At the beach

First, just a couple pictures of the place where I make batiks and the people there.




Tahan'ci and I went to the river with Abdul Azeez and Tahiru (two of my batik artisan friends) yesterday afternoon. The experience was blogworthy. We didn't really know what to expect. The big Niger river cuts through several countries in West Africa, and it cuts through our city here. We had heard of people washing clothes in the river, but mostly, our experience of it had been driving over it in taxis. Other Americans have gone to swim in it without picking up any crazy diseases, so when they asked me if I wanted to go, I agreed. I had been expecting to see just a few people along the river and in the water. Instead, as we took the 10 cent canoe ride to the other side of the river, we came upon a packed beach. The 18-30-year-old bracket was out there in full force. We put down our mat next to some of Azeez's friends and set up the little teapot over some coals to make tea. Tea-drinking is a huge social activity here. A common cup is used, and everyone is poured a tiny little strong, super-sweet sip of tea each round. There are usually three rounds, each with a distinct flavor as the tea leaves lose their potency. Then, some of us went swiming, me in my ankle-length skirt and gray t-shirt, which seemed the safest option. It was striking, but not surprising, how practically everyone at the beach was young and male. Lets say a 250 to one ratio of guys to girls. Girls here are married before they are 20 much of the time, and before then, they are kept on a much, much shorter leash then their brothers. Men are often not married until they are around 27, and they wander the streets freely with their friends. One of the other BU students went swimming with her host-sisters, who live by the river, so I think that girls might just stay away from the big beach, with good reason (there are so many men.) There was one small group of girls who set up their mat nearby, but they were clearly not model daughters. They took off their head coverings and wore short skirts into the water and bras or tank-tops in the water. Tahan'ci and I didn't see that as permission to whip off our shirts.
The guys were having a fabulous, playful time in their big groups. A group was breakdancing in the sand and getting really dirty. A large mass of them were chanting songs and splashing in the water. Everyone was very happy to be cooled off. Tahiru washed his pants in the water. We talked about genies that grab people and pull them under water. We discussed the crocodiles and hippos, who stay away when there are lots of people in the river. We listened to very familiar songs from the Ivory Coast and Nigeria, and, of course, some Celine Dion (absurdly popular here.) Just like when Larai and I went to a wedding with about seven of my batik artist friends, it was so nice to get to hang out outside of the work context. All of us have made it clear (at various points earlier in the semester) that we're not interested in dating any of them, so now we are all on the same page about hanging out as friends.

Cikin daji

(The cooking area of the coutyard)



(Me with Mariama and Ramatu)




(Malam Moussa's kids. Saliafou stands in the foreground, while Mariama prepares for a photo by putting on her headscarf.)



(Hawa, the woman who comes to clean and pound millet for the family, displayed an interesting sense of modesty when she put on her scarf for the photo and then encouraged me to take pictures of her breastfeeding. Salu, Hanatu's son, gnaws on a slate next to her.)

