a thesis in which she proposes American foreign policy for a certain country. Most specifically, she is looking at how American foreign policy might be use to stimulate economic development in Niger. Hence, she called me, an American living in Niger, to get my perspective. Although I did have my own ideas after living here for a while, I did want to ask others’ opinions. So I asked my mayor what he would focus on with respect to Nigerien economic development.

My mayor enumerated the various issues on which to focus. First, he discussed education. The children here are not given a quality education, and they quickly drop out of school. Like the UN Millenium goal states, focusing on basic primary school education is vital to improving Niger’s social and economic development. Equally as important, however, is tailoring educational programs also to the Nigerien way of life, that is to say focusing more on technical training. Many people here drop out of school at an early age primarily because their parents and they do not see the benefits of staying in school. Most of the subject matter, while important for the intellectual and cognitive development of children, is rarely used outside of school. Particularly since most people here are farmers, focusing at least to some extent on curriculum dealing with that subject matter would be relevant and beneficial. Related to this is the need to improve farming methods in Niger. Currently most farming is done by hand, using rudimentary tools and man power. By improving the farming here, Nigeriens may be able to increase their farming output beyond the point of mere subsistence farming. On a side note, this will also remove one more reason for having so many children per family (needed man power for farming), thus addressing population growth concerns in the country. Thirdly, he discussed health issues in the country, which are often connected with lack of health education and malnutrition/starvation due to failed farming in Niger. I was really happy and pleased to see how he emphasized interdependency and need for a multipronged approach to addressing these issues.

My mayor and I also discussed the growth (or lack there of) of industry in the country. In Zinder, for instance, the only real industry today is tannery. While there are many small businesses and a few artisanal endeavors in the region, they are still very small scale and bring little money to the area. My mayor said that there had been several growing industries in Niger. Like many countries and (on a smaller scale) towns, Niger’s industry has suffered from lower cost, sometimes better quality imports. The notion of supporting your local businesses, “buy local”, has yet to catch on. As a result much of the industrial growth here has stagnated, even degenerated.

Random points of interest:

- In English, we often use “ok”, “so” or “anyway” to express the fact that we have heard someone’s point, we possibly agree, and let’s continue. In Hausa, all of that is expressed by the simple word: Toe. I love this fact. At first I felt a little weird continuous mentioning an appendage of my foot. Since then, I have embraced this word as a space-filler, a sign of agreement, and whatnot. I basically say “toe” whenever I can. It’s fun.

- We have reached hot season here in Niger. Thus far it has gotten as hot as 110 degrees Fahrenheit (more heat to come). What does this mean besides the fact that for most of the afternoon everyone here does absolutely nothing? Most of the men have gone on exode, meaning they have left their villages, going to other countries (sometimes other regions) to find work and send money back home. Most men here go to Nigeria, although some also go to Chad, Libya, Algeria, Benin and Togo. I imagine that the amount of foreign remittances (money gained abroad and sent back to country) is pretty high here. Unfortunately, I have also heard that as a result of the men spending so much time away from home, they often create new families abroad. Hence some of that money they gain goes to those families and not to those here in Niger. The men should return to Niger at the beginning of rainy season (July) in order to plant crops.

- I have a correction to one of my last reports concerning pasture animals. I have been told that animals do not actually herd themselves. There are in fact shepherds who herd these animals. They’re just usually far off, maybe watching from a far atop hillside. Part of me is still a little skeptical about this. I have indeed seen animals out in the middle of nowhere, slowly walking back to their homes, with no one anywhere near and no hills/trees to mask their presence.

- “Dead man’s clothes”: these are used clothing, sent to Niger from western countries and sold at market. It’s kind of like Goodwill, although it’s the clothing that Goodwill couldn’t or wouldn’t sell. The clothing might be slightly more damaged or was originally sewn incorrectly so that no one would buy it in the developed world. What’s really cool about dead man’s clothes is that there are usually jewels here and there in the mass of weird clothing. A Monty Python and the Holy Grail t-shirt, for instance, was found by one volunteer. All you have to do is look. What’s even better, though, is seeing Hausa people wearing these clothes. A lot of this clothing has a certain cultural relevance or context such as a Detroit Tiger’s shirt. One friend saw someone walking around his village wearing a t-shirt saying “It’s all relative in West Virginia”. Not only is it funny just to see something so American in a so not American environment, but the fact that they do not know what they’re wearing is also humorous, although sometimes disturbing (there are definitely things I don’t like seeing written on t-shirts in the states, much less here where no one has a clue of what they’re displaying on their chests). I do like seeing ten year old boys walking around town in pink teddy bear pajama pants and shirts.

To, I guess that’s it for now. Sai anjima!

Training, Coups and France

2010-02-24T08:13:00.000-08:00

It has been about five weeks since I left Zermou for Niamey. I spent three weeks doing inter-service training. Basically, the once Peace Corps trainees came back from their four month stay in the bush (a.k.a. their villages) and gathered once more to have more language training in addition to more practical knowledge concerning volunteer projects. With respect to the language training session, I did get a few Hausa questions cleared up. Most of the sessions were just hira (chat), but I really appreciated talking with a trained language tutor, particularly one that understands how Americans think and speak. It made translating what we really wanted to say into Hausa much easier. Normally in my village I carry around a small pocket notebook for whenever I encounter a new and interesting vocabulary word. My teacher helped me to understand that vocabulary to a far greater extent than I had been able to before.

We also discussed some aspects of Hausa culture. One aspect that I found very interesting was the tradition of ethnic jokes. I guess this behavior is true almost anywhere in the world: there are jokes based on most ethnic stereotypes (e.g. jewish, black, southern white and asian jokes). Similarly, there are many different ethnicities here such as Fulane and Toubou, who are generally thought to be on the bottom rungs of the social ladder. There are jokes concerning their intellectual slowness and social awkwardness. My teacher explained that these jokes are made to be fun and relieve any ethnic tensions between groups. For this reason, he said, there is very little violence between groups in Niger as there is in several other countries in the world. I wonder if this explanation is accurate. It is true that people here seem to live harmoniously. Segregation, to me, seems limited, particularly when thinking about ethnic neighborhoods (I don’t think that is a common phenomenon here). There also seems to be a lot of intermarriage of groups, although I do not know whether that would be placed as a cause or an effect (leaning towards cause though).

