I’m a real Peace Corps Volunteer!

As of December 30^th I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! The swearing in ceremony took place in the morning at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Niamey.  Over 400 people were invited and Nigerien T.V. and radio stations were also present. The event reminded a lot like a high school or college graduation, complete with many photo shoots, fancy clothes, and fold up lawn chairs.

The event was beautiful. The weather was perfect—not too hot and even a little wind! Before the official ceremony, “cocktails” were served. In other words, a great assortment of sodas, popcorn, chips, and peanuts were available.

I was really honored and proud to have been asked by my stage to give a speech in French. In addition to remarks from our training manager Tondi, the Peace Corps Country Director Valerie Staats, and the Niger Deputy Ambassador (I think that’s the official title), three new PCVs (including myself) gave speeches. First my stage mate Alison gave a speech in Hausa, my friend Dan followed in Zarma, and I finished with French.

I have to give props to my stage mates Eric and Nora who both speak much more eloquent French than I do for their help. I was really nervous about my accent before hand, but I think it turned out ok! I’m posting the French speech I gave and a quick translation in English incase you’re curious.

After the speeches, Nigerien national TV interviewed me! They asked how I was feeling and I told them that I could not be happier to officially be a volunteer and start working in Niger. They also asked if training had been difficult at all and I told them that of course, moving to a new country, learning a new language and adapting to a new culture were difficult but that my stage mates and I had incredible support from both the Peace Corps staff and our friends and family both in the United States and Niger.

The Kasua (Market)

Shopping in Niger is really fun. It can also be stressful. Luckily, I’m becoming a decent bargainer (I think).

Most medium to large sized towns in Niger have a market day. This is one day a week where people come from the surrounding areas to sell everything from flip-flops to coconuts. From the markets I’ve seen, it seems like they are generally divided into a couple different sections: a meat section (do not recommend for delicate stomachs), a live animal section, a clothing/fabric section, a vegetable section (mostly hot peppers, tomatoes, onions, and garlic), and a “stuff” section.

The “stuff” section is pretty entertaining. In addition to all types of pirated Gucci and Armani, you can find soccer jerseys for all European teams, and soccer jerseys for team Obama.

In Nigerien markets you can buy a complete soccer uniform (in pretty much any color) that says OBAMA both on the front and the back. You can also buy Obama flip-flops, belts, hats, flashlights and my favorite: Obama boxers. Regular t-shirts with Obama (alone and/or with his wife and children) are also everywhere; as are t-shirts with Avril Lavigne and Cristina Aguilera circa 2005.

Christmas

Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy (really belated) Hanukkah!

I spent Christmas in a very similar way to how I spent Thanksgiving: at the Peace Corps site with my stage eating delicious food! To be perfectly honest, Christmas was a little rough. Perhaps because I had experienced no issues celebrating Christmas away from my family in Ghana three years ago, and Thanksgiving was uneventful, I sort of expected to have no trouble with being away for Christmas this year…

Unfortunately, most of the day I found myself thinking about what everyone back at home was doing. Things like Daniela performing Sugar Plum in the Nutcracker, and my dad reading The Gift of the Magi by the fireplace. A combination of inclement weather in London and general slowness in the Niamey Post Office prevented my group from receiving any mail the entire two weeks leading up to Christmas, which only added to the homesick and distant feeling.

Although I was a little down most of the day, I went to bed in great spirits. The stars on Christmas night were incredible! I’m pretty sure I counted seven shooting stars. This is one of my favorite things about Niger. No matter how my day goes, I can always count on seeing an incredible star show at night and this always helps remind me of how happy I am to be here.

Scarification

You may have noticed in some of the pictures on this blog and on my facebook some unusual markings on the faces of many of my Nigerien friends.

A traditional practice in many parts of Niger is to engrave markings on your face. These scars are done at a child’s naming ceremony, which occurs a week after a baby is born. Different areas in Niger mark people in different ways. For example, Hausa people from the Dogondouttci area often have two long marks across each cheek, beginning at the end of your lips and extending all the way to your ears. Many Zarma women form the Tilaberri region have a small vertical line on each cheek.

The way the practice has been described to me, scarification is an ancient tradition that began as a way to ensure that warriors, who often traveled far from their homes, would always be able to identify people from their area and find their way back no matter how far away they were.

The scars are really beautiful. When I first heard about this practice I thought it seemed like an unnecessary practice, but it’s really no different than tattoos or piercings in the U.S.

*Author’s note—due to my slow internet connection, I am unable to post pictures of these scars but stay tuned...  

iPoop

Author’s Disclaimer—this blog post is about poop. I do not advise reading while eating.

