Paris
Our last few days in Niger dragged on for what seemed like weeks. Extended goodbyes, desert heat, and uneventful afternoons combined to make us all very tired and vary lazy. With almost nothing to do all day we bided our time watching taped episodes of Six Feet Under and Weeds on people’s laptops. We did your best to take everything in, waking up early to watch the sunrise and 13 hours later walking out to the mesa to watch it set over our training site. Our last few hours in Niger were spent sprawled out on our beds watching the stars in silence for almost an hour. At 9:30 we were crammed into vans for a final trip into Niamey. Arriving at the airport, we wandered through three separate metal detectors, two bag searches, and more passport checks than I can remember before we were finally allowed onto the tarmac for our 12:30 flight to Paris. I popped two benodryl as I stepped on the plane and successfully knocked myself out for the entire flight.
Paris was, as usual, a great experience. Being that this was my third time to the city of light, sightseeing was not high on my priority list, but there were many members of our stage who had never seen the city. We checked into our hotel near the airport early that morning and walked a mile and a half to the RER-D stop in the adjacent town. The Peace Corps had generously given us a whopping 20 euros to spend (sarcasm) and the ticket into town cost me 10 so after a fresh baguette, big chuck of cheese, and bottle of wine, I was done spending money. After gracefully scarfing my purchases in a Parisian park, I went on a walking tour of the city with my friend Julie, who had never been to Paris before. I tour-guided for her and a few other friends all around Paris’s major sites complete with visits to the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, and Notre Dame. By dinner we were beat so we retreated back to our hotel for dinner and hot showers.
The Paris hotel as well as our flights to and from Charles De Gaulle turned out to be a great stock-up opportunity for me. From the hotel I restocked on some much needed soap and shampoo. I also acquired two new pillows, two blankets as well as some magazines courtesy of Air France. It also gave me the opportunity to indulge just a little before heading back into the thick of things. I took three very hot showers in a 12-hour period just because I could and I used a hotel hairdryer for the first time in my life, just because it was there. Yet after all that cleaning I still had Niger-colored dust in my toenails.
Starting Over in Madagascar
Madagascar is a place that everyone seems to like in theory but no one really knows anything about. Most people know where Madagascar is and seem to enjoy the animated children’s movie set on this island nation, but that is all. I must admit that my knowledge of Madagascar was no more extensive. Once the transfer from Niger to Madagascar was announced, the 10-page section of the Lonely Planet Africa featuring Madagascar became a sacred text to all us trainees. Now I realize why so little is known about the world’s largest island nation: No one who comes here ever leaves. Madagascar is a stunningly beautiful nation of mountains, rainforests, rice paddies, and intense thunderstorms. Though Peace Corps has only been active here since 1994, there are at least 64 former Peace Corps volunteers that decided to make Madagascar their homes after their service was completed and after just 2 weeks here, I can’t say I blame them.
Our stage arrived in Madagascar at 1:00 AM on the morning of December 10th and since then we have been living at the main Peace Corps training facility. The term ‘training facility’ is not really a good term to describe the place where we live. If the training site in Niger could be called “Fort Peace Corps” the place in Madagascar could be called “Resort Peace Corps.” Located hour’s drive east of the capital Antananarivo, the center is built on a green peninsula jutting into a massive mountain lake. Our dining room boasts splendid mountain vistas with large bay windows and our accommodations are complete with beds, flushing toilets, hot water, and big closets. When I am not in language class my time is divided between long bike trips into the mountains or canoe rides into unexplored coves on the pristine lake.
Our afternoon activities are only restricted by the weather, which is predictably rainy. It has literally rained every single day since our arrival. The day can start out without a cloud in the sky, but every evening without fail a massive thunderstorm will roll in off the Indian Ocean complete with searing lightning and rolling thunder. The clouds usually begin to assemble by three of four and by dinnertime a full-scale monsoon is barreling down on us. After most meals a group of us assemble on the dining room porch to watch the towering clouds conquer the green mountains as brilliant lightning strikes on the distant hills. On one particularly eventful evening, we could see the moonrise, sunset, and lightning storm move in all from one chair. It is like nothing I have ever seen anywhere. I can’t imagine what this place is like when a cyclone hits.
After almost two weeks in language classes here, I can now say with some confidence that Malagasy is the worst possible language to play Wheel-of-Fortune with. The language is guilty of the drastic over use of the letter ‘A’ and every word seems to contain one ‘M’ or ‘N’. One can actually form a complete sentence using only these two consonants. (Manao inona ianao?) Additionally, Malagasy words are ridiculously long. Common verbs in English that require just a few letters require four or five syllables in Malagasy. The verb ‘meet’ translates to ‘Mahafantatra’ and the verb for ‘run’ is ‘Mihazakazaka’. If one can manage to pronounce these gargantuan words, Malagasy is an exceedingly simple language grammatically. All the verbs start with M and to change a word in to past the first letter changes to N and in the future the first letter is H. The language, however is nothing like anything I have learned before as it is actually most closely related to a language spoken on the Indonesian island of Borneo.
In the coming days and weeks there is allot of excitement planned. On the day after Christmas we are going camping in Madagascar’s most famous national park where we anticipate seeing some interesting wildlife, including the world’s largest lemurs. After New Years, We are going to be transplanted from our resort into the village at the bottom of the hill to live with Malagasy host families for three weeks. We have had some opportunity to explore our new village and it is a really fascinating place. It is located in a valley filled with lush green rice paddies and teeming with life. Ducks and geese patrol modest yards sporting huge pink hibiscus bushes and roses. The Malagasy people are all about six inches shorter than the average European so all the homes, while usually two-stories tall, look like they are build for dwarves. I anticipate that this will be a problem for me once I move into my Malagasy house considering I already have to duck to enter most of the shops and stores.
Yesterday also marks my first Christmas away from home with Peace Corps. Curiously enough, the holiday season in the third world is markedly different from what I have grown accustomed to. A brick of newspaper failed to arrive at my doorstep to mark the eve of Black Friday, I have seen no inflatable Santa-and-reindeer snow globe lawn ordainments, and I have yet to hear any Christmas advertisements to attract me to the malls. Christmas in Madagascar has really been a low-key affair. In all honesty it is really hard to get into the ‘holiday spirit’ when you are around no family, in the middle of a jungle and you wake up early on Christmas morn to attend a 2-hour Malagasy language session. There has been a concerted effort to bring some holiday cheer to our training site. Each of us was assigned a Secret Santa and a budget of 5000 Ariari for gifts, one of the girls has been playing carols off her IPOD during meals and during a long drive to the market town our van stumbled though as many Christmas tunes as we could remember. The real ‘presents’, however, come when someone gets a phone call from home and the lucky recipient always hangs up with a smile on their face and a little Christmas in their hearts.
I can say with some confidence that Madagascar is the exact opposite of Niger. Niger was hot, dry, flat, landlocked, and Muslim. Madagascar is cool, green, wet, hilly, Christian (for the most part) and a tropical island. The currency here is called Ariari; the exchange rate to the dollar is approximately 2000 to 1. In terms of dollars, things here are even cheaper than they were in Niger. One can buy a kilo of rice for 50 cents and a chocolate bar will put you out a solid 12 pennies. The national beer in Madagascar is called Three Horses Beer and one can buy a .65 liter bottle for approximately 80 cents. Surprisingly, Three Horses aka THB is actually really good, better than any mainstream American brew I have tasted. However, on our budgets 80 cents is rather expensive so I have limited myself to just two bottles since our arrival.
As I expect my mother has already written, I got my site announcement a few days ago. After I swear in as a PCV at the end of January, I will be moving to the village of Ranomafana (Malagasy for ‘hot water’) a few hours south of the Capital Antananarivo. Although I know very little about this place that will be home in a little over a month, I do know that it is adjacent to one of Madagascar’s biggest and most renown national parks so I expect to get very close with some of the very unique wildlife that calls Madagascar home. In terms of flora and fauna, Madagascar really is in a league all its own and Ranomafana is reported to be one of the great sactuaries of Mother Nature. There are 12 species of lemur and 68 species of bird that are only found in Madagascar which can be found in this park and the plant life is supposed to be just as impressive. Thus I am very excited to FINALLY finish Peace Corps training and become a volunteer.