I do wonder, however, if this tranquility will change given the increasing population, lack of land and limited resources. Will these ethnic jokes, that are currently lighthearted and tension breaking, be taken more seriously? I have heard from one volunteer that one of the girls in her school is on scholarship, meaning she is given enough money to buy books and a new school outfit. These scholarships are limited to girls who have good grades and are motivated. This girl also happens to be Fulane. The volunteer said that because of her ethnicity, this girl was teased and as a result has stop showing up to school regularly. Sadly this girl will most likely lose her scholarship and drop out. My teacher also mentioned that if, for instance, a Kanuri were to tease or steal from a Fulane, he would most likely get away with it because of the social order. I guess this kind of behavior is prevalent everywhere; however I am intrigued by the idea of humor lightening these ethnic conflicts. Maybe people do take life a little too seriously? But then again, how far is too far concerning these stereotypes and the resulting behavior?

My interservice training did get me set up with a few good ideas, which I intend to use in my village. The one nice aspect of this training was that we were able to bring one counterpart for a few days with whom we worked. Hopefully my counterpart and I are now on the same page. Since Peace Corps is an exercise in participatory development (that is working with the community to develop community driven development projects), we were taught two different approaches to holding a community meeting in which we would discuss needs and brainstorm feasible projects. I am not sure how often volunteers actually use these methods. They are fairly theoretical, and I wonder about the outcomes. I am eager to try though. I definitely do not want to spend most of my two years here doing projects that I think I can handle without the motivation and participation of other groups in my village.

*****

By the end of my three weeks at IST, I was sad to say goodbye to my fellow volunteers. It was really nice seeing them all again, and we had a lot of fun. People do have to make sacrifices, however (wink, wink). I actually left IST two days early and headed off to France to meet my boyfriend and his family there. I walked around Paris for a few days and then headed to the Languedoc region of Southern France. It was a lovely trip whose details I will not bore you with seeing as this is a blog about Niger, not France.

While I was in France, there was a military coup in Niger. If you have read any of my other blog entries, you would have heard mention of the political conditions in Niger. The residing President, Mamadou Tandja, was not satisfied with the work he had accomplished in his last ten years in office. So he asked for a three year extension. Both the legislative and judicial branches of Niger said that was unconstitutional and refused to change the law. Saying it was the peoples’ right to choose whether he stayed or went, Tandja dissolved both governmental bodies and held a referendum which would lengthen his term three years and change the constitution somewhat. The presidents power would be consolidated somewhat and he would have the right to be reelected as many times as he liked. The referendum passed with some opposition. Opposing parties boycotted the election saying it was unconstitutional. Everything did seem to go relatively smoothly, though.

Last Thursday, February 18, the military unseated Tandja and took control of the government. The coup leader, Maj. Salou Djibou, set up a transitional government run by a Prime Minister, one-time Information Minister Mahamadou Dandah. He said that new elections would take place as soon as possible. Considering military coups in other countries, one would look on this declaration with skepticism. In Niger, however, a coup of this kind has happened before; the 1999 coup led to one of the country’s first decades of relative democratic peace. So who knows what could occur. Maybe this coup is just one more step along Niger’s evolutionary development.

Compared to most military coups, there seemed to be only a little violence. Most Peace Corps volunteers were kept safely in their villages. Those in or close to Niamey were confined to the Niamey hostel. It was so quiet that most did not fully get what was going on until ten o’clock that night when Maj. Djibou came on television and explained what had happened. There must have been some violent outbreaks because the taxi cab driver who took me to the hostel a few days later showed me his driver side door. The glass and mirror were no longer there. The door was really banged up. And he told me how soldiers had swarmed at least his area of Niamey. He had to run home with his kids and tell them to sit and be quiet. Now everything is fine it seems. I was able to get back into the country with only mild apprehension (the borders had been closed for two days). In a country with so much poverty, little infrastructure and a peaceable population, I do not think that this national coup had or will have too much of an effect on the local populations. I guess I will find out when I get back to my village.

For me, being outside of the country as this all happened was somewhat worse than if I had been inside the country. At first, I was only getting news from media sources, which most definitely framed events into a caricature of reality. At the time, part of me wondered if I would ever get to go back to Niger. I was considering whether I would be able to get my ticket destination changed to America. Then I managed to call my friend, Alex, who was actually in the country. He seemed a bit surprised to hear from me, but he was nonplused about the political situation. From what I could tell, he was just hanging out in his village. That call certainly put things into perspective. It helped me to realize yet again that relying solely on the media can blow events out of proportion and lead to panic.

January 2010

2010-01-22T12:30:00.000-08:00

It’s winter in Niger. Well, it’s cold season, which means that it may get down to the fifties at night and seventies during the day. I walk around and see people wearing winter coats, hats, heavy sweaters, etc. Most of this is in the morning when even I wear a light sweater that I brought from the states. The “cold” weather provides a great conversation topic as I walk through my village. People ask me how the cold is: “Ina sanyi”. I respond, “Lokacinshi” or, it’s that time of the year. Then people skeptically ask me if I actually feel the cold. I tell them a little and then describe snow. I am not sure many people understand the concept of snow even after I explain that it is ice that falls from the sky. Although, until coming here, I found it difficult to imagine how hot I could be without going mad. Experience (and thus frame of reference) is important in these situations. These past couple of days it has been particularly chilly because of the wind, to the point that taking a bucket bath (i.e. filling a bucket with water and using that to bathe myself) is rather bracing. Sadly, this season will not last very long. I am off to Niamey for a three week workshop and then going to France for two weeks. By the time I return to my village, cold season will most likely be ending, and I will be looking forward to several months of hot season where it can get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh joy. This may be the true test of my fortitude as a volunteer in this country.

In other news, after returning to my village in December, I celebrated my friend, Nana’s wedding. As I said before, weddings in Niger are certainly different. Like many events here, the celebration is segregated between the men and women. Women have their own party, similar to a bridal shower, during which people come and give kitchen pots or money. They also give each other henna and braid each others hair. The bride, of course, gets special pampering. To the best of my knowledge, men give each other money, or give money to their pre-existing wives. Depending on the household, there is also dancing at night (also fairly segregated but not totally). At the end, the wife goes to her husband’s house and spends the next few days cloistered in her hut, getting all of her new stuff arranged. A few days after that, her husband visits her and they consummate the marriage. Nana’s husband lives in another village, and I had planned to go with her and see her new home. Due to security restrictions, however, I had to back out at the last minute. I was disappointed particularly considering I came back to my village Christmas day in order to celebrate and spend time with Nana. I just have to keep telling myself, “better safe than sorry”, right? Since Nana’s wedding, I did attend a few others. Similar to the stereotypical month of June in the states, now is the wedding season in Niger. I stop in, check out all the bridal loot, give a mille cfa to the bride, get some gum, and leave. I am still a little fuzzy on whether I should give a mille to a bride I don’t really know. My village friends were shocked and amazed that I gave that much. Apparently I was just supposed to give a hundred. Oops.

