Brief Moments

I would like to preface this blog by saying that, as you all know I am not that good of a writer and that so much happens here it is kind of hard to put it all in words, This blog is a combination of current feelings and input as well as past journal entries over a months time..thanks for taking the time to read it. Love you all!


When People told me that this was going to be one of the hardest things that I’ve ever had to do, or will ever do for that matter, I had some trouble believing them, and up until now, this experience has come so naturally and I’ve enjoyed it so much, that it didn’t seem very hard at all. Don’t get me wrong, there have been definitly days, usually accompanied by sickness, where I would have given anything to be home in America. Once physically well however, those feelings quickly reverse and I begin loving it once again. In the past month, as a result of a security issue in the Northern region of Niger, 4 of my best friends from my team in Maradi, including my best friend Anna, decided that it would be better for themselves and their families, if they returned home to America. I support each of their decisions as them all, 4 woman, lived in bigger villages and faced what I would describe as a higher safety risk than me, being a man who lives in a rural village where I feel no security threat whatsoever. I feel safe here, very safe, but loosing these four individuals kind of left me with a whole in my heart, I have known and bonded with them in this very un-normal situation that is Niger, very, very fast over the past 6 months. (Having initially journaled about this when it was happening to me, I would just like to say now, that two weeks has gone by since they left, and life in my village is getting back to normal, I have re-connected with other friends from my training group who have been really, really supportive and great, however I will always miss Anna, Cariad, Katie, and Liz!!!) So now out of 10 people on my team from my training group, we are now 4, we lost two others before the security incident. From about 130 Nigerien volunteers we are now 77 in country. Life here is not easy, the days are long, sometimes the minutes pass by so slowly I feel like I’m going insane, my mind is therefore free to wander, so when they left I started thinking about all the things here that I really don’t like and it started to take its toll on my brain. I struggled for a while with my decision to stay or go, and I started journaling about my decision. What it came down to was that this is my service, and I really don’t know how them leaving will effect my service, I spend about 26 days every month in my ville, and 4 days with these people (usually with a weekend trip in between to see a fellow volunteer in their village). So really the majority of my time is with my villagers, which are who, I came here to be with. If I become miserable, which I don’t see happening, I can always choose to come home, As I said before life here is not easy, some days I find myself counting down the days until I get to leave this place, and other days I think about projects that I would love to start that would take a lifetime of commitment to carry out and see to the end and I think that I could do that, that I could live my life out in Niger forever. Part of my current frustrations come from a lack of work to do, I have now spent nearly three months in my village, and am awaiting our second training which has now been pushed back until the end of January. I have small projects, like a tree farm, and garden that I am working on with some of my best friends in my village, but the bigger projects the ones I am going to look to all of you to fund :-), will come after this second training. I will learn, with a counterpart from my village who’s name is Idrissa, how to go about writing proposals, looking for money, and getting the community involved in helping with these projects. However frustrated I am though, these three months have been so incredibly invaluable. I learn something new every day, whether it’s a new word in Hausa, a new phrase, a new project idea, I learn something new about life in Niger. Some of the biggest things I’ve had to learn is that this place works nothing like America, for instance I am working on a charcoal project which I needed a 55 gallon drum for, of which there are plenty in Niger that they use to carry water with, but I just couldn’t get my hands on one for a month, In America I would of gotten in my car, driven to home depot and picked one up, here I had to wait to stumble in to a random conversation with a guy on the street who knew some 55gallon drum guy. On the same lines, we have a saying, if you see it, and you think you want it, buy it. This is because it may not be there again the next time you want it. I also had a list of project ideas that I wanted to do in my village, and over the last three months, most of those ideas have been erased from the list, mainly because stuff that I saw as a problem in Niger, isn’t a problem to Nigeriens, and therefore, I started listening and trying to address what they see as issues in their community and take my interests and combine the two to come up with a new list of projects that I want see through. So now that I have learned to walk, I’m very excited to get to run with my ideas at our next training. So I take it a day at a time here, slowly, cause life here is slow and uneventful most of the time. But the times that its not, the times where you really connect with your friend over tea, you watch as your neighbor sacrifices 6 goats on a religious holiday, then you walk around the next morning from house to house eating meat(from which I surprisingly didn’t get sick), it’s the random morning you wake up and are taken to an open field where traditional wrestling and your village comes to a standstill for the event, it’s the ideas that your friend has to better your community and how much he enjoys someone listening and responding to those ideas. It will be a compilation of these brief moments that I will look back on and say…it was hard, but it was worth it. Thanks Again - Ousmane

