Work, Work, Work

Alright, so I know I haven't been very good at posting lately. Let me offer this up as excuse. In the two months since my last post, I have been out of my village a total of ten days. That's not a lot for most Volunteers, and in fact, the responses I've been getting all seem to revolve around the amazement that I was out that long. Indeed, I only came in to do a session for the new stage and because I had run out of money, food, and a bit of sanity.

So what have I been doing in that time? Well, it's rainy season, so the work has really started. We planted in late May, but the rains didn't come again for three weeks, so everything died. Not a great thing when food stocks are already low to lose all your seed. I came in to Niamey in mid-June for a Perceptions workshop with bureau staff and other Volunteers, and the rains came. My villagers planted in my absence, including my fields, which mysteriously more than doubled in size. I had to ask where it began and ended, and the answer I got just shows the different culture of hand farming compared to any others. But first, a tangent.

We met a couple guys in Benin who were traveling West Africa overland from Cameroon to Senegal. One of them stopped by Niger and came up to visit me. As we walked through the fields, he noticed that the fields were an irregular patchwork of shapes all over the countryside. I recounted the dialogue I had with my friend Seyni as to how my fields were distributed:

"So, you start at this tree, and you follow this rock line. It's 75m to this clump of trees. Once you hit these trees, you go on a diagonal back and around until you reach this tree."

"Which tree? This tree?"

"No, this tree here, the one with all the thorns."

"The little bush? Not the big tree?"

"No, not the big tree. This little bush. Then it comes over to these trees, takes a diagonal toward the ox cart path, but doesn't reach the ox cart path. It comes to this rock here and then back to the dry creekbed."

"Wait, rock? Which rock?"

"This rock."

"Which? This?"

"Yes, this rock. How do you not understand. Out of all the rocks in the field I have chosen this one to mark the field."

"And if someone moves this rock?"

"Don't get smart."

Okay, so it's not an exact, verbatim reenactment, but it may be excused through the translation. Anyway, the original point of this story was to emphasize that my field size more than doubled in one fell swoop. As a result, I spent fifteen days in the field, from 8 am to 6 pm by the time I'd walked there and back. That was only the first weeding as well! When I go back to village tomorrow, I'll start again on the second (and hopefully final) round of weeding before harvest.

In the meantime, I've also started the school garden project which some of you may have been contacted in regards to donating money. For everyone who did, thank you very much! For those who didn't, don't worry, there may be another project in the short future to donate to if you so desire. I collected all the supplies in mid-June, held several meetings with the babas (the kids' fathers), and have been gardening with the kids for almost a month now. They're coming on a completely Volunteer basis (because of their fieldwork during rainy season), so I get anywhere from fifteen to over forty kids at a session. There are some adults that help out, but again, according to the work they have to do, sometimes I get four adults to help, sometimes there aren't any. As you can imagine, one 24 year-old kid with forty-plus kids under fourteen can be a bit of a handful. Actually, it's like trying to round up all the animals after a circus fire. But we get along. So far we've had lessons on building garden beds, composting, and soil. When I go back we'll transplant and do lessons on natural pesticides and nutrition. The group leaders, who have their own positions within their own organization, have had a few more responsibilities and a lot more lessons. I've worked with them about managing their teams, keeping track of members, and general accounting for their own money. Every week, all the kids are expected to bring 25 cfa (about a nickel) to add to the caisse. This money goes to buy seeds and manure, and when they sell their vegetables, they should be able to make a small profit for each member. That's the hope anyway. The reality is yet to be seen.

So it's been a lot of time in the village, and a lot of pressures with new language and new responsibilities. I applied to extend in Niger (sorry for all of you who've been asking me if I'm home yet), but I was not chosen for the position. As I can't stay in my village due to the kidnappings almost six months ago, I will probably be forced to leave in December. I can already tell it will be hard, as it's hard to leave almost any place you've lived and loved for two years. You may rejoice that I'll be coming home, but you'd be mistaken again, as I'll be traveling around a bit beforehand. I promise I'll come home eventually, but just how long I stay there is up in the air. I have nothing in the works, but, you know, once you've started wandering, it's kinda hard to quit. Anyway, again apologies for not posting in quite a long time, but it's been a busy time in Niger for me lately. Even now, I have to cut this short so I can go buy some equipment for the school garden and meet with my supervisor to discuss small projects I can do in my remaining five months at post. Until then,

Kala Tonton!