After the wedding, I was back to the usual routine. In the mornings, I walk around my village, stopping at various places such as the doctors, the radio station and the mayor’s office. I chat, hoping to improve my hausa and learn more about my village. It is clear at this point that my mayor brought me here because 1) he wants a better educated and aware female population and 2) he is hoping that I may be able to do some fundraising while I am here. For the former, I think I can make some progress. I have several projects in mind in which I can interact with the schools, the doctor’s office, the radio station and several women leaders in my village. For my workshop in Niamey, I get to invite a village counterpart to participate; this is someone whom I think will be a great resource, aid and initiator of projects. I have chosen to invite Aisha, a woman who has certainly carved out a leadership role for herself. She is one out of twelve representatives (one of two women) in the regional governing body. She is vice president and lead spokesperson in the local radio station. In addition, she is vice president of a women’s group that Project CARE (international NGO) helped to set up for the larger Zinder region. She has been a good friend these past few months, and hopefully she will be a motivated counterpart. I am also hoping to rely on the women in my mayor’s family. Several of his daughters are teachers in primary schools, and his wife seems to have some unofficial leadership status among the women in the community.

As for the mayor’s second goal, fundraising/material resource, I am not sure how difficult that desire will be to achieve. Like most communities today, resources are slim (although they are obviously scarcer here than in any developed country). The mayor and several other village leaders have explained to me that while they have certain ideas and plans for how the town should develop as a community, they lack the means of initiating those plans. They barely have the money to write their own community development plan that would outline the community’s top priorities and plan of action for obtain those goals. This document is commonplace in most American communities.

One potential hurdle to my work here is the change in government representatives, conseillers. The recent local elections changed the party majority from my mayor’s party, Sintsia, to the leading national party, MNSD. I hope the mayor’s popularity will keep him in office. If not, I will have to adapt somewhat considering I have basically been adopted into the current mayor’s family. Related to this is the way in which the party majority changed. The MNSD party has far more resources (i.e. money) than the Sintsia party. They are able to go further into the country, spending more time and money there. More importantly, because illegal bribing is not regulated here, political parties are able to give out free stuff to citizens right outside the voting polls thereby influencing their votes. During elections, my villagers got t-shirts, soap, skirts, pamphlets, posters, and more. Of course campaign financing is certainly a problem in the states, but this situation is ridiculous.

During this past month, I also spent time in another volunteer’s village. While there, we recorded a few radio shows and painted two health murals on her doctor’s office wall. For more information see: http://ajsafrica.blogspot.com.

Other random thoughts:

- It is very difficult to make change in Niger. If you go to the market, a store or outdoor street vendor without correct change, there is a good chance they will not be able to exchange your bill. They often send a kid running to ask someone else in the area if they have correct change. Sometime, such as when you go to the post office, you are out of luck if you do not have correct change. You have to go and find someone who will exchange you money or you give them more than they request. Sadly, when you go to the bank to withdraw money, they generally give you large bills even if you request smaller ones. I know some volunteers go to the market in Zinder and play the change game. They go to various vendors and see how large a bill they can break.

- How many people/animals can you get on a motor cycle? A Nigerien would know. We have seen motorcycle taxis carrying goats, chickens and multiple toddlers.

- While some children are deathly afraid of seeing a white person, others like to slowly walk up to the local anasara and poke, touch or caress them. I have heard some people think it is luck to touch a white person. Although, if you attempt to touch a child yourself, they will often start backing away and screaming. Even adults at time seem to be interested in touching an anasara. Sometimes when I am walking around my village, someone walks up to me, holding out their hand as if they want to shake my hand except they hold it for an exorbitant amount of time (according to my cultural values that is).

An Eventful Month

2009-12-22T05:33:00.000-08:00

Hello to all! Ça fait longtemps qu’on a parlé ou, bon, que j’ai écrit. Compared to the last few months, I have been relatively busy. Soon after leaving my regional capital, Zinder, I was called back again due to a small security risk all the way across the country. If this raises concerns for anyone reading this blog about the safety of Niger, have no fear. I can certainly applaud the American government for diligently concerning itself with the safety of its citizens. In the end, nothing major really happened, and the volunteers in my region and I still feel much safer here than we would in the states. My mother pointed out, as people at home told her to encourage me to come home, that four people were just killed in Ohio (my home) whereas no one has even been injured here. That may say something about how we, as humans, perceive threats.

In any case, I was able to return to my village within two weeks and start on some projects left to me by another volunteer who had just finished her service. I was extremely depressed to see her go, but was excited to work on some projects. I have spent the last few weeks assembling two drip gardens, one in which we planted tomatoes, onions, carrots and beans. In the other, we planted saplings from another village including squash and lettuce. A couple of weeks after returning to my village, three of my fellow volunteers came to visit, and we designed and painted a world map in a primary school. It took us about three days to get most of the work done. I still need to go back and fill in the names of countries and put a final glaze over the entire map. Thus far, though, it looks pretty good. Considering we’ve spent the last few months simply hanging around our villages and chatting, each of us certainly felt that we had accomplished something. If anything, this project satisfied our need as Americans to be proactive and busy. I do hope, however, that the final product is helpful to the villagers. Most have rarely or never studied a world map. Some are shocked when I tell them that I have to take a bus, two planes and a car to get home, all of which takes three days at least (usually more). Akwai nesa (it’s far)!

My one regret concerning the world map project thus far is that I didn’t recruit the help of the villagers as much as I would have liked. Some village friends helped with the first few steps (measuring out the map and painting the blue background), and they also provided basic supplies such as water and mats to spread the work out on whenever we needed. Sadly, my Hausa is not good enough to describe in detail what needs to be done. Trying to describe how one can use a grid to make a basic drawing of a world is difficult even in English if someone doesn’t have a frame of reference. Although, I think part of it was the desire to do the work quickly and efficiently, which would not have happened if I had tried to incorporate more village participation. In this case my honkuri (patience) was lacking to sad effect. I am hoping, however, when the time comes to do a similar project in my own village, I will show more kokari (effort). I have already considered how I might teach as we paint the map: by having kids draw countries’ shapes and names out of a hat and coloring them in. If I could develop some good relations with some older kids and improve my Hausa, I may have a workforce ready and eager enough to draw the map itself.