Bump in the Road

Good Morning

The daily life in Niger over November caused the Peace Corp to gather all of the volunteers in their designated hostels. Twenty six folks spent 10 days together waiting for the government to decide the future role of the PC in Niger. Will assumed his role as "event manager" and organized food and fun for all. His funniest story was of a "Survivor" game complete with mud pit. For Thanksgiving they paid some locals to shoot 3 turkeys. Will said they were the smallest turkeys he had every seen, but roasted with a glaze sauce the crew thought they were delicious. The crew pooled their boxes from home and from the local grocery and seemed to come up with almost all of the traditional trimmings.

The officials of the Peace Corp, after much deliberation , said the volunteers may return to their villages. At this point, the volunteers also had the option of returning home. Many of the volunteers decided to return home and that loss of friends and support was a terrible blow for Will. We think he could rationalize why they left, but he will miss them and his current decision is to stay. He has taken steps to research the current climate in Niger, spoken with all of the right folks to get the data and his plan is a day at a time. He has good goals for his role in the village and his role with the PC in Niger and would like to be able to see them through.

So please do not stop sending cards, letters, calling. Let us know if you need the Stanacard number. If you are in Dallas over the holidays, come visit...

The Parents

At Home in Niger

New Friends and Neighbors

1. Members from the group that drink tea together every afternoon

2. One of Will's soccer team members

3. A good friend...and his most helpful "pet".

Pictures Came in Today

1. Shower

2. Sleeping Quarters with shade structure

3. Wall of Support

He is just Fine

Will with 2 members of the Peace Corp Team at the Swearing In Ceremony. (Picture sent by other Peace Corp Parent).

