It never rains but it pours. How’s that for a cheesy use of the adage? But now, as many times before in Niger, I’ve learned the literal as well as figurative truth of an old saying. Just like the torrents that took out house walls in my town last rainy season, changes and disruptions in my life haven’t sprinkled but deluged in September and October. Three of my six Zinder training mates were on medical leave in South Africa or America, for over a month (all back and in health). Volunteer relations with the bureau in Niamey have been strained to put it mildly. My laptop, a volunteer’s Ipod and another volunteer’s motorcycle helmet were stolen in our hostel. And in the middle of all that, Stephanie’s death happened.
Finally, to leave no part of my life in Niger untouched, my best counterpart, the English teacher in my town, got promoted to be a principal in a town like 47 light years away from anywhere. That was in September. It is now mid November and today I med the new replacement. I substituted for a few classes, but I had no enthusiasm for it because I knew it would be forever and a day before we got even one of the two English teachers we were promised from the regional school office. Last year when one of the two English teachers we had decided to just leave in search of better work (but still draw a salary for being a teacher in my town…), the regional office never replaced him. My job isn’t to teach here, and it’s not fair to the students for the middle school to rely on me to take over the post. It wasn’t fair for me not to do what I could though as well. So, unenthusiastically, I taught a couple of classes and waited. I know the kids are our future and I should always bound happily and confidently into every classroom, I’m afraid I had a stinking bad attitude about this. The kids, however, made most of those classes more fun than the few I taught last year, which made me think English club, if I can ever get it going again, would be that much better this year than last. It’s a relief there is finally an English teacher again. Time will tell if he’s a counterpart too.
Last month was the most bummer month of all, so far. PCVs always told me all parts of your service can be hard for different reasons. I knew even last year it’d be harder later in my service because things went so smoothly at first, compared to the first month horror stories I’d heard.
So to keep positive I have been thinking a lot about my parents upcoming trip here to see me and about my trip back to the states (January 8-24th—come visit me!!). To give my parents an idea of what to expect I made up a mock travel brochure which I’ll include below (eventually.. technical dificulties). My mom says she can now think past the bathroom situation. I’m figuring out how to arrange a camel ride for us out to my town’s garden and I’m strategizing about all the foods they should –and shouldn’t- try here. As for America, I can’t think much past all the food I’m gonna stuff in me. I decided back in june, just after I counted up the days I’d be in America, that I’d eat at chipotle for at least 14 of my 18 American days (I wouldn’t want to over tax myself by not having a few days off). Indeed, I will see the inside of a chipotle and probably have devoured the veggie fajita burrito with mild salsa, no sour cream but extra cheese and guac that I will be buying, before I see the inside of my old residence. I’m going to eat my way through vacation. I have conservatively estimated seven restaurants (apart for chipotle), 2 bars and a grocery store (rather frequently) which I will insist on visiting. Good thing I’ve been saving my pennies, I may blow my bank account just from spending time at home. My parents might have to roll me in a wheel barrow onto the plane back to Africa.
My biggest preoccupation in ville has been moving forward on the moringa project. The garden was swamped during rainy season and many trees died. But I have extra seeds and they grow very fast, so I’m not worried at all. The first class went with no major problems, except that the lady I’m working with, Zara, didn’t emphasize the points we are supposed to teach. I’d worked with her before on that, but I wasn’t sure if it had been enough and my suspicion was correct. I also didn’t have my act together enough to say everything in Hausa and so I was only able to prompt her to explain a few things. I learned from that and made sure that for the second class I was prepared and knew the hausa phrases I needed to prompt Zara to explain everything in better hausa. I also developed four questions to ask the women at the end to make sure we got the important points across. Both classes were fine (as in not failures) but we improved a lot the second time and we’re moving in the right direction. I thought after that class that I could really imagine the health center doing all this without me in a few months and then it will be a real shining jewel of a project-and all for less than 400usd!