Until then, in my own village, I have started tutoring English at the local junior high during the student free periods. I am also gathering scripts to record radio shows for my local station. In most regional capitals, the Peace Corps does a once per week radio show. Each show focuses on a certain development theme such as health issues, education and women’s rights. I am hoping to recruit other volunteers’ help in the next few days to record a few shows that I can play at my own station. One particularly show that I’m interested in producing is the importance of spacing births and family planning. Most of the people I have talked to here think each woman should have ten children each. I think this mentality takes into account the high mortality rate of Niger, one of the highest in the world. Have a lot of children because some of them are bound to die, and you want to have some left in the end. But what people may not understand is that by having fewer children and having their births well spaced out, their children may have a better chance of surviving. I have had this conversation with many people here, and they are still shocked that, if I ever do have children, I only want two. I explain that I want to give my children good food, good clothing, good educations, good everything. If I have many children, I won’t have the means to give them those things. While this rationale seems to make sense to me, it flies in the face of cultural tradition here. Even my local likita (doctor), or nurse practitioner really, has told me that Mohammed ordered Muslims to have many children and having children is development. I found it difficult to prevent myself from saying, “Well, if that’s the case, Niger is one of the most developed countries in the world”. The opinion here is largely that Allah will provide, and whatever happens, it is Allah’s will. I am starting to tell people that sometimes Allah may need help from us, particularly since our numbers are growing. At any rate, addressing subjects like this might have an effect (hopefully).

On a lighter note, one of my mayor’s daughters is getting married on the 26th of December. Weddings here usually last three or more days. The bride stays in her father’s house, gets pampered, and people visit, giving money and presents. The bride gives bits of candy to those visiting. On the last day of the wedding, the bride is taken to her husband’s house, often in another village, and the family sets up the bride’s house (I hope I get to go). Wives typically have their own one room houses where the husbands may sleep, or not. When they set up the house, there’s usually a china cabinet that displays all of the pot sets. People often give lots of pots. They come in sets of three usually and are piled on top of one another, smallest to largest. I think it’s a status symbol somewhat. I am debating whether to buy her a set of pots or get something more personal. In the meantime, I get to wear a uniform, basically a bridesmaid outfit. She picked out the fabric, her family and friends buy the fabric and take it to the tailor. I am having a wrap skirt made with a shirt top. I asked for help with the design because I know very little about Hausa clothing style. So I really have no idea how it will turn out. I will find out when I go back to my village on December 25th. Alas, since I want to celebrate Christmas a little with my fellow Americans in Zinder, I am missing the first two days of Nana’s wedding, one of which includes a huge henna party. I did get my hair braided before coming to Zinder, but I am not sure it will last until the wedding.

Now for some observations that may or may not be of interest to you all:
- Male and female relations here are obviously different from those in the states. The two sexes are much more segregated. Even within households, women have their own areas, and men have theirs. When I enter my mayor’s house, there is an open air hallway with two open doorways. On the right is the Mayor’s area with house. I have spent very little time there, and have never seen inside the house. Nor have I ever seen any woman spend time there other than saying the formal greetings to my Mayor before moving on to his wife’s area. Further down and to the left is the doorway to his wife, Harida’s area (he only has one wife, very progressive) and her house. This is also where his older daughters and all the children hang out. I assume their older sons sleep in the Mayor’s area, but I also see them hang out in Harida’s area occasionally during the day.
Part of me wonders if this segregation affects the intimacy between same sex relationships. Women and men are spending most of their time away from one another. Even married men and women have different houses with different beds. There is very little physical contact between the sexes. What is the effect on same sex friendships, which seem to be an even more important relationship in this case? One manifestation of this difference may be men walking around holding hands. As I walk around my village or market places, I regularly see men holding hands as they stroll down the road. I hate to admit it, but I think in America that would come off as stereotypically homosexual. Oh Americans! Hey, one has to make up for the limited physical human contact somehow, right? Granted, this could be complete over-analysis on my part.

- In Niger, the whole shepherd herding his sheep scenario is overrated. Here, sheep herd themselves. While they have their own area near their owners’ houses, they are not fenced in. In the morning the leave they leave the area. Sometimes the family shoos them away. They go out to the daji (wilderness/the bush) and come back in the evenings by themselves. I wonder whether farm animals in the states are smart enough to go and find their way back to their houses without the aid of farmers or sheep dogs, etc. I really know very little about farming in the states though. It’s possible.

- My supervisor is awesome. He is a native born Nigerien who speaks English very well and likes to use slang or speak English with a twist. Instead of saying “fantastic”, for instance, he says “cokestatic”. He explains that he doesn’t like Fanta, he likes coke.

BABU RUWANA (Not My Water)

2009-11-13T04:40:00.000-08:00

To all my language savvy friends, I thought this little tidbit of Niger language and culture would be of interest. In a country that is primarily desert, water is obviously scarce and always needed. The significance and centrality of water in Nigerien culture is highlighted in the way that the word water (ruwa) and drink (sha) are used in the Hausa language. While sha literally means “to drink”, idiomatically, it can mean “to do a lot of something” or “to do something often”. Here are some examples:

- Sha aiki: to work really
- Sha wahala: to experience real suffering
- Sha yawo: to take a long walk
- Sha tahiya: to take a really long trip
- Sha ruwa: to be old/have a long life

When I walk around during the day and ask about people’s work (Ina aiki?), I often hear “Ana sha”. While I am sure there are several idiomatic expression concerning water, the one that comes to mind the most is “babu ruwana”. This expression literally translates “not my water”, but it means “it’s not my business”. I (sha-ed) used this expression a lot during the recent legislative elections. As a Peace Corps volunteer, I am suppose to be a-political. When my villagers asked me what I thought of the elections and the political events that have taken place these past few months, I responded: “babu ruwana” and “I voted in the states for Obama; that’s where I do politics”.

I am interested in hearing what my villagers have to say a propos to Nigerien politics though. Relatively speaking, Niger is a very young democracy. About ten years ago, Niger had elections under its fifth constitution and elected Tandja Mamadou. Since then, the country has seemed a fairly stable and growing democracy. Under the Nigerien constitution, a president can serve only two five-year consecutive terms. This coming December would have be the end of President Tandja’s second term. The President, however, held a referendum requesting that he have an additional three years as President to continue and hopefully finish the projects he started as President as well as have the opportunity to run for reelection after that. Before the referendum, Tandja had asked the permission of the legislature and the supreme court. Both refused to grant his request, and using a special executive order, Tandja dismissed both branches of government. He argued that, as a democracy, Niger would let the will of the people decide whether he should continue his Presidency or not. The referendum passed with an overwhelming majority of the Nigerien population saying “Referendum, OUI!” About two weeks ago, Tandja held elections to reconstitute the national legislature. A few days later, ECOWAS initiated an embargo on Niger, saying Tandja’s action were unconstitutional and question the validity and transparency of the referendum.

