I just finished my first month at post (the village I now live in), which for most Peace Corps Volunteers is one of the most challenging periods of time in their service. I had a great first four days full of setting up a home and doing projects around the house, but in my second week, the projects were finished and I was left feeling alone and homesick. The homesickness was almost unbearable and I would be lying if I said that I never thought about how much easier it would be to just come home. But, at the end of that second week, I got a call from a friend who let my cry and told me to stay strong and within a day or two, I seemed to sort of wake up one morning and find that I had conquered the homesickness. During the subsequent three weeks, I began to create a routine for myself and really started to reach out to my friends in my village. Sitting here now, typing this blog entry after five weeks at post, I can honestly say that I am happy and content here in Niger. I will always miss my friends and family back home, but I have found family and friends here that help me cope with those feelings.
The following topics in this blog are topics I have dealt with in my first month at post. Some of them will reflect the difficult times that I came across and others will show the comedy in this crazy adventure I am on. As one of my fellow PCVs in country has said, for all its ups and downs, month one at post has been absolutely invaluable.
Bismillah! (Arabic word meaning essentially “dig-in”)
Home Sweet Home – Setting Up My House: During training, someone mentioned that home is where your stuff is. I’ve never fully understood that until now. As much as I consider home to be the house I grew up in in Alameda, I realize that if I am going to make a life for myself here in Niger, I need my house here to feel like a home. I have really enjoyed the process of making my house into a home. Although I don’t have much in the way of furniture or material items, I have taken what I do have and created a space that suits my lifestyle and my rather obsessive/anal habits. There are a few things I still want/need to do – decorate the walls and get a curtain and a shelving unit made – but those things will come in time. It feels good to come back to my house after a day of trying desperately to use and understand two foreign languages. I finally feel like I have a space that is just for me – a space in which I can relax and just be.
My House Rules: I live right next door to the radio station in my village and some other volunteers and I do radio shows once a week for my community. Because my house becomes the “kick-it” spot on radio days, I often have anywhere from 3-4 other volunteers in my house. As I have mentioned before, I have a slightly obsessive/anal way of being, especially when it comes to my living space. With that said, I came up with some rules for my house:
1. The screen door is there for a reason – KEEP IT CLOSED! Contrary to popular belief, I’m sweet and mosquitoes like me.
2. Toilet paper is for noses, not for butts – EMBRACE THE BUTA!
3. Shoes off in the house – unless you have an uncontrollable desire to sweep.
4. If electricity isn’t necessary, don’t use it – I am a CYE Volunteer, but I’m still on a Peace Corps budget.
5. Don’t forget to choose your Angel Cards!
A Day in the Life – Being a PCV in Niger: My days are much more full and vary from day to day much more now than they did when I first got to post, but here is a general idea of what my days look like:
I wake up sometime between 6:45am – 7:30am. I usually lounge in bed for a little while and actually get up at about 8am. I go for a 3k run and then come back home to do some exercises and stretch. When I finish that whole process, I sit and read for a little while in order to cool down before eating breakfast. I usually cook some oatmeal of tapioca for breakfast (the extent of my cooking here in country – except for the occasional macaroni and cheese sent from home). After breakfast, I do a few chores around the house and get myself ready to head out into the village. Sometimes I have meetings or “work-related” things to do, but because I don’t have a defined job here in Niger, I make up my own schedule when it comes to work. I conveniently leave the house around noon and head to visit some of my village friends because they feed me lunch. In the afternoon, I visit two families – one with kids and one without. I usually hang out for 3-4 hours out in the village with friends and then I head home to rest for a little while. I usually run into one of my closest friends on the way back to my house so I stop to chat with him for a while. He’s been an amazing friend to me and has taught me so much about what it takes to be a successful member of my village. When I get back to my house, I do any chores that need to be done, I read or do Sudoku puzzles, and I await any possible calls from home that come at 6pm my time. I either wait until about 6:15pm or until I finish with a phone conversation before heading over to my friend’s house for dinner. I consider this family to be my family here in Niger. The take such great care of me and love me dearly. They’ve even given me their last name. I have so much fun at that house and always find myself laughing until my belly hurts. At about 9pm or so, I say goodnight to my family and head to my house to get ready for bed. I take a bucket bath and climb into bed where I read and await any calls from home.
My days are simple and often there isn’t much going on, but that’s how life is here in Niger. I find that days tend to sort of creep by, but the weeks and months have seemed to fly by. I suppose it’s much the same as back in the U.S. where on Monday morning it feels like we’ll never reach Friday and the upcoming weekend. Everyday is like a weekend day here and I am definitely enjoying that. When I move back to the States and have to seek out a 9-5 job again, I am really going to have a tough time adjusting back to that kind of work/schedule.
One Day at a Time – The Little Moments: As I struggled through the emotional rollercoaster of month one, I found that the little moments that brought a smile to my face got me through each day.
