A New Year. A New Blog.

Happy New Year from Rawfi!

2007 has been kind to me so far. I find myself in the capital (Niamey) on a short weekend break from my new duties as a Peace Corps Trainer. A new group of 37 volunteers has arrived to Niger and I've been assigned to helping them get acclimatized. So for the past week it's been cafeteria, electricity, and running water - with a heavy dose of naive questions. Getting coddled at the training site has its perks.
It was a year ago that I arrived here, and it's a TRIP to come back to Hamdallaye (the training site) with the new volunteers. It actually felt strange (the first night they all arrived) to be hanging out with Americans who haven't been living in Niger. Their eyes, their humor, and their energy all felt foreign to me. The old cliche of having come full circle applies rather nicely here.
I got to spend most of December out in my little Hausa village. And since December really brings in the cold-season it was heavenly out there. The garden I've been working on with the women's groups is doing really well. We've got a ton of cabbage, onions, and carrots. By the time I return to Rawfi most of the plants will have be transplanted from their seed beds to the field.
I felt like my language skills really improved in December. Spending extended periods of time out there I really get integrated into the village - and it's language. Whereas I would get tired earlier on trying to keep up with the conversations around me, it's much easier to follow what people are saying. And as a result, I can socialize longer without getting tired. It took about a year, but I really feel comfortable speaking Hausa now. (It feels amazing to write that down.)
Christmas was spent out in Zinder with my friends in the Peace Corps. And while I was missing Vermont and my family, we did have a nice pot-luck on Christmas day. After returning to Konni I spent New Year's Day out in Rawfi. The Muslim holiday of Tabaski (Eid ul-Adha in Arabic) was celebrated right around New Year's Day so I got to attend the prayer service at our outdoor mosque. It was actually really cold and windy that morning, and visibility was at a minimum due to all the dust and sand in the air. The above picture was taken the morning of Tabaski - I got all dressed up in local clothes for the holiday. The village chief is right behind me in the photo. People who can afford to slaughter livestock, typically sheep, on Tabaski. So as we slumbered and talked on mats all day, we ate fresh meat and drank strong green tea.
Shortly after the New Year I came to Niamey for a training on "how to train trainees". And now I find myself in the midst of that training. I'll be spending 5 more days with the group before I return to Konni. So the plan is to fatten up on the cafeteria food as much as possible and then hibernate in my village for a while. It will be really nice to get back to Rawfi, where the pace of life is at a standstill compared to Niamey.

ON TO THE PHOTOS!

Sorry about the angle. Here's Rawfi's imam giving the Tabaski prayer.

Say hello to the chief's new baby. I gave her the name Emily, and it has actually stuck! Believe it or not Emily sounds like a Hausa word so it bridged the language gap pretty well.

A local Hausa girl in a neighbouring village. This was taken at a traditional wrestling match - a big sport in the Nigerien bush.








The Band, who kept the wrestling match hopping.









The chief and I on Tabaski.








Rawfi's friday mosque. (Friday's the Muslim holy day. And this mosque, by far the largest in Rawfi, is used for the Friday service.)

Niger's not all fun and play (wink): A couple of weeks ago some friends and I toured the local beer factory (Biere Niger). We soon found out Yousef the tour-guide loves drinking while giving the tour. And we also discovered a free and steady source of unfiltered, fresh Biere Niger coming out of a hose in the room pictured above. It was nothing short of a small miracle.

Salt cures and SIDA

Ramadan in Rawfi. (October 2006)

What's happening?

The AIDS bike ride was a success, and now I'm living the good life in the capital. I hope everyone had a sweet Thanksgiving. Feel free to mail me the leftovers.

I'm gonna try and post a ton of photos here, so pardon the short greeting. Special thanks to Katy Miller (my neighbour here in Africa). I'm using some photos of hers from the Cure de Salee festival we traveled to back in September. Enjoy.

Here's the big crowd at the Cure de Salee. This festival takes place in Ingal, Niger - southwest of Agadez. It's a yearly festival that takes place at the end of rainy season. The nomadic Tuareg and Fulani men come to this area to let their cattle graze on the grasses, which happen to have a uniquely abudant amount of salt. Then they get dressed up and party.

The men in the background are atop their camels. I can't help but focus in on the German guy at the bottom of the photo. That hat is magical.