I have heard a few differing opinions from my villagers concerning the situation. Many applaud Tandja and were happy to show their support for him during the referendum and legislative elections. After all, the referendum results did show that the large majority of Niger wants Tandja as President; therefore, it is the will of the Nigerien people, a democratic act. For this reason, several people that I talk to do not agree with ECOWAS’ embargo and realize the true people who will be hurt by this embargo will be the Nigerien people. Still other people agree with ECOWAS to a certain extent. They think that by dissolving the legislature and the supreme court, and by removing the role of Prime Minister in the government, Tandja has not only lengthened his term as President but also consolidated his power, creating a dictatorship in a sense. Some dispute the referendum results, believing that many opposition parties boycotted the election or were silenced. Many of these people do not dispute the referendum results but state that the Nigerien population was not properly made aware of what they were voting for. Concerning ECOWAS’ actions, however, those that I talked to said these actions were taken to late to have the desired effect. If the embargo had taken effect before the referendum, Tandja and Nigeriens may have taken steps to satisfy the international community. Now that everything is already done, the Nigerien population will be the only party injured by this embargo.

Part of me is glad that I am supposes to be a-political. This is a very complicated situation, and I am not sure if I would be at all qualified to express an opinion to my villagers. Hence, babu ruwana is a bit of a god send. I do know that other volunteers who do have strong opinions about the situation (either way) are having some difficulties, particularly considering that many of us came here to work with the local governments and help develop civic responsibility. This entire situation raises the ever present issue of neutrality for foreign aid workers. Neutrality protects me and the future presence of Peace Corps volunteers in Niger. Past evidence has shown that when foreign aid workers compromise their neutrality, they can put themselves and others in danger. But doesn’t neutrality and this concept of babu ruwana also, in a sense, condone acts by state governments that would otherwise be seen as reprehensible? Please do not misunderstand me, in this case I am not referring to the events that have taken place in Niger. I am merely commenting that the babu ruwana mentality, under certain circumstances, seems like a double-edged sword (e.g. Sudan, Ruwanda, etc.). Concerning national governments, they are so tentative about interfering with the sovereignty of other states (again babu ruwana – it’s not our state, not our business), that they are extremely slow to act. In this case, I am referring to ECOWAS and its untimely embargo. I question how effective this embargo will be.

***

It has been one week since I wrote the above. Apparently, the embargo has taken effect. Going to my Friday market, there were next to no fruits or vegetables. I was lucky that I found cucumbers. Fresh produce, usually transported up from Nigeria, has been blocked from entering the country for the past few days. Alas, my Fridays will be slightly less exciting and profitable. One of my village friends is particularly dismayed. She usually buys a few pieces of coconut, and we snack on them together. Goodbye coconut. Given that my village is quite a bit north of Nigeria, it doesn’t get many produce from there (or in general) except for on Fridays. I wonder how villages closer to the border are fairing. Will this embargo actually influence Niger’s actions? Thus far, many Nigerien’s that I talk to are mostly annoyed with recent event, yet they are adamant that they made the decision to reelect Tandja. Others don’t know what to think.

After my first month at post

2009-10-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

Well my first month as a Peace Corps volunteer is officially over. I wouldn’t say that it was the easiest month ever. Most volunteers say making it through your first month in village is one of the hardest parts of your service. It is also one of the periods of highest dropout for new volunteers. I can certainly understand why that is. This month furthered my understanding of culture shock. I’ve lived in other countries before, but this experience is definitely different. To start, I am the only white person, and that makes far more of a difference than I could have imagined. Walking through my village, groups of children follow me around and just watch me. Several babies and toddlers have looked at me and started crying because they are so scared of the white person. What strikes me as most interesting is this fear is not always culturally engendered. Many of these babies aren’t old enough to have learned this reaction. They are afraid because I am different. I imagine that the only reason babies do not have the same reaction in the states is that they are constantly seeing people who look different from them. Meanwhile, here, I must look like an entirely different species from every other human here. Perhaps I look like a ghost or something? This instance shows how innate the fear of the unknown or the other is in the human condition. I am not sure how I feel about that. At one point, one mother used my presence as a threat to make her child behave while she was braiding her hair: ‘stop fidgeting and crying or I’ll give you to the anasara’. Part of me is fairly amused by this irrational reaction to my presence. Another part is glad that I could be of help. Another small part, however, is just reminded how other I am in my village.

While I have no complaints about my villagers (they are amazing and help me a lot), the culture and environment here are very different. The people here are very friendly but very tough and hard working. I’m pretty sure I’m a weakling in their eyes since I do not do half the amount of physical labor that they do on a daily basis. Each day as I walk around my village, I am asked at least once if I pound millet. I respond that I can, but when I show them, they laugh at my effort. It’s probably fairly ridiculous looking to see a white person pounding millet. Being very direct and to the point is also important here. A statement that might be considered rude in the states is no problem here. Niger is also a very social society. I think my villagers are perplexed by the amount of time I spend by myself, even if that time is only an hour or two. Some were actually concerned that I live by myself. They ask me if I’m afraid. Needless to say, I was constantly bombarded with visitors trying to teach me Hausa and keep me company. Coming back to the theme of cultural directness, I am slowly learning to tell people to leave me alone rather than being hospitable while trying to hint at my desire for alone time.

It’s kind of ironic how one can feel so isolated while surrounded by so many people. My language skills are still lacking seeing as I’ve only studies the language for three months now. I’m slowly learning, but it is pretty evident that I don’t understand half of what is going on around me at any given time. The food here is also different and sometimes germ infested. It wouldn’t bother the average Nigerien, but I’m just not use to it. My mayor says that I need to slowly orient myself and my body to the food here. His family is helping me by monitoring most of the Nigerien food I eat. I did manage to get sick again though. I figure a few more times of getting sick, and my body will be use to most the germs here, at least enough to fight them off without drugs and without taking me out of commission for days at a time. Finally, it’s seriously hot here a lot of the time. There are definitely times where I can barely manage to think or move because I’m so hot. All of these factors combined can be a bit daunting.

According to the Peace Corps, my first three months are for integration purposes, so I am not actually suppose to do the work the I came here to do, i.e. no projects at this time. Instead I socialize and have a lot of down time. So what did I do during my first month living in my village? I would usual get up each morning, eat a bowl of oatmeal, and put away my bed. I sleep outside on a string bed and foam mattress, and under a mosquito net. Then I walk around my village for about two to three hours. Women are mostly congregating around the three electric water pumps, waiting to collect water to take home for the day. My village has a major water shortage problem, so women usually have to wait an hour or two to get water. I am fortunate in that one of my mayor’s daughters gets me a bucket of water each day. The men of the village are usually working out in the fields or are congregated at various places around the village making tea. There have been a few times where I have sat with them for a few minutes and drunk the first or second pot of tea (there are usual three rounds of tea making). I am not sure how culturally appropriate I am being considering I’m female, but people don’t seem to care: one advantage of being a white person. Finally, there are the people (mostly women and children) along the road selling street food such as fried tofu, sweet and savory donut whole like foods, potato and potato-like vegetables, spices, and peanut products.

