This one is hard to write, but it's been a long time coming. How do you sum up two years living in the bush in Africa? How do I even sum up the last month, when those of us Northern Tillaberi refugees became grouped with a whole new set of refugees from an expanded terror threat. In case you haven't been diligently following Nigerien news. Here's the official word on what's been going on lately:
https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=110469
To see how this plays into the larger picture of AQIM and all the fun they've been having across the Sahel, focusing on events that have occurred during my service, go to these places:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7798571.stm
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLP155404
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8080447.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8373821.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8381200.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8385559.stm
Wow. I didn't realize how frightening a picture that paints until I put them all together. My village was about 100km give or take from the border with Mali where the French national and the European tourists were kidnapped. However, throughout my entire service, I never once felt as if I were in danger. Someone with an outside perspective could call me naive or worse, but I think it says more about my community and the place I live. I firmly believe my villagers would have done anything to shelter and protect me had the occasion ever arisen.
Looking back, the week I had at my post seems like a positive, real risk. Would I do it again? Definitely. I hold no regrets. At least I was allowed to say goodbye. After the attempted kidnapping of embassy staff in Tahoua, a capital city much farther from the border than my village, the entire region was evacuated of all Volunteers. Many of them had no idea they would never be allowed back to their villages when they got the call to consolidate in Konni. As dangerous as it was, I know that I needed to see my villagers again, and sometimes, when something is that important, you just have to take a few chances.
I'll leave that. There's too much involved in the decisions made by individuals in any given circumstance to really examine them closely. Especially in a situation as extraordinary as this. Overall, I think Peace Corps' response was well managed and assessed all risks responsibly. I won't say anymore in part because of those who've decided to leave due to the security reasons and for those who will be staying on in very trying circumstances. The worst part of my entire second year living under travel restrictions was the uncertainty of the situation on a day-to-day basis. I was sure after the British tourist was executed that I would be evacuated from my site. I was allowed to stay, but it did underline how quickly things could change. That uncertainty will inform their entire service, but I'm confident those who have stayed will weather through it.
And now I'm leaving Niger. I have my visas for Mali (the non-dangerous part) and Burkina Faso ready and I'm heading out the door. This blog has been a pretty good representation of my service, but it can't cover even one percent of the emotions I've felt, the trials I've been through, the friendships I've made, and the rewards I've been given. If none of these kidnappings had happened, I can confidently say I would be staying another year. However, I can't really complain about that. One of my best friends in country (who also spent a full year under travel restrictions in Northern Tillaberi) said to me once that living alone in the bush, over a hundred kilometers from any other American, working with limited resources within our communities was closer to the "romantic" idea everyone has of Peace Corps, which is pretty cool. And throughout all of this, I've learned that Allah provides. I'm not saying things aren't meant to happen for one reason or another, or that things always turn out okay. However, when those two paths diverge in the wood, they lead to endless other possibilities and endless other divergences. That's just the route life takes, and it's better to appreciate what's on your own path, rather than wonder at what you'd missed.
I'll be keeping this blog going throughout the remainder of my time in West Africa, so keep checking for my whereabouts and to see what adventures I've had. Much love to everyone at home. I know there are some worried about me, but I hope that worry is tempered with excitement for all that I hope to experience in the coming months.
Irkoy m'ir cabe cere!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Leaving Tanka Lokoto
I’ve been in
As anyone can see from my past blog entries, I took some vacation a couple months ago to go out east, almost all the way to
So there were plenty of reasons not to go back to village. In addition to the external threats, I also had some work of my own to do. I waited three weeks in
But being out of village, for lack of a better term, sucks. It’s difficult to emphasize this point enough, and I don’t expect anyone who hasn’t lived the life to understand what it feels like. I was forced to leave my small community without any chance to say goodbye or to close the work I had been doing. I felt like a refugee. Living in
The embassy wasn’t happy. I’d pushed and pushed to go back to my village, and after a month, I think I’d created such a headache that everyone was just tired of me. They gave me one week. It was more than I’d expected, but there were a few stipulations. I could tell no one I was leaving for my village or that I would be living there at all. That included Peace Corps staff, Volunteers, and even my own villagers. The only people that knew I was on this “secret mission” were the acting country director, the Peace Corps security officer, and the embassy’s Regional Security Officer. I had to check in via text twice a day, morning and evening, to confirm that I hadn’t been kidnapped. Finally, I couldn’t tell anyone in my village what day I would be leaving them forever.