While Madagascar is a paradise in almost everyway, politically this place is an absolute mess. Isolated up here in the mountains we don’t receive allot of news, but what we have pieced together about what is happening in the capital is not very encouraging. The coup d’etat, which ousted the president in March of this year, is still in full force. As a result the man with the power in Antananarivo is a 34 year-old former DJ who is constitutionally forbidden from assuming the presidency. There was a transitional government formed, a government that has one president and two ‘half-presidents’ however, many foreign governments, including the US, do not recognize the transitional government. In November the three presidents went to Africa for some confrence and in doing so perturbed the DJ turned dictator who now refuses to send a plane to bring them back to Madagascar. In playground terms the new kid pulled up the rope ladder to the tree-fort that is Madagascar. So while the only government with any thread of legitimacy is hundreds of miles away in Mozambique or South Africa, the economy of Madagascar has gone to the dogs. What once was a healthy tourism industry has taken a 90% hit. Some generous trade programs with Madagascar have been suspended and a bunch of factories may be forced to close. As a result many Malagasy have been forced to turn to illegal logging for income. The rainforests and wildlife here is some of the best in the world but it is impossible to keep people from logging when the starvation of their families is at stake. I anticipate much of what I will be doing at Ranomafana will be related to preventing this from taking place. Even here at the PC training site deforestation is evident. Entire hillsides are left barren exposing the red soil underneath. When the cyclone rains come later this year, much of the topsoil will be washed into rivers, which will turn a crimson-hue as a result. During past years of heavy deforestation, astronauts have commented that after a heavy rain, Madagascar looks like it is bleeding into the Indian Ocean, and in a very real sense, it is.
I hope everyone back at home is enjoying their holiday and the cold weather, although mail service to Madagascar is reportedly even slower here than in Niger, letters are highly sought after and appreciated.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Michael
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Assignment
posted by the administrator
Michael received his assignment today and was very excited to find out he would be doing environmental work in the cloud forest of Ranomafana. Near the town of Ranomafana is Madagascar's largest National Park where he will assist in reforestation efforts there, perhaps do some rice farming, and work on any other project that his community will need. He will leave for his village assignment after his swearing in ceremony at the end of January. See this link for more information on the area.
http://www.wildmadagascar.org/conservation/parks/Ranomafana.html
I'll post more later and watch for a personal post from Michael in the next few days!
Michael received his assignment today and was very excited to find out he would be doing environmental work in the cloud forest of Ranomafana. Near the town of Ranomafana is Madagascar's largest National Park where he will assist in reforestation efforts there, perhaps do some rice farming, and work on any other project that his community will need. He will leave for his village assignment after his swearing in ceremony at the end of January. See this link for more information on the area.
http://www.wildmadagascar.org/conservation/parks/Ranomafana.html
I'll post more later and watch for a personal post from Michael in the next few days!
Friday, December 11, 2009
News from Madagascar
Michael chatted with us this morning from his new home in Madagascar. Here are some highlights:
-Life in Madagascar is the opposite of living conditions in Niger; they currently have all the comforts of home: toilets, showers, hot & cold water (either/or but not warm water), closets, buildings made of bricks with windows, trees, rain most every day, good food, fruits and vegetables, etc.
-The place they are currently staying is a training center that is often used by other high-ranking officials for retreats and meetings; it is very beautiful, located on a peninsula jutting into a lake in which they are allowed to play with boats and canoes--as long as they do not swim in the water. There is a risk of contracting Schistosomiasis, so there is no contact with the water.
-Madagascar has lots of trees and hills. They have been doing some mountain biking for fun during breaks from their lessons.
-He is now learning the native language: Malagasy; although it is confusing to be learning yet another language, he says it is a very logical language which helps his learning process
-The people there are "small" in comparison to most Americans. Most do not get much taller than about 5'6".
-He gets paid less in Madagascar, but things are typically cheaper. He can buy a beer for about 80 cents.
-Most of the clothes available for purchase there are second hand from the U.S. He isn't really opposed to wearing second-hand clothes--except for the socks and underwear!
-There are not many roads in Madagascar so road transportation is long and laborious. The roads they do have are often washed out by the flooding that occurs when the cyclones hit. If one needs to be transported for a medical issue, they will send a plane.
The French have a big influence there which gives them access to delicacies such as Laughing Cow cheese!
Michael knows he will be posted in the northern section of Madagascar, and he will find out specifics about his post and his job in about a week. Look forward to more posting then!
-Life in Madagascar is the opposite of living conditions in Niger; they currently have all the comforts of home: toilets, showers, hot & cold water (either/or but not warm water), closets, buildings made of bricks with windows, trees, rain most every day, good food, fruits and vegetables, etc.
-The place they are currently staying is a training center that is often used by other high-ranking officials for retreats and meetings; it is very beautiful, located on a peninsula jutting into a lake in which they are allowed to play with boats and canoes--as long as they do not swim in the water. There is a risk of contracting Schistosomiasis, so there is no contact with the water.
-Madagascar has lots of trees and hills. They have been doing some mountain biking for fun during breaks from their lessons.
-He is now learning the native language: Malagasy; although it is confusing to be learning yet another language, he says it is a very logical language which helps his learning process
-The people there are "small" in comparison to most Americans. Most do not get much taller than about 5'6".
-He gets paid less in Madagascar, but things are typically cheaper. He can buy a beer for about 80 cents.
-Most of the clothes available for purchase there are second hand from the U.S. He isn't really opposed to wearing second-hand clothes--except for the socks and underwear!
-There are not many roads in Madagascar so road transportation is long and laborious. The roads they do have are often washed out by the flooding that occurs when the cyclones hit. If one needs to be transported for a medical issue, they will send a plane.
The French have a big influence there which gives them access to delicacies such as Laughing Cow cheese!
Michael knows he will be posted in the northern section of Madagascar, and he will find out specifics about his post and his job in about a week. Look forward to more posting then!
Old Update #3
November 18, 2009
Our PC retreat began on Sunday, November 15. Typically Sundays are really boring days for us trainees; we have no scheduled class or activities and we are responsible only for finding our own breakfast. By 8am a large group of us Anasara (white people) had gathered on the street to slurp bags of sulani next to piles of smoldering garbage. All of the Zarma trainees who are housed in other villages had biked into our village for lack of anything better to do, so there were even more of us loitering around than is normal. By 10am we had broken into smaller groups; I hiked through the fields and villages surrounding the water hole with a group of friends, and, after lunch, settled down in a friend's hut to wait out the afternoon heat.
At 3pm there was a knock at the door. It was our language teachers. The Emergency Action Plan had been activated. Because of where the PC operates, it always needs to be ready in case a situation should arise in a country. Therefore, the PC uses a 3 stage response system. Stage 1 is standby--restricted travel and no leaving the village. Stage 2 is consolidation--report immediately to a safe house so that all personnel are accounted for and are in a controlled environment. Stage 3 is a full nationwide evacuation. The teachers informed us that we were at Stage 1 and not to panic because there was a possibility that this was a test.
Sunday was also the day the weather changed. For the first 3 1/2 weeks, the weather was constant and predictable. The sun beat down on the parched Nigerien soil from 9am until 6:30pm when the dimness brought on by an impending sunset made walking in unshaded areas tolerable once more. After we were moved to Stage 1, something changed; a deep haze enveloped the country. Visibility dropped down to a few hundred meters, and the once punishing heat of the sun was dulled as it continued its westward journey. It was as if a heavy smoke or fog had moved in, but the air remained dry and sweet smelling. The weather, combined with our lack of knowledge about what was happening gave everything an eerie quality and had all of the trainees on edge.
As I walked home, I turned the corner only to run into a fellow PCT. We were both startled and she tried to comfort me by giving me a big hug. While a hug from a friend certainly helped, its comforting qualities soon wore off when at 5pm I discovered we had been moved up to a Stage 2. All of the Zarma trainees who had biked in that morning were forbidden from returning home and instructed to report immediately to the safe house. Those of us living in the village were ordered to return to our houses and travel only when necessary and only in groups. None of us had been told what had happened, only that this was not a test and we would be briefed on the situation in the morning. I got a call from home at 6:15pm. With Grandma, relatives, parents, and family friends all conferenced in on the call, I resisted the temptation to alert the home front and conducted the phone call as if all was well.
The rest of us trainees were evacuated to the safe house the next morning. we were told to go back to our host family's and pack one bag for the next 2-7 days and not to tell anything to our Nigerien hosts. As could have been predicted, this sudden evacuation was enough to upset some of the host mothers who quizzed us in Hausa as to what was happening as we packed up our things. It was all we could do to respond only with "Ban sane ba" (I don't know) and hurry out the door. The safe house is one of the safest places to be in all of Niger. It has enough bed space and food to host us for a week. Once we were all safe, we were briefed on the situation. Four armed gunmen attempted to kidnap three American foreign service officers in Tahoua. The attack was unsuccessful, but it set off alarm bells all over the American Intelligence community. The situation has been weighing heavily on us. We have been sequestered here for a week, and we are not scheduled to be released for another 3 days. It is tough to stay focused on learning Hausa and agriculture when we have no interaction with average Nigeriens and are faced with the possibility that we could be evacuated if something else happens.