I usually walk around and greet these people. We have small conversations, particularly when there is someone I’ve never met before. I have many conversations during which I explain that, yes, I do actually live in Zermou and will be here for two years. Most people looked fairly amazed by that idea. I do not really have the ability to articulate why I am here exactly. Community development does not really translate well. As a westerner and outsider, telling villagers that I am here to help their community grow and develop seems a bit arrogant and condescending on my part. For this reason, I am glad the Peace Corps emphasizes community integration for the first few months despite the excessive amount of free time that results. I feel like before I offer advice and take significant steps to help my community, I will first become part of the community. Hopefully, in reality, I will wind up working within MY community to make improvements (less imperialistic somewhat?). On the other hand, I may just be overanalyzing here. Is it possible to too culturally sensitive, socially conscious, or politically correct? At this point I tell people that I am here to learn Hausa and then want to work with community members in the village such as the Mayor’s office, the doctor’s office and the radio station.
Usually during the morning, I also stop by the local radio station, the doctor’s office, the school or the mayor’s office, and I talk with the people there. I try to use my Hausa but sometimes switch to French to better understand what is being said. These are usually the more educated people in the village, and those with whom I will hopefully develop projects. After talking with them, I head home, eat lunch and take an afternoon siesta. Now comes the downtime in which I try to study a bit of Hausa and catch up on my reading. I also memorize the words of the sala prayers. For those who do not know, Muslims pray five times a day: sunrise, 2 pm, 4 pm, sunset and 8 pm. As I walk around my village, my villagers say parts of these prayers for me to phonetically write down (they do not know how to write the prayers themselves, just say them). I am then supposed to memorize these words so I too can do sala (prayer) with my villagers. Certain parts of Islam are very ingrained in my Nigerien culture, sala being one. As such, I am trying to learn as much as I can so I may understand and integrate better. Most of my villagers think that I am converting to Islam for at least the next two years. Finally, in late afternoon or the evening, I walk around or go to my mayor’s family and chat.

My mayor’s family also watches Hausa movies in the evenings. While I do not understand most of what is being said, there are various things in these films that amuse me to no end. They are like inside jokes. So although I don’t understand the storyline, I do understand little tidbits of culture that those around me may not. The other night, for instance, one of the characters spent the entire movie wearing a Red Wings jersey. My guess is no one here knows about the Red Wings, or hockey for that matter. Another night, one of the main music themes to the movie was ripped off the movie Mulan. Do you remember the scene where she decides to take her father’s horse, cuts her hair, changes and leaves? If so, that was the music. I could even here the storm in the back ground, the horse neighing when he doesn’t recognize her and the barn doors breaking open. As these highly dynamic and emotional score was playing in the background, a female character in the Hausa movie was in a grocery store buying shampoo. It made me smile.

Other fun and special events here are bukis or sunas (naming ceremonies). Whenever a baby is born, the mother and baby have to stay in their house for one week. Seven days after the baby is born, friends and family come to the house to see the baby, give gifts (money, baby stuff, food), and listen to the village imam declare the baby’s name. Until then, the baby has no name. At the suna that I went to, we ate a lot of food, sat around and talked a bunch, and danced. The baby was so very very tiny. Many children here are born premature and spend their most of their lives underweight. The recently released 2009 UN Human Development Report revealed that 44% of children age 5 and under are underweight, aka malnourished.
To shine more light on where Niger is with respect to the rest of the world, the UN Human Development Report ranked Niger 182th out of 182 on the Human Development Index. While Niger’s HDI did increase 3.92% from 0.258 to 0.340, that increase rate was less robust than those of the rest of the world. Indicators used were life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, school enrollment, and GDP per capita (using purchasing power parity). On the UN Human Poverty Index, Niger ranked 134th out of 135. The HPI ranks using probability of not surviving to age 40 (29%), the adult illiteracy rate (71.3%), percentage of people not using an improved water source (58%), and percentage of children underweight for age (44%). Needless to say, Niger has some work ahead of it. With the recent legislative elections and the upcoming regional elections in December, hopefully Niger will have a fountain of human capital to help towards its development (ironically during dry season).

September 15, 2009

2009-09-15T12:46:00.000-07:00

So I have found time and internet to write one more blog before going out to my village for my one month of stay. As a volunteer, I am required to stay in my village slash sub-region for the first month. After that I am free to travel to my regions capital and possibly around my region to visit other volunteers. Volunteers generally travel to their regional capitals once a month for a Peace Corps Hostel meeting. We discuss our progress in our villages and other administrative work. Most volunteers seem to visit there regional capital every other weekend. I can imagine it’s nice to relax and be American every once in a while. In our hostels we can watch movies, play games, sit on couches, wear shorts and tank tops, take real showers (cold but that’s fine), get mail from loved ones at home, and speak English. I am not sure how unique to Niger this hostel concept is. At face value it seems to interfere with the integration process. Having been here for a couple of months, however, I can certainly understand the need for a support network. After the first three months, I go back to Hamdallaye for a three week technical workshop (e.g. learning about grant writing, resources, project building, and technical basics of participatory development). After that I have the opportunity to see other parts of the country either through work such as visiting other volunteer projects or through vacation. But I will try not to get ahead of myself.

After writing my last blog, I took a language exam to determine whether I could swear in as a Peace Corps volunteer. Luckily I passed, and I swore in this past Thursday (September 10, 2009). The American Ambassador to Niger was gracious enough to allow Peace Corps to use her residence for the ceremony, and she gave a speech. Following tradition, most volunteers had traditional Nigerien celebratory clothing made. For women, that is the complet. We buy two to three pannes (standard size, about 3 yards?) worth of the same fabric, and have this fabric made into a shirt, skirt and head wrap. Niger has wonderful fabric with really bright, fun fabric called atampa. I think this might be the first time in my life where I will be wearing intricately patterned fabric on a daily basis. You can also buy really fancy embroidered fabric which is lighter but much more expensive. At this point I’m sticking with the atampa. For the men, they also buy fabric, and have the tailor make a booboo – long shirt and pants.