20 April 2009
In the last month, I've had some good glimpses of the way most Nigeriens live. They are pretty far removed from the people who live here in the capital.
Yao da sati uku, na zamna tare da iyalina Nijer sati guda.
Three weeks ago, I stayed with a Nigerien family for a week. Each of us BU students chose a family from a list. Although they were all Nigerien, there was a huge socio-economic and cultural range. It included a wealthy employee of a uranium company, a family with children at school in the States, a local pastor's family, a middle-class conservative Muslim family, a family who works for the US Embassy, the family of the woman who cleans our building here, etc. I chose the family that was listed as the "most traditional," not exactly knowing what that meant. I stumbled into the right place. Malam Moussa had just returned from his pilgrimage to Mecca. He and his family live a bush-taxi ride away from our building, meaning that it is too far for normal city taxis. To get to class in the morning, I raced for a spot in one of the crowded minivan bushtaxis down the sand road from his house. In the afternoon, he'd pick me up on the back of his scooter. Fortunately, a lot of my classes were cancelled, so I was able to spend several days just with his family.
High mud walls inclose a small compound with two mud brick buildings. The buildings have dirt floors, and (most importantly) no fans, so pretty much all activity is out in the small sand lot inbetween them. There is a plastic trashcan full of water (when the daughters have made the trip to the pump), and that water is used for drinking, bathing, cooking, and washing the arms, feet and face before prayer five times a day. There's an outdoor latrine with a couple holes and a host of cockroaches. There's one lightbulb that shines on the outside lot at night, while Malam Moussa eats his dinner alone and writes in Arabic. This is really cool. He writes formulaic passages of the Koran in ink on a wooden tablet. Then, he washes the ink off into a vial. The used ink functions as a medicine, which he sells. During the day, he works in a chemistry lab, studying types of millet. When we got back in the evenings, he'd teach the Arabic script to me.
Malam Moussa has had 4 wives, and the divorce laws allow him to keep all of the children, so his compound is full of a mix of children. He now has only two wives, and one was at the hospital. He has chosen to keep his wives cloistered, which means that they are not usually allowed outside of the compound (the only rare exception being when they are accompanied by him to visit relatives, and, I guess, hospitalization). It was a thought-provoking situation to walk into. Every day, I hung out in the compound with Hanatu, who has been married to him since she was 15, and the children. It was fanastic for my Hausa, since none of them speak French. One of the other BU students gave me a Jenga set, so we played a lot of Jenga. Hanatu lounged around, cooked, and nursed her baby (so she was often topless.) Hawa, a poor widow, came by with her kids every day to run errands at the market (since Hanatu can't go outside), pound millet and corn, and sweep the sand. She is very outgoing. The kids go to a nearby thatch shelter in the morning to memorize the Koran. I went with them a couple times, and the teacher was never there, but I guess they do have class sometimes. I am so happy to have a Nigerien family. I took all the kids to the zoo the other day, and I am trying to go out there to visit once a week. It was a priviledge to have a rare glimpse of what life is like for one conservative Muslim family in Niger. The kids are a lot of fun.

*break in writing this post. Now it's 26 April

After a week of classes at our home base, we all went out to Konni, which is a six hour bus ride East towards the central south of Niger. It is only a few kilometers away from Nigeria. From Konni, we were split up into twos to head out to villages where Peace Corps volunteers are stationed. Larai and I stayed with a guy named Peter (Hausa name, Idirisa). He has been in Niger for almost two years, and his Hausa is fantastic. The people in the village were incredibly nice, kids were always in and out of Idirisa's compound, and everyone only spoke Hausa! Idirisa is in the medical sector of Peace Corps, so he works with the new village clinic and travels around to neighboring villages to do AIDS awareness campaigns, but mostly, he just visits people and hangs out. We visited the school, which has 30 boys and one girl in it (this is only a small percentage of the number of kids in the village.) We met with the chief and tried to pound millet with Idirisa's neighbors. Village women spend the bulk of their day preparing millet. Then, on the third day, I had a high fever and spent a day sleeping on a mat under Idirisa's thatch enclosure. At 4pm, we decided to go to Konni so that I could be tested for malaria. Normally, we would have walked for three hours to the road to catch a bush taxi, but instead, we hired three guys in the village to take us on the backs of their motorcycles. The motorcycles are funny, because they say "For on-road use only. Always wear a helmet. Read the direction manual before use." in big letters on them, but no one can read, and none of those instructions are carried out. I had already had experience riding on a motorcycle in deep sand with Malam Moussa. It is kind of scary, because there is a lot of slipping and sliding. Fortunately, there were only a few patches where the sand was not well-packed. It was fantastic! The heat of the day had passed, and we sped through huge expanses of dry land. We only got one flat, but conveniently, that happened in a village, so I got to lie down on a mat they spread out. Some things are absurd, and the mat which had the American flag and an eagle on it was one of those things. Once we got to the main road, we packed into a rusty bush taxi and rode to Konni in that for almost an hour, only stopping for the 7pm prayer. Then, we were back at Peace Corps headquarters to sleep under mosquito nets on matresses outside. The next day, Zaure (who also had a fever), Hadiza (our RA) and I spend the whole day traveling back to Niamey in a big public bus, catching a taxi to the clinic, getting tested for malaria, and sleeping. I didn't have malaria and the fever passed. Zaure had malaria, but she is better now. The whole experience helped me to understand how very isolated most of Niger is. Getting from one place to another is a huge process. Many people in the village have never made the treck and probably never will.

