One volunteer put it well (and comfortingly) this past weekend: “Going to the bush to learn Hausa is like going to the backwoods South to learn English.” Oh, good.
Language immersion was, as I expected, a huge challenge. Communication was top on the list of frustrations, as well as the predictable frustrations that come from being with the same two ladies every hour of the day for two weeks. But I made it, and even though I was counting down the days for half the time, my Hausa did improve and I had a very realistic glimpse of what it will be like to be a volunteer in a small bush village. I must say, I don’t think I could have done it without the guavas and sugar cane. I’ve had many a guava juice or tropical juice mix in my time, but at 24 I had my first fresh guava, and they are simply heaven-sent. Sugar cane is a delightful afternoon snack that graces Niger with its abundance in the cold season--you sit around gnawing off chunks of the peeled stalk, sucking out the sugar juice and spitting out the desiccated stalk, chatting about the chilly weather.
The village was in the Maradi region, and even though it was on the paved road, there was no electricity or running water—a bush village but for its accessibility. There were a couple thousand villagers, a clinic, middle school, a very nice mosque, and a market. Mornings were spent in front of a chalkboard and afternoons were spent talking to village VIPS like the tailor, the shop owner, the blacksmith, the mayor, the bush taxi guy, etc.
Walking through the fields outside the village was an almost daily activity. I was fascinated by my language facilitator, a city gal from Niamey who showered three times a day and was terrified of ever being alone, who knew the name of every single tree and shrub. She even could identify a tree by its seedpod if we brought it home. At the end of our stay we planted a few trees with some kids, probably aged about 8-10. We accidentally mixed up the seeds and ended up handing them the extracted mesquite seeds, calling them tamarind seeds, and without even hesitating they called out our mistake. These kids really know their plants, and they were so excited to be planting their own trees. I can’t say I met any kids like that doing environmental education in Portland, just sayin…
Yesterday morning I was up like a spring at 4am full of anticipation because it was site announcement day. Now, nerves at ease, am happy to report that I will be a volunteer in the Zinder region, the region that had been my preference. The specs on my village are much as I had expected, around 750 people, a 2k walk to transportation and another 2 hours to the regional capitol, no electricity, and no running water. I am pleased, and now I am eager to get out to post and see my new home. A volunteer has lived in this village before, so I am lucky to have a fairly detailed report of what I can expect, who are known movers and shakers in the village, and information about what resources will be available to me.
One thing about Hausa that still trips me up is wants and needs--pretty important stuff to communicate. There is not a way to express the nuances of needing and desiring…which might be the foundation of American manners. If you say “dan allah,” the closest thing to “please” in Hausa, you will be laughed at because it is a term only used for begging. That being said, Hausa is such a positive-sounding language, if that makes any sense. For example, “yawwa!” means “alright!,” and “ya yi kyau!” means “good!” and I am almost certain, what with the long a’s and emphatic intonation, that it is actually impossible to utter these word without relish.
Many of you have asked me how I could be eating so much rice in Niger, considering that most of Niger is in the Sahara desert. Millet and sorghum are the principal cereal crops grown here in the Sahel, and millet is the Nigerien diet’s underpinning. The rice is imported from Pakistan and Thailand—“broken rice” that their markets reject but Nigeriens prefer. A lot of rice is also donated to Niger from the US and Europe and it is sold on the market. At this moment rice is less expensive than millet, however about 80% of Nigeriens are subsistence farmers so they are usually eating tuwo (prepared millet and also a general term for food.) Peace Corps gives our host families food to cook for us: rice, beans, oil, and some sauce ingredients. Interestingly enough, in the Niger river basin farmers do grow rice, but it is apparently highly valuable rice and it’s sold to European markets at a higher price than it could ever get here. There.
I am particularly tickled by this Nigerien tradition I just learned of: If a boy is born after four girls in the family, he will be named Gumbo. If a girl is born after four boys, she too will be named Gumbo. I learned this after meeting both a male and a female Gumbo in the same village. I bet this isn’t all that uncommon in Niger considering Niger has the highest birthrate in the world and the average woman has 7 children…I met an al haji just last week who has 50 children! Even if he made an acronym for all his kids’ names, the acronym would still be hard to remember.
Update: moringa apparently not nitrogen-fixing. Duly noted and damage control now underway amongst the ag/nrm trainees.
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