After swearing in, we had one day of recovery. We did some last minute shopping in Niamey. There are certain things that one cannot find anywhere else but the country’s capital: a good frying pan, decent knives, various food items such as muesli or granola. Since I am over twelve hours away from Niamey, I figured I should take advantage. I even bought some tahini in case I become motivated to make hummus in the bush. We’ll see. On Saturday, we took a Peace Corps vehicle to Zinder. Normally we would take a large, Greyhound like bus, except the Greyhound looks like it is from the eighties and has no air conditioning. On these buses, it is vital that you make sure you are in control of a window. The bus will stop along the way for rest stops (stalls with holes in the ground; bring your own toilet paper) in larger villages and cities. Along the way you can buy bread, dried meat, juice, soda, sesame cakes, and hard-boiled eggs. In our case, since we took a P.C. vehicle, we had a bit more freedom to stop and go when we wanted. This is probably the only time I will experience this privilege. The road connecting Niamey to Zinder is mostly paved but with many pot holes. I want to say that I will never complain about the roads in America again, but my memory is not that good. Eventually after being back for some time, I will have to comment. In the mean time, though, I dream happily of American roads and construction workers.

Now I am in the Zinder hostel. I have spent the last few days here relaxing and preparing for my installation into my village. As protocol, all new volunteers visit the important officials of the region such as the regional governor, the mayor of Zinder, the head of the regional gendarmerie, and more. We also, again, collect food that we will be unable to find when out at bush – mainly vegetables. They’re limited even in Zinder, but I take what I can get. Being here these past few days has also been advantageous because I realized on Saturday that little amoebas were playing around in my digestive system. My parents pointed out to me that this is more commonly known as dysentery. Yay dysentery! No serious, this is a pretty common maladie. Three days after taking nasty metallic tasting medicine, I will be healthy once more. The only reason I am praising my good fortune is because in Zinder, I have access to indoor plumbing… a toilet… I love toilets. Squatting in a hole is just not as fun when you have to do it numerous times a day. In addition, I have the comforts I described above.

Tomorrow I will be installed in my village. I do not know really how to describe what I am feeling at this point. I came here to live in a village, integrate into a community and help in any way I can. Now the time has come to take that first step, and it’s a bit scary. What can I say? Like many human beings, I am afraid of the unknown. This is certainly the unknown. I will be the first Peace Corps volunteer to be installed in my village. While villagers have seen other Peace Corps volunteers on Fridays for their market day, they have not had constant contact or relations with Peace Corps before. What will they expect? What will be my first cultural faux pas? Will the village be receptive? Fortunately my town’s mayor seems very intelligent, open and receptive to the work I am doing. He is very adamant that I spend these next three months integrating with the village culture. His expectations seem very in line with those of the Peace Corps thankfully. I also live next to him and his family, who also seems very kind. A few weeks ago, trainees each had a chance to see their villages for a few days before becoming actual volunteers. During my short time there, I spent time with the mayor’s family. I attempted to help them pound millet. It is definitely not as easy as they make it look. I did manage to make them all laugh, so it wasn’t a complete loss. Plus, later on I got to have some of the coco (or kunu?); it was delicious!!! I also watched a Hausa movie with them one night. It was pretty humorous. For those of you who like really bad Bollywood, you would have truly appreciated this film. I know I did. So in sha allah (if god wills it), this next month will turn out equally as well. I will attempt to document as much as possible and relay it to you all when I get back. Sai anjima! (See you later!)

September 6, 2009

2009-09-06T05:50:00.000-07:00

Hello to all! I apologize for the long awaited blog entry. These past two months have been busy with training and filled with little access to the outside world, i.e. next to no internet. I have spent most of my time in a village about an hour outside Niger’s capital, Niamey. While there, I have slowly but surely learned how to speak Hausa, which is probably the most commonly spoken language in Niger, particularly in central and eastern Niger. I am still far from being even close to fluent, but I can hold a conversation limited to certain topics. The one nice thing about Niger is that you have many set questions that make up a lengthy greeting to everyone you see on the street. The typical greeting for a complete stranger might be:

A: Sannu! Ina kwana? (Hello, how was your sleep? Or how is you day?)

B: Lahiya lau. (Very well)

A: Ina gida? (How is your house?)

B: Gida duka lahiya lau. (My household is well)

A: Ina aiki? (How is your work?)

B: Aiki da godiya. (I am thankful for my work)

A: Ina gajiya? (How is your tiredness?)

B: Babu gajiya. (I have no tiredness)

A: To madella. Sai Anjima! (Thank goodness. See you later!)

There are definitely more questions one can ask. One of my favorites is, “Ina Zaman Dunya? –Sai Honkuri”. This exchange means “How is the world sitting?”, and you respond: “With patience”. (NOTE: I apologize if I am butchering the spelling or direct translations of these phrases, but you get the gist.) Whenever this dialogue is said, of course, people talk over each other and blend the dialogue together. They don’t really listen to the response because they already know what is going to be said. It’s rather comforting. I can spend a good three to five minutes just rolling off different greetings before I actually have to say something substantial. Usually by then I am on to the next person. I also really like this tradition because, well, I am from the Midwest. In the Midwest, we smile and say hello to strangers walking on the street. Almost every other place I have lived, people are a tad confused by that. This is not the case in Niger. In fact, Nigeriens are even more outwardly friendly and hospitable than the typical Midwesterner, which means that I will have to become even more outspokenly friendly. One Peace Corps volunteer actually told me that I would learn to yell out my greetings to a certain extent because people here are so verbose and extraverted. So for those who know me well, just you wait for me to get back to the states!

So I arrived in Niger at the beginning of July, and basically spent the first two weeks sweating a lot and cursing the heat. I got a nice shiny sunburn despite constant application of sunscreen. The malaria medication I was on made my skin even more photosensitive that it already is. Thankfully I am now on methloquin. Shots were a major theme of those weeks. My allergies also took their time acclimating to the new weather conditions. If it weren’t for the exciting new culture, language, people (both Nigerien and PC trainee), I would probably say that those first two weeks would definitely be on my top three list of places I would go if I ended up in hell. I did adapt, however. I am getting use to sweat. Nights are actually chilly at times. I have remained relatively healthy. Plus, I am still really enjoying the culture, the language, and the people.