The Parents

The Sky is Worth Two Years

This has been an experience like I never could have imagined, I tried not to give myself ideas about what it would be like before I came here, so as not to disappoint myself whenever I was to see what I was given. I have found that even the small things I thought about don’t even live up to what it is actually like here. I am starting writing this particular post 18 days after living in my village. I have set up somewhat of a routine in my day to day life, but everyday seems to end up different than the last. I do some essential things each day, teeth brushing, twice daily…my mom would be proud to finally hear that, it took coming to Africa to make that a habit…I sweep out my house each morning, if I don’t than the dust and sand gets to be unbearable. I read a couple of thought for the Day books that I have, and write something, anything in chalk, on my mud brick walls, to which I have also tacked up pictures and letters from friends and family, always reminding me of the support I have from you all back home. I take some vitamin supplements as lack of dietary nutrition is very prevalent here in Niger. I run or take bush walks three or four times a week and the other days I do some exercises in my hut, which is also like a sauna so that’s working out nicely. There is a shago(store), and by store I mean a guy with a table…who sells coffee with milk in the morning for about the equivalent of 15 cents, its delicious, and I start my mornings off with him, his name is Mamman, and we talk about anything from religion, to why we only have one wife in America, my favorite answer is, more wives…more problems…anywho…I spend the mornings wondering around…having different talks with different people, I eat some street food, which is really unexplainable so I wont try..I play soccer with the kids around my house from 11-12…I eat lunch, nap, read, and listen to music in my hammock from 12-2 when its ridiculously hot…at 2 I come out of my house to have tea with my Fada (mens group) which has included such topics of discussion thus far as how to get from here to America, the concept that you fly over water is really unimaginable to them, and I try my best to explain…something really cool about Nigeriens is that they are totally at peace with just sitting in silence, which is something we don’t ever do in America and I am learning to become more comfortable in it here. So we talk, I read, we drink tea for a couple of hours, I run or practice my guitar before Dinner, which I was cooking myself until my gas ran out, then it was back to street food….I shower each night as kind of a cool down…although its getting to be cold season, so sometimes I get more than I bargained for…oh and by shower I mean I use a cup to take water out of a bucket and pour it on myself. Although I bucket bath everyday…I am never clean here…the dirt kind of embeds into your skin, sometimes I’ll start rubbing my skin and the dirt will peel off of me. I gave up on the thought of ever being truly clean out in the bush, I didn’t shave for the month and my beard came in as patchy as ever. When I got into the city yesterday I took a shower and had a shave, its an amazing feeling. So I live in a village of about 3000-3500 hundred people in East Niger, Every one of them know my name, there are two schools, a Koranic school, a small hospital(a stretch for the word hospital), and a mayor’s office, all of these buildings are wired with lights and fans but there is no electricity to power them, oh Africa. Thursday is market day where people come from the bush to my village, Thursdays are fun cause usually a neighboring volunteer comes in and we get to drink cold drinks brought down from a neighboring village that has electricity, which means ice, woohoo. The people in my village are nice, for the most part, there are exceptions, those who talk at you instead of to you and I just stay clear of them as I would in America, but I know that there are some that I will remember forever after this is done. There is a lot of kokari(effort) in my village, a lot of people who are looking to better their community, and whom I look forward to working with in the future. The days pass slowly, but the months have gone by so quickly. I have days where I am on the edge of giving up and going home, the boredom, lack of mental stimulation gets to me a lot. Then there are the days where I have experiences that make me think I could stay forever. My family has kept in great contact, whether its more for their benefit or mine, I am not quite sure but I know that I love that they do, that they want to share in this with me is so incredibly awesome and I want them to know that I love them very much, and thanks again. Thanks also to those of my friends who have called to…and those who haven’t, I love you too anyways. When I lay down to sleep on my cot, underneath my mosquito net, I have this amazing feeling wash over me as I stare out into this GIGANTIC sky full of stars that is most amazing…The sky Is worth two years.

So Now what???: so I am now free to move within the Maradi Region of East Niger, visit other volunteers, see what projects are being worked on and after two months the people I arrived here with will have a second training where we will learn about how to apply for money for projects that we want to do in our perspective villages...I will probably be in and out of this city about every month or so, maybe more depening on whats going on, we are celelbrating thanksgiving on the 21st of november so that we can all be in our villages for a local celebration called Tabaski, which is just like a huge BBQ...so i will post a new blog around then...Then we have a new group of volunteers who landed here on the twentieth of october who will do their Live in on the fourth of December, and on the third we will say goodbye to some really cool volunteers who are ending thier time here in Niger, one of whom is going to come to dallas, and I expect you all to take her out and show her a good time...more info soon to come on that...Then I will be back in for christmas and New years to do it up right in Niger. So thats kind of when you can expect some more updadtes...I am usually in a village with phone reception on sundays and really enjoy hearing from you guys. Thanks so much for all the interest and support.


So some specific things that have crossed my mind over the past thirty days….

My dear friends Alexa and Rebekah wrote a book about their travels through spain go here.. http://www.authorhouse.com/Bookstore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=63147 ..and buy it.

Congrats Ivy and Rebecca on your soon to be new addition to your family...Cant wait to come back to the new one year old!!! Congrats Grandma Aunt Ann :)

I have read a lot of books over this past month

Drish: Perks of being a wallflower..awesome..I’m planning on reading it twice more.

Ater: Confederacy of Dunces …hilarious..South Paw references galore

Anyone: The Ugly American..just read it

Dominic..you called from kazachstan…WTF??? And Happy Birthday

Jamal…congrats again on your house and starting your job..thats awesome..decorate my room so I have a place to stay when I come home.

LOVE YOU GUYS!!