Here's a Tuareg guy with the Mr. Big Stuff camel gear. This festival serves as a chance for the well-to-do Tuaregs to show off their wealth. The camel and all that leather on it are very pricey for the average Tuareg man. This nomad is loaded.

These are young Wadabi men lined up for a song. This is a long standing tradition in which Wadabi men dress-up for the unmarried girls and show off their stuff through song and dance. Bright white eyes and teeth will attract their attention, and if they're lucky a girl will select him.

Here's my friend Kate and I with some well-dressed Tuareg ladies. The Tuaregs are from Berber descent and have a distinctive appearance. Their language sounds more like Arabic than anything sub-Saharan.

Three Wadabi men.

A couple of young Tuareg girls.

Here's a few more American ex-pats who I traveled to Ingal with. We were watching the performances atop our Land Cruiser. The guy in the yellow hat (Chris Burns) is my advisor here and his wife, Jen, is standing next to him. Cojo, who's sporting the mustard-colored funk suit, is a Peace Corps driver.

A classroom in Yelewa, a village nearby Rawfi. A friend and I were walking through the village and stopped to check out the school. I'm hidden in the back row.

Here are some Fulani girls from Kate's village, Korup. About one-third of her village consists of Fulani people. They tend to dress differently than Hausa peoples, and they speak a different language - Fulfulfde. They're also beautiful. Kodi, the tall girl in the blue head-wrap, just got engaged to be married. She's probably 16 years-old.

Liz and Jason on our Peace Corps "magic bus". This was taken the day we left our training site in Hamadallaye to be installed in the villages we now live in. That was way back in March. Liz loves the 'thumbs-up' as witnessed in this photo. Jason does not.

Kate and Natalie. Two fabulous volunteers from Team Konni.

Sunrise in the okra fields outside of Rawfi. I was walking to my bush-taxi stop one early morning and snapped this shot.

Early morning close-up of sorghum. It's one of the staple crops found in Niger. As it matures, the green seeds will turn rusty brown and white.

Out to their fields at 6 am. (taken with a flash)

Here's Team Konni at the last swear-in cerermony. This was taken at the ambassador's house in Niamey. We all live and play together in the Birni N'Konni area.

Freddy getting integrated at the swear-in. Some people call him DJ Wombat. I've seen him dance with glow sticks on mutlitple nights.

Check out these threads. The American and Nigerien flags unite. Taken at the swear-in ceremony.

Rawfi's imam leading the prayers on the last day of Ramadan. This outdoor mosque is located on the outskirts of the vilalge and is only used during the most important religous holidays. About one thousand men and women (mostly men) attended the prayer.

Team America. (Alex Towns as Wonder Woman.)

Two Nigerien dudes bundled up in clothes during a morning lecture on HIV/AIDS. Taken during the recent SIDA bike ride.

Kid duty on the bike ride.

1,000-watt smile.

The mechanics crew taking care of business.

Hope you liked the photos. An early Happy Holidays to everyone. Lots of love,

Matt

Gobble Gobble Squak!

It's not turkey, but it did the trick. It was guinea fowl for me this Thanksgiving here in Maradi, Niger. I had a great pot-luck affair with 25-or-so fellow Peace Corps volunteers at the PC hostel here in Niger's 2nd largest city. We're putting back the calories as we prepare for our AIDS bike ride that gets under way tomorrow morning. We've got 31 km to travel before the day's end... I'll let you know how the event went next chance I get.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

to everyone back home (and abroad),

Matt

Alive, but toxic

Greetings from Niger! A'gashekku!

What's cuter than the three Nigerien children, one of whom is picking her nose? Not much.

My apologies for the long hiatus of blog posts. There no outlet for the internet in the Birni N'Konni area, so it's rare I get to a place where I can get online.

It's been getting cold here lately, to the tune of the upper 90s during midday. While that may not sound cold to some, it's 10 to 15 degrees cooler than hot-season. The temperature is dropping at nightfall, however. Down to the upper 60s at night, which is a real relief. So the mornings and evenings are getting comfortable. For about 7 months you don't need a blanket to sleep outside, but we're back into the much-missed stretch where you do.