I have lived with a host family these past two months. Knowing the precise size of a family in Niger can be difficult. I live in a concession (that is basically a walled-in area) in which resides a large extended family. My close family has a husband, one wife, and at least two daughters and two sons. I am pretty sure that these four children are the biological children of Ousseina, the wife. There are many other people who are constantly around, however. For the longest time I was hanging out with this thirteen year old girl, Aisha-tu, who I swore was Ousseina’s daughter. It turned out, though, that her mother and father are actually in another region of Niger, and she was here with her grandmother who also lives in the concession. At least three other middle aged women live in my concession, and possibly two other men. Honestly it is difficult to say. One hurtle is that the Nigerien concept of family seems far more fluid. When I asked about my family and how many children my host mother had, she never answered me directly. Aisha-tu considers Ousseina’s children to be her brothers and sisters. So whenever we talked, she referred to them as her siblings. The lines between familial relationships seem fairly blurred. In the states, I have people who I call my uncle or aunt, or who I consider to be part of my family even if we are not biologically related. This takes that to a whole new level. As a result, however, there exists a large, warm community atmosphere where people share and share alike. Most nights, for instance, my host mom makes a large pot of food, separates it between several bowls, and my host siblings take many of those bowls elsewhere (I have no clue where). Later, people come from all around the concession and neighborhood to chat, or they yell across walls at each other. That is just one aspect of Nigerien culture that I have picked up while I have been here.

For those of you who know little about Niger (shame on you!), this is the country north of Nigeria. The UN Development index ranks Niger 174 out of 177, which means it is definitely one of the poorest countries in the world. Niger is almost twice the size of Texas, three times the size of California, and about two-thirds of its land mass is consumed by desert. Thus, the majority of the over 14 million Nigerien citizens live in the southern most portions of the country. Meanwhile, Niger has one of the highest growth rates in the world. Not only do women give birth a lot here, but the amount of people who have or who are twins is incredible. I have theories as to why there are so many twins in Niger (i.e. biological adaptation or whatnot), but if any of my scientifically inclined friends wish to enlighten me with fact, I would be happy to hear an explanation. While Niger does have some valuable natural resources – uranium and an unknown supply of oil – those resources have not been successfully tapped. Over the past few years, the Nigerien president, Tandja, has partnered with the Chinese government to explore these resources in addition to building new infrastructure such as a new bridge over the Niger River. NOTE: I would suggest to any that are interested in democratic development and politics to read about the recent referendum in Niger. It is an interesting case study.

Probably the largest hindrance, however, is the lack of human capacity in the country. My supervisor pointed out the other day that while Niger has railroad tracks, it has no railroad. In the past, NGOs and other countries came to Niger to help build this infrastructure but then left the Nigerien people with no way of using or developing that infrastructure. So for any of you wondering why I would join the Peace Corps and come to this country, it is for reasons such as this: I would like to help in the development of a country where I am not bringing solely capital to the development process. In the Peace Corps, I get to integrate into a society and hopefully translate and teach the skills I have learned to the people of my community so that they may use those skills and improve their own community’s way of life. Key terms that come to mind are: capacity building, sustainability, catalyst, participatory development. While these ideas may form the current development paradigm and hence may be considered cliché, as far as I can tell, they have yet to be proven wrong. Not to mention, is there any better idea out there (ideas anyone?)? So this is my way of giving back a little (how privileged has my life been thus far?) and of putting actual development theory to practice.

In the Peace Corps, I am in the Municipal and Community Development sector (MCD). As an MCD volunteer, I am supposed to aid in sustainable development via capacity building. My two primary goals are to help improve the skills and knowledge of the people in my local Mayors office. Most offices here do not operate the way an office in the states might. One MCD volunteer noted that there was no real calendar of events, so she is never fully aware of what and when events are happening. Sometimes she walks in on meetings. Other times, a coworker might ask her why she was not at an event the day before. Basic communication tools seem to be an issue here. Sadly, this problem is compounded by issues of illiteracy. The minutes of most city council meetings, for instance, are written in French. Most council members do not speak French much less read it. Women in particular are less likely to know French, another barrier to gender equality. In Hamdallaye, where I am training, the city’s General Secretary must translate the minutes of previous meetings before the meeting itself. I wonder how many other city G.S.s translate for their populations. Another basic office trait lacking in Niger is filing. There are many Mayors offices that do not have filing systems for official documents such as birth certificates.

The other primary objective of an MCD volunteer is educating citizens on government and municipal issues. Volunteers can go into schools to discuss roles of the government, start student government groups, and conduct activities that get children excited about participating in government. Current volunteers have discussed sensibilizations, one-time events on topics such as voting, health issues or education. Many volunteers who have had less success working with their local governments rely primarily on these projects.

Ok. I hope the above information was not to dry for people. Here are fun and interesting aspects of Niger:

1. Giraffes and Hippos. I think Niger has one of the largest giraffe populations in northwest Africa. I can’t wait to go and see them. I have seen one from far away, but I should have a chance to actually go out into the daji (the bush) and see some up close. I will not be getting to close to the hippos, though. Do not get too close to the hippos. They’re dangerous and could bite your head off, literally.

2. One can buy crazy fabric for incredibly cheap prices by American standards, and then have that fabric made into pretty much anything you want, also for very cheap prices. I, for instance, managed to find a lime green fabric with thin navy blue stripes and large red turkeys printed all over. It’s amazing! I am wearing it as a wrap around skirt, or zané. It makes me feel like celebrating Christmas; hence I call it my Christmas turkey skirt.

3. The food here, while limited, can be very tasty. Most food is made from grains, usually millet. At this point I have eaten millet in various forms: sugary donuts, spicy donut holes, mini-pancakes, a hot drink with the consistency of a milkshake, a chi tea like drink with edible chunks of millet (I swear it’s really tasty), a solid pudding like mass with sauce all over, and large round balls of dough also with sauce. There is also a spice here made from peppers and other spices. They call it tonka in the Zarma language and yaji in Hausa. This spice can pretty much make anything really tasty and give your food a little bite.

4. The artisan culture here, while small, is amazing. The silver and leather works here have the potential to go far if they only had the market and resources to expand.

Well, I hope this blog entry makes up for my long absence. Provided I pass my language proficiency exam (wish me luck; I need it), I will swear in as a Peace Corps volunteer this coming week. I will then go to my village in the Zinder region of Niger, where I will spend one month solid. After that, I can go back to my regional capital and send you all more word of my activities. Oh, and here is my new address if people feel inspired to send mail: My name; Corps de la Paix; B.P. 641; Zinderville, NIGER. If anyone has any questions, comments or concerns, feel free to post them here or email me! I would also love to hear what is going on in the states!

2009-07-08T07:47:00.000-07:00

Ok. This is a blog about my adventures in Niger. I am required to say that everything written here are my thoughts and do not represent the Peace Corps in any way, shape or form. I am going into training for a few months. So I won't actually write anything here for a while. If you are interested in write a letter to me ever, here is my address:

Corps de la Paix
BP 10537, Niamey NIGER
West Africa

I hope to give you some news soon.