The Return: A Search for a Living Memory

I've been struggling with this decision for most of my time in Jos, but by nature of the fact that I just got the visa, I think I've resolved it: I'm going back to Niger.

I figure, why not? It's only a two-day trip on tortuous roads through the heat and dust of Northern Nigeria and that half-remembered road from Niamey to Zinder. After all, when will I honestly next get the chance to be a mere 1,271km road trip from the home that built me up, pulled me down, and, every day for two solid years, fundamentally changed the person I was and the person I was to be.

It's impossible to describe the emotion that goes into this decision. It's something I've been grappling seriously with for the last two weeks now. As this idea took shape and began to materialize, I realized that it isn't all Tuareg tea and starry nights. If I'm expecting life to have frozen there in my time away, I'll be sorely disappointed. The children will have grown, there will have been births, deaths, marriages, all the events of life that ground us and give us structure. And I'll have missed many of those.

In fact, I have no idea what has happened in the village in the nearly two years I've been away. I lost my Nigerien SIM card while I was traveling in West Africa. With that small piece of plastic and electronics, I lost my only living connection to my village. Every phone number I collected in Niger is now lost in some forgotten corner of Africa.

I remember meeting a young woman in Sierra Leone. She was set to leave the country and was a bit heartbroken by that fact. We commiserated over leaving a place that felt like home, and I mentioned how much I wanted to return to Niger. "Don't," she said, "I know how much you want something like that right now, but you can't ever go back. What is there for you? Things change."

In every way, she's right, and that's the biggest fear I hold. Two years is a long time in a country where the average life expectancy is 53, where 16% of children don't make to to the age of 5, where, as a woman, you have a 1 in 16 chance of dying during childbirth over the course of a lifetime that averages 7.6 children per woman. In my mind, I imagine this place held in time, where I'll step out of a bush taxi and have a horde of screaming children welcoming me back to village. In reality, there's every possibility that a few of those children will no longer be there to greet me. There's every possibility that the old men who spent their days napping in the shade of the neem trees will be fewer in number. There's every possibility that sometime during one of those hot, black nights of the past two years, someone I cared about has slipped into a malarial fever from which they couldn't recover.

And what can I do about that? Can I mourn time lost in a place I once called home? Or can I return and find a place that has continued on without me and be thankful that I was allowed such a profound experience? One that can never be shared, no matter how many words are spoken or how many photos were taken. Can I grow and plant this piece of myself, permanently locate it within my heart, and continue on, carrying this shard of experience with me, knowing that there is a piece of myself somewhere that continues to live, to grow, to flourish in the harsh, near-desert of the Sahel?

That is ultimately what has brought me to undertake this journey back to Niger. I don't know if I'd ever get the chance to do it again. Despite all the promises and assurances, I've met too many people who never got around to that great passion, experience, or dream that slowly faded into the soft pain of regret and a wistful nostalgia of a previous life.

If for no other reason, I want to go back in the hopes of seeing this kid again:



That's my attakurmizo, my little trickster, the kid who saw me through the trauma of leaving, who taught me more about love and friendship than I ever could have imagined, who did that all without being able to even properly say my name. That picture is the perfect representation of him. Whenever I think about him, that's how I see him, arms wrapped around my leg, wide-eyed affection without a trace of guile. I could keep him like this forever, like a glass ornament, precious and beautiful. But I want to see what he's become. As much as possible, I yearn for the living memory of this place, even if it has a few cracks and scratches. That's what this ultimately is about: the search for that living memory, even if it's painful or broken in some way. Tomorrow, I'll start that search, unsure of what I'll find but longing for it nevertheless.

The Peacemakers

I've been out of touch for a couple weeks now, traveling around Plateau State and conducting interviews with key stakeholders throughout seven of the seventeen local governments. One of the most enlightening aspects of the interviews came with this question: Who is most responsible for promoting peace in your local government?

In many of the local governments deemed "high conflict," the respondents had an immediate answer: Religious leaders, they'd say, followed closely by traditional leaders. Government sources tended to cite political efforts. One man confidently asserted that women were the most responsible for promoting peace. These answers, in and of themselves, gave us an idea of who was working in troubled communities and which groups needed support. Those with actual projects instead of platitudes are the mostly likely to be targeted.

However, arguably more interesting were the answers from communities that have known little to no conflict. When asked who was working the most toward peace, nearly every respondent had to pause to think. When pressed with suggested peace actors from other communities, respondents said that they couldn't measurably say who was working the most toward peace because nearly everyone was involved. Political leaders brought together religious and traditional leaders as well as women, youth, civil societies and NGOs. Each group has its own constituencies, and by bringing them together to work toward peace, these low-conflict LGAs were reaching every member of their community.

This seems like a straight-forward answer, but it inevitably is not. Every single Local Government Council praised the efforts of their chairmen calling together all actors for meetings and discussions. But there were subtle differences between those who have successfully resisted violence and those where violence has torn at the very fabric of the community.

These differences came from the interviews with non-governmental traditional, religious, women, and youth leaders. In conflict communities, many complained that when the government held meetings, they were just talking sessions. They met, they aired grievances, and they left. Nothing filtered down to the actors committing violence. Nothing was asked of the participants, and no practical action plans ever emerged from these monthly meetings.

The peace communities carried a different tone. Stakeholder representatives stressed that dialogue was important, but that dialogue couldn't stay within the upper echelons of these stakeholder groups. Representatives took their message to their constituents, and all were involved in forming individual community action plans: whether that involved inter-religious neighborhood watches, community relief, or any number of tangible interventions to control violence. The important introduction of women and youth leaders brought these messages to a wider audience, as these most vulnerable groups have often been ignored by local government officials who look for those in power to curb the violence, rather than looking at those most affected by violence.

It's difficult to stress how important this distinction is. By including typically disenfranchised groups in the decisions and the responsibilities of conflict and peace, the local governments in these areas have turned them from victims to actors. Rather than bemoan their lot, women realize that they have the power and the responsibility to affect change. Rather than participating in violence as little more than paid thugs, youth are tasked with the responsibility to avoid conflict. They realize then that the best way to protect their community is not to attack another, but to ensure peace through cooperation. In the end, it's a much more monumental task, one that asks something of everyone regardless of status or power. However, with that shared sacrifice comes the knowledge that everyone has something to lose if their efforts come to naught. By delegating responsibility to all, the Plateau's peace communities have fostered stronger, more resilient communities. After all, isn't this the truest responsibility of government? To prevent rather than to react? To build rather than divide?