I've been sick for a little while due to a strange toxoplasmosis infection. Apparently I got it from cat poo, at least that the most likely scenario. What am I doing eat cat poo you may ask? Well, I would argue it was unintentional. I've got a couple of cats. And, I'm thinking the fur to hand to mouth (while eating with my hands) scenario is the most likely. Who knows? Regardless, I've gotten better and my energy is back. I never had mono, but I'm told the symptoms are very similar - fatigue and a weakened immune system. I was pretty much stationary for a week when it was at its worse. Here's to a healthy future!

(The trail to Yelewa, a village neighboring Rafi - taken in March '06. Van Gogh?)

In the most beautiful Nigerien village of Rafi I've been slowly getting back to work. There are 6 women's groups in the village that I've been meeting with on a monthly basis. Basically, I've expressed interest to work with them and we've been sharing ideas on stuff we could work on together in the future. C old-season is just about upon us here in Niger and that's the time to garden. The women's groups have expressed a desire to create one cooperative garden, so I'm in the process of finding resources (such as seeds, tools, money, etc.) to help them out. Gardens are a great development project here as they introduce much needed vegetables (and their nutrients) to their diets. And the vegetables can also be brought to local markets for sale. So, hopefully our garden comes together this season.

There's also a need for additional wells in my village, and I'm in the process of developing a proposal to send to Washington in an effort to get one constructed. In a village of approximately 2,500 people there are only two wells. And even these wells could use repairs. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of cash on hand here in PC Niger, so we do most (or perhaps all) of the fund-raising ourselves. Peace Corps has a program in place that I will be applying to that would allow me to request tax-deductible donations. You'll be sure to hear about it if it's accepted.

I've been involved in a lot of radio shows recently. The Peace Corps Volunteers in the Konni area take turns going to a local radio station to do hour long educational shows in Hausa. There a lot of fun, they reach a lot of people, and we get to play any music we want. Recently I did a show with a friend of mine on planting maringa (a small tree with edible, nutritional leaves) alongside onions. You can plant the trees on the same plots as onions since their roots are deeper than the onion plants and therefore don't compete for water. Thus when you're watering your onions, the maringa plants get the leftovers. Niger is one of the biggest onion producers in West Africa and the Konni area is "onion country". So, while we fumbled over our Hausa I shared my iPod with the listening audience... A Tribe Called Quest, Gnarls Barkley, Daft Punk, Black Eyed Peas, and Dusty Springfield hit the Konni air-waves (for perhaps the first time ever). A slight change of speed from the Nigerian and Cote d'Ivorienne anthems.

ON TO THE PHOTOS!

This was taken inside my concession during my very first visit to Rafi. As you can see the walls surrounding my yard weren't finished (nor was my latrine at the time). They're over my head now. The woman on the the left is on of the women's leaders in town. And the woman on the right is the village chief's third wife (my neighbor). The front door to my hut is just in front of the mortar and pestle on the left-side of the photo. And my red-iron window is open right next to that.

These four young girls are students at the local grade school. They were on their lunch break and swept out my concession. My charge: a photo.

This is the landscape outside of my village during dry-season. All of this land is teaming with millet, sorghum, beans, and peanuts during wet-season.

Say hello to Trina Blanchette, volunteer extraordinaire. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer on my team in Konni, but has since completed her service and is now back in the U.S. This is her hut in Batodi, north of Konni just off of the road to Tahoua and Agadez. It's pretty similar to my set-up. We made some damn good oatmeal cookies in that white oven.

Alright. I'm off to watch some Champion's League football (soccer) at a local Niamey bar. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everybody. We'll be roasting our own turkey in Maradi come Thanksgiving, so feel no pity for me. There's an AIDS bike-ride from Maradi to Galmey (check it out on a map) that I'm going on right after Turkey Day. I'll the Peace Corps bike mechanic for the ride, which should be a trip considering how inept I am with bicycles.

TAKE CARE EVERYONE. I MISS YOU ALL,

Matt

Ina kwanakku?

What's up folks?

I'm back in the capital for another brief trip. I had to see the doctor, attend a Gender & Development meeting (which I didn't actually make - food poisoning), and the real reason... attend a fantasy football auction. Greetings to all those guys back home in the States who I participated with. I was bidding for NFL players with guys on the net who were on the East Coast, the West Coast, and one in Egypt (I think). It was amazing how well it worked.