Sincerly,

Ousmane

Will - On Line This Weekend

Will's first 30 days on the post are completed this weekend. This gives him flexibility to travel to more metropolitan areas. His plan is to be on line by Friday of this week and to post his own thoughts to his own blog. Stay tuned. Meanwhile he is remarkably integrated into his community. Reports his trees are growing but he has had to drape the mosquito netting over the trees to keep the lizards from devouring the leaves. This is the season to try to plant a garden so he has picked up the droppings from the animals on his plantation and is working the soil in an attempt to produce some sort of a crop. He has just finished reading "The Ugly American" and is deep in thought trying to figure something that could improve the standard of living for his community. He has his Dad reading about how to make charcoal from refuse in his village. Evidently most folks cook using charcoal and if his village people could produce the charcoal they could sell it and not have to depend on the rain ( that seldom comes ) for their lively hood. Because his role is to be neutral he does not have much to say about the election except that everyone came to his city to vote and then one man stood outside with the total vote written on a piece of paper for someone to come by and pick up.

Meanwhile Will reports letters (94 cents/letter or card ) and calls from the States keep him in balance....he thanks you and we thank you very much.

The Parents

The Drum Beats Slowly

Will shares the news from Niger. It is election time across Niger. His role is to encourage his village people to get out and vote, but his political stance is neutral. His village will elect a new mayor, Niger may elect a new president. There is unrest in many of the large cities. We must hope for a peaceful election process.

It is winter in Niger and Will reports the noon time heat is not nearly as oppressive and that the evenings and early mornings are glorious. Evidently the night skies in Niger are outstanding. He reports he has learned to cook using the coleman type burner this past week, but then his burner broke and he will not be able to replace it until the end of the month when he will journey to Maradi. Meanwhile he dines on the "meat on the street".

His accomplishments thus far include: running a hand washing education program for the children where after they demonstrated correct hand washing each child got soap and candy; establishing the jogging track for himself and the neighborhood children who along with their parents and grandparents are amazed to see a big white guy run; and being successful in having the children ask politely if it is time for a soccer game, using the 3 balls that Will has in his house.

His 30 days in the village ends at the end of the month and he promises he will journey to the city and post a big blog of his own. Meanwhile he wraps his arms around all of you and appreciates so very much your good wishes and prayers for the people of Niger, which includes him.



The Parents

Will has been "at home" - 1 Week

Good Evening
Will got up this morning and walked to the road, waited 3 hours for the bush taxi and rode to Mayhai(our spelling is not right) where he could share the day with his friend Anna and have good phone reception. He sounds very well, but very aware that the days ahead of him hold totally new adventures. This is what he shared.

He is living on a big rectangle of land. On one side of the rectangle lives the landowner, the middle part is for the goats and he lives on the other third. He reports his house is in direct sun and he goes back and forth about windows or simply adding another door. His project this week was to construct a shade structure. He reports he enlisted two of the villagers to help him. The structure is of cement bags, poles and cloth. Evidently the villagers are proud of the addition to the house, Will reports it still needs some adjustments. His big purchase this week is a "jar or pot" that holds his water and keeps it cool for the day. He reports this is a huge improvement from the warm water that he imagined. He reports his day runs like this. He wakes up and visits the "man on the street" for a bean or yogurt breakfast and then from 9-12 he plans on being with the mayor of the village and will take many of his assignments from him. Then from 12:00 until 2:00 everyone has lunch and naps. Then at 4:00 he reports all of the men of the village gather to chat it up, discussing the issues of the day. Dinner follows and he reports he has started jogging and then at 8:30 he freaks a bit as there is not a whole lot more to do other than to go to bed. Stupid us we thought about reading or writing or teaching games to the villagers but the bugs come out with the lights, so the evenings are pretty quiet for the big guy. His mission for the next 3 months at least is to simply integrate himself into the village and to determine the needs of the villagers. He was adamant today that electricity was the answer and he had the plan to bring it forward tomorrow, however reality struck and he knows that change will be slow and that he must be patient.

He speaks strongly of the community of Peace Corp Volunteers that journeyed with him to Niger, but requests that we send his best, and his love and his laugh to each of you.

