The Treasure Map

My supervisor approached me today with a file of the previous volunteer who lived in my new village. She was a health volunteer from 2003 to 2005 and luckily for me she was extremely thorough. Is thorough the right way to describe her? Looking through the fat file of incredibly detailed quarterly reports and project proposals, I came across a folded map written on poster-size butcher paper. My jaw dropped when I saw that this was no ordinary map of the village. The girl had written down every man, woman and child’s first and last name, the location of their houses, walking paths and motor paths to other villages in the area with their distances in kilometers, and even the placement of mango trees and cows. I had this urge to hug the map and dance around. It was better than finding a treasure map. Armed with this map, I had just skipped months of memorizing names and places. On the second day of my visit to the village, I had taken an extensive tour with some of the women and a parade of little kids, but my own scribbled and frantic map was completely amateur next to this beautiful work of art. So for the past two hours I have been copying the map onto a regular-sized piece of paper to bring to village with me.

I will move to my new village this weekend. Then I will have one week to soak up as much info about the village that I can in time for “in-service training” next week. IST is a month-long training in Niamey to improve language skills and agricultural knowledge. I am expected to bring information about my new village to IST with ideas for potential projects and a list of activities I have already started. For the past two months, the other volunteers have been integrating into their communities, making friends, learning the language, and investigating the needs of their respective villages. For me, I have a week. This is not to say that I have it so much harder than the rest, it just means that I have to work fast during this next week to understand the needs of the village before I go to Niamey.

If all else fails, I can simply brandish my treasure map and blow everybodys' minds.

A New New Life in Niger

Maybe you’ve noticed that I have a change of address on the right side of the blog. So much has happened since I last wrote. At that time everything was up in the air and I didn’t know what to say. Now I have a better idea of my future in Niger so I can actually reflect and write it down. Some of you may have heard, though it is unlikely, that there were two incidences of kidnappings in Niger in the past couple months. Two Canadians were abducted near Niamey in December and last month four European tourists were taken at the border of Mali and Niger. The road where the latter disappeared leads directly to my market town. This caused great concern for my Peace Corps superiors who were worried that a white girl crossing the highway every day with a watering can might be an easy target for a passing kidnapper. It turns out that a faction of Al Quaeda based in Northern Africa has taken responsibility for both kidnappings. It may be useful to read this short BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7897484.stm. There is another article about terrorism in general in the Sahara that might be useful: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4749357.stm. So with this threat looming in the north of the country, the Peace Corps administration decided to move me to the top of a mesa 300 km south of my old village. The most devastating thing about the situation is that I can’t even go back to my old village to say goodbye or pack. My boss is driving up to my village to tell them what’s up and then throwing all my stuff in the car to have me pick and sort through in my new home. I just can’t wait for it all to settle. For the past month I have lived with a backpack’s worth of clothes and supplies hoping each day that I would be allowed back. Today I had a meeting with the top boss of Peace Corps Niger who assured me that if the situation stabilizes, I will be allowed to go back in a few months and visit my old village. In all honesty, I do love my new village and the people and even all the little children who are deathly afraid of me (Seriously all the little boys run screaming from me with terror in their eyes and tears and snot running down their faces). I guess the overarching lesson from this situation has been that my external environment is a reflection of my inner state of life. It doesn’t matter which village I’m in or what region I’m in, I can still be happy. I just replaced camels for palm trees and gardens for rocky mesa paths. Several other volunteers are in my same position of moving and seem to have similar tumultuous but positive experiences. In a way I’m glad this happened. Anything to help me grow.