I left for Niamey this past Friday morning at 9:30 am. At 10:30 pm I rolled into Niamey. The trip should take 5 and half hours in a bus, which I left on. Not to be. About an hour after we left Birni N'Konni we came to the "rainy season detour". This is a dirt road that acts a detour when a seasonal lake floods the national highway. That's right, the country's lone national east-west highway is innaccessible during several months of the year. So, on this dirt-road-detour (which is in about as good of shape as a Vermont dirt road during spring) we hit some puddles. Bump, bump, bump we go as the bus goes in and out of the depressions. BAM! The driver was going a bit to fast before he hit the last puddle, and the air filter was toast. We pulled over. Found out the bad news. And for three hours, my friend Kate and I, tried to find shade in a place of Niger where there is no shade.

After an hour and a half of sitting around and moaning, we get smart and attempt to hitch a ride. There's a million NGOs in Niger, so there's typically white Land Cruisers (sometimes with empty seats) driving by. After another hour and a half, and no luck, we found a bush taxi heading west. These are vans designed to sit 10 people comfortably, that get "redesigned" to fit 21 people in them. So Kate and I are 2-of-the-21. Crammed in, but happy to be rid of the bus incident, we are back on our way.

15 minutes later we are on our feet walking for 2 miles. The dirt-road-detour is unable to cope with last night's rain. And there is a traffic-jam on a scale previously unimagined. Trator trailors, and there are likely 1,000 of them, are piled in one after the other incapable of traversing a muddy stretch of the road. The shipping trucks are at a stand still and their blocking the way. So we have to get out of the bush taxi to allow the driver to traverse a newly created trail (a detour of the detour if you will) to allow smaller vehicles through. 2 miles later, and filling nauseous from the plethora of diesel fumes, we get back in the bush-taxi. Two minutes later we are back on our feet walking. Some impatient tractor trailor driver decided it would be a good idea to block the opposite lane in order to move ahead 15 feet in line. The complete lack of logic is both infuriating and not entirely uncommon here. There are steep embankments on both sides of the road, and the bush-taxi driver seems to be at a lost. And I've just about lost my patience. 30 minutes later, the driver-turned-cowboy takes a detour threw some farmer's millet field and in a truly amazing display of navigational skill makes it through without getting stuck. SWEET LORD THANK YOU! We are now going 60 mph on the east-west national highway.

Taking bush-taxis from Konni to Niamey is not recommended. They are cramped, slower than buses, and make an illogical and overabundant number of stops. So, after about 20 stops for paying tolls, buying food, praying, and "resting" we get to the capital. 13 hours on a Nigerien highway during rainy season. That was a week ago. I'm heading back east today. So, if you're willing and able, say a little prayer for me.

ON TO THE PHOTOS!

Here's some Fulani ladies from my village in fron of a typical Fulani hut. They gave me a bowl of fresh milk and asked for their picture taken in return. It was a deal. The Fulani people are Niger's pastoralists along with the Tuaregs. There are 3 or 4 Fulani families in Rafi, and the men and boys of those families tend to the town's livestock when grazing.

Rafi got green. Compare this photo to the one from my 2nd posting (with the group of boys) and you'll see the difference. This is about as green as it gets - taken about a week ago, nearing the end of rainy season.

Here's the village chief, Jafaru. I was walking with him to one of a handful of his fields. The millet gets pretty big as you can see. Jafaru's about 5'8". Atop his head is a big bowl of "hura", which is mixture of milk, water, and pounded millet. The ladies of the village usually bring it out to them for lunch. But on this day, the chief carried his own lunch - tough day at the office.

Here's another village shot from atop a mesa. This is looking southeast towards my village (and towards Nigeria, which is only about 10 km away from me). You can basically see the entire village from this photo. My hut is situated somewhere on the far right of town. Yup, my feet.

This is my neighbor Kate's place in the village of Korup (kinda sounds like "crap" with the Hausa accent). She's the one in the purple tank-top. Ben and Joan, two other volunteers, are sitting on a millet-stalk bed. And a couple of locals (names not known - but, there's a 1/3 chance that their names are Mohamadou) are hanging out with us. My trusty Trek is propped up against the support beam.