The Parents



PS: The pictures are not here yet. We will post them as soon as they arrive.

Finnally it Has Arrived!!

So this is is the First time i have had both time and access to a real computer that has fast enough connection to support me blogging!!! Where shoud I begin...I have been here for almost 11 weeks now and I have enjoyed every minute of it...even those moments of "what the hell am I doing in this Country?"...This blog post will most likely be an un-coherent list of all the random ideas that come into my head that I think you should know about...I'll try to organize it as much as possible.

We'll start with the trainees: Wow..these are obviously some of the most selfless, caring people you'll ever meet and we all melded together so fast it seams unreal. I couln't have asked for a better group of people with whom to share these experiences. Together we will support eachother through what will probably be the hardest/yet most rewarding two years of our lives.

The Nigerien Pre service training staff: Oh my god...you have never met a better organization than these people...from the maintainance staff to the Director(Tondi) they are all the most friendly and loving people you will ever meet. I'm not sure why I was suprised to see that it was Nigeriens who taught us about Nigieren cutural traditions and Nigieren Language...but I was..and it makes such perfect sense to have it be this way. The training staff conists of very well educated Nigerins who have such pride in their country that they want to help us help their country. It truly is a beautiful thing...because anyone of them could be working anywhere and they want to work with us.

Nigierns: I was to before i arrived hear that Nigierns were some of the nicest people on earth...and they are right..not only will they open their arms to you, a complete stranger, but they will feed you, cloth you, provide you with shelter...In addition to being the nicest people on earth they also happen to be the most positive. Niger is the hottest, and one of the poorest countries in the world, they have harsh weather, and poor food availabitlity and still with all these things working against them, they remain positve each day. You are required to greet each Nigerien you come in contact with..there are 4 main greetings depending on the time of day and a multitude of additional greetings available if you want to use them...and each response given is given in a positive light...for example..you ask each person how their tiredness is..and even if they just got back from a day of back breaking farming they will answer...i have no tiredness. It is this positivity that keeps Niger going!

So for 9 weeks i lived with a family...The Salou's...the Father was a farmer and a chair maker..he and his wife have probably 6 or 7 kids, four of which live in the house along with three grandchildren...I was named Ousmane after the 14 year old grandchild who was kind of appointed to me as my guide in Hamdallye, The city where we lived and trained. A typical day during training consisted of awaking to the sound of the donkey who lived right outside my 4 ft wall at about 330..then the rooster at sunrise along with the call of prayer...everyother day I would start out with a bucket bath which is literally a bucket of water that you take water from with a cup and pour it on yourself...its not half bad and a real water saver...my roommate and i would then go get breakfast which for me was a cup of instant coffee...a bag of yogurt and some sort of fried millet or flour (really hard to describe the food here)..we had cross culutre or language training from 830-12, lunch from 12-1, more training till 5 and then free time. Free time ranges from Tea Time...Hammock Time...COld soda time...cookie time...scrabble time...spades time...friends chilling time...washing underwear in a bucket time...volleyball time..book time...etc.

The first time i really realized I was in Africa i guess had to be when after a one week trial period in the village i will be living in for two years..it was time to come back to Maradi which is the regional capial...I was in my town..which i'll blog about after my first month living there...and I was waiting at 6 am for a bush taxi..which in my town is a 1950's chevy truck with the bed chopped off and a huge rack box put on the tail...I watched as they filled the back with bags of grain...and tied 40+ buckets to the side the truck...then people started climbing on and i thought to myself...oh i guess im taking the next one...just then i was signaled to bring me and my stuff over...they through my bag over the side rail and i climbed up to the top and through my legs over the side squished in with 20+ people...as we headed out on the dirt road for four hours we passed small village after village and as the bruises began to develp on my but...i realized..."holy shit,im in Niger"


My hands hurt so im going to go now - pictures should be coming shortly..as i sent a sim card home to mom and dad - i will add another post after the first month in my village...should be back around Halloween!!!!!