Thankfully the food here is great (I have put a few pounds back on!) and the staff has done their best to keep our spirits up. We were given an entire day to rest and tonight we are throwing a dance party in the cafeteria. Our country director got special permission from the Ambassador to come out and spend time with us answering questions and calming us down.
Apparently PC has decided to close the Tohoua and Konri regions and cram the existing PCVs into other regions. Then, by December 30, our Associate PC directors will need to find places for us 26 PCTs in the same regions. Needless to say, these terrorists have turned PC Niger into a logistical nightmare. In the end, none of us really know what is going to happen to us. Living as an ex-pat has taught me a lot about patience and going with the flow. We are scheduled to be released from our safe house on Friday. Hopefully we will be able to complete our service without any more consolidations.
--Michael
Our PC retreat began on Sunday, November 15. Typically Sundays are really boring days for us trainees; we have no scheduled class or activities and we are responsible only for finding our own breakfast. By 8am a large group of us Anasara (white people) had gathered on the street to slurp bags of sulani next to piles of smoldering garbage. All of the Zarma trainees who are housed in other villages had biked into our village for lack of anything better to do, so there were even more of us loitering around than is normal. By 10am we had broken into smaller groups; I hiked through the fields and villages surrounding the water hole with a group of friends, and, after lunch, settled down in a friend's hut to wait out the afternoon heat.
At 3pm there was a knock at the door. It was our language teachers. The Emergency Action Plan had been activated. Because of where the PC operates, it always needs to be ready in case a situation should arise in a country. Therefore, the PC uses a 3 stage response system. Stage 1 is standby--restricted travel and no leaving the village. Stage 2 is consolidation--report immediately to a safe house so that all personnel are accounted for and are in a controlled environment. Stage 3 is a full nationwide evacuation. The teachers informed us that we were at Stage 1 and not to panic because there was a possibility that this was a test.
Sunday was also the day the weather changed. For the first 3 1/2 weeks, the weather was constant and predictable. The sun beat down on the parched Nigerien soil from 9am until 6:30pm when the dimness brought on by an impending sunset made walking in unshaded areas tolerable once more. After we were moved to Stage 1, something changed; a deep haze enveloped the country. Visibility dropped down to a few hundred meters, and the once punishing heat of the sun was dulled as it continued its westward journey. It was as if a heavy smoke or fog had moved in, but the air remained dry and sweet smelling. The weather, combined with our lack of knowledge about what was happening gave everything an eerie quality and had all of the trainees on edge.
As I walked home, I turned the corner only to run into a fellow PCT. We were both startled and she tried to comfort me by giving me a big hug. While a hug from a friend certainly helped, its comforting qualities soon wore off when at 5pm I discovered we had been moved up to a Stage 2. All of the Zarma trainees who had biked in that morning were forbidden from returning home and instructed to report immediately to the safe house. Those of us living in the village were ordered to return to our houses and travel only when necessary and only in groups. None of us had been told what had happened, only that this was not a test and we would be briefed on the situation in the morning. I got a call from home at 6:15pm. With Grandma, relatives, parents, and family friends all conferenced in on the call, I resisted the temptation to alert the home front and conducted the phone call as if all was well.
The rest of us trainees were evacuated to the safe house the next morning. we were told to go back to our host family's and pack one bag for the next 2-7 days and not to tell anything to our Nigerien hosts. As could have been predicted, this sudden evacuation was enough to upset some of the host mothers who quizzed us in Hausa as to what was happening as we packed up our things. It was all we could do to respond only with "Ban sane ba" (I don't know) and hurry out the door. The safe house is one of the safest places to be in all of Niger. It has enough bed space and food to host us for a week. Once we were all safe, we were briefed on the situation. Four armed gunmen attempted to kidnap three American foreign service officers in Tahoua. The attack was unsuccessful, but it set off alarm bells all over the American Intelligence community. The situation has been weighing heavily on us. We have been sequestered here for a week, and we are not scheduled to be released for another 3 days. It is tough to stay focused on learning Hausa and agriculture when we have no interaction with average Nigeriens and are faced with the possibility that we could be evacuated if something else happens.
Thankfully the food here is great (I have put a few pounds back on!) and the staff has done their best to keep our spirits up. We were given an entire day to rest and tonight we are throwing a dance party in the cafeteria. Our country director got special permission from the Ambassador to come out and spend time with us answering questions and calming us down.
Apparently PC has decided to close the Tohoua and Konri regions and cram the existing PCVs into other regions. Then, by December 30, our Associate PC directors will need to find places for us 26 PCTs in the same regions. Needless to say, these terrorists have turned PC Niger into a logistical nightmare. In the end, none of us really know what is going to happen to us. Living as an ex-pat has taught me a lot about patience and going with the flow. We are scheduled to be released from our safe house on Friday. Hopefully we will be able to complete our service without any more consolidations.
--Michael
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Old update #2 Demystification
Written over Demyst: November 6-13, 2009
Fifteen days down; 784 to go! Things are cooling down here in Niger, the weather becomes tolerable around 5pm, and it is getting legitimately cold at night. I finally broke out my light sleeping bag. I am adjusting to life in my town. We did a tour of the village the other day, and now I can navigate the streets confidently in the pitch black that blankets the town at about 7:30pm each night. Suddenly where the moon is and what cycle it is in has become very important. While the moon has been relatively bright for the past few nights, the moon is rising later and later each night so when we go to visit our friends after dinner we are often tripping over the garbage littering the streets. I have been playing lots of cards in the past week. My roommate, Matt, gave his cards to our kids to play with; big mistake. In less than 5 days half-eaten cards had found their way all over my family's compound. The queen of spades somehow found its way 3 blocks down the street. To avoid my kids, some of us have been meeting for games in our huts. I taught a bunch of fellow PCTs how to play Up and Down the River and now we play it almost everyday. We find ourselves avoiding the children a lot. Don't get me wrong, the kids are great, and they are really good and really patient teachers, but there comes a point when you don't want 6 very dirty, naked African children grabbing for your hands and asking for your camera. The novelty of friendly African children has completely worn off. We were sitting in our test gardens yesterday, and a group of Zarma-speaking children stood at the fence screaming, "FoFoFoFo!" (hello) "Comment to t'appelle" which means, "what is your name?" in French and is the only French any of these kids speak. We ignored them for 1/2 hour.
I have been reading tons since I got here. I finished Birds without Wings and polished off Blue Like Jazz in less than 2 days. It was really good, thanks, Diana! This, however, means I have already halved my supply of books (so send more!)
We all look forward to the core days we have on Tuesdays and Fridays. The name of our training site in Hausa means "top of the rock". We like it because we can eat a lot of fruits and veggies, spend a few minutes with air conditioning, and we can behave like Americans for a few hours. After our language and shots are done, we change into shorts, put our Ipods on speakers and play volleyball for 2 hours. Yesterday was a special core day because the American Ambassador came to speak to us. She is a stately African-American woman who is nearly finished with her time in the Foreign Service. We got to ask her lots of questions and she gave us some hope that the travel ban to Agader would be lifted. She also told me that 15% or so of Foreign Service officers are former PCVs so that gave me a lot of hope for getting in to the Foreign Service after my PC service. Ambassador Allen gave all of us her card and stayed for lunch with us. There was meat in our rice for lunch, and for dessert we all got a meningitis shot! After lunch she had to go to a meeting with the Prime Minister; things are not well in Nigerien politics.
