An unexpected farewell

So…where to start?  I moved to my village, settled in and was just able to cross day seven of being “in village” off on my calendar.  I won’t say it was easy--communication was a huge challenge.  I was nervous about my pint-sized mud hut, but after some inspired rearrangements and reorganizations I made it my cozy little cubby in the Sahel.  I had a bowlegged dog to bark at the wind and pre-wash the dishes, and a healthy acacia tree that attracted plenty of birds to flirt. 

The village had about 500 people in it, situated in a valley Northeast of Zinder.  It was certainly a bush post: the Peace Corps Land Cruiser blazed its own path through the sand, millet stalks and brush to install me and all my furnishings.  There were low mountains that I walked to often, and a profound gulch that would rage come rainy season.  The mai gari, or village mayor who serves for life, was old and sickly, but there was one man, Maman, who was quite the mover and a shaker. He seemed to be the one to mobilize the villagers and get projects done along with his sister A’aiche.  She and I took several walks to the low mountains and through the dry riverbed with her two kids and she taught me bird and plant names in Hausa.  I spent most of my first days sitting on a mat with the ladies as they pounded millet, helped me with my Hausa and teased me.  I think I had found my counterpart and a best friend.

In short, things were going very well up until I got the call that all Peace Corps Volunteers were being evacuated from Niger.  Since my village didn’t have any electricity, my phone was dead and I received the news from one of my neighbors who came to my house with his cell phone.  He said that “Niamey” had called him, and that is when I received the message that I was to pack up all of my things and leave Niger.

Six days later I am here in Morocco at the “transition conference,” a very neutral name for an awful occasion.  I am completely crestfallen.  I do understand why we had to leave, but evacuation due to security concerns was a difficult reality to swallow when I felt more safe among Nigeriens than I did anywhere in the United States.  This is not hyperbole—the Nigeriens I have been so lucky to know are the most welcoming, patient and kind people.  Yeah, yeah, I too, thought this was something they said about Niger because there was nothing else positive to say in the welcome packet, after it being the poorest country in the world, hot as an oven, sand, conservative dress, virtually no infrastructure etc.  But it is astoundingly true.  I’ll be the first to admit that I might be looking back at my too-brief time in Niger with rose-tinted glasses…now I even think it’s cute that they count money in 5’s (seriously, you actually call 100 francs “twenty” and 500 francs “one hundred” etc.) …but I guarantee that anyone you ask who has been to Niger will tell you the same about Niger’s richest asset. 

So, after I heard the news, I packed my belongings and went to the town 2k away to catch a bush taxi with my neighbor.   I had yet another thing to be regret: the fact that I would only do this bush taxi ride once.  It was a giant Land Cruiser flatbed truck with a metal cage over the bed and a metal rack on top of the cab.  I sat on the rack atop the cab with my legs dangling over the windshield, along with 12 others.  At least 25 more sat in the bed or somehow held on for dear life as we drove for two hours literally through the bush without so much as a road.  Now and then I would have to duck for branches. Mom is probably now realizing that she should have been more worried for me riding bush taxis than being kidnapped by Al Qaeda.  

So, for those of you who don’t know, we were evacuated due to the kidnapping of two French men from a bar in Niamey, Niger’s capital.  There have been kidnappings in Niger before this incident, but they occurred in the North and the US safety and security folks had drawn an invisible line that left a substantial Southern strip in the “green zone.”  This kidnapping took place right in the middle of the “green zone” at a bar that Peace Corps Volunteers frequent.  It is impossible to shut down Niamey because everything is run out of the capital.  The information available says that Al Qaeda in the Sahara are not necessarily kidnapping westerners to make a cultural statement, but to make money.  The US government does not pay ransom, so Americans are actually not targets in Niger, but I don't know if the kidnappers ask to see a passport before shoving you in the Land Cruiser.  So…although I felt safe in my little village waaaaay out in Zinder region, I do understand why this was a necessary decision for the Peace Corps.  It breaks my heart, but I understand.  It's also important to note that Niger generally loves americans, maybe the last place in the world where this is true.  I'm afraid many friends and family back home might not understand this when they hear that I was evacuated due to Al Qaeda activity.  Tell a taxi driver in Niamey that you're American and they say "ya yi kyau!"  "Great!" 

So, everyone in the Zinder region came back to the hostel and after two days we were picked up by the Peace Corps van and taken to Maradi, where we then joined those volunteers.  The following morning we continued on to Niamey and at 5 am the next morning we were on a flight to Morocco. 

