Solo Traveling and the Desert City (Part 2)

The trip out to Diffa required a stop in Zinder. From Dosso, Zinder is typically a 12-hour bus ride. From Zinder, it's seven more hours on broken tarmac to Diffa. There aren't any bus companies that will ply the route from Niamey to Diffa direct. I didn't mind the stop though. It gave me some time to see friends I hadn't seen in months, and Zinder is just a great city to kill a few days. It has some beautiful architecture in the old quarter, and, if you ever need a diversion, you can visit the cookie factory. Thirty or so women making honey and shortbread cookies everyday. It's awesome, but that's beside the point. I stopped off in Zinder and caught a bus out to Diffa at the "what am I doing up this early?" crack of dawn.

As a result, I missed the first half of the trip out to Diffa. It was still early, and I wasn't really concious. The road changed that. It's an old highway, and, while I hear they're going to repair it soon, it's in a pretty dire state. I was fortunate to get such a rude awakening though, as the ride out to Diffa was beautiful. The desert encroaches a bit further south than the rest of the country, which means that instead of subsistence agriculture, you're dealing with subsistence pastureland. Plains stretch to the horizon and are dotted with acacia trees that have all been grazed up above the level of hungry camels. It reminded me a lot of how I feel Kenya or Ethiopia must look: dry savannah interspersed with short, scrubby acacias. If you've ever been to Montana or maybe the Dakotas, they might look pretty similar. And the horses. These were the first horses I'd seen in country that actually looked healthy and well-fed. And why not? You could conceivably ride a horse for days in that landscape, camp under the stars, and never have to worry about food or anything else really. I don't deny I was dreaming of such things, despite the fact that I've never ridden a horse, nor do I have the money to buy one.

We reached Diffa a little after noon, and while I didn't take a long time to explore, I did get to see some beautiful marshlands. Diffa used to be close to Lake Chad, but environmental degradation, repeated drought, and climate change have all had noticable differences on the size of the lake. Diffa, though, is an important wetlands for migratory birds, and the flood plains around the city teem with life during the rainy season. I, however, was anxious to get on to N'guigmi, so I hopped a Land Cruiser bush taxi that afternoon, and, after six excruciating hours in cramped quarters, I arrived at night in the desert.

The trip took six hours, and N'guigmi is only 120km from Diffa. I'll let you imagine what the "road" was like. It's been a long time without any repairs, and with big trucks hauling from Nigeria to Libya, it's taken quite a beating. My bush taxi didn't even use the road for the majority of the trip, and after we passed Kabelawa, we left the road all together, shooting through the desert on paths only the driver knew. This of course takes a dramatic environmental toll on the desert, as eventhough it is a vast sea of sand, it's held in place by short grasses. When the trucks and Land Cruisers tear through the desert (as they have to in deep sand), they rip up the grasses and churn the earth into vast washes of deep sand. Desertification at its finest. We got stuck in one of these churned up chunks of "road," around 8:00 at night. I was not looking forward to spending the night in the desert, but I must say, the moonlight reflected from the pure, white sands reminded me a lot of a quiet winter night at home and looked quite comfortable. We managed to dig ourselves out, which was probably a bit better, as I'd completely forgotten the danger from snakes and scorpions in the desert.

We finally made it to N'guigmi around 9:00 at night, and I somehow managed to wrangle a place to stay. I still have no idea how I managed this. One minute I was talking to a shop owner and the next I was installed in a project rest house with air conditioning and a shower. Not too shabby for the first fifteen minutes in town.

N'guigmi feels like a city at the end of the earth. There's only one main paved road through a provincial town that gleams white from the desert sands. I'd like to say I did more than just take a few bush walks in the desert. I'd like to say I hooked up with a camel caravan and got to see the Grande Tal, an enormous sand dune that stretches over 30km from end to end and 2km across. In reality, however, these things cost money, money I didn't have. The bush walks were beautiful though. The white sand is as fine as powdered sugar and is peaceful and calm at night and deadly during the day. The temperature was well over 120F (48C) during most of the day, and this is during the rainy season. I could not imagine living there during the hot season.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the city though is the diversity. N'guigmi is forty-odd kilometers from the Chadian border, and they deal with Nigerian currency so much that within minutes I was carrying the Nigerian naira, the West African cfa, and the Central African cfa. The people were also a mix: Zarma gendarmes, Arab traders, Toubou herders, Kanouri farmers, and Hausa merchants. And one white guy. The most common question I got from all groups?