Now I am on Demystification, aka 'demyst'. This is the period where we leave our training town and spend 5 days with a real PCV in the field. My "demystifier" is named Errin and her site is in the Dosso region. Her village is 10 km from the main road and any electricity. The cool thing about this area is the giraffes. We got dropped off by the PC "magic bus" (magic because it has air conditioning!) off the side of the road where Errin met us. She told us that we would be walking 10K out to her village. Luckily, a few other PCVs showed up and wanted to go out to see the giraffes. One of the PCVs had her parents visiting her and they wanted to see the sites. The very last herd of West African giraffes lives in this region. There are only about 150 of these types of giraffes left in the world, and they are all here in Niger. We all hopped on the bandwagon and drove out to the bush for a giraffe safari. My fellow demystee, Alison, and I were sitting in the back of an SUV driving through the bumpy fields We were warned not to lean back or we would risk the backdoor latch failing and falling out on to the dirt. After 20 minutes our guide pointed right and suddenly we were in a herd of 13 West African giraffes. It was amazing! Here we were in the middle of the bush chilling next to a herd of endangered giraffes. There was a baby between 1-6 months old in the herd; it was really cute. It was a surreal experience; giraffes are really mellow creatures. You can walk right up to them, maybe 20-30 meters away. They stare at you like a confused puppy, and then they keep eating. I took tons of pictures! Following our mini-safari, the other PCV's dropped us off in Errin's village, thankfully sparing us the walk. Her village is considered the epicenter of nowhere because the water table is so low and there are few water sources around here. The town well is 50 meters deep and women can pull no more than 7 buckets without exhausting themselves. Errin tried once but it tore up her hands so now she leaves it to the locals. Errin has her own concession with a shade hangar, small hut, latrine, and a pet cat named gutter. Her hut is surrounded by a millet stalk fence which has collapsed 3 times in the last year. Last time the neighbor's cows came and ate her roof. Her millet-stalk door had fallen apart so, after playing some cards, we set to work making her a new door. It took us about an hour, but eventually we threw together a sturdy door out of millet and a few strips of cloth. The next day we were toured around the village. It took a few hours because literally everyone and their cousin insisted upon greeting us and inviting us to sit. We met the chief of the village, a wide-eyed friendly old man who, according to Errin, sits under a big tree and reads the Koran all day, although we really have no idea how much Arabic he actually understands. Various aid organizations are active in this village. The EU has build a grain bank and an Islamic aid organization built a foot pump at one of the wells and a health clinic that is occasionally staffed.
All of the PCVs I have encountered comment on how clean and "fresh off the plane" we are. Alison and I have likewise been observing how "weathered" all of the PCVs look. Their t-shirts are streaked and faded in the sun with holes stitched up with sewing kits. I am learning new things like "sun washing" clothes which really doesn't wash them but keeps them from smelling too badly. Or, if you put your water bottle in a clay jar filled with water, it will stay cool even in the heat.
For dinner we managed to put together some spaghetti-type stuff. After we had finished eating, the neighbor boy brought over some locust he had caught and cooked up for us. We were obligated to try them as that same boy had tried some almond M&M's Alison had brought for Errin. He was convinced the M&M's were poison, but he ate them anyway. The locust he brought were fried or something because they tasted like a bad potato chip. After that ordeal passed, we sat out on mats and stared at the stars until 11pm. I managed to get a hold of mom & dad on Sunday, and I found out I passed the Foreign Service Exam, but I don't know how to get to an interview when I am held up in the middle of nowhere.
On Tuesday we got up before the sun came up around 6am. We were meeting up with the other PCVs at the Peace Corps hostel. However, in order to get to the road, we needed to hike 11 km through the open bush to get to the road. If we left much after 7, it would get too hot and we might not be able to go. We got everything in the backpacks and left by 6:45am. We arrived at the road 2 hours later just as the heat was setting in. A Nigerien man flagged down a bush taxi for us. Nigerien bush taxis are just larger than a VW bus and have the approximate body structure of a poorly-constructed tin can. Errin, Alison, and I, as well as 16 other Africans, smashed into this mobile death trap. Errin told us that she once had to sit next to a woman with a bucket full of dismembered goat parts on her lap. After a very hot hour ride, we arrived at our destination and made our way to the hostel. At the hostel I stocked up on books and met lots of current PCVs.
On Wednesday we bussed into Niamey. There is one "foreigner" store and restaurant there; we were so famished that we ordered pizza and burgers at 9am.
I don't know if any of you have been paying attention to the political situation in Niger, but things are not well here. We only get snippets of news from the BBC or other volunteers, but apparently government leaders are behaving in a way that the other countries in the region find undemocratic. In the past Niger has set the example for democracy in the area. There has been free and fair elections here for years now. Therefore, what is happening now is considered a big deal: ECOAS is upset with Niger and some states are talking about sanctions. So keep Niger in your thoughts and pay attention to the news because Niger is really exploring some new territory here.
Being in Niger has taught me so much already about the little things. Mirrors, for example, are a little thing that we never really think about, but when you remove it from your life, looking in a mirror becomes a strange luxury. Little bits of American food or candy are priceless gems here. All of the PCTs share religiously. One of my friends got a package from home and the first thing she did was pass around the dried apricots and cheddar flavored snacks. Another big thing that we miss immensely here is cheese! I never realized how much I love cheese until now. All of the goat/cow/sheep milk here potentially has TB in it, so we can't drink any unprocessed milk or cheese (which is 90% of what is available here). We are essentially getting only one of the food groups consistently, that being breads and cereals; everything else just does not exist for at least 20 miles in all directions. To help out our bodies, Peace Corps has us on prenatal vitamins, but that can only do so much. I have already dropped 12 or so pounds, but I am not yet sick. Some of our other volunteers have not been so lucky. At least 8-10 of the other PCTs have gone up to the infirmary for treatment in the past 2 days--an alarming trend for sure!
Today in gardening we got to plant our veggies. The main season for gardening here is during the cold season even though it may seem counter intuitive to lay down a garden in the middle of November, that's how it goes here. I planted tomatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, lettuce and sweet peppers. It is unlikely, however, that I will see any fruits of my labor before I am sworn in and placed at my site on December 30.
I find out what village I will be living in for the rest of my term of service on December 1 (Happy Birthday to Lauren!), so that is a big day for me. After we get assigned our sites we go out and spend a week at them in early December, so I will have a really good idea of what my service will look like after that.
I hope all is well back in Michigan or wherever this letter may find you. While I love being and working overseas, I always miss my hometown, my family, and my friends immensely.
--Michael
Fifteen days down; 784 to go! Things are cooling down here in Niger, the weather becomes tolerable around 5pm, and it is getting legitimately cold at night. I finally broke out my light sleeping bag. I am adjusting to life in my town. We did a tour of the village the other day, and now I can navigate the streets confidently in the pitch black that blankets the town at about 7:30pm each night. Suddenly where the moon is and what cycle it is in has become very important. While the moon has been relatively bright for the past few nights, the moon is rising later and later each night so when we go to visit our friends after dinner we are often tripping over the garbage littering the streets. I have been playing lots of cards in the past week. My roommate, Matt, gave his cards to our kids to play with; big mistake. In less than 5 days half-eaten cards had found their way all over my family's compound. The queen of spades somehow found its way 3 blocks down the street. To avoid my kids, some of us have been meeting for games in our huts. I taught a bunch of fellow PCTs how to play Up and Down the River and now we play it almost everyday. We find ourselves avoiding the children a lot. Don't get me wrong, the kids are great, and they are really good and really patient teachers, but there comes a point when you don't want 6 very dirty, naked African children grabbing for your hands and asking for your camera. The novelty of friendly African children has completely worn off. We were sitting in our test gardens yesterday, and a group of Zarma-speaking children stood at the fence screaming, "FoFoFoFo!" (hello) "Comment to t'appelle" which means, "what is your name?" in French and is the only French any of these kids speak. We ignored them for 1/2 hour.
I have been reading tons since I got here. I finished Birds without Wings and polished off Blue Like Jazz in less than 2 days. It was really good, thanks, Diana! This, however, means I have already halved my supply of books (so send more!)
We all look forward to the core days we have on Tuesdays and Fridays. The name of our training site in Hausa means "top of the rock". We like it because we can eat a lot of fruits and veggies, spend a few minutes with air conditioning, and we can behave like Americans for a few hours. After our language and shots are done, we change into shorts, put our Ipods on speakers and play volleyball for 2 hours. Yesterday was a special core day because the American Ambassador came to speak to us. She is a stately African-American woman who is nearly finished with her time in the Foreign Service. We got to ask her lots of questions and she gave us some hope that the travel ban to Agader would be lifted. She also told me that 15% or so of Foreign Service officers are former PCVs so that gave me a lot of hope for getting in to the Foreign Service after my PC service. Ambassador Allen gave all of us her card and stayed for lunch with us. There was meat in our rice for lunch, and for dessert we all got a meningitis shot! After lunch she had to go to a meeting with the Prime Minister; things are not well in Nigerien politics.