Everything else in town has been quiet, normal village life. I’ve meant to do something to explain life here more to y’all but I always had something else to write about, and didn’t ever know how to describe what I see here. It’s such a different world. How does one describe a place where people live in mud brick or cement houses and watch satellite TV under grass huts? Here is a place where people lounge on mats under trees and drive new motorcycles, where people use town criers to announce meetings or important celebrations, and surf the net on their cell phones. People here make a weekly circuit of neighboring towns’ markets on camels, oxcarts and 1960s era minivans (sometimes with camels in the minivans, which to see is my personal holy grail). there are so many idiosyncrasies and anathema and details that I always think you need in order to begin to understand this place. I am like a sci fi writer trying to explain the planet trafalmador. But there are only so many gigabytes I can type and so many characters you can possibly devote time to reading. But here is a start at least.
It’s the tail end of harvest season so I’m watching a little parade of six pint-sized kids walking into town from the fields with bundles of dried millet stalks on their heads (unaccompanied by anyone over the age of 8). If it were dusk, I’d be watching a train of ox carts going by, loaded high with millet and sorghum.
I sit, almost everyday, with my “fada”-tea drinking conversation group –in front of one of the middle school teachers’ houses. We sit on a big mat and four plastic lawn chairs. We go through tea two or three times a day, sitting, chatting sometimes sleeping. We chat about work of stuff in ville or often just things I don’t understand cuz it’s in Hausa. They might play cards or mess with their fancy cell phones. Now and then someone’ll make a joke, everyone will crack up (except me cuz I didn’t get it) and a guy who appreciated the joke especially well will clasp hands with the joke maker. People will pass by and conversation will be interrupted for the appropriate greetings. When they ask me questions it’s often about when I’ll get married and how many kids I’ll have. when I say maybe I wont get married for 10 years and maybe I wont have any kids or maybe just one, they say, “Oh no Fati! You’re already old! in 10 years you’ll be way too old! You’re gonna get married here and you’re gonna have 10 kids! Do you like black people?” Then I have to gracefully decline marrying one of them. Once when we were getting lunch brought out to us by the wife of the house, a guy I don’t know very well said, “This is why I needa get married. I’m tired of cooking for myself, I need someone to bring me lunch.” I wasn’t in the mood to take this sexist comment seriously so I said “Meee toooo! I’m tired of cooking, I work and then I have to cook too and I just want to rest. Can *I* get a wife too?” After a moment in which he gave me a bizarre, puzzled look, he laughed. I also once listed all the stereotypically womanish traits when my teachers asked me what I was looking for in a man. He must be able to cook really good food and sweep and take care of the kids and do the laundry. They were pretty sure they could still find someone for me, but I’m skeptical.
A giant overloaded truck just lumbered by on the road that is technically a national highway and a main artery between Nigeria and Niger, but looks like a pot holey Midwestern country road bisecting small town after small town. The truck had mattresses tied three or four thick to the sides and several giant nets, bigger in circumference than I am tall, filled with plastic buckets hanging off the back. Several of these trucks roll through my town everyday. My friends tell me there are “experts” in Nigeria who conduct the insane over loading of these trucks, because not just anyone can overload it the right way.
I also hang out with my friend Murza to get the other side of Niger life. We sit and sort of talk, or cook things or lately we’ve done a little sewing tutoring. I do wish I had more language when I talk to her because I know I’m missing out on a big part of niger culture, not being able to talk well to women who haven’t finished much school and don’t know French. but when I got here I could barely explain that I was going to the marked or I got back from Zinder the day before. Now I know a lot about Murza. She’s 25, she was married in Nigeria but her husband died (-or she was divorced and she doesn’t want to say, but he probably died). She has a 19 month old son who was able to live in her new house (with husband #2) until he was weaned but then he had to go sleep at her mom’s house across town where her daughter lives also. She had two other kids but only two have survived. She’s genuinely interested in things I can tell her about America and when she finds a lot of money she’s gonna come visit me in America. The way she interacts with her husband is fascinating to me. She’s a little flirty and a little like any US housewife and a little like a teenager to a parent when she wants more allowance from him. I get it in my head that women are oppressed and held back here –because, largely, they are –but then I get it in my head that all marriages here must be cages and stifling for women. but I see Murza with her husband and I think well it might not be perfect, maybe they love the marriage, maybe they don’t, but here are two people making their way through life with what they have, each other as companions (--well actually he has at least one other wife… every conclusion I make here is tempered with “but on the other hand”).