Peace Corps Volunteers talk a lot about poop. It can change from morning to afternoon here, and it’s a very clear indicator of the status of your health. Also, it happens to be in your face a lot.

Animal poop is everywhere on the street and your home because people live in very close proximity to them. People poop is also everywhere. Outside cities, there is little running water in Niger, and any relatively secluded area is a perfectly acceptable restroom.

Sometimes there are more official looking restrooms. On my bus trip back from Maradi after language emersion, I got up the courage to use one of the public rest stop bathrooms. Imagine a line of Port-a-Poties at the end of big concert. They’re heavily used and they smell bad, lots of questionable water/mud on the ground, no toilet paper left. Now imagine that when you walk into said port-a-potty, instead of the actual seat that you sit on, there’s just a whole in the ground, about seven inches in diameter. The whole is only about six inches deep and at an angle so whatever goes down is going to flow to some undisclosed area.

I entered the above-described latrine in a haze, having woken up from Benadryl-assisted sleep. The smell and general appearance of the latrine woke me up a little more, as I realized maneuvering this situation might take some thought. I started to pull down my pants and PLOOP! …That would be the sound of my iTouch, not my poop, falling into the latrine.

Now before you go ahead and judge me I want to remind you of the numerous times you’ve heard someone say, “My cell phone is amazing! I dropped it in the toilet and it STILL WORKS!”. Well, my iTouch is not so amazing because it did not survive the latrine fall, but I think it was worth the risk.

All this to say, I am now iPod-less. My iTouch is now on its way back to the U.S. for repair. I’ll keep you posted on Apple Support’s professional assessment.

Kokoa (Nigerien Wrestling!)

It turns out wrestling is really popular in Niger. I got a first taste of what Nigerien wrestling is like over language immersion. I walked through sandy fields to a neighboring town and promptly found myself part of a group of probably one hundred or so people circled around two young men, decked out in fake Armani jeans and Arsenal FC shirts, grabbing at each other’s arms and legs. Two other men stood on the sidelines: one man with a winter coat (it was probably 85ºF out—this is “cold” in Niger) was acting as the referee, and one man circling the crowd, pounding on a drum and making sure the kids stayed far enough away from the fighters.

This I learned was amateur kokoa-ing, which is popular in rural villages. The National Wresting Tournament occurred a few weeks later. The day after Christmas, while walking through the large open market in Niamey, my attempts to bargain were often interrupted by sudden outbursts of screaming men who were crowded around radios listening to the fights. The same night, I watched the final match on my neighbor’s TV. The wrestlers look like they’re a weight class under sumo wrestlers, and wear similar diaper looking bottoms. 

The kids all went crazy when the National Champion was finally announced. A large looking man from the Maradi region was paraded around the sandy arena on a horse and soon after received a check for 7 million CFA (around $14,000) and a car. Hadija, my host sister, remarked that he would now have many marriage proposals, so I should get in line.

Language Immersion

In order to speed up our language learning, Peace Corps Niger incorporates a two-week language immersion trip into volunteer training. I traveled to a small village in the eastern region of Maradi with five other trainees and two language trainers to immerse myself in Hausa.

It was certainly a learning experience. The idea of language immersion was not at all foreign to me. Between 1999-2001 I lived in Malaga, Spain with my family while my dad directed a study abroad program for Dickinson College students who wanted to learn Spanish. While in Malaga I saw three years of college students come in with almost no Spanish and leave communicating easily.

Perhaps because I had already seen the results of being completely immersed in a language, I went into the immersion with the intention of speaking absolutely no English and trying my best to communicate only in Hausa.

In reality, it is very difficult to communicate in a language you’ve only been learning for a month and a half. It is even more difficult to try and communicate in said language with people who speak your mother tongue fluently. These setbacks were very frustrating, but I did end the two weeks with a better understanding of Hausa, life in a rural village in Niger, and also my stage-mates!

My favorite part of language immersion was definitely the host family we stayed with. Esta, my five-year-old host sister, is probably the cutest child I have ever seen. During my free time, I taught Esta and her brother Jacob how to sing heads-shoulders-knees-and-toes. One evening, after a particularly frustrating language-learning day, I took my iPod and twirled Esta around to Frank Sinatra’s “Just the Way You Look Tonight”.  This quickly led to a large dance party of Nigerien children and American Peace Corps Trainees moving around to Lady Gaga and the Cupid Shuffle. It was amazing.

Overall, I left language immersion with less confidence in my Hausa speaking skills than I had hoped, but certainly more confident in my ability to live in a rural village on my own. All’s well that ends well J.