Now I am on Demystification, aka 'demyst'. This is the period where we leave our training town and spend 5 days with a real PCV in the field. My "demystifier" is named Errin and her site is in the Dosso region. Her village is 10 km from the main road and any electricity. The cool thing about this area is the giraffes. We got dropped off by the PC "magic bus" (magic because it has air conditioning!) off the side of the road where Errin met us. She told us that we would be walking 10K out to her village. Luckily, a few other PCVs showed up and wanted to go out to see the giraffes. One of the PCVs had her parents visiting her and they wanted to see the sites. The very last herd of West African giraffes lives in this region. There are only about 150 of these types of giraffes left in the world, and they are all here in Niger. We all hopped on the bandwagon and drove out to the bush for a giraffe safari. My fellow demystee, Alison, and I were sitting in the back of an SUV driving through the bumpy fields We were warned not to lean back or we would risk the backdoor latch failing and falling out on to the dirt. After 20 minutes our guide pointed right and suddenly we were in a herd of 13 West African giraffes. It was amazing! Here we were in the middle of the bush chilling next to a herd of endangered giraffes. There was a baby between 1-6 months old in the herd; it was really cute. It was a surreal experience; giraffes are really mellow creatures. You can walk right up to them, maybe 20-30 meters away. They stare at you like a confused puppy, and then they keep eating. I took tons of pictures! Following our mini-safari, the other PCV's dropped us off in Errin's village, thankfully sparing us the walk. Her village is considered the epicenter of nowhere because the water table is so low and there are few water sources around here. The town well is 50 meters deep and women can pull no more than 7 buckets without exhausting themselves. Errin tried once but it tore up her hands so now she leaves it to the locals. Errin has her own concession with a shade hangar, small hut, latrine, and a pet cat named gutter. Her hut is surrounded by a millet stalk fence which has collapsed 3 times in the last year. Last time the neighbor's cows came and ate her roof. Her millet-stalk door had fallen apart so, after playing some cards, we set to work making her a new door. It took us about an hour, but eventually we threw together a sturdy door out of millet and a few strips of cloth. The next day we were toured around the village. It took a few hours because literally everyone and their cousin insisted upon greeting us and inviting us to sit. We met the chief of the village, a wide-eyed friendly old man who, according to Errin, sits under a big tree and reads the Koran all day, although we really have no idea how much Arabic he actually understands. Various aid organizations are active in this village. The EU has build a grain bank and an Islamic aid organization built a foot pump at one of the wells and a health clinic that is occasionally staffed.
All of the PCVs I have encountered comment on how clean and "fresh off the plane" we are. Alison and I have likewise been observing how "weathered" all of the PCVs look. Their t-shirts are streaked and faded in the sun with holes stitched up with sewing kits. I am learning new things like "sun washing" clothes which really doesn't wash them but keeps them from smelling too badly. Or, if you put your water bottle in a clay jar filled with water, it will stay cool even in the heat.
For dinner we managed to put together some spaghetti-type stuff. After we had finished eating, the neighbor boy brought over some locust he had caught and cooked up for us. We were obligated to try them as that same boy had tried some almond M&M's Alison had brought for Errin. He was convinced the M&M's were poison, but he ate them anyway. The locust he brought were fried or something because they tasted like a bad potato chip. After that ordeal passed, we sat out on mats and stared at the stars until 11pm. I managed to get a hold of mom & dad on Sunday, and I found out I passed the Foreign Service Exam, but I don't know how to get to an interview when I am held up in the middle of nowhere.
On Tuesday we got up before the sun came up around 6am. We were meeting up with the other PCVs at the Peace Corps hostel. However, in order to get to the road, we needed to hike 11 km through the open bush to get to the road. If we left much after 7, it would get too hot and we might not be able to go. We got everything in the backpacks and left by 6:45am. We arrived at the road 2 hours later just as the heat was setting in. A Nigerien man flagged down a bush taxi for us. Nigerien bush taxis are just larger than a VW bus and have the approximate body structure of a poorly-constructed tin can. Errin, Alison, and I, as well as 16 other Africans, smashed into this mobile death trap. Errin told us that she once had to sit next to a woman with a bucket full of dismembered goat parts on her lap. After a very hot hour ride, we arrived at our destination and made our way to the hostel. At the hostel I stocked up on books and met lots of current PCVs.
On Wednesday we bussed into Niamey. There is one "foreigner" store and restaurant there; we were so famished that we ordered pizza and burgers at 9am.
I don't know if any of you have been paying attention to the political situation in Niger, but things are not well here. We only get snippets of news from the BBC or other volunteers, but apparently government leaders are behaving in a way that the other countries in the region find undemocratic. In the past Niger has set the example for democracy in the area. There has been free and fair elections here for years now. Therefore, what is happening now is considered a big deal: ECOAS is upset with Niger and some states are talking about sanctions. So keep Niger in your thoughts and pay attention to the news because Niger is really exploring some new territory here.
Being in Niger has taught me so much already about the little things. Mirrors, for example, are a little thing that we never really think about, but when you remove it from your life, looking in a mirror becomes a strange luxury. Little bits of American food or candy are priceless gems here. All of the PCTs share religiously. One of my friends got a package from home and the first thing she did was pass around the dried apricots and cheddar flavored snacks. Another big thing that we miss immensely here is cheese! I never realized how much I love cheese until now. All of the goat/cow/sheep milk here potentially has TB in it, so we can't drink any unprocessed milk or cheese (which is 90% of what is available here). We are essentially getting only one of the food groups consistently, that being breads and cereals; everything else just does not exist for at least 20 miles in all directions. To help out our bodies, Peace Corps has us on prenatal vitamins, but that can only do so much. I have already dropped 12 or so pounds, but I am not yet sick. Some of our other volunteers have not been so lucky. At least 8-10 of the other PCTs have gone up to the infirmary for treatment in the past 2 days--an alarming trend for sure!
Today in gardening we got to plant our veggies. The main season for gardening here is during the cold season even though it may seem counter intuitive to lay down a garden in the middle of November, that's how it goes here. I planted tomatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, lettuce and sweet peppers. It is unlikely, however, that I will see any fruits of my labor before I am sworn in and placed at my site on December 30.
I find out what village I will be living in for the rest of my term of service on December 1 (Happy Birthday to Lauren!), so that is a big day for me. After we get assigned our sites we go out and spend a week at them in early December, so I will have a really good idea of what my service will look like after that.
I hope all is well back in Michigan or wherever this letter may find you. While I love being and working overseas, I always miss my hometown, my family, and my friends immensely.
--Michael
Old Update #1
As the current blog administrator, I have been asked to post the letters Michael sends to me. It took until last week for me to get any letters after the one he sent on day 2 of his Nigerien experience...then I got 3 all at once. He has since posted "live" last week but has asked that I still post the "old news" because he invested so much time in sharing his experiences with you, his followers. I am posting these in reverse order, and I may not get them all done at one time, so keep checking back! Grab a beverage and get comfie; these are long entries!--the mom--
10/26/09
Dear friends and family,
I have been in Niger for only four days now and I have enough strange and interesting cultural experiences to fill an encyclopedia. I should start by saying the the Peace Corps is hard, very hard. Two days ago I moved in with my host family. Our place is a large concession with 2 trees, a garden, 2 adobe buildings and a grass hut. There is also a pit latrine and an animal enclosure propped up against the tall walls that surround our house. Our place is way on the outside of the town. It is on the side of town with the "lake" on it. By "lake" I mean seasonal water hole that is at best a pond and at worst a glorified mud puddle. It is the end of the wet season, so the water hole is rather full with reddish-brown water that actually looks rather gross. My family consists of a mom, dad, four young children between the ages of 3 and 12, three sheep, ten hens, and two very loud roosters that wake me up at 5am. My roommate, Matt, and I live in the grass hut in the middle of our concession. There is a little grass fence surrounding our hut. We keep our stuff in the hut and sleep outside. There is a padlock on the hut, but I doubt it would dissuade any potential robbers as the walls are made out of dried millet stalks. The lizards have already found their way in! The first thing my host family did was to give me a new name. My Nigerien name is Habibou (Ha-bee-boo). I was named after the youngest of my brothers, an adorable little boy who runs around all day wearing only a tank top and has a huge protein deficiency. We spent our first day in the village exploring with an armada of young African assistants carrying our water bottles and monopolizing our cameras. We have our own money for breakfast each morning, and we go down the main drag for some good eats. The only road with any stores is the main "paved" road running out of Niamey and some of the huts there have electricity. My favorite breakfast so far is a chilled yogurt drink that comes in a bag. It costs 100 CFA (about 20 cents).