I just saw an ox cart go by loaded up seven feet with millet stalks, a man leading it and two boys lounging on top just barely peeping over the edge of the millet bushels.
I hope to have a Thanksgiving/Tabaski edition to you in 3 weeks. As always, comments questions and your own updates are always relished.
Toodloo, ~aj
Finally, to leave no part of my life in Niger untouched, my best counterpart, the English teacher in my town, got promoted to be a principal in a town like 47 light years away from anywhere. That was in September. It is now mid November and today I med the new replacement. I substituted for a few classes, but I had no enthusiasm for it because I knew it would be forever and a day before we got even one of the two English teachers we were promised from the regional school office. Last year when one of the two English teachers we had decided to just leave in search of better work (but still draw a salary for being a teacher in my town…), the regional office never replaced him. My job isn’t to teach here, and it’s not fair to the students for the middle school to rely on me to take over the post. It wasn’t fair for me not to do what I could though as well. So, unenthusiastically, I taught a couple of classes and waited. I know the kids are our future and I should always bound happily and confidently into every classroom, I’m afraid I had a stinking bad attitude about this. The kids, however, made most of those classes more fun than the few I taught last year, which made me think English club, if I can ever get it going again, would be that much better this year than last. It’s a relief there is finally an English teacher again. Time will tell if he’s a counterpart too.
Last month was the most bummer month of all, so far. PCVs always told me all parts of your service can be hard for different reasons. I knew even last year it’d be harder later in my service because things went so smoothly at first, compared to the first month horror stories I’d heard.
So to keep positive I have been thinking a lot about my parents upcoming trip here to see me and about my trip back to the states (January 8-24th—come visit me!!). To give my parents an idea of what to expect I made up a mock travel brochure which I’ll include below (eventually.. technical dificulties). My mom says she can now think past the bathroom situation. I’m figuring out how to arrange a camel ride for us out to my town’s garden and I’m strategizing about all the foods they should –and shouldn’t- try here. As for America, I can’t think much past all the food I’m gonna stuff in me. I decided back in june, just after I counted up the days I’d be in America, that I’d eat at chipotle for at least 14 of my 18 American days (I wouldn’t want to over tax myself by not having a few days off). Indeed, I will see the inside of a chipotle and probably have devoured the veggie fajita burrito with mild salsa, no sour cream but extra cheese and guac that I will be buying, before I see the inside of my old residence. I’m going to eat my way through vacation. I have conservatively estimated seven restaurants (apart for chipotle), 2 bars and a grocery store (rather frequently) which I will insist on visiting. Good thing I’ve been saving my pennies, I may blow my bank account just from spending time at home. My parents might have to roll me in a wheel barrow onto the plane back to Africa.
My biggest preoccupation in ville has been moving forward on the moringa project. The garden was swamped during rainy season and many trees died. But I have extra seeds and they grow very fast, so I’m not worried at all. The first class went with no major problems, except that the lady I’m working with, Zara, didn’t emphasize the points we are supposed to teach. I’d worked with her before on that, but I wasn’t sure if it had been enough and my suspicion was correct. I also didn’t have my act together enough to say everything in Hausa and so I was only able to prompt her to explain a few things. I learned from that and made sure that for the second class I was prepared and knew the hausa phrases I needed to prompt Zara to explain everything in better hausa. I also developed four questions to ask the women at the end to make sure we got the important points across. Both classes were fine (as in not failures) but we improved a lot the second time and we’re moving in the right direction. I thought after that class that I could really imagine the health center doing all this without me in a few months and then it will be a real shining jewel of a project-and all for less than 400usd!
Everything else in town has been quiet, normal village life. I’ve meant to do something to explain life here more to y’all but I always had something else to write about, and didn’t ever know how to describe what I see here. It’s such a different world. How does one describe a place where people live in mud brick or cement houses and watch satellite TV under grass huts? Here is a place where people lounge on mats under trees and drive new motorcycles, where people use town criers to announce meetings or important celebrations, and surf the net on their cell phones. People here make a weekly circuit of neighboring towns’ markets on camels, oxcarts and 1960s era minivans (sometimes with camels in the minivans, which to see is my personal holy grail). there are so many idiosyncrasies and anathema and details that I always think you need in order to begin to understand this place. I am like a sci fi writer trying to explain the planet trafalmador. But there are only so many gigabytes I can type and so many characters you can possibly devote time to reading. But here is a start at least.