So, here in Morroco, all 97 evacuated volunteers are staying in a hotel and checking out medically, doing options interviews, and tons of other technical meetings to go about closing service and preparing for whatever opportunities are available.  Tomorrow we find out just what the specific countries and the positions available are.  The possibilities are 1) direct transfer: transfer to another country immediately, don’t do pre-service training, basically an impromptu position created for we orphans in the storm.  This option is only for people whose qualifications exactly match the needs of the country.  2) Re-enrollment: close your service, go home, wait for another nomination then invitation, although we will have top priority and we can be selective about which country we want to go to.  3) Expedited Return to Service: join a new training class within the next 60 days for a new assignment for which we must likewise be exactly qualified.  We must return home as PCVs until our departure date.  All of these options definitely have their benefits and their drawbacks, but I’m hoping tomorrow’s sessions will elucidate much of our situation.

More to come…  Thank you all for the amazing support that I have received in the past few days.  This is just awful, no two ways about it.  But I feel blessed for the incredible experience I had in Niger and the amazing friends I have made.

It's Official!

Now officially sworn in as a volunteer and with pre-service training behind me, I am in the regional capital of Zinder, counting down the days before I first see my village.  The difference between trainee and volunteer must be very confusing for anyone who is not versed in Peace Corps protocol and fluent in its many acronyms, but the past 9 weeks have been spent outside of Niamey, and this is the first time any of the 10 trainees assigned to this region has seen Zinder.  We are all posted in bush villages that are 2 to 7 hours away by bush taxi from here.  We have a “hostel” in Zinder where we will meet once a month for team meetings, cooking, and hanging out.  We use these four days to replenish supplies, bank, and “be American.”  The Zinder hostel is a palace with its huge library and DVD and VHS collection, and I couldn’t be more pleased: I knew I had found my Nigérien home when the vetted volunteers greeted us newbies on our first morning with homemade bagels and pancakes. 

Zinder is a quick 15-hour bus ride from Niamey, which is best spent passed out on Benadryl.  We made the move after a swear-in celebration and sad farewells.  It will be three months until we see any of the volunteers sent to other regions.  Volunteers in Niger are strictly forbidden to ride motorcycles…unless they’re in the Zinder region, and it which case it's that or walking because there are no taxis.  I had never ridden a motorcycle, but last night I had my baptism by fire.  I was incredulous when, wearing an ankle-length wrap skirt, a backpack on my back, another pack on my front, and carrying a guitar case, I was handed a helmet and told to hop on a motorcycle with a guy who would take me to the hostel—in sha allah.  I made it with very few scratches (kidding) and now a motorcycle ride with just one bag seems like a limo ride.

I will be installed in my village via Peace Corps vehicle in 3 days.  In the meantime, I must go shopping for essentials such as stove, mattress, buckets, pots, pans, etc. and food for one month.  Of course there will be food in my market town, but not much more than basic ingredients like rice and beans.  This is like planning for a really long camping trip.  There was a volunteer who lived in my village a year ago, so there are reportedly a few pieces of furniture already in my house, as well as a dog that she “gave back to the villagers” but might just automatically come back to my house.

 Last year there was a security situation and all PCVs were consolidated.  Volunteers had to stay in their regional capitals for more than a month, but the new stage that was training at that time was whisked off to Madagascar to restart training and serve there.  So, my stage has no “sister stage” and volunteer numbers had gotten very low until we showed up--our group nearly doubles the team at Zinder.  The previous volunteers are very grateful that we are replenishing the ranks, but I must admit that it was only around week 6 when I stopped hoping to likewise be shipped off to Madagascar.  The thought of two years of tropical beaches of course still sounds, well, delightful, but Niger has found a soft spot in my heart.  It may be cold season buttering me up for the heat to come, but I like it here. 

It will be one month before I will see the internet again, so sai hunkari.  I can't wait to report back on my village.  Don’t hesitate to comment or email.  I love to see your name pop up in my inbox and I will reply!  And as always, letters letters letters!

New Contact Info!

My new address for the next two years is:
c/o Corps de la Paix
B.P. 641
Zinder, Niger
West Africa

Be sure to write "Par Avion"

Please please send me your letters!

KARATU, FARKON KA MADACI, KARSHENKA ZUMA

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. 

Babu sanyi

This blog post is obviously a few weeks out of date, but I didn't have internet access when I was expecting it.  Blog update about how the immersion went plus more! coming soon.

Yesterday marked the momentous 5 week mark in training.  The excessive typos I just found in my previous post have not cowed me--I am back and updating, probably with just as many typos as last time.  Last week, we made our acquaintance with Niamey.  All the trainees are like the country mouse in the city, getting giddy about an hour of molasses-speed wifi and the prospect of a cold beer.  For almost all good things in Niger you must wait a very long time.  Cheese pizza (oh my, cheese?!)? 2 hours after ordering.  Beer? well, 1 month.   Alcohol in Niger, as in most Muslim countries, is highly stigmatized.  The few men who drink do so au cache-cache, scampering off to another town to imbibe.  In the Nigerien “Cheers,” sometimes you wanna go where nobody knows your name.  Women who drink are presumed to be prostitutes, as are women who smoke.  Western women are mostly exempt from this assumption in the cities, but it would be very poorly advised for a PCV to drink at all in her village. 

