Monday, December 7, 2009

12/7/2009

Today I got the chance to spend the day exploring Paris. On our way to Madagascar, our training group had a 30hr layover in Paris, so many of us took advantage by heading out into the city to enjoy the day. I went to the Eiffel Tower, walked along the river, and enjoyed some small luxuries before heading back to the hotel and getting ready to fly to our next destination. I can hardly believe that I'll be landing in Antananarivo tomorrow evening to start a new Peace Corps training program. I was so sad to leave Niger, but I'm looking forward to learning Malagasi and getting to know yet another new and different culture. Wish me luck! And please be patient with the blog update and email responses, as I have no idea when I will have internet access next. Until then, enjoy these pics from my day in Paris, and have a wonderful holiday!

Christmas lights along the Champs Elysee


La Tour Eiffel
A typical French scene
La Seine

Thursday, December 3, 2009

2/12/09

This past weekend we celebrated Tabaski in Hamdallaye and said goodbye to our host families. I wasn’t very excited about the holiday since most of the activities center around slaughtering goats and sheep and preparing, sharing and eating the meat. As a vegetarian, not the best holiday to partake in. It was interesting to see the prayer service in the morning, though. Basically all of Hamdallaye and some people from the smaller neighboring villages gathered out in a field. There were several horses with decorative saddles as well as a camel. Everyone was dressed in their nicest outfits, many of them made specially for Tabaski. In the afternoon, people slaughtered and roasted goats and sheep over large fires. They also cleaned and fried the innards of the animals and shared the food with neighbors. Luckily I managed to avoid any actual slaughtering and I didn’t feel obliged to eat any of the meat either. I’m actually glad I didn’t eat any of it, because a bunch of people got sick the day after Tabaski.

It’s been a really slow past few days up at the training site. We’ve been doing French class to stay occupied, but I just feel so anxious waiting to get to Madagascar, especially since we’re not leaving until Sunday evening. This afternoon was really fun, however. We organized an American-style Olympics for the language trainers so we could share with them some of the traditional games we play in the U.S. Among the events were an obstacle course, pin the tail on the donkey and musical chairs. The Nigeriens were so funny. I was surprised at how competitive and into it they got. I will really miss all of the training staff here. Tomorrow we get to go into Niamey, which should be interesting and a change of pace. I’m excited to see the bureau and hopefully some of the city as well. Then it's off to Madagascar on Sunday.

New mailing address:
Maya Rao
Corps de la Paix
BP 12091
Poste Zoom Ankorondrano
101 Antananarivo
Madagascar

Some pictures of events over the past few weeks:\

Nigerien Fashion Show at the training site!


Host family pictures

Scenes of Niger

11/26/2009

The past week has been rough. There were some recent attempted kidnappings of foreigners near the Niger-Mali border. Because of the security concerns, we were first put on consolidation for a little over a week, which meant that we were not able to stay with our host families. A few days before Thanksgiving the consolidation was lifted but Peace Corps decided to send our training group to Madagascar since there had been another attempted kidnapping over the weekend. Even though I’m really sad to leave Niger I can understand that it would probably be more manageable to monitor a smaller number of volunteers in country given the heightened security and travel restrictions. It’s too bad that we’ll have to start a whole new training program and probably won’t get to swear in as volunteers until late January or February. Not only that, but we have to learn a whole new language, and just when I was starting to get the hang of Hausa. I am very happy that I will still be working in the health sector, and I’m looking forward to island life for the next two years. I’m anxious to leave and start my new training program, but I am also sad to leave Niger. I feel bad for our language trainers and for the Nigerien villages that were expecting volunteers in January. In order to pass the time and stay productive at the training site we are learning French now instead of Zarma and Hausa. Today we had off because of Thanksgiving, so we hung out and worked on preparing for the meal. The dinner went really well. All the language trainers joined us, and as we shared our meal together we went around and said what we were thankful for. Many people expressed their gratitude for the training staff here and the opportunity to have learned about and experienced the people, the language and beautiful culture of Niger. This weekend we get to go back to our homestays to visit our families and experience Tabaski, one of the biggest Muslim holidays here in Niger.