Lov to you All - Ousmane

Keep Will at the Top of Your List

Will has left his host family. He promises pictures soon and reports his host family was outstanding. They have all moved this week into the Peace Corp Training Camp. Tomorrow he will test for his language proficiency, Hausa. This is an oral test where a villager comes in and converses with the Peace Corp Volunteer (aka Will ) and another professional Hausa speaker judges Will's proficiency. It is so important that he is proficient as he will be by himself in his village. After the proficiency test comes the parties. The big party, Thursday is at the Ambassador's house in Niger with all of the trainers and the regional directors and the Niger government folks. Will reports the ambassador's house rivals any we have seen in Highland Park. He sounds wonderful and well integrated into the Niger community-they all have African outfits for the swearing in on Thursday. It is interesting as after the swearing in his ten fellow volunteers will climb on a truck on Friday and journey to Maradi where each of them will be dropped off in thier community with a smaller party at each stop. Let the parties begin and let our thoughts be with Will this week!

Warmest regards and many thanks -

The Parents

The Man has a Home

Spoke with Will this afternoon. He is back in training camp following a week "live in" at his post (aka: home for 2 years). His town which is directly north of Maradi ( the financial capitol of Niger) has 7,000 people. He reports neighboring towns have running water and electricity and perhaps the good stuff will reach his town during his tenure but for the current time he will live like the rest of the citizens, without! He remarks that a non profit built the new city municipal building with ceiling fans and water facets...but they remain just for show. The town has 2 schools and a small hospital which is evidently typical for the larger towns. There is a market every Thursday where he can hopefully pick up some grain and fruit and a little meat. There are 10 people from Will's group that are living near by, one close enough for him to visit every Sunday. This friend will have access to good phone reception and poor Internet access so the plan is that we will hear from him each Sunday. He states he will stay over at the different post on Sunday night and on Monday he will do a radio show with the other volunteer on municipal issues and educational issues, all in Hausa.
He does not have a clear picture at this time of what exactly he will be doing. The plan is to live in the town for a month or two and learn the needs. He spoke with us today about starting a recycling program for the plastic. In a nearby city there is a plant that turns the plastic into bricks for building. He states his living quarters are a bit primitive, and that he has great plans for remodeling, talks of adding a window and building an oven to cook pizza! He sounds amazingly at home. Had us laughing over his trip on the back of a bush taxi to the city to catch the bus back to training camp. We know he had some Internet access this week and sent greetings to as many of you as he could. He said the connection was archaic! He states one more week of education at the training camp. And then a week of parties.....We would imagine by the 14th of September he will be in his new home.

Thanks for being Will's friends -

The Parents

Will's Class of Peace Corp Volunteers

Thirty two volunteers in his group-one married couple. They have been together for 5 weeks in the training camp outside of Niamey the capitol. Will stays with a family each evening in the near village where he sleeps out under his mosquito netting, showers with a bucket and poops without a toilet. His language training is Hausa. The training is quite intense as in mid September each volunteer will be on their own. He sounds remarkably at home in the country at this early stage in his adventure. His post is about 10 hours from the training camp. Email us jwsmith6018@tx.rr.com if you need his new address. His accomodations will not include electricity or running water. He tells us less than 5 miles from his post he will have access to internet and plans on visiting his fellow volunteer there weekly. He has a cell phone so ring us if you want his number and access to the most economical phone card.

Our hope is that each of you is doing as well as Will is in Niger!

The Parents

You Are the Best!

Each of you played a huge role in Will's readiness for Niger! You should have no doubt that Will values you both as individuals and more importantly as friends. John and I miss your presence in our backyard or in front of our finally big screen TV. Drop by anytime. There are always beverages in the garage refrigerator and we will cook if we know you are coming.

The Parents

The Begining

I will be serving as a Municipal and Community Development Volunteer for 27 months. My service will begin with 3 months of intensive language and culutral integration during which I will have limited connectivity to the outside world. I will definitly journal during these three months and try to write a concise synopsis of my experience as I am given access to the interweb.