"What are you doing here?"

I'm seeing the desert!

"...Why?"

Seems the thing that can best unify Africa is the realization that white folks are just plain crazy.

Anyway, this has turned into a long post, and I didn't mean it to be. I had an amazing time out in the Diffa region, and I definitely plan to go back, despite the pain of travel and the stresses of being in such a remote location. It's beautiful, and I can't stress that enough. This trip was my practice backpacking trip, and I loved it. I think I'm finally ready to get started on the serious stuff come December.

Isolation and Vacation

Hello all. Apologies for the inexcusable lack of posts lately. I've been back in village hiding from the terrorists. Would you know it, the village hasn't gotten around to installing wireless yet. Lazy is what I say. Though maybe they need the electricity and the running water before they start worrying about checking their email.

I never introduced the restrictions, and for that I apologize. I actually lost the sheet that spelled them all out. What it basically comes down to is that I have to maintain as low a profile as possible. That means, to the American embassy, that I cannot leave my village more than once a month. I can go to market because it is only a kilometer away. I cannot go to any of the other villages along the road, or go to see my friends at the French government site. I'm not allowed to go north or west of the paved road, which is unfortunate because it means I cannot explore the mesas looming over my village, and I will have to find new fields come rainy season. (But I have been cleared if I farm with my villagers, which could be fun. I might take that into consideration.) Only Nigerien staff members can visit my site, and only if they take a bush taxi. No American government vehicles are allowed to go up my road. This includes diplomatic missions, Peace Corps, and USAID. In addition, no Volunteer is allowed to visit, and the two younger Volunteers, my closest neighbors were both forced to relocate villages in the Dosso region. So I am now 120km away from anyone, not allowed to go anywhere, nor allowed to see any other Americans for weeks at a time. It's just me, my village, and my villagers.

So how's it been? Surprisingly, not as bad as I had thought. My integration has skyrocketed. Indeed, it had no choice but to get better as I never see anyone else. I only speak English when my family calls or when I talk to myself (which happens disturbingly often these days. I really hope my villagers don't think I'm schizo or possessed by spirits or something). My Zarma has gotten pretty strong. I'm confident in it, and I've begun relearning French. This is a bit harder because the African accent tends to chew all the words together.

I've also started real work in village. My gardens all died while I was away because my gardener friend didn't bother to water them. I guess he thought I wasn't coming back. But I've been working with my women's group to improve their large garden, and I have also started work on a school garden. By July, I'll be teaching small children gardening, health, and nutrition. I don't know why they allowed me near children, but it's pretty hard to warp minds in a different language. Rainy season will be busy, what with the women's garden project, the school garden, and my fields.

But for now, it's hot season. It hasn't been too bad, but the seasonal calendar basically eliminates any work for an agriculture Volunteer at this point in time. If my gardens hadn't died I could still have tomatoes and peppers, but there's no use crying over dead plants. I've not been doing a whole lot. I occasionally take morning walks around Damana, but it's getting too hot for much activity. I had one run-in with heat stress which basically shut down my body's internal thermostat. Not too fun. So I've just been chillin' in the shade, visiting my friends, and chatting. I've started playing soccer with the teachers and older students in the evening. You want a workout, try playing football/soccer with anyone in a developing country. They're so freaking good. Playing in the desert is about like snorting sand, but you get used to it. Anytime a large chunk of cow sh*t can change the outcome of the game, well you know you're bound to have fun.

And now I'm in Niamey because I'm going on vacation in three days. I'm so excited. This is my first vacation. I've been in village for over a year now. (!) My how time flies. Three of us are going down to Benin, Togo, and Ghana, with a return trip through Burkina Faso. We'll escape the Nigerien heat, as all these countries are cooler because of the coast. We'll also be in the mountains, on the beach, in Ghana's lake district, Togo's coffee country, and Benin's voodoo regions. All this and slave history to boot. Don't you wish you could come along?

