Ghana- beaches, food, English, I'm there

In two days I have my first West African vacation! We’re towards the end of hot season in Niger. Instead of starting my field of peanuts and sorghum and the subsequent backbreaking labor that marks the beginning of rainy season, I felt it more appropriate to reward myself with a vacation. For two weeks I don’t have to crawl up a mango tree or sprawl out on a plastic mat to make the 130 degree weather feel like 110 degree weather. I will instead be in Ghana, intermittently sipping icy beverages on the beach and jumping into the ocean. Refreshed with the ocean air, sea salts, and delicious Ghanaian street food, I will return to my little haven at the southern tip of Niger to start my backbreaking labor of four months.

Ganji yo (Giraffes) in the Midst

Sometimes a broken down bus means that you get to see giraffes crossing the highway. Today I was on the way to Niamey from a friend’s house and the bus broke down about 20 km from my starting location. Another friend and I waited on the side of the road for about an hour and a half. It had been the most annoying stranded-on-the-side-of-the-highway experience so far because busses kept stopping for us, about five people would pile into two seats and there would be no more room for the two of us. This happened three times. Finally we scrambled onto one and headed to Niamey. I was drifting off to sleep about five minutes later when the bus began to slow down again. I thought, WHY MEEEE? and then I opened my eyes and saw that four full-grown giraffes had bounded across the highway in front of the bus. They began making their way into the bush on the other side of the road as we drove closer. They are huge! Well I guess most Americans have seen giraffes in zoos or maybe even in Calistoga. It was still cool to see them running around free. Free as a bush camel.

Easter Sunday: The day before the giraffe run-in I spent Easter with five friends from my new region. We wanted to dye eggs and hide them around my friend’s huge yard but couldn’t find any eggs. Or dye. Or places in the barren yard to hide the eggs. So instead we hung out all day singing along to Disney songs and then cooking chili (with macaroni! And Slim Jims!). After we were full and content we built a big bonfire in the middle of the yard and started to do a fire dance around it. The noise and screams of “ayayayayayay!” attracted the attention of the local boys who started climbing over the 8-foot walls to take a look. At one point a little girl walked into the yard and closed the corrugated iron door behind her. Little did she know that the door gets stuck and you have to push it open from the top. She got a little freaked out by the fire dance of six sparsely dressed white people and tried to open the door quietly to get out. The door wouldn’t open. She got more and more scared and banged on the door while looking at us with embarrassment and fright. The volunteer who owns the house went over to open the door for the girl, who was extremely grateful to zumbu (get out of there) as fast as she could. We ended the night with a freeze-dried pack of chocolate cheesecake and balloons.

One more thing, my bug situation has pretty much resolved itself (of course with my contributions and the help of the village women and chickens). The horrible ant situation from before my in-service training has cleared up almost entirely. There have also been no more spider problems. In all, my area is virtually bug free and I don’t even have mosquitoes like some other volunteers. However, in my region the rainy season is supposed to start at the end of this month. Then there is an “explosion.” Explosion of life. Explosion of green. Explosion of bugs. I’ll let you know if it’s all just hype. Boy I hope so.

I Live on a Mountain

I looked at my blog today and thought, what’s new to write? As if there was nothing to say! The last time I wrote, I hadn’t even moved into my new village. At the beginning of March the Assistant Program Country Director (APCD) of Agriculture took a bus up to my old village, packed up all my belongings, and moved them down to my regional capital, Dosso. I had to sort through my life and figure out from there what to bring to my new village. Wodin banda, after that, I took a break by eating lots of salad and watching the Departed and episodes of Dexter. The next day I was moved onto my mountain. The villagers gave me a happy welcome and looked on curiously as they saw how much stuff one white girl needs to survive.

For a few days I entertained myself by unpacking and making my house a home before running off to IST. In Niamey I bought a Tuareg leather-framed mirror and some pretty fabric. I nailed the mirror to my adobe brick walls and I sewed curtains for my two windows (not one but two!!!) and my door (which is the perfect height).