And so I left for village November 3rd. This entry could be much longer than it actually will be. I’ll try to be concise and cut out all the personal, sentimental things and get right to the heart of the matter. My villagers were amazing for the week I was at home. Though my house was dirty and dilapidated, my hanger had nearly collapsed, my garden had died, and my cat ran away, I didn’t care. I was just so happy to be back.
But it was a stressful week. I spent most of my afternoons (when I usually napped during my service) packing up my house. My mornings and evenings I spent on specific missions to spend as much time as possible with everyone I knew and loved in village. At night, my favorite little kid, a four-year old named Razak (who I call attakurmizo, Zarma for a sprite or faerie) would come over, refuse to leave my side, and eventually fall asleep at my house. I’d carry him home and we’d repeat the same pattern the next day. I know I said I wouldn’t get sentimental, but he was a rock star the whole week.
I’m so glad the embassy allowed me to return for even just a week. I was afraid I wouldn’t have even an afternoon. The first night I was back in village, bandits killed a soldier and a merchant in Baleyara, the major market town about 22km from my village. It was the second such robbery in two months. The first had been a carjacking in which two merchants were robbed and murdered. It didn’t really worry me, but I’m sure it drove the embassy up the wall. I’m pretty sure my villagers would do everything they could to protect me and knowing that, I never doubted my safety in village for the one week I had.
I’ll be here in
By the time I had finished the small loop at my maigari’s house, there wasn’t a dry eye anywhere. The women covered themselves with their shawls and refused to make eye contact while I said goodbye. My best friends, both men and women, couldn’t bring themselves to walk out to the road with me. That was okay. I heard them crying; I understood. Even my village chief, a man who’s seen a lot and had to say a lot of goodbyes to loved ones in his 65 years, had that husky voice that usually means tears are close. It’s always hard to see an old man cry.
So much for not getting sentimental. Now I’m back in
Sunday, October 4, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Solo Traveling and the Desert City
Back from vacation and ready to get back to my village. I've been backpacking around Niger for over two weeks now, seeing a lot of my fellow Volunteers that I haven't seen since I went back to my restricted village in terror alley. It was great to see so many of my friends and to catch up, as well as to have some time to myself to explore. When my service is over in December, I plan on doing a big backpack trip through West Africa, so this was the warm-up for that future event. It was a lot of rough roads and beautiful scenery, but luckily I always had the Peace Corps to fall back on for places to say and villages to visit. If you're truly interested, get your map out and follow my trip!
I started in the Konni/Tahoua region and a visit to my fellow stage-mates Justin and Kathleen. They live near Tahoua, just off the road to Keita. I'd been there before, but the dry season can't compare to the end of rainy season in terms of landscape. Few people know that the Sahara used to be covered in greenery; before the climate changes, the Sahara was forested and had large lakes with plenty of game for the people that lived there. You can see the remains of these vast lake beds near Tahoua. Justin and Kathleen's village is built on the downward slope of a hill that was obviously once the shores of one of these vast inland seas. It's apparent from the fossil remains embedded in the layered rock.
The Regional Representative of the Konni/Tahoua region, who knows the area probably better than any other Volunteer, had given me a tip when I stopped in Birni N'Konni: "Take the laterite road from Madaoua to Tahoua. It's the most beautiful part of the country." So, since I was up near Tahoua, I decided to take his advice. Let's put this in perspective though. I didn't know the schedule for market cars, I don't know the local language (Hausa), and I'm alone. If there's not potential for adventure there, I don't know where you'd find it. The road isn't paved; it's a laterite (red, rocky clay) road the entire way through some pretty magnificent scenery. The truck that I caught to Keita took us along a ridge line that overlooked two valleys filled with gallery acacia forests. Honest to God. Forests. It's something I haven't ever seen in this country.
The road, where it existed took me to Keita in the romantic ideal everyone has of Africa: teetering on the edge of hills where the road has been washed away and is partially collapsed, through three feet of water for half a kilometer, and bumping along at high speeds holding on to the roll bars of an open-backed truck. I'd already seen some amazing scenery by the time I hit Keita. I was assured by a someone waiting near the tasha that the car continuing on to Bouza and Madaoua was on its way. Two hours later, I'd fallen asleep in the middle of town and told that there were no cars going anywhere for the rest of the day. Evidently there was a market in a small bush town along the road to Madaoua and, as a result, there would be no other cars. Great. So I started hoofing it out of town. What choice did I have really? Here I was in a mid-sized Hausa city in the middle of nowhere without any other Volunteers posted nearby. I got picked up by a guy going to the small bush market, and he assured me that if I sat at the gendarme post he'd take me to I could get food and water and a car would eventually come by.