I go for a run in the morning five days per week. I run about 3k down a laterite road close to my house. As I run, I have swarms of children who rush to the road in order to give me a high-five as I pass. Seeing these children never fails to bring a smile to my face and it always reminds me about why I am here. There is one little boy, a boy with one of the sweetest faces I have ever seen, and he meets me at the road and runs about half of the distance with me. His smile and his gentle nature always make me feel so calm.
One evening, I was at the family’s house that I eat dinner with every night. They have two sheep and two female goats. Both goats were pregnant and were going to give birth in a matter of days. That evening, one of the goats gave birth to two baby goats – both boys. I was there to watch as she gave birth and cleaned her two little babies. I watched them stand for the first time and take their first steps. The family even let me give them names – the bigger one is Henri (he’s white with brown spots) and the smaller one is Jacco (he’s all brown with a tiny white spot on the top of his head). I couldn’t help but think during this time that I may never get the chance to see something like this again.
There is a huge party at the end of Ramadan in which all of the Muslim families cook huge meals and share their food with their friends and family. No expense is spared for this party and those who can afford to splurge on fancy food items. The family that I eat with every night chose to slaughter two chickens and one rooster for the party. As far as I understand, in Muslim culture, only Muslim men can slaughter animals and there is a ritual/blessing that must happen before the animal is killed. I was able to watch and participate as much as possible in the slaughter of the three birds. It certainly wasn’t a pleasant experience, especially for a vegetarian, but it was nevertheless an interesting experience and one that I may never have again. I have always wondered if I would be able to kill a chicken for food, but now I am pretty confident that I wouldn’t be able to do it.
I am getting to try all kinds of new foods. I am now addicted to sugar cane! There’s a song in Zarma about sugar cane and every time I eat sugar cane with the family I eat dinner with, we sing the song. I’m not able to turn down food here as it’s not culturally acceptable to do so, so I am no longer a true vegetarian. That being said, I have had to eat chicken livers (not too fond of those) and I ate some kind of animals intestines (not that bad actually). I eat boiled peanuts and peanuts straight from the garden. No matter what I may eat, I always think about and appreciate the fact that these foods were grown in someone’s garden or the animal was raised by someone’s family. Anything you eat here (that’s not pre-packaged) was homegrown and doesn’t contain all the preservatives, hormones, etc. of the foods offered in the U.S. Getting to try all of these new foods always makes me appreciate being here and reminds me to embrace every little moment.
Generally speaking, these are all small, short-lived moments, but they bring a smile to my face and remind me that this is a once in a lifetime experience.
Me, Myself, and I – Self-Reliance: One of the greatest challenges I have faced thus far in Niger is the feeling of utter loneliness. It is amazing how one can be surrounded by a village of people and yet feel so alone. Part of this is a direct result of not having the language skills to truly communicate or relate to the villagers and part of it is simply because I am eight time zones away from all of the people I know and love. In facing this challenge, I have learned to be self-reliant and self-sufficient. I have learned to be enough for myself and have found in myself an individual strength that I never knew existed. While having to be “alone” all the time has been very difficult for me and has induced many tears, I am so grateful that this opportunity has shown me these things in myself.
In the U.S., I am an independent woman in that I don’t
need a boyfriend to feel complete and I am confident in who I am. However, in just about every other way, I am an extremely co-dependent person. I don’t cook for myself, I run to Mama and Pop whenever I need something fixed, and I have never been able to live alone. While I love my alone time now and then, I need/crave human contact. I need people to talk to and hang out with and I am very tactile so I enjoy touch – a simple hug or a high five. Here in Niger, these things are not always easy to access and I have had to look to myself to provide those things that I long for. I have learned to embrace being alone and to enjoy the silence that comes with it. I have learned that I am capable of doing so many things for myself that I would never have tried to do in the States. More than ever before, I am enough for me.
Animal Instincts – Eating Meat Again: Despite my new found independence, I am still not worth a thing in the kitchen. It also doesn’t help that I own one pot, one spoon, and one knife, period, here in Niger. Plus, I don’t have running water, so doing what few dishes I may end up with becomes a serious project. All that being said, I cook simple breakfasts and that’s the extent of the cooking that I do for myself. Much the same as in the U.S., I prefer to rely on others for food and enjoy eating what has been prepared by a truly masterful cook – which in my case is often the 12-year-old daughter of the family I eat with every night. That’s right, a 12-year-old girl can cook an entire meal, a very delicious meal at that, over a fire without all of the conveniences of an American kitchen, and all I can master is macaroni and cheese or tapioca. I’m hopeless!
Because I eat with villagers so much, I am not in control of what I am served. As I’ve mentioned before, turning down food is really disrespectful here, so it’s important that you eat what you are offered. I started out telling my villagers that I didn’t eat meat, which they understood to a degree, but it just meant that they pulled the chunks of meat out of whatever they were offering me to eat. Therefore, I have not been able to be a true vegetarian.