Bug story: It was either my first or second night in the village that the women crowded into my hut to see how I set everything up. All of a sudden a huge bug sprinted across the floor, over my friend Helima’s foot and under the bed. I freaked out, thinking that it was a scorpion, and tried to run out of the house. There were too many people at the doorway so I settled for cowering in the corner. The bug turned out to be a chariot spider. They are so big that scorpions hitch rides on their backs. It’s gross. Just nasty. Anyway, Helima smashed him and picked him up with her bare hands to convince me that they aren’t poisonous, just big. That taught me that bugs really do exist in Niger so I might want to be more careful. The next morning, a friend came to pay me a visit and I was talking to her with my back turned to my house. All of a sudden she looked past me and said in Zarma, “hmm, I believe there are many ants coming out of your walls.” I turned around and as if it was a nightmare, I saw a literal river of ants, huge red ants, pouring out of my hut walls. For the next three hours, I commissioned women, children and chickens to help me kill the ants. And for hours, rivers of these things just kept coming. I’m gone for three weeks for IST and my biggest fear is that the ants have conquered my hut as an above-ground annex to their colony.

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.

One Month Anniversary

Hello everyone! I'm in Niamey, the capital after spending a full, uninterupted month in my village (not counting the times I went to nearby villages on market days). So what is it like "en brusse" as in out-in-the-middle-of-no-where Africa? Surprisingly comfortable. For anyone planning a visit to see me (and I'm expecting at least ONE of you to come see me! haha) I would say you need to spend at least one month in Niger to have an enjoyable experience. The first two weeks you will be sweating uncontrollably and will be in shock at the rough, dry terrain, loud domesticated livestock, and the truly inconvenient living conditions (i.e. having a hole as your toilet, a plastic bucket as your shower, flashlights as your electricity, and rickity bush taxis as your transportation). But these are the first two weeks. When this life style becomes the norm, you begin to notice the beauty of the people, their colorful culture and fashion, the Lion King-esque landscape, the big orange sun, the clear Milky Way, and soon the prayer call at the mosque at 5 am each morning will be music to your ears.

For people living with all the conveniences of "modern life" in America, it may seem to be impossible to live in a country like Niger. However, having lived here for almost exactly four months, I can say that people here are incredibly happy and bright. I myself can't stop smiling in my village. When little kids eyes light up when they see me walking back from the garden and say to one another "Fatiya ka!" (Fatiya came home!), I feel satisfied. When the women at the community garden teach me Zarma greetings and insist that I "hear" Zarma perfectly even through my protests, I'm satisfied. When my neighbor and work counterpart returns from the market with a bag of fried wheat dough, Fari Masa, or a stick of sugar cane, Arece, for me, I'm satisfied. There are some days after three hours in the garden and drawing my 100th bucket of water from the well that I think, "today is the day I'm going to pass out, isn't it?" But then those are also the days that I come back home and a friend has bought some Cincenas (friend bean balls, sooooooo good) for us to share. There are other days that I feel completely unproductive and upset with myself that I hadn't done more. Then I step out of my house and have an hour long, uninterupted conversation, albeit broken, in Zarma.

The people in my village often muse of how "sweet" America must be. And it is. I miss the US a lot and in a way I'm sorry to miss these historic times. However, America will be there for me in two years, most likely stronger and more satisfactory than when I left it, and Niger is where I want to be and where I need to be right now. I tell the people who want to go to the US that actually, it is Niger that's sweet for me.

Happy Boxing Day!

Yesterday, as the best possible Christmas present, I talked on the phone to Mom, Michael, Katie and Kelly. Earlier that evening, I went to the amazing American-looking home of the assistant bossman of Peace Corps Niger for Christmas dinner. Although I have seen billboards for Orange that wish us a "Joyeux Noel" it has been difficult to remember that it is December and Christmas time. So with all the family and holiday cheer yesterday, I was finally convinced. In December in Niger, you are likely to hear prayer calls five times a day from the local mosque, trudge through the sand and pot-holed streets to get to "alhadji" stores and haggle prices for sugar and flour, and see camels rather than deer running across the street. You are not likely to see Christmas decorations, snow, or Salvation Army santas in front of grocery stores. You're also not likely to find a grocery store. Tomorrow I head back out to my village for my first full month of Peace Corps service. I apologize for not writing more but the first two and a half months in country has been such a blur. I will need this first month to reflect on all my experiences so I can start writing a consistantly good and meaningful blog. Happy holidays! Have a great New Year!