Lunch and dinner are served at our host family's house. Eating in Niger is a very interesting experience. We sit on mats in the dirt in a circle. Dinner comes on a massive platter; my host mom generally uses a colossal pizza pan. Then we all eat out of the same dish with our hands. I'm serious. This presents a host of potentially embarrassing issues. Generally the food is served really hot, and I have already scalded the tips of my fingers on overheated rice. It is recommended that you mash the food into a ball in the palm of your hand because your plam can take more heat; this means you must literally shove your whole hand into the same dish everyone else is eating out of. Once you have the food in your hand, one is presented with the challenge of getting it to your mouth. I am a messy eater to begin with, but trying to eat rice or small bits of pasta with your hands while seated on the ground has taken me to an entirely new catagory of messiness. Once I am finally done eating, there is food everywhere: on my face, on my pants, on the ground, in my hair, etc. It looks like someone dropped a small grenade into the dish. Once the food is to your mouth, you still have to get it inside. Nigeriens can gracefully pop their balls of rice into their mouths; I essentially wipe my food all over my face in order to get any inside. Additionally, we are almost invariably overserved. The dish served to Matt, me and the father was about 1 1/2 inches deep with rice over the whole pizza pan. It is all I can do to just polish off a tiny corner of the pan. Once we have finished we are expected to take our bucket shower and go to bed.
It is really hot in Niger. We are moving into the "cold" season and it is still unbearable everyday from about 12noon-4pm. In the states we can escape the heat by going inside to the basement or taking a cold shower. In Niger there is no escape. There is no where to go and cool off for a bit. No cold shower; not even cold drinks. The heat is everywhere. The best one can do in the hot hours is find a shady spot and bed down for a while hoping there is a breeze. I have started learning the Hausa language and tomorrow is our first big day of lessons. There is a lot of importance placed on learning it. My host family has been drilling me on random vocabulary that I can't make sense of. I need to attain an intermediate level comprehension of Hausa in the next 9-11 weeks or I cannot be placed at a service site for the next 2 years. It is a lot of pressure, but I keep thinking that, if you put together enough heat and pressure you will get something beautiful out of it. :>)
It keeps occurring to me how fitting the colors of the Nigerien flag are. The orange-brown on the top is the color of all the dirt and sand here. The pale green is the color of the Gao and Eucalyptus trees that are everywhere and the white is the color of the blinding sunlight that bakes this place 12 hours a day.
The Peace Corps is very concious of the health of the volunteers. We get lots of shots; today we got typhoid and rabies #1, and there are more to come. The main concern of our med staff is 'Mr D.' coming to visit us. Mr. D., aka diarrhea, is a serious problem in Niger because there are a plethora of water and food borne pathogens that can cause it. Today one of our doctors used the "Welcome to Niger" poster that was made for us to list all Mr. D's possible causes. For every 100 PCV's ther are 175 reported cases of severe acute diarrhea per year. Because Niger is so dry, Mr. D is no laughing matter as it can very quickly lead to dehydration. We are accustomed now to hearing horror stories about Mr. D visiting PCV's at the worst possible times, i.e. when crammed into a bush taxi with 18 other people. This phenomenon has been termed "riding it hot" by other PCV's. If Mr. D does pay me a visit, we are all trained to use our intestinal pathogen detector kit" to submit a stool sample to the lab in Niamey for further analysis. In addition to our shots and anti-diarrheal precautions, we are all on 2 types of malarial meds. The first is a daily green pill that makes the skin extremely sensative to sunlight. Good thing Niger is not a sunny country! :>) Luckily we only have to be on it for 2 weeks. The other is a weekly pill whose side effects are similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, in particular vivid, crazy dreams. This I need to take for my entire service. I am not sure if it is affecting me yet, but I did have a dream last night about trying to buy an advanced electric hot water heater for $3045. Tuesday is market day in our town, and it is pretty much chaos. Everyone seems to have brought all their livestock to the center of town for some reason. I have never seen so many skinny cows and overladen donkeys. People bring their various products and set them up in stalls made of sticks. I saw piles of clothing just like the stuff I baled in Holland being sold right next to traditional fabrics. There are large portions of goats and sheep hanging from crossbeams, completely skinned except for their tails. The whole area is under the continuous assault of flies which are ever-present in rainy season. Walking through the village it almost seems like a big step back in time. It seems like life has been like this here for hundreds of years, and it has changed very little. The only difference is the garbage. There is trash everywhere on the street and most of it is non-compostable cheap plastics. There is plastic garbage all over, and there does not appear to be any organized way to dispose of it. Some big heaps of trash have begun forming in abandoned houses and dead-end alleys, but I still feel guilty disposing of my trash on the ground.
My Peace Corps group thus far is great. There were supposed to be 42 of us but 3 never made it to staging, one girl was told at the Niamey airport of a family matter and was rushed home, and another girl gave up after 2 days, before we were placed with families. The attrition rate for Peace Corps Niger is really high. A past group lost almost 50% of its members over the 2 years. It is testament to how difficult things can be here. Niger is also Mr. D's favorite place to visit of all the PC countries. However, I cannot imagine any of the remaining 37 would leave at this point. We are all becoming very close, and we are all interesting and motivated people. All of my fellow PC trainees (PCTs) live with various families in the area. It is really good to meet up with them occasionally and tell stories. On the first night we were with the host families, one of the girls' mother had a baby. In Nigerien culture it is considered shameful for a woman to cry out during childbirth, so the PCTs did not know the baby was born until the next morning. Another family celebrated the arrival of their PCTs by slaughtering 6 goats and leaving their severed heads in the courtyard overnight. I have not had the pleasure of slaughtering an animal, although I think one of our chickens might get the axe soon. Another PCT complained that the rooster woke her up in the morning and returned home to find she was eating it for dinner. I can only hope my rooster meets the same fate soon.
Here are some other things I have learned in and about Niger:
1. Goats taste like they smell
2. Everything is cheap except postage
3. Assume everything is contaminated with Giardia or E-coli
4. Everyone likes Obama
5. pooping in a hole the size of a tin can is not easy
6. Toilet paper is not native to the area
7. Chew with caution
8. clothing for children under the age of 7 is completely optional
9. Niger has more wildlife than you would expect
10. poop is a common and very serious topic of conversation among PCTs
There is so much more to talk about; it seems the further from America I go the more interesting things there are to write about. I am sorry my blog posts are not up to the same standard as they once were, but without the luxury of a word processor, it is impossible to properly organize and edit my thoughts as I did before. I hope this post/letter finds you all well. I think about home all the time; I am confident that the Chips (CMU Chippewas) have continued to dominate the gridiron, and I hope for the success of MSU at the expense of OSU. It is strange how no one here has even heard of the things that are so important to us Americans. Please write lots.
Love you all,
Habibou
10/26/09
Dear friends and family,
I have been in Niger for only four days now and I have enough strange and interesting cultural experiences to fill an encyclopedia. I should start by saying the the Peace Corps is hard, very hard. Two days ago I moved in with my host family. Our place is a large concession with 2 trees, a garden, 2 adobe buildings and a grass hut. There is also a pit latrine and an animal enclosure propped up against the tall walls that surround our house. Our place is way on the outside of the town. It is on the side of town with the "lake" on it. By "lake" I mean seasonal water hole that is at best a pond and at worst a glorified mud puddle. It is the end of the wet season, so the water hole is rather full with reddish-brown water that actually looks rather gross. My family consists of a mom, dad, four young children between the ages of 3 and 12, three sheep, ten hens, and two very loud roosters that wake me up at 5am. My roommate, Matt, and I live in the grass hut in the middle of our concession. There is a little grass fence surrounding our hut. We keep our stuff in the hut and sleep outside. There is a padlock on the hut, but I doubt it would dissuade any potential robbers as the walls are made out of dried millet stalks. The lizards have already found their way in! The first thing my host family did was to give me a new name. My Nigerien name is Habibou (Ha-bee-boo). I was named after the youngest of my brothers, an adorable little boy who runs around all day wearing only a tank top and has a huge protein deficiency. We spent our first day in the village exploring with an armada of young African assistants carrying our water bottles and monopolizing our cameras. We have our own money for breakfast each morning, and we go down the main drag for some good eats. The only road with any stores is the main "paved" road running out of Niamey and some of the huts there have electricity. My favorite breakfast so far is a chilled yogurt drink that comes in a bag. It costs 100 CFA (about 20 cents).
