On the road again…….

[On the road near GidanMuni]

Demyst, Halloween, the election, random visitors from the US, soccer, the inner workings of Nigerien commerce……….the last several weeks have been busy.  Almost immediately after I returned from my trip out east, it was time for the newest volunteer trainees to leave the training villages and experience life with a PCV for a few days (demystification).  I was in charge of delivering about 10 trainees to villages scattered across the region.  As part of the trip I rode down the notorious Falmey road.  The road must be one of the worst in country since it is covered with pot holes from start to finish.  The trip took about 5 hours.  With a little luck, I’ll never have to make the trip again.  Eventually I made it back to Dosso with my demyster from North Carolina.  During his brief stay we visited the market, ate good food and took a walk to see an old Baobab tree.  Since he will be working with an artisanal center, we visited the one in Dosso.  We spoke with several artisans making jewelry, shoes, and other goods.  To my surprise, the Dosso Museum was also open.  An artisan was there who makes traditional textiles with an old loom.  He gave us a brief tour of the museum’s small collection of statues, textiles, and other artifacts.  Overall, demyst was a great success.  Dosso had a great group of trainees that will undoubtedly prove to be an excellent resource for Niger over the next two years.

Immediately after Demyst, I headed to Niamey to get my visa for Mali and run a few other errands.  Unfortunately the visa process was complicated.  A taxi took me to the location of the Malian Embassy, the building was empty.  The embassy had moved and none of the taxi drivers knew the new location.  I asked random people on the street and eventually found my way by foot to their new location, across the street from the US Embassy.  It was a beautiful, newly constructed building which I helped for pay for by paying a new, higher visa price of 50,000CFA (ouch).  Just a few weeks prior, volunteers were paying only 20000CFA.  I got my visa and headed back to Dosso in time for Halloween and the Dosso team meeting.

Nearly everyone on the team was there and everyone dressed up.  The evening’s guests included Peter Pan, a lion, an elephant, a sailor, and Woodabe dancer (me).  I enjoyed a large bag of Reece’s Pieces from the US and visited a few Nigerien friends in town from some cross-cultural exchange.  I made the entire costume myself with the exception of some of the jewelry which I got from the Woodabee festival a few weeks before.  A few people actually thought I had purchased my sorry excuse for a Woodabe robe. (Check out the side-by-side comparison below) It was a good night, enjoyed by all.

The next day I had a few unexpected, but welcomed visitors.  My friend Jill, a volunteer near Zinder brought her mom over.  She had arrived in Niger a few days prior for a three month stay with her daughter.  I invited a few other volunteers in town over for an American 5-cheese pasta dinner and sent them off with pancakes the following morning.  Since my stage has been here for nearly a year now, friends and family are starting to visit.  About 5 other volunteers currently have guests from the US and my first visitor is arriving in just a few hours!  We’re about to set off on a week long trip across Mali; Bamako to Gao.  Three weeks later my dad arrives.

So the election was awesome…  I wrote about that a few days ago.  The days following the election everyone expressed their congratulations.  Over here practically everyone was happy about the result.

Since the election I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with some of my Nigerien friends.  I spent a day working with my friend Harouna who owns a shop down the street.  I spent the days selling veggies, oil, spices and other essentials.  Most people come to buy things in quantities costing 5 to 25 cents.  Although he gets a lot of business it is a lot of work to measure out small quantities things like oil and tomato paste and then arguing with customers over how many tiny onions they should get for their 25CFA.  After several hours, I was worn out.  It’s a tough job, and people’s buying habits really illustrated how little money most people have. Some people also pay by trade.  For example 25CFA of peanut butter for 25CFA of onions. One lady, who I previously considered a friend, took the opportunity to walk away with 2000CFA worth of food. 

I also spent a little time with a Soccer team that one of my co-workers, Hassan, coaches.  Every day that he isn’t working, he volunteers to hold practice with his team of about 25 youth 14-18 years old.  I’ve already managed to find them some free soccer balls to practice with.  If anyone out there wants to sponsor a soccer team in Niger, just let me know.  For a larger city, Dosso has a serious lack of sports opportunities available.  Hassan’s team is the only one with a coach in the entire city.  They have a great stadium, but many of them can’t afford anything but flip flops to play in.  I hoping to find some funding to create educational murals on the stadium and find some funding for the team as well.  I went to a game on Sunday.  They played excellently and won 6 to 1. 

The school year is now in full swing.  Yesterday I helped my neighbor with his English home work.  He had 10 sentences to translate from French to English.  The sentences were difficult, using many different tenses and structures.  My neighbor speaks Zarma and very little French.  It was a nearly impossible task to complete the assignment.  He had problems translating even the most simple words, like Je – I.  A complete overhaul of the education system may be what Niger needs most.  Classes generally consists of copying pages of a book that are written on the board by the teacher, and then copied by the student with little or no comprehension.  While completing the exercise we made a vocabulary list and a couple verb conjugation tables to study.  Hopefully we’re going to have more study time once I return to Dosso next week.

Right now I’m in Niamey just waiting for my friend’s plane to arrive.  He’s bringing some extra supplies for thanksgiving and a block of cheddar cheese!  After spending a little time in Niamey we’ll head to Bamako, visit the mud mosque in Djenne, hike in Dogon Country, and stop in Gao before heading back to Niamey by bus.  They just recently repaved the road from Gao to Niamey, so what used to be a 24 hour trip with now be over in less than 6.