I must not forget to mention that at the tail end of the awful bus ride from Maradi after Demyst, I saw a group of wild giraffes nibbling on some trees outside of Dosso.  I can check that off my Niger to-do list, now. 

I can also check off eating grasshoppers, intestines, esophagus, stomach, kidneys and liver, as well as seeing rams being sacrificed, (these are the things you add on to your to-do list, though, after you’ve already done them just so that you can check more things off, shhh..).  Last week was Tabaski, a two-day long meat-eating celebration of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Ismael.  For the families who can afford to, they sacrifice a ram.  One third is meant to be for the family, one third to share with friends, and the last third to give to the poor.  Again for those who can afford to, kids get new Tabaski clothes, and the women henna their feet and paint their babies’ eyebrows and foreheads.  Many of the kids got Obama shirts the like of which I have never seen in the U.S.  There is even Obama fabric, which people use to make their skirts and Nigerien garb—where does it all come from?  Tangent: also puzzled by ubiquitous AIG jerseys.  Have heard tell of markets where clothing donated to Niger from America is sold, so called “Dead Man’s Market” because why else would someone get rid of their clothes?  Have yet to confirm with own two eyes... Anyway, For Tabaski, we had delicious couscous and onion tomato meat sauce, a special treat mainly because it wasn’t rice and sauce.  My uncle and little brothers sacrificed the two rams, skinned and eviscerated them in about an hour.  They splayed the carcasses above coals and smoked the meat for several hours.  In the meantime, they started deep-frying the intestines.  I actually only have a vague idea of just which organs I ate…  They cook ram all day long to preserve the meat for many weeks to come (is anyone still wondering why Peace Corps Niger boasts highest rate of dysentery in Peace Corps?)  On the second day, kids go around with trays of meat on their head to share with their friends and neighbors, and the children from the Quranic school come around begging for meat which is gladly offered.  Surprisingly, other than this excessive meat eating, Tabaski was just like two days off of language training. 

My garden is going well—I have several tomato, pepper, eggplant and lettuce plants, as well as experimental peanut and cassava plots.  I have also started my tree nursery with moringa, tamarind, acacia, baobob, and gum arabic trees, plus orange trees for rootstock.  Some fellow plant nerds in my stage claim that the moringa tree fixes nitrogen because we found mychorrizal (sp?) nodules on its roots, (think Alnus).  Exciting discovery, however none of the dusty literature we have around here can back this up.  Does anyone have any information about this?  If you aren’t familiar with the moringa tree, wikipedia it—all the agroforestry development workers get stars in their eyes just at the mention of its name. 

The anticipation grows as the date of site announcements draws nearer.  My only requests for my site are: being able to do beekeeping and being within a half-day of another volunteer.  I will likely be either in the Maradi or the Zinder region, both a very long bus ride from Niamey.  I have heard that Maradi’s PC hostel has a great library, second to Zinder’s.  Tomorrow we split up into small groups and go on language immersion in the bush for two weeks, which will vastly improve my Hausa and likely also drive me crazy.  We’ll see, and above all, I will “sai hankuri,” the Hausa mantra to be patient.  After that we only have about two weeks left of training before swearing in.

Cold season is upon us, and I am so amused by the Nigeriens who complain about the cold, wear winter jackets and hats in the 90 plus degree heat in the morning and just after the sun sets.  A few nights ago, my host mother Biba was making fun of me for thinking that the weather is hot, so in response I went to grab pictures of my parents’ home after a Chicago snowstorm.  There is no word for snow in Hausa (no surprise) but they were floored, and I pretty much blew their minds.   Biba relented, “okay, okay, at your home, it is cold.”

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, a bittersweet occasion to have a true feast. Turkey (sub chx), cranberry sauce  and  pumpkin pie were the only alimentary staples missing.  Thanksgivings away from home are like a consolation prize, but especially in a country like Niger, I’m more conscious of for what I am thankful.  You know, like horseradish cranberry sauce. 

Oh, hi!

Since stepping off the plane into Niger’s “little heat” just over two weeks ago, time has at once slipped by and crawled at a snail’s pace.  We are in Niger’s mini hot season, approaching the cold season.  This means farmers are finishing up the harvest, the days are hot but the nights are cool, and cool season gardens’ vegetables are coming in.  After spending just two nights at the training site having doing the medical and bureaucratic rigmarole, we moved into our host families.  A couple of hours before meeting our hosts we had a crash course in Hausa’s many greeting formulas, then my roommate and I followed our host mother Biba down to the village, little ducklings with saucer eyes. 

