One month down…

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in Niger for a month now, some days it feels like I just walked off the plane, and some days it feels like I’ve been here for years. Training keeps us pretty busy, on average we spend about 10 hours at the training sight (7:30am to 5:30pm). My day is packed with language sessions, safety sessions, medical sessions, culture sessions, and technical sessions. Here’s a look at a typical day:

6:30 Wakeup

7:15 Walk to the market to get breakfast (bag of yogurt-$0.25 and a 1/4 loaf of French bread- $0.06)

7:30 Walk to training sight (maybe a half mile away from my compound)

8:15 Announcements

8:30 Language class (French) and break

10:30 Cross-Cultural Session or Medical session

12:00 Lunch and language immersion session

2:00 Language Session and break

3:45 Technical session or Safety session

5:15 Happy Hour (Sports or hang-out time)

6:15 Go home to host family, help with chores, chat

7:00 Bucket bath at sunset

7:30 Dinner with my sister while watching a questionable Brazilian soap opera, play cards or games with my host kids, chat

8:30 Set up my bed and mosquito net, read, DQT, exercise, play guitar, etc

10:30 Sleepy time!

I’m loving my host family, it’s true that Nigeriens are the most patient and hospitable people group. In my family I have a dad, a mom, two sisters, two brothers, and a niece. I live in a monogamous family (not all trainees do) and I spend most of my time in the concession with my 13 year old sister who does all the cooking and a good portion of the household chores. Sometime I help out by sorting rice or beans, but most of the time they make me sit in one of the two chairs that they own and just watch them do work (in Niger your guest is your god). Everywhere I go they carry a chair around behind me so that I never sit on the ground (and I get yelled at when I do sit on the ground). My host parents are extraordinarily old for this culture (my baba is 59 and my mama is around 55). The average life expectancy in Niger is 45. I would attribute their health to the fact that my family is quite educated (my baba is a retired school teacher) and all of the family speaks Hausa as their first language and are at least conversational in French (which is unusual).

Life isn’t as rough as it could be: the family house has electricity (although my hut is electricity free), we also own a tv, a fan, and a moped. Every night we eat either rice or pasta (pretty expensive), while some trainees eat millet each night (the main crop in our region, therefore less expensive and not a delicious). It’s still quite surreal when I look around and see mud huts and half-naked children (not to mention waking up to the sound of donkeys and the pounding of millet). I’m trying to take everything in, but sometimes my brain is on overload. The culture here is both welcoming and refreshing. This week I should find out where I will be posted for the next two years. I am really looking forward to having my own village, my own hut, and some locals to meet and call friends. Below are a few thoughts about my first month in Niger. Enjoy, and write me lots of letters!!! I miss you all :)

Top five experiences of the first four weeks:

5. Walking to tutoring session at night, noticing that there is a camel about four feet to my right, then managing to not pee my pants our of sheer surprise.

4. Playing cards with my host brother and sister, only to discover that cheating at games is part of Nigerien culture (so far we’ve played go fish, Egyptian ratscrew, slap jack, and something like uno)

3. Eating rice and beans with my host family (quite delicious, eaten from a communal plate with your right hand and mashed into ball), and being laughed at for dropping more on the ground than I managed to put in my mouth.

2. Understanding what’s going on in my French class (and testing out of French! I start Hausa classes tomorrow).

1. Seeing a dog being head-butted by an angry goat. Yeah.

New hobbies: Sweating non-stop. Carrying my Nalgene everywhere I go. Sleeping under a mosquito net. When walking down the street: saying “Fofo” (hello in Zarma) to everyone under the age of 12.

Impressions about the Peace Corps:  The farther I advance in training, the more I like the mission of the Peace Corps. Today we had a session talking about assessing the needs of the communities that we will work in. This is an important aspect of your work as a volunteer because without knowing the community in which you are working, it is impossible to make a lasting impact. Many NGOs offer a certain service or product to local communities (without assessing if it is a felt need) and proceed to offer the good or service (ex: installing a well, or offering English classes). Often times this leads to an unsustainable project because the villagers haven’t expressed a need for it, and after the NGO worker is gone, the project or product is no longer used. The Peace Corps, however, is all about partnering with locals to improve the communities that they live in. By living in a village, knowing the culture, and meeting the locals, you have a decent grasp on the needs of the community and can implement programs that will benefit the community for years to come (projects that will be sustained after I leave Niger)! Just a random thought :)

Daily Life in Niger   It’s certainly easy to see the impact of Islam on the day-to-day lives of Nigeriens. Many greetings and formalities begin with “salaam alekum” (peace be upon you) and a frequent answer to many a question is “inshallah” (if God wills it). There seems to be quite a disconnect between the ideals of Islam and the practice of Islam in Niger. Around 70 percent of the Nigerien population is illiterate, which directly affects the practice of Islam. A good portion of the Muslims that I have had contact with don’t speak a word of Arabic, which obviously makes it quite difficult to read the Qur’an. There are many boys who have memorized the entire Qur’an, but haven’t a clue as to the meaning of the words they know by heart. There is a big incorporation of Animism into the practice of Islam, and since most people have never read the Qur’an, they just assume that it is part of Islam. In some towns the Sheik (which would be the equivalent of a priest/pastor) is also the town witchdoctor.

Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012410&l=d84ab&id=183201212