Well that's about all I have the patience for right now. Hope everyone out there is safe and happy. Until next time.

Sterling

No Tractors, No Plows, No Problem!

So after returning to village, mostly healthy, I started working again in my fields this week. Now that the planting has been taken care of and a few more rains have come, everyone is in the fields cultivating. Have to kill all those weeds for a good harvest and no starvation! Having a field, I've realized, is perhaps one of the best ways to integrate in Niger. Six days a week from about 7 am to 5 pm, all the men, most of the women, and all the children old enough to work in the fields leave the village to farm. There isn't a sound except the wives and mothers who pound millet to make lunch, but even this ends around 11, when they take food to their sons, daughters, husbands, etc.

Without a field, I'd be bored out of my mind. Even more so than hot season. Hot season was just too hot to want to do anything. Rainy season is actually quite nice, but it's a lot of work. I've been waking up before dawn to walk the kilometer south to my gardens to water. I return about an hour later to eat breakfast, drink a lot of coffee, and start the 45-minute hike to my fields, which are north of my village. In all, I've determined that I walk about 10 km every day now. It's exhausting, and I usually return from the fields to eat leftover breakfast and fall asleep for 3 hours or so. Then it's up again around 5 or 6 to go out and water my gardens again. Then a bath, dinner, and bed, which by that time of the night is very welcome indeed.

We farm with a tool called a kumbu. it has a blade on the end that's shaped kind of like an arc. It's about 8 feet long with a handle on the other end. Basically, it's like a giant spade that cuts off weeds at the root. I spend hours every day in the field with a break for lunch. The heat is a killer, but you do what you can. I usually go out with about 3 liters of water, and when that runs out, I'm done farming for the day. I hear it's easier work when it's rained, but I've yet to farm after a rain for one reason or another. I'm building up some ridiculous callouses from the work, and hopefully getting a lot stronger. It's hard, but I do what I can do. If it weren't for my iPod, I'd go crazy.

If anyone wants to send me a package full of energy/granola bars, they're AMAZING for a lunch break after all that work. Clif bars are so damn tasty...

Back from a Month at Post in Hot Season

We new Volunteers, as part of our integration into our individual villages must spend the first month of our service at "post." We're free to move around our clusters, which are sub-regions within the larger regions of Tillaberi, Dosso, Konni, Maradi, and Zinder. We're allowed to visit the Volunteers within a few kilometers of us and move about to our market towns, etc. This was far and away the hardest time I think any of us have had so far.

Part of the reason for that is that it is officially hot season in Niger. The forecast today is a high of 110 Farenheit; tomorrow it will reach 112. Tonight the low is projected at 84 Farenheit. Luckily we do not have much humidity, although with rainy season around the corner, I've definitely been feeling a bit more humidity these past few days. These aren't anomalies either; this is the average temperature for this time of year and the ten-day forecast calls for temperatures between 107 and 112. The lows are usually in the mid-eighties. For those of you reading in Celsius, that's an average high of 43 and a low of 27 Celsius. I believe that qualifies as f***ing hot.

This is how I have been spending my days: The sun usually wakes me up about 6:30. I pull a bucket of water from the well for my bath that day. I make coffee and usually have leftovers from the night before. I spend the morning walking around the village. I sit and chat with the old men or the people working, and I'm usually home again by 11:30. I sleep, read, drink koko, and generally try to not move until abour 4 or 4:30 because of the heat. After that I go out and walk around the village some more and chat. I go home about 6:30, take a bucket bath, and eat dinner. After that it's usually dark. Without lights or electricity, I usually go to bed around 9:30 or 10. Most of my day is spent on mundane texts, hanging out, and avoiding the heat, but it's so important that I learn the language these first two months while very little agricultural work is being done.

The sole redeeming factor of hot season, as I've said to a few of you in letters, is that it coincides with mango season. They are amazing. Luckily I have many mango trees in my area, and I have a friend who always gives me the best he has whenever I visit. If it weren't for the mangos, I don't know how anyone could live in this country during hot season.

I think that's the end of this post. Sorry for the length, but it has been a month. Hope everyone is in health. Kala tonton.