Lunch and dinner are served at our host family's house. Eating in Niger is a very interesting experience. We sit on mats in the dirt in a circle. Dinner comes on a massive platter; my host mom generally uses a colossal pizza pan. Then we all eat out of the same dish with our hands. I'm serious. This presents a host of potentially embarrassing issues. Generally the food is served really hot, and I have already scalded the tips of my fingers on overheated rice. It is recommended that you mash the food into a ball in the palm of your hand because your plam can take more heat; this means you must literally shove your whole hand into the same dish everyone else is eating out of. Once you have the food in your hand, one is presented with the challenge of getting it to your mouth. I am a messy eater to begin with, but trying to eat rice or small bits of pasta with your hands while seated on the ground has taken me to an entirely new catagory of messiness. Once I am finally done eating, there is food everywhere: on my face, on my pants, on the ground, in my hair, etc. It looks like someone dropped a small grenade into the dish. Once the food is to your mouth, you still have to get it inside. Nigeriens can gracefully pop their balls of rice into their mouths; I essentially wipe my food all over my face in order to get any inside. Additionally, we are almost invariably overserved. The dish served to Matt, me and the father was about 1 1/2 inches deep with rice over the whole pizza pan. It is all I can do to just polish off a tiny corner of the pan. Once we have finished we are expected to take our bucket shower and go to bed.
It is really hot in Niger. We are moving into the "cold" season and it is still unbearable everyday from about 12noon-4pm. In the states we can escape the heat by going inside to the basement or taking a cold shower. In Niger there is no escape. There is no where to go and cool off for a bit. No cold shower; not even cold drinks. The heat is everywhere. The best one can do in the hot hours is find a shady spot and bed down for a while hoping there is a breeze. I have started learning the Hausa language and tomorrow is our first big day of lessons. There is a lot of importance placed on learning it. My host family has been drilling me on random vocabulary that I can't make sense of. I need to attain an intermediate level comprehension of Hausa in the next 9-11 weeks or I cannot be placed at a service site for the next 2 years. It is a lot of pressure, but I keep thinking that, if you put together enough heat and pressure you will get something beautiful out of it. :>)
It keeps occurring to me how fitting the colors of the Nigerien flag are. The orange-brown on the top is the color of all the dirt and sand here. The pale green is the color of the Gao and Eucalyptus trees that are everywhere and the white is the color of the blinding sunlight that bakes this place 12 hours a day.
The Peace Corps is very concious of the health of the volunteers. We get lots of shots; today we got typhoid and rabies #1, and there are more to come. The main concern of our med staff is 'Mr D.' coming to visit us. Mr. D., aka diarrhea, is a serious problem in Niger because there are a plethora of water and food borne pathogens that can cause it. Today one of our doctors used the "Welcome to Niger" poster that was made for us to list all Mr. D's possible causes. For every 100 PCV's ther are 175 reported cases of severe acute diarrhea per year. Because Niger is so dry, Mr. D is no laughing matter as it can very quickly lead to dehydration. We are accustomed now to hearing horror stories about Mr. D visiting PCV's at the worst possible times, i.e. when crammed into a bush taxi with 18 other people. This phenomenon has been termed "riding it hot" by other PCV's. If Mr. D does pay me a visit, we are all trained to use our intestinal pathogen detector kit" to submit a stool sample to the lab in Niamey for further analysis. In addition to our shots and anti-diarrheal precautions, we are all on 2 types of malarial meds. The first is a daily green pill that makes the skin extremely sensative to sunlight. Good thing Niger is not a sunny country! :>) Luckily we only have to be on it for 2 weeks. The other is a weekly pill whose side effects are similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, in particular vivid, crazy dreams. This I need to take for my entire service. I am not sure if it is affecting me yet, but I did have a dream last night about trying to buy an advanced electric hot water heater for $3045. Tuesday is market day in our town, and it is pretty much chaos. Everyone seems to have brought all their livestock to the center of town for some reason. I have never seen so many skinny cows and overladen donkeys. People bring their various products and set them up in stalls made of sticks. I saw piles of clothing just like the stuff I baled in Holland being sold right next to traditional fabrics. There are large portions of goats and sheep hanging from crossbeams, completely skinned except for their tails. The whole area is under the continuous assault of flies which are ever-present in rainy season. Walking through the village it almost seems like a big step back in time. It seems like life has been like this here for hundreds of years, and it has changed very little. The only difference is the garbage. There is trash everywhere on the street and most of it is non-compostable cheap plastics. There is plastic garbage all over, and there does not appear to be any organized way to dispose of it. Some big heaps of trash have begun forming in abandoned houses and dead-end alleys, but I still feel guilty disposing of my trash on the ground.
My Peace Corps group thus far is great. There were supposed to be 42 of us but 3 never made it to staging, one girl was told at the Niamey airport of a family matter and was rushed home, and another girl gave up after 2 days, before we were placed with families. The attrition rate for Peace Corps Niger is really high. A past group lost almost 50% of its members over the 2 years. It is testament to how difficult things can be here. Niger is also Mr. D's favorite place to visit of all the PC countries. However, I cannot imagine any of the remaining 37 would leave at this point. We are all becoming very close, and we are all interesting and motivated people. All of my fellow PC trainees (PCTs) live with various families in the area. It is really good to meet up with them occasionally and tell stories. On the first night we were with the host families, one of the girls' mother had a baby. In Nigerien culture it is considered shameful for a woman to cry out during childbirth, so the PCTs did not know the baby was born until the next morning. Another family celebrated the arrival of their PCTs by slaughtering 6 goats and leaving their severed heads in the courtyard overnight. I have not had the pleasure of slaughtering an animal, although I think one of our chickens might get the axe soon. Another PCT complained that the rooster woke her up in the morning and returned home to find she was eating it for dinner. I can only hope my rooster meets the same fate soon.
Here are some other things I have learned in and about Niger:
1. Goats taste like they smell
2. Everything is cheap except postage
3. Assume everything is contaminated with Giardia or E-coli
4. Everyone likes Obama
5. pooping in a hole the size of a tin can is not easy
6. Toilet paper is not native to the area
7. Chew with caution
8. clothing for children under the age of 7 is completely optional
9. Niger has more wildlife than you would expect
10. poop is a common and very serious topic of conversation among PCTs
There is so much more to talk about; it seems the further from America I go the more interesting things there are to write about. I am sorry my blog posts are not up to the same standard as they once were, but without the luxury of a word processor, it is impossible to properly organize and edit my thoughts as I did before. I hope this post/letter finds you all well. I think about home all the time; I am confident that the Chips (CMU Chippewas) have continued to dominate the gridiron, and I hope for the success of MSU at the expense of OSU. It is strange how no one here has even heard of the things that are so important to us Americans. Please write lots.
Love you all,
Habibou
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Niger
It’s true, after only six fabulous weeks in Niger, I am leaving. Rather than throwing all of my thoughts into an incoherent letter for my mother to copy down, I wanted to take a few hours to write something a bit more personal and organized, I think Niger deserves it. Niger is not an easy place to like. Most of the country is empty and featureless. Aside from the occasional mesa rising a few meters off the Sahel, there is literally nothing as far as you can see in all directions. Niger has no lakes, one river, and no coastline. The earth is either hard like concrete or thick with dusty sand. There are three things in Niger that make life here extremely uncomfortable. The first thing is dust, it gets into everything. I feel it in my hair, see it caking my feet and taste it when I eat the food. By American standards, there is nothing that is clean. In all honesty I would consider my kitchen floor cleaner than almost any surface in this entire country because as soon as you “clean” something a bug crawls on it, a breeze brings in a fresh coat of dust or a dirty child picks it up and starts playing with it. The second is the heat. When I came to Niger, the ‘mini-hot season’ was ending and cold season was moving in and for the first 2 weeks I seriously wondered if I was going to make it. None of us brought reliable thermometers, but the estimates for daily highs ranged between 105 and 120. I spent hours sitting quietly in my shaded Hausa class with beads of sweat dripping down my back and legs. All that heat and sweat requires lots of water and it is in short supply here. My family gets their water in buckets carried on their heads from a well about 600 meters from my house. Once it is there it needs to be filtered and bleached before Peace Corps considers it safe to drink. The result is about 8 liters of water that is already at body temperature and tastes like a swimming pool. Thing number three is the food. It is not that the food here is all bad. Don’t get me wrong there are some great tasting dishes that my host mother can make and I am developing a fondness for the taste of goat. The problem comes in the nutrition. All the foods available here are heavy in carbohydrates and low in almost everything else. It is like I am easting from only one of the five food groups. It isn’t that Nigerians don’t like other foods, they just don’t have them. You couldn’t buy them for $100. As a result I have lost a lot of weight. While we have been consolidated at our compound, the cooking staff has thankfully been insulating us from the Nigerian staples like millet and sorghum and providing us with some highly appreciated fruits and meats, but that is far from typical.