This one's from my village's market car. It's a big 4WD truck with a flat bed and a role cage. These guys are sitting atop the role cage, which is typical for men here regardless of whether there's space on the flatbed or not. This truck makes trips in and out of my village on Wednesday's and Sunday's when there are markets to go to. So, it's a nice way to get in and out of Konni (where my hostel is). I know the guy in the pinstripped shirt. He's the town butcher. Since I was the last one to get on this taxi I'm sitting on a cross-beam that's both ridiculously akward and uncomfortable. The taxi had about 65 people in all sorts of weird positions in/on/hangin-off of it.

This one is taken in the Konni market. The tailor is Tuareg, and Tuareg men always wear a turbin. You can see bags of salt, sugar, flour, and green tea in the background that he's selling. The cylindrical shapes on the table are "blocks" of salt from the desert. Tuareg men still carry salt across the Sahara via camel caravans to make money.

Alright. Need to get on the road again. Hope you guys enjoyed the photos. Until we meet again, I bid you all farewell.

Matt

P.S. "Ina kwanakku?" means "How did you(plural) sleep?" in Hausa. It's used like "good morning" in English.

Back in Niamey

Greetings all,

So I made it back to Niamey... where the internet does exist. Let's see, since my last entry I've been spending most of my time in the village (Rahi). That's been good. Rainy season has come to Niger, meaning all the men who live in the bush are out tending to their fields. The rains started to really come in mid-July, and have been pretty regular since then (every other day or so). The millet in the area around my village is well over my head in some fields, and just up to my waste in others. That's mostly due to when the farmers decided to plant their seeds. Sometimes farmers can plant too early and lose their seeds (or sprouts), which happens all over the country. But luckily the rains were enough after the initial planting to keep the sprouts growing.

I've got my very own field where I'm planting millet, sorghum, beans, and peanuts. It's a fairly small field, but plenty big for me. The manual labor that goes in to tending the fields in maniacal. All the tilling is done by hand with the tools called "calmi" that kind of look like little hoes.

So, to dig up the earth (and the weeds) with this thing you have to bend over at 90 degrees. It takes about 10 minutes before my back starts to ache, which is after completing 2 of 30 rows. I'm in awe of the men who do this almost every day, all day. It's hard labor on a level I've never witnessed before.

Other than the farm, I've been teaching English to young men in the village. Many of them will travel to Nigeria at some point to find work after the harvest. And in Lagos, where most will travel, many people speak pidgin English (called "broka" for broken English). So a lot of the young men expressed interest in learning English. We've been through the greetings, numbers, "there is", and the verb: to be. It's been a lot of fun to teach them, and it's good time for me to practice my own language skills in Hausa.

So, I included some more photos here. The one on the the top of the blog is 4 of the 1,000,000 children that live in my concession. Actually there are 13, but they can multiply exponentially at a moment's notice. The mesa in the background kind of wraps around the village, and is pretty large by Nigerien standards.

Below is a photo from atop the mesa. You can see about a sixth of the village here, but the rest looks just like it. All the structures are made from mud bricks including the huts, walls, and granaries. The granaries are the domed structures. There's thatched-grass on top of the granaries to keep out the dust and rain. To give it some scale you can see about 10 ladies walking along a path at the bottom of the photo. There about to hike up the mesa path that will lead you to a neighboring village. My closest Peace Corps neighbor lives 5 km away along that path.

Below is a shot of group of boys from my village that were following me around town the first day around. I'm the first Peace Corps volunteer in my village, and also the first foreigner to live there. So as you can imagine the kids were a little curious as to what the white guy was up to. In the background you can see a valley in between two mesas. That's where the path is that I was talking about in the last photo. The one that leads to my friend's village. Yacubu, one of the 1,000,000 children that lives in my concession, can be seen holding on to my Nalgene bottle.

Here's the self-absorbed-portrait on my lake. I'm saving the sinking vessel with a trusty turquoise plastic bowl. There are half-a-dozen-or-so boats like this owned by local fisherman. That go out to the middle of the lake and throw nets off of them. And the lake is shallow enough (3 meters at the center) that they'll use long poles to get around. We we're using a broken paddle the day this photo was taken, so you might say we were at the mercy of the wind.

Well that's all for today. I'll be back in Niamey sometime in the near future to write some more. I hope everyone's well back home in the motherland, or wherever you may be. Matt.