This realization lead me to do some soul-searching and reflection about my beliefs and how they apply to my life in Niger. A great deal of my belief in being a vegetarian stems from my extreme disgust with the meat industry in the U.S. I find the practices of the meat industry to be horrific, inhumane, and truly disgusting. However, these things don’t exist in Nigerien culture. The food that they produce and eat has been home grown and individually raised. Animals that are slaughtered for their meat are killed by the hands of a Muslim man after a ritual/blessing. There are no hormones, chemicals, or machines involved. Not one part of the animal’s body is wasted – a specialty here is goat head stew (I won’t be trying that).
After considering these things, I have chosen to eat meat while here in Niger. It feels good to eat meat that I know has been raised and slaughtered by the person that is cooking it for me. I feel more connected to what I am eating now and that is an amazing feeling. One major benefit to eating meat here is that my village has the BEST street meat guy in Niger. People from all over the country know of him and stop to get meat from him as they pass through my village. At least once a week I get some sheep from him and it is absolutely amazing.
I know that in the U.S., I will never be able to go back to eating meat – my beliefs are simply too strong and would never be able to eat meat with a clear conscious. But, I will enjoy the opportunity to eat meat while I’m here and know that here it is a natural process.
Funny Quirks in Zarma: The more I learn Zarma, the more I realize that it is one seriously quirky language. I can’t help but share same of it with all of you. Here are some of my favorite words and their meanings:
Beni hi – literally means “sky boat” – airplane
Fu me – literally means “house mouth” – door
Fu ize – literally means “house child” – bedroom
Nda ni – literally means “with you” – burrs that stick to you
Beni hari – literally means “sky water” – rain
Kambize – literally means “arm children” – fingers
Modiji – literally means “eye mirror” – eye glasses
Ceize – literally means “foot children” – toes
Irkoy – literally means “our keeper” – Allah (God)
Cingoy – literally means “night work” – SEX!
Shout Outs: I want to give this shout out to my parents. Without their love and support, there is no way that I would be able to do what I am doing. Thank you so much for everything you are doing stateside to make this experience easier for me. I love you, miss you, and think of you everyday!
This is a seasonal lake just outside my village. It's absolutely beautiful.
Another shot of the lake.
I saw these kids as I was walking home from the lake and thought it would make a great photo.
Another shot I took while walking.
They really wanted to have their picture taken. This reminds me of AT&T commercials...more bars in more places ;)
This is the view from my concession door...that's my house!
Facing my house, this is looking down the left side. This is my AWESOME shade tree.
This is looking toward the right from my concession door.
This is the view from the front door of my house, looking out toward my concession door.
Looking at my raised patio and the front door of my house.
That black patch on the right is my burn pile.
Looking down the right side of my house. The green patches are melons!
This is my dilapidated shade hangar...I'll be using it as my goat shelter.
Looking down the left side of my house at my latrine - close-up to follow.
This is behind my house...not all that exciting.
My water spigot!
These giant toads live at my water spigot. Sometimes there are 7-9 of them piled on top of each other between the rocks. I love them!
I talk to them every night when I get water for my bucket bath. "Hello little froggies, what're you doing?" (some of you will know exactly which voice I use for this one-sided conversation.)
My latrine: this is where the magic happens...every morning, promptly at 6:30am...seriously, you could set your watch by it. What? Too much information? Welcome to my world!
This is the view from the mesa accross the road from my house. The pole in the center of the photo is the radio tower - that's essentialy my house.
The view to the left from my favorite place to sit on the mesa.
The view to the right...
This is the soccer field below the mesa where I will put on a bi-annual soccer tournament...in sha allah.
This is my baba (father) in my village. Doesn't he look strickingly like Morgan Freeman?
This is one of my best friends at post. He is a fabulous tailor and one of the most positive people I know. He rocks!
This is the woman whose family I eat with every night. And, that little guy on her back is "my son."
Warning: I have promised to bring this little guy home with me to the U.S. He is my favorite baby!
One of my favorite people (the woman I eat dinner with) and some of her motley crew.
We laugh so much when we're together!
My little brother (my friend's son).
This is one of my favorite little guys. He's such a sweet kid and so loving!
She has an amazing spirit and reminds me so much of home!
This little girl is an absolute sweetheart.
The girls!
I don't know this woman, but I thought this would be a nice photo.
Another one of my best friends at post. This woman rocks!
I think she is so incredibly beautiful.
This is her daughter...I love this kid, she is so sassy (just like her mom).
Oh so cute!
Another great friend who is the wife of the brother of my friend above. She is such a gentle soul.
Her little boy...this is the face he makes all the time. So silly!
Another friend that lives in the same concession as the two friends above. She never fails to make me laugh!
This is her husband. He plays the drum at village weddings, baptemes, etc.
This is their eldest son...he has such a gorgeous face and is the sweetest little boy.
Their youngest son. This guy can dance and can already bang out a beat on the drum - just like his daddy.
Their little girl. She got in the bucket on her own - we don't know why.
...she hates the camera! (This is one of my favorite shots!)