11/8/09

Today was my second day on demystification. Demyst is a four day trip that all the trainees make to stay with a current volunteer in order to see what life and work is really going to be like for the next two years at post. I and another trainee were assigned to a health volunteer in the Dosso region, which is Zarma-speaking. Unfortunately I don’t get to practice any of my Hausa, but it’s still a great experience so far. Yesterday was a very long day. We left Hamdy on the “magic bus” (the Peace Corps 20 passenger bus) at 8am and drove for several hours, dropping off people at their various destinations along the way. The countryside was interesting to see…a bit more green than I was expecting. Our trip was delayed for a half hour when the van got stuck in the sand at one of the sites, but after trying a few different strategies and garnering the help of the entire village, we were back on our way. We arrived at our post at around 1pm and sat and talked for a while. Then we had “bush pizza” for lunch, and talked more about what life for our PCV has been like for the past year. We walked around here village in the evening and were introduced to all her friends, neighbors and the chief. Her village is small, less than 500 people, but there’s a lot of activity. There’s a grinding mill, a water pump, people weaving mats, women pounding millet, a tailor sewing outside, people farming and mothers cooking. It’s so true that you literally have to stop and greet everyone as you make your rounds through the entire village. Everyone seemed so warm and welcoming, but it was also sad and eye-opening to see all the malnutrition everywhere. I would estimate that about 2 out of every 3 kids we saw had characteristic signs of Kwashiorkor—the distended bellies, stick-thin legs, ribs showing through the skin and thin, reddish hair. The PCV was telling us about how mothers will just wait until their child becomes severely ill before they take them into the clinics. Sometimes it’s hard because they may not have money at that time to pay for the hospital visit. Unfortunately the clinics and health centers don’t sound like the most inviting places for these mothers either. Apparently the healthcare workers can often be condescending towards villagers who come in because they feel that they are more educated and come from a more privileged background. Sometimes the parents are scared of the doctors and won’t communicate with them because they are afraid. She also mentioned that sometimes the villagers won’t find the visits to the clinic helpful because all the nurses will do is give the children two shots and tell them to come back several more times that week, which would not be feasible for most, given limited time and monetary constraints. The whole situation just sounds really sad and almost hopeless because the problems are so systemic. The good thing is that there are things the PCVs can do to address the gaps in the healthcare system. Our demister talked about how she teaches mothers who come to the hospital how to make their own nutritious porridges and therapeutic foods for their malnourished children, so that if the hospital is low on supply or if the women are not able to stay for very long, they can still go home with the knowledge of how to care for their babies. Overall, the demystification experience was really wonderful. After observing the daily activities of a health volunteer, I’m even more motivated to complete training. I’m also so excited to be at post where I can make my own schedule, have my own place and cook for myself. I can see myself enjoying the next two years, even though there may be some tough adjustments and challenges to face along the way.

11/1/09

Yesterday was Halloween in the village. We had language class in the morning. It has started cooling down since cold season is approaching, so the afternoons are much more bearable and the evenings are lovely. My roommate has been gone for a couple days because of an ear infection, so it’s just been me at the homestay. In the afternoon I reviewed Hausa vocab and did my laundry by hand. At 5pm all the volunteers met at the pond in Hamdallaye for a Halloween party. It was so much fun! People brought candy and snacks and we had music, card games and an egg toss. Someone even brought plastic colored fangs from home for everyone to wear. After dinner we met up again to watch Hocus Pocus on one of the volunteer’s laptops until her battery died. All in all a great Halloween…much better than I expected it would be.

This morning there was a baby naming ceremony at one of the volunteer’s home stays because their family had a newborn baby a week ago. I was surprised at how short the affair was, considering the whole village and people from out of town came to attend. It started around 7 in the morning. People congregated, they slaughtered a goat, the family passed out dried dates for everyone to eat, and then they distributed dishes of goat meat stewed in sauce with bread for everyone to share. The whole thing was over by 9am!