He dropped me in the middle of nowhere. I mean the absolute middle of nowhere. If you've ever been on the backroads in Indiana during the summer, you've inevitable pulled up to an intersection in the country with cornfields on all corners and a view to every horizon for all your trouble. Replace the corn with millet and you've got my hang-out spot for the rest of the afternoon. The gendarmes, when we pulled up, just looked at me like, "What on earth are you doing here?"
The nice thing about Niger for us Zarma speakers is that most of the military/gendarmerie will, at some point in their service, live in or around Niamey, which means they'll pick up at least a little bit of Zarma. It's required for the military to finish high school, which gives them an education far better than the average Nigerien. So if they don't by chance know Zarma, I can get by with my French. Anyway, I spent the afternoon with two gendarmes in the middle of nowhere just hanging out until a truck pulled up just in time to save me from incoming rains. The truck belonged to the local cell phone company, and they gave me a lift all the way back to Konni. I'd survived my early jaunt.
From Konni, I went back to Dosso and on to Kiota, a small city near Birni N'Gaoure. Kiota would be fairly unremarkable if it weren't for a famous religious leader who calls the city home. The Sheik of Kiota is one of the most famous Islamic leaders in West Africa. People come from from as far as Ghana and Senegal on the major holidays to receive his blessing. I was there for Id al Fitr, the end of Ramadan, and because I had the Peace Corps hook-up, I met the sheik and received his blessing for the new year. I definitely needed it for the next few days, when I traveled solo out to Diffa and N'guigmi, the desert cities of eastern Niger. It felt like going to the end of the Earth. I will continue this story in another blog post. Look for it in the next few days.
I started in the Konni/Tahoua region and a visit to my fellow stage-mates Justin and Kathleen. They live near Tahoua, just off the road to Keita. I'd been there before, but the dry season can't compare to the end of rainy season in terms of landscape. Few people know that the Sahara used to be covered in greenery; before the climate changes, the Sahara was forested and had large lakes with plenty of game for the people that lived there. You can see the remains of these vast lake beds near Tahoua. Justin and Kathleen's village is built on the downward slope of a hill that was obviously once the shores of one of these vast inland seas. It's apparent from the fossil remains embedded in the layered rock.
The Regional Representative of the Konni/Tahoua region, who knows the area probably better than any other Volunteer, had given me a tip when I stopped in Birni N'Konni: "Take the laterite road from Madaoua to Tahoua. It's the most beautiful part of the country." So, since I was up near Tahoua, I decided to take his advice. Let's put this in perspective though. I didn't know the schedule for market cars, I don't know the local language (Hausa), and I'm alone. If there's not potential for adventure there, I don't know where you'd find it. The road isn't paved; it's a laterite (red, rocky clay) road the entire way through some pretty magnificent scenery. The truck that I caught to Keita took us along a ridge line that overlooked two valleys filled with gallery acacia forests. Honest to God. Forests. It's something I haven't ever seen in this country.
The road, where it existed took me to Keita in the romantic ideal everyone has of Africa: teetering on the edge of hills where the road has been washed away and is partially collapsed, through three feet of water for half a kilometer, and bumping along at high speeds holding on to the roll bars of an open-backed truck. I'd already seen some amazing scenery by the time I hit Keita. I was assured by a someone waiting near the tasha that the car continuing on to Bouza and Madaoua was on its way. Two hours later, I'd fallen asleep in the middle of town and told that there were no cars going anywhere for the rest of the day. Evidently there was a market in a small bush town along the road to Madaoua and, as a result, there would be no other cars. Great. So I started hoofing it out of town. What choice did I have really? Here I was in a mid-sized Hausa city in the middle of nowhere without any other Volunteers posted nearby. I got picked up by a guy going to the small bush market, and he assured me that if I sat at the gendarme post he'd take me to I could get food and water and a car would eventually come by.
He dropped me in the middle of nowhere. I mean the absolute middle of nowhere. If you've ever been on the backroads in Indiana during the summer, you've inevitable pulled up to an intersection in the country with cornfields on all corners and a view to every horizon for all your trouble. Replace the corn with millet and you've got my hang-out spot for the rest of the afternoon. The gendarmes, when we pulled up, just looked at me like, "What on earth are you doing here?"