It’s the tail end of harvest season so I’m watching a little parade of six pint-sized kids walking into town from the fields with bundles of dried millet stalks on their heads (unaccompanied by anyone over the age of 8). If it were dusk, I’d be watching a train of ox carts going by, loaded high with millet and sorghum.
I sit, almost everyday, with my “fada”-tea drinking conversation group –in front of one of the middle school teachers’ houses. We sit on a big mat and four plastic lawn chairs. We go through tea two or three times a day, sitting, chatting sometimes sleeping. We chat about work of stuff in ville or often just things I don’t understand cuz it’s in Hausa. They might play cards or mess with their fancy cell phones. Now and then someone’ll make a joke, everyone will crack up (except me cuz I didn’t get it) and a guy who appreciated the joke especially well will clasp hands with the joke maker. People will pass by and conversation will be interrupted for the appropriate greetings. When they ask me questions it’s often about when I’ll get married and how many kids I’ll have. when I say maybe I wont get married for 10 years and maybe I wont have any kids or maybe just one, they say, “Oh no Fati! You’re already old! in 10 years you’ll be way too old! You’re gonna get married here and you’re gonna have 10 kids! Do you like black people?” Then I have to gracefully decline marrying one of them. Once when we were getting lunch brought out to us by the wife of the house, a guy I don’t know very well said, “This is why I needa get married. I’m tired of cooking for myself, I need someone to bring me lunch.” I wasn’t in the mood to take this sexist comment seriously so I said “Meee toooo! I’m tired of cooking, I work and then I have to cook too and I just want to rest. Can *I* get a wife too?” After a moment in which he gave me a bizarre, puzzled look, he laughed. I also once listed all the stereotypically womanish traits when my teachers asked me what I was looking for in a man. He must be able to cook really good food and sweep and take care of the kids and do the laundry. They were pretty sure they could still find someone for me, but I’m skeptical.
A giant overloaded truck just lumbered by on the road that is technically a national highway and a main artery between Nigeria and Niger, but looks like a pot holey Midwestern country road bisecting small town after small town. The truck had mattresses tied three or four thick to the sides and several giant nets, bigger in circumference than I am tall, filled with plastic buckets hanging off the back. Several of these trucks roll through my town everyday. My friends tell me there are “experts” in Nigeria who conduct the insane over loading of these trucks, because not just anyone can overload it the right way.
I also hang out with my friend Murza to get the other side of Niger life. We sit and sort of talk, or cook things or lately we’ve done a little sewing tutoring. I do wish I had more language when I talk to her because I know I’m missing out on a big part of niger culture, not being able to talk well to women who haven’t finished much school and don’t know French. but when I got here I could barely explain that I was going to the marked or I got back from Zinder the day before. Now I know a lot about Murza. She’s 25, she was married in Nigeria but her husband died (-or she was divorced and she doesn’t want to say, but he probably died). She has a 19 month old son who was able to live in her new house (with husband #2) until he was weaned but then he had to go sleep at her mom’s house across town where her daughter lives also. She had two other kids but only two have survived. She’s genuinely interested in things I can tell her about America and when she finds a lot of money she’s gonna come visit me in America. The way she interacts with her husband is fascinating to me. She’s a little flirty and a little like any US housewife and a little like a teenager to a parent when she wants more allowance from him. I get it in my head that women are oppressed and held back here –because, largely, they are –but then I get it in my head that all marriages here must be cages and stifling for women. but I see Murza with her husband and I think well it might not be perfect, maybe they love the marriage, maybe they don’t, but here are two people making their way through life with what they have, each other as companions (--well actually he has at least one other wife… every conclusion I make here is tempered with “but on the other hand”).
I just saw an ox cart go by loaded up seven feet with millet stalks, a man leading it and two boys lounging on top just barely peeping over the edge of the millet bushels.
I hope to have a Thanksgiving/Tabaski edition to you in 3 weeks. As always, comments questions and your own updates are always relished.
Toodloo, ~aj