10/28/09

It is so incredibly hot here! At first I was excited about going to the hottest country on earth because I feel like I’m always cold, and I thought I was pretty good at dealing with hot weather. I think I severely underestimated how hot 100+ can feel. The evenings and mornings are definitely bearable as it cools down considerable at night here, but the afternoons are absolutely brutal. I have Hausa class outside in my concession every afternoon with a language trainer and two other volunteers, and although we are sitting in the shade and I try to gulp down as much warm water from my Nalgene as I can, I still get headaches and nausea and my skin feels like it’s burning. I’ve even developed a little bit of heat rash on my hands. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when hot season rolls around in April. Other than suffering from the heat, I’m so grateful that haven’t gotten sick here yet. We learned how to filter and chlorinate our drinking water the other day, so I guess I’ve been doing a good job so far.

Today was a market day in Hamdallaye. It was very crowded and there were so many interesting things to see. There were many animals--goats, donkeys, cows and camels—as well as vendors selling spices, dried fish and staple foods. There were clothing stands and tailors as well, and many of us bought fabric for skirts (pagnas). It was difficult to choose among the large variety of colors and designs in the hot, crowded market, but I’m happy with my choices, a navy blue one with a gazelle pattern and a turquoise and blue geometric star patterned one.

10/24/09

Today we moved in with our host families after a day of language and culture debriefing at the training site. I was placed in a Hausa family in Hamdallaye with another fellow trainee. We are both vegetarian and the host family was notified that we don’t eat meat, so it’s not as much of an issue as I thought it would be. As we walked out of the training site to our home-stays down the hill, we got our first look at the village of Hamdy. Some of the houses were very nice, but others were somewhat dilapidated, and it was also sad to see all the trash scattered along the side of the road and next to the houses. Even in a village that has a large market every Tuesday and that steadily reaps economic benefits from Peace Corps training activities, one can still see the mark of Niger’s rampant poverty here. Vegetables are not readily available here, so it’s rice and sauce or rice and beans for pretty much every meal. Some of the children walk around with signs of kwashiorkor. Most families do not have electricity and no one has running water, although I was surprised that some do have TVs here. It is a strange and disorienting feeling to walk over to the neighbor’s house where some fellow trainees are staying to watch a Brazilian soap opera dubbed over in French while sitting outside on a mat under the stars with goats bleating in the background.
My host family has been really great so far. We live with an older woman and three of her grandchildren (she has 20 grandchildren in total!). My Nigerien name is Sharifa, after the 10 year old girl in our family. She is really fun to talk to, and has been teaching me the numbers and body parts in Hausa. The other granddaughter and grandson are both in their late teens and also speak French, so they are really helpful to have around when I have no idea what is going on. I can’t wait until I learn more Hausa so I can interact more easily with everyone!

10/22/09

Today we arrived at our training site in Hamdallaye after a long two days of traveling in buses and airports. I can hardly believe after many long months of agonizing over my application, awaiting a response from Peace Corps and preparing for departure that I am finally in Niger and about to start training as a volunteer. After arriving in the airport in Niamey, we collected our bags and exited the airport to be greeted by a loud, cheering welcome from a group of current PCVs who were waiting outside with hot bottles of drinking water (nothing stays cool here in Niger). As we rode in the Peace Corps vans from Niamey to Hamdallaye two of the volunteers who have been here for a while talked to us about their experiences so far and answered some of our burning questions about the country in which we are about live for two years. On the way, I saw a camel carrying a large load of hay, a crowded market and many mud huts with thatched roofs. When we got to Hamdallaye we had a brief introduction to the site and received our malaria meds. Then we unpacked, ate dinner, took showers, talked and went to sleep outside under the stars, with just the mosquito nets to cover us and the soothing sound of breezes and soft rains that come and go. I’m so exhausted, yet extremely excited to see what’s in store for tomorrow.