The nice thing about Niger for us Zarma speakers is that most of the military/gendarmerie will, at some point in their service, live in or around Niamey, which means they'll pick up at least a little bit of Zarma. It's required for the military to finish high school, which gives them an education far better than the average Nigerien. So if they don't by chance know Zarma, I can get by with my French. Anyway, I spent the afternoon with two gendarmes in the middle of nowhere just hanging out until a truck pulled up just in time to save me from incoming rains. The truck belonged to the local cell phone company, and they gave me a lift all the way back to Konni. I'd survived my early jaunt.
From Konni, I went back to Dosso and on to Kiota, a small city near Birni N'Gaoure. Kiota would be fairly unremarkable if it weren't for a famous religious leader who calls the city home. The Sheik of Kiota is one of the most famous Islamic leaders in West Africa. People come from from as far as Ghana and Senegal on the major holidays to receive his blessing. I was there for Id al Fitr, the end of Ramadan, and because I had the Peace Corps hook-up, I met the sheik and received his blessing for the new year. I definitely needed it for the next few days, when I traveled solo out to Diffa and N'guigmi, the desert cities of eastern Niger. It felt like going to the end of the Earth. I will continue this story in another blog post. Look for it in the next few days.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Time for Vacation (again)
I'm running out of time in Niger. My service ends soon, and my final few months in village will be spent trying to transition my school garden project to the community and the Association des Parents et Eleves. It may not be as impressive as digging a well or building a school, but it is an important project and may be harder than actually starting the school garden. I want the thing to continue long after I'm gone, and the only way to do that is to get the adults in the community excited about it. If I came back in five to ten years, I would want to see that garden still going strong, hopefully with the children doing most of the organization and work.
The next few months before my service ends are packed. I have training for Volunteer trainers, the GRE, and my COS conference at the end of October. I'm training the new Volunteers in early December, and I have a few weeks of vacation to burn up in the meantime. I definitely need the vacation. It's been a long few months since my last one. From the end of hot season through all of rainy season, I've been farming, building rock lines, gardening on my own, and organizing a school garden with elementary/primary school students.
This time of year is one of two that agriculture/environment Volunteers can take vacation. We're allowed whenever we want, but really there's too much work that needs to be done in cold and rainy seasons. However, because I don't have a lot of time left in Niger, I've decided to take the next few weeks to travel around and see all of those in my stage I haven't seen in months. (That's basically everyone out east because of my restrictions.) I'm actually on vacation now, but I'm spending a few days in Niamey to watch the Bears/Packers season opener tomorrow. I've seen two Superbowls in country since I came, and that's all I've gotten of football. I excuse myself this one time.
I wish I could post more, but there isn't much going on right now. I've been farming and gardening and generally trying to avoid everything to do with Niamey. It's a great town, but it's got a lot of baggage that goes with it when you're a bush Volunteer. So that's pretty much it. I'll try to post something happy and uplifting and seemingly amazing (to everyone who doesn't see camels, scorpions, or millet everyday) sometime in the near future. I've been so bad about providing updates I feel like I owe it to all of you. But, until then,
Kala Tonton
The next few months before my service ends are packed. I have training for Volunteer trainers, the GRE, and my COS conference at the end of October. I'm training the new Volunteers in early December, and I have a few weeks of vacation to burn up in the meantime. I definitely need the vacation. It's been a long few months since my last one. From the end of hot season through all of rainy season, I've been farming, building rock lines, gardening on my own, and organizing a school garden with elementary/primary school students.
This time of year is one of two that agriculture/environment Volunteers can take vacation. We're allowed whenever we want, but really there's too much work that needs to be done in cold and rainy seasons. However, because I don't have a lot of time left in Niger, I've decided to take the next few weeks to travel around and see all of those in my stage I haven't seen in months. (That's basically everyone out east because of my restrictions.) I'm actually on vacation now, but I'm spending a few days in Niamey to watch the Bears/Packers season opener tomorrow. I've seen two Superbowls in country since I came, and that's all I've gotten of football. I excuse myself this one time.
I wish I could post more, but there isn't much going on right now. I've been farming and gardening and generally trying to avoid everything to do with Niamey. It's a great town, but it's got a lot of baggage that goes with it when you're a bush Volunteer. So that's pretty much it. I'll try to post something happy and uplifting and seemingly amazing (to everyone who doesn't see camels, scorpions, or millet everyday) sometime in the near future. I've been so bad about providing updates I feel like I owe it to all of you. But, until then,
Kala Tonton
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Time Just Keeps Moving Along
I came in this week to take care of some financial business. I had forgotten that the CYE/MCD/CHA Volunteers are closing their service this week, so everything has been hectic. The usual forms to sign, people to see, final reporting, etc. In short, all the fun you could ever imagine with paper-trail bureaucracy. They've been at the computers like LCD-addicted mice, and their stress is palpable and contagious. I realized pretty soon that it's only about 3 1/2 months until I'm going through the same thing. Just a little more than 15 weeks to go.