If you can get past those things, Niger may be paradise. The people here are more welcoming, more helpful, and happier than any people anywhere. The villages are quaint and idealic. Niger is a rare gem because it is so untouched by mass media and consumer culture. People here live and work just as they have for hundreds of years. Modernization has almost completely skipped over Niger leaving the land and its people unpolluted and unexploited. It is really easy to tell where the ideas and materials of the outside world have seeped in, mostly because there is garbage everywhere. Electricity and access to factory products has brought plastics which after being used are dumped casually in the road. Because our town is on a main road it has been exposed to a lot of ‘stuff’ from factories in Niamey and abroad. Thus, the garbage problem has come with it. Smaller less accessible villages are clean little islands of humanity on the open Sahel. These observations have led me to challenge allot of my conceptions of what development or aid means. Living and working in a village, I have tried to ask myself: “If I lived here, what could I do to help.” In many cases, the answer is nothing. Except for helping villages improve their own education, nutrition, and personal health, Nigerians really don’t need anything more. All the big economic data about GDP per capita and average daily incomes is completely irrelevant and frankly unhelpful when it comes to ‘helping’ the people of Niger. Who cares if the people live in huts made out of mud or millet? Enclosed areas are usually too hot to stay in and people live almost completely out doors. In many ways Nigerians have better lives than Americans simply because they know who they are and are content with what they have.
In a way I was expecting Niger to be like Turkey. In Turkey, everyday you step out the door it is an adventure. Niger is not like that at all. Life here is predictable, slow, and simple. The difference is that Niger changes who you are. The person who got on the plane in Philadelphia would not be able to make it for six weeks in Niger. I had to adapt, I had too change. I had to become someone who considers a bathroom luxury if there is a toilet in it; someone who can eat rice that bugs were crawling in; someone who is willing to walk all the way across town to buy a little cold water in a bag. Someone who can take whatever is thrown at him. I had to take to heart the Hausa phrase “Sai Hankori” or ‘have patience’ because in so many instances patience is the only thing there is.
Since it is likely none of us will ever see Niger again, the staff decided to let us go out with a bang. Our consolidation was lifted on Friday, just in time for the Muslim holiday of Tabaski and we were given one last day to spend time with our Nigerian families. Tabaski celebrates the near sacrifice of Ishmael by his father Abraham, a story that we would normally associate with Isaac but whatever. The celebration begins with a big prayer in a millet field followed by the sacrificing of a ram, mimicking the sacrifice made for Isaac/Ishmael’s sake some 4000 years ago. After prayer the people return to their homes where an absolute slaughter fest ensues. Practically every family in town slaughters another ram in their homes and eats it for the next two days. In my home we had three rams, two belonged to neighbors and the third was for us. The rams had spent a few days tied up next to the latrine and I had grown at least somewhat attached to the smallest one because he liked to be scratched on top of his head. Thus when the man in the white coat came with a knife I choose not to watch as my host father tied its legs and killed it. The experience was made even more unpleasant due to the fact that we were served lunch as the poor sheep was skinned not ten meters from where we were eating. After lunch I walked around town and observed as dozens of goats were strung up with sticks and placed over fires. There were parts of sheep all over. Horns littered the streets, small children carried around skins and heads, and intestines were hung out to dry on the clotheslines next to skirts and pants. Very little meat is actually consumed on Tabaski because of how long the skewered remains take to fully cook. By dinnertime most good mothers (including mine) had spiced and cooked the innards into charred but chewy morsels. They were served stone cold with plain rice. Tasty.
Once Tabaski was over we returned to the compound to await our departure. Rather than sit on our hands for a week while Peace Corps gets all their ducks in a row, we were enrolled in French classes and prepared various events to absorb as much Nigerian culture as physically possible. These included a Nigerian fashion show, Q & A sessions, a mock Olympics, and a day trip to Niamey. French classes quickly degenerated into chaos. Our class met once before we started playing cards and just chatting, only in French of course. We learned a West African card game called Huit Americain and talked about the state of Nigerian politics. Many of us just skipped class. A group of trainees planned a bunch of American games for us to play with our Hausa and Zarma teachers. Watching a group of clueless adult Nigerians play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and musical chairs to a remix of Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back” have to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I will miss Niger so much, but there are other plans for me. All I know right now is that I am leaving Sunday night, we have a 28 hour layover in Paris (on the US gov.) and that once I arrive in Madagascar I will be working as an enviroment volunteer working in forests or national parks. It is all very exciting. More later. I miss and love you all
If you can get past those things, Niger may be paradise. The people here are more welcoming, more helpful, and happier than any people anywhere. The villages are quaint and idealic. Niger is a rare gem because it is so untouched by mass media and consumer culture. People here live and work just as they have for hundreds of years. Modernization has almost completely skipped over Niger leaving the land and its people unpolluted and unexploited. It is really easy to tell where the ideas and materials of the outside world have seeped in, mostly because there is garbage everywhere. Electricity and access to factory products has brought plastics which after being used are dumped casually in the road. Because our town is on a main road it has been exposed to a lot of ‘stuff’ from factories in Niamey and abroad. Thus, the garbage problem has come with it. Smaller less accessible villages are clean little islands of humanity on the open Sahel. These observations have led me to challenge allot of my conceptions of what development or aid means. Living and working in a village, I have tried to ask myself: “If I lived here, what could I do to help.” In many cases, the answer is nothing. Except for helping villages improve their own education, nutrition, and personal health, Nigerians really don’t need anything more. All the big economic data about GDP per capita and average daily incomes is completely irrelevant and frankly unhelpful when it comes to ‘helping’ the people of Niger. Who cares if the people live in huts made out of mud or millet? Enclosed areas are usually too hot to stay in and people live almost completely out doors. In many ways Nigerians have better lives than Americans simply because they know who they are and are content with what they have.
In a way I was expecting Niger to be like Turkey. In Turkey, everyday you step out the door it is an adventure. Niger is not like that at all. Life here is predictable, slow, and simple. The difference is that Niger changes who you are. The person who got on the plane in Philadelphia would not be able to make it for six weeks in Niger. I had to adapt, I had too change. I had to become someone who considers a bathroom luxury if there is a toilet in it; someone who can eat rice that bugs were crawling in; someone who is willing to walk all the way across town to buy a little cold water in a bag. Someone who can take whatever is thrown at him. I had to take to heart the Hausa phrase “Sai Hankori” or ‘have patience’ because in so many instances patience is the only thing there is.
Since it is likely none of us will ever see Niger again, the staff decided to let us go out with a bang. Our consolidation was lifted on Friday, just in time for the Muslim holiday of Tabaski and we were given one last day to spend time with our Nigerian families. Tabaski celebrates the near sacrifice of Ishmael by his father Abraham, a story that we would normally associate with Isaac but whatever. The celebration begins with a big prayer in a millet field followed by the sacrificing of a ram, mimicking the sacrifice made for Isaac/Ishmael’s sake some 4000 years ago. After prayer the people return to their homes where an absolute slaughter fest ensues. Practically every family in town slaughters another ram in their homes and eats it for the next two days. In my home we had three rams, two belonged to neighbors and the third was for us. The rams had spent a few days tied up next to the latrine and I had grown at least somewhat attached to the smallest one because he liked to be scratched on top of his head. Thus when the man in the white coat came with a knife I choose not to watch as my host father tied its legs and killed it. The experience was made even more unpleasant due to the fact that we were served lunch as the poor sheep was skinned not ten meters from where we were eating. After lunch I walked around town and observed as dozens of goats were strung up with sticks and placed over fires. There were parts of sheep all over. Horns littered the streets, small children carried around skins and heads, and intestines were hung out to dry on the clotheslines next to skirts and pants. Very little meat is actually consumed on Tabaski because of how long the skewered remains take to fully cook. By dinnertime most good mothers (including mine) had spiced and cooked the innards into charred but chewy morsels. They were served stone cold with plain rice. Tasty.
Once Tabaski was over we returned to the compound to await our departure. Rather than sit on our hands for a week while Peace Corps gets all their ducks in a row, we were enrolled in French classes and prepared various events to absorb as much Nigerian culture as physically possible. These included a Nigerian fashion show, Q & A sessions, a mock Olympics, and a day trip to Niamey. French classes quickly degenerated into chaos. Our class met once before we started playing cards and just chatting, only in French of course. We learned a West African card game called Huit Americain and talked about the state of Nigerian politics. Many of us just skipped class. A group of trainees planned a bunch of American games for us to play with our Hausa and Zarma teachers. Watching a group of clueless adult Nigerians play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and musical chairs to a remix of Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back” have to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I will miss Niger so much, but there are other plans for me. All I know right now is that I am leaving Sunday night, we have a 28 hour layover in Paris (on the US gov.) and that once I arrive in Madagascar I will be working as an enviroment volunteer working in forests or national parks. It is all very exciting. More later. I miss and love you all
Michael
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