There we met our other mom, Fati and the seven children.  My family is polygamous, which usually means more babies and more money. This is easy for me to say now: “there we met our host mom, Fati and the seven children,” but that night and the following week or so, it seemed impossible to figure out who all these people were.  In our living concession there are not only moms and dads and kids but there are uncles and  uncles’ wives and grandmothers and cousins and nieces and nephews.  Now, after two weeks of learning Hausa and deciphering my host cousin’s “Frausa”, I think I have finally figured out just who is who.  It was a huge breakthrough to figure out that “Maman” is actually a man’s name and is in fact our host father.  That night we received our Nigerien names, and I am henceforth “Baraka.”  We ate pasta that night, seated on a mat around one large platter, trying to eat as gracefully as possible without silverware.  If only we had known that night that we would only be eating rice with sauce from then on…

A concession is the family’s yard that is enclosed by some sort of fence.  Inside this concession are personal concessions—a small yard that with an adjacent hut.  My hut is a nice little adobe hut with a thatched roof.  I sleep outside every under my mosquito net, a neem tree and the stars.  My alarm clock’s thermometer tells me it is usually around 90 degrees when I’m falling asleep and around 74 degrees when I wake up cold at 3am.  During the day, it has gotten as hot as 117 or so, but miraculously, it hasn’t felt too oppressive. 

Generally speaking, this is what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks during “scheduled time:

50% language training, 20% cross cultural training, 20% technical training, 10% medical sessions. 

“Unscheduled time”: 90% sleeping, 5% eating, 5% thinking about eating.

We have very little free time, and when we do, it’s almost as sweet as a being offered a cold glass of water.  I am careful not to complain, though, because I am told that once I am sworn in as a volunteer, I will have way more free time than I know what to do with. 

For the FARM technical training has so far included starting tree nurseries, cold season gardening, composting and mulching field crops.  We were all pleasantly surprised to find out that we each get a garden plot plus a plot for our host families.  I was lucky to snag some extra plots to plant some seeds from home.  I was worried that by the time I’d get to my site it would be too late to plant vegetables and I wouldn’t be able to save any seeds.  Our program coordinator is so great, he said that if my vegetables don’t come in before I leave for my site, they will send my vegetables to me so that I can collect their seeds! 

Language class is with two other trainees and a Nigerien language instructor.  We change instructors every week.  Some instructors speak English and others only speak French, so language classes range from challenging to very challenging since the other two trainees in my class don’t speak French.  We meet in a host family’s concession with a black board, chalk and a bucket of water and chase the shade around all day. 

The most important thing to learn in Hausa are the greetings.  There is a formula of greetings that must be answered with the appropriate response:

Q: “Ina kwana?” “How did you sleep?”  A: “Lahiya Lau” “In health”

Q:  How were your daylight hours? A: In Health

Q: How is your home? A: Every thing at my home is in health.

Q: How is your work? A: I am thankful for work.

Q: How is your tiredness? A: No tiredness.  **one must never say that they are tired in Niger!**

Q: How is the heat?  A: It is the time for heat. 

The more profusely you greet someone, the more they will just adore you and of courses respect you.  More on Hausa the more that I learn.  In Hausa, you conjugate pronouns instead of verbs.  Woah.

This past weekend, we went on “demystification” where in small groups we stay with current volunteers so that we can see what the life of a volunteer is really like.  Along with four others, I was lucky to stay with Alice and Jesse, a wonderful couple working Community Youth and Education and Municipal and Community Development sectors, respectively.  They apparently have the nicest Peace Corps house in all of Niger, located in a very large village equipped with electricity, a refrigerator, oven and running water.  It’s a cruel “demystification” for us Forest, Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (henceforth FARM) and Community Health Agent (CHA) trainees, considering our posts will all be in the bush without any of those amenities.  But for those 3 glorious days we delighted in all of those luxuries, the cold water, the fresh brownies and omelet breakfasts, etc.  Right now we are currently in Maradi spending the night here steeling up for our 5am 10 hour hot bus ride back to the training site. 

This morning before leaving their village, we happened upon a group of men trying to smoke some snakes out of a giant pile of cement blocks in an empty field.  They found brown cobras and three small spotted snakes that burrow in the sand but were not identified.  One man told me the men were snake charmers and were going to use the snakes for spectacles, but another told me they were going to sell them to traditional medicine makers. 

These past two weeks have been so full of new experiences and a wide range of emotions—it is a challenge to write this first post, because there is so much that I am leaving out.  There will me more to come, plus photos and I will gladly answer any questions you may have.

Also!  Some great news is that letters have only been taking about 6 days to get here!  In case you need  it, my address is:

My name

c/o corps de la paix

B.P. 10537

Niamey, Niger

West Africa.