Like I've said in other posts, I'm not happy that I'm leaving. If I had the option, I would probably stay in village because I don't feel as if my work is done yet. But, you have to move on sometime, so it is what it is. I had to sit down with a calendar to chart how my work will be affected over the next few months, and what I discovered is that I have very little time left. Between trainings and work in Niamey, my time is limited to less than nine weeks at post. It's also pretty chilling to realize that with all the work of closing and reporting service, once the new kids are testing out their new sites in the week-long live-in, I'll be packing up my house and probably losing my mind. It's hard to leave any place you've lived for a number of years. But when that place is so outside your perceived normal life, and when your neighbors are the warmest (literally and figuratively), kindest people you've ever had, the transition, I think, is even harder.
My work will necessarily have to start winding down. It's Ramadan now, which means it's impossible for most of the villagers to do anything. You'd be surprised how little energy you have when you don't eat or drink all day in a landscape like this. Or maybe you wouldn't. It's not very hard to imagine, but I can assure you, it's worse when you actually experience the fast. I fasted fully for two days, but because of farming and work, I'm down to an unhealthy weight already, so I'm done now. I felt like my heart was going to just give up if I didn't eat and drink. Plus, while the villagers don't have to work, my projects are at a kind of critical stage where I have to start transitioning them to the village. (I guess I don't have to work either, but sitting around thinking about how I'd like to drink some water is not why I came to Peace Corps.)
I wish I could say more at the moment. It's been a tough, anxiety-filled week for a lot of people here, and I think I've picked up a lot of that. I need to be back in village so I can begin sorting through my next few months and hopefully organize it into something productive. It seems spending so much time in village has made me useless in normal, Western situations. I can only really ever organize myself when I'm alone and at post, and I don't want to even touch on my eating or sleeping habits. (Let's just say I doubt I'll be too productive at home sleeping 12 hours a day.)
Well, that's really all for now. I usually post some stuff from my journal, but I didn't bring it along this time. I might try to do another post before I leave for post tomorrow. Kala Tonton
Like I've said in other posts, I'm not happy that I'm leaving. If I had the option, I would probably stay in village because I don't feel as if my work is done yet. But, you have to move on sometime, so it is what it is. I had to sit down with a calendar to chart how my work will be affected over the next few months, and what I discovered is that I have very little time left. Between trainings and work in Niamey, my time is limited to less than nine weeks at post. It's also pretty chilling to realize that with all the work of closing and reporting service, once the new kids are testing out their new sites in the week-long live-in, I'll be packing up my house and probably losing my mind. It's hard to leave any place you've lived for a number of years. But when that place is so outside your perceived normal life, and when your neighbors are the warmest (literally and figuratively), kindest people you've ever had, the transition, I think, is even harder.
My work will necessarily have to start winding down. It's Ramadan now, which means it's impossible for most of the villagers to do anything. You'd be surprised how little energy you have when you don't eat or drink all day in a landscape like this. Or maybe you wouldn't. It's not very hard to imagine, but I can assure you, it's worse when you actually experience the fast. I fasted fully for two days, but because of farming and work, I'm down to an unhealthy weight already, so I'm done now. I felt like my heart was going to just give up if I didn't eat and drink. Plus, while the villagers don't have to work, my projects are at a kind of critical stage where I have to start transitioning them to the village. (I guess I don't have to work either, but sitting around thinking about how I'd like to drink some water is not why I came to Peace Corps.)
I wish I could say more at the moment. It's been a tough, anxiety-filled week for a lot of people here, and I think I've picked up a lot of that. I need to be back in village so I can begin sorting through my next few months and hopefully organize it into something productive. It seems spending so much time in village has made me useless in normal, Western situations. I can only really ever organize myself when I'm alone and at post, and I don't want to even touch on my eating or sleeping habits. (Let's just say I doubt I'll be too productive at home sleeping 12 hours a day.)
Well, that's really all for now. I usually post some stuff from my journal, but I didn't bring it along this time. I might try to do another post before I leave for post tomorrow. Kala Tonton
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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!
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!
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