Hot and Hungry, Here Comes the Real Niger

Hi Friends, Sorry its been a while, but life has actually been really busy lately, per usual this will be a very unorganized blog post full of random thoughts and experiences ive had over the past couple months. For starters, i feel very much like a real Peace Corps volunteer now after completeing in service training. In a few short days I will have been here 9 months, and to me that is utterly astonishing, considering how slowly some of the days pass, the months fly by so damn fast. In a few short 3 months, we will be welcoming the new group of Education and Community Development volunteers to Niger, and saying goodbye to the people who welcomed us when we landed, which is so weird, i can vividly remember getting off the plane and meeting these people who had just completed their first year, and who will be soon leaving, i guess time flies when you're having "fun". So I guess i feel more like a real volunteer because I actually have work to do now. I have started working on several projects, and juggling just living in Niger, with now working in Niger has had its ups and downs. Integration is such a big part of the first few months in ville, and you would be suprised how much drinking tea and speaking Hausa all day with frineds in ville can really take up alot of time, along with taking alot out of you, to the point that its totally feasable for me to go to bed at 830 or 9 and sleep till 7...coupling this with work has been hard, but very good and rewarding as well. I have been working on a charcoal project, where I am burning millet(local grain) stalks and carbonizing them and making briquettes, which will/should end up becoming a small business enterprise in villages all over the country (I have more information and pictures on my facebook)...In addition I have also just submitted a proposal for a latrine for the primary school which serves 500 children and is without a proper restroom or water resource to wash their hands...the last thing i am working on is prepping a small business club that I want to start after the next rainy season ends, so farmers can have time to participate, I am currently working on translating teaching materials from english to Hausa. I have also done a few smaller projects like painting large maps of africa in the primary school which has no real resources for their students. Now me being extremely artistically challenged, I recruited the help of my closest neighbor Lachland, who is a fantastic artist, and they turned out awesome. So thats an update on my current life workings in Niger, now lets get to the heart of the reason for the title.

Hot season is a coming, now we have been "fortunate" for the past couple of weeks because huge wind storms have kicked up so much dust and sand that it has blocked out the sun, and kept it a little cooler. Now the reason I put the word fortunate in quotes is because, as a result of the sand and dust everyone is facing upper respitory illnesses, my throat and mouth are consistently, and i mean consistently dry. but everyone says that its coming and to tell you the truth i am not at all looking forward to it. I asked my best friend in my village what people do in the hot season in Niger, and his response was, look for a place with shade, sweep place with shade, sit in swept, shaded place. So that it'll be my days for the next couple of months, with a 2 or 3 week vacation thrown somewhere in the middle, hopefully i'll get out during the hottest part :-)...but we'll see.

I would have to say that before I came here, i had this preconcieved image that popped into my head when the word poverty was spoken, someone said poverty, and i guess i thought sadness, bad life, depressing. And i have to say that, living in the most impoverished country on earth, its nothing like what I imagined, I would be hard pressed to find much depressing and bad life about Niger. The people, for the most part are some of the happiest and kindest and sweetest people i've ever met, and i would say that the average Nigerien is alot happier with their lives as a whole than the average america. Impoverished just means different, they dont for the most part have electricity, they use the sun and the moon, and the occasional flash light when the moons not bright enough. They dont have air conditioning or fans, they use the wind and water, the way they utilize the wind in their everyday lives is amazing. I definitly as an american took for granted many of the luxuries, not neccesities, that I was given access to. Life here is quaint, and slow, and beautiful and I dont ever feel without here, I know that when I eventually come back home, there will be things i totally forgot about, that i trully dont miss. Now this being said, life here is no picinic when the rain doesnt come. Last farming season (basically when we got off the plane) there was very sparse and in adequate rains that have led to the nearly 7.5 million people who will go hungry in Niger this hunger season which is fast approaching. This year is said to be the worst since 2006. However, the government, and Aid organizations are planning in advance this year and it is said that they will be able to at least lessen the effect. But my friends here have already started skipping meals, and looking for alternative food sources like leaves, and roots that will supplement their diets. It is a very eye-opening experience, and for someone who has been taught to give to others his entire life by his amazing parents, who lead by example, it is extremely difficult to sit back and watch, when my stipend is enough to feed my entire village for a week or even more. But we are discouraged heavily against doing that for many important and obvious reasons. I have found ways to help ease my longing to help, by begining to eat more with my best friend Hashemu and his family, and I can chip in for money for sauce materials, and he supplies grain that he succesfully harvested last season, and the small amount of money i pay can provide sauce for the 14 people who live in his concession, and that makes me feel good, and its on the down low between me and him, he saves face and provides for his family, i get a meal, and good conversation, and good feeling's, for about the price of a quarter a day.

Take Care of Yourselves - Ousmane