Have I mentioned that it has been absurdly hot here? Think 107-114 degrees with bright sunlight (so, "real feel" 117+). Fortunately, it has been down for the last week and a half with temperatures more like 103-107. I had my vigorous African dance class at 7pm a couple weeks ago (at the peak of the heat) when it had cooled off to an evening temperature of 103 degrees. We are no strangers to sweat here.

Photos!!!

Betoji, Lawali, Larai, Tahan'ci, and Naito on top of a van. We rode around like that when we went to Park W, a wildlife reserve. We saw some antelope, guinea fowl and elephant footprints. Highlight of the trip was actually an elaborate game of mafia at the tent site and a scorpion sighting.

We got really, really grimy just from the absurd amount of dust on the road.


These are some camel-sellers at the Sunday market outside Niamey.

This is a typical view of the landscape outside the city. There are stretches of empty sand with scattered housing compounds. This is a little village.

These are from our vacation in Burkina Faso. One of the most striking things about Burkina is how much green there was. They get rains twice a year instead of once, and it shows. We went to an African film festival in Ouagadougou (pronounced Wagadewgew). Some of the films were fantastic. The good ones we saw were "Teza" from Ethiopia, "Jerusalema" from South Africa, "Mascarades" from Algeria, and "L'Absense" from Guinea. They dealt with some pretty heavy issues. It was interesting to see many different parts of Africa on screen.



We explored a huge series of small waterfalls in Western Burkina. It was so, so much fun!

Larai and I outside one of our hotels in Burkina.

Playing Settlers of Catan after my mom sent it!

That's all for now. I don't really have any pictures of times when we're not on vacation. I'll try to get on that.

Mon horaire

FoFo, Tout la monde ! It has been a long time since I’ve updated, so I’m not really sure where to start. I think I’ll just give you a sense of what my schedule is like, so that you can have a general idea of what I’m doing. It’s almost time for me to go to bed, so I’ll keep the colorful anecdotes down.

Monday:
8:30-10:30am Go to the Notre Dame orphanage to teach beginning English to a class of 4th-5th graders at a school they run for the surrounding community. Usually, this involves trying to find a cab that will take us for 40 cents each over some sand roads. Sometimes, it includes getting a marriage proposal from the taxi driver (yes, more than once!), and it’s often complete with friendly Hausa conversation with the other passengers. The school is well-run. I often sit and observe Monsieur Sulé teach before I get up for my lesson. It’s amazing how quickly kids can soak up new vocabulary and figure out what’s going on when I only use English in the classroom. They are a lot of fun. All classes are taught in French, here, and the kids from the orphanage only know French. There is no Hausa or Zarma or Fulfuldai or Tamashek used; actually, French is the only language all the kids have in common. After teaching we (Yakawa and I, most days) often stop by the orphanage building to talk to the staff as they put together lunch or play with the toddlers. We spent an hour one day just sitting in the waiting room at the orphanage’s clinic, making small talk in Hausa (some French) with the mothers waiting for their babies to get vaccinated. One of them is going to have us over for lunch!

3-6:30pm. Ina tahin gidan kallo, saboda ina da aiki can. Ina yin zane-zane tare da Abdul Azeez.
Go to the musée to work on batiks with Abdul Azeez. Sit under a canopy on a dirt hill overlooking a crowd of houses, joke with the batik artisans, paint melted wax onto fabric, and listen to Celine Dion or Cote D’Ivoire music on someone’s cell phone. Afterwards, make my rounds to other artisan friends. Sit on the mat beside Jelou, the silver artisan, drink tea, and piece together Hausa sentences. Go to the woodcarving hut and talk about philosophy in French it Idi and Omar. Stop by to see Nanu, the leather guy with a great toothless smile.

7-8pm African Dance class!
A huge ensemble of dancers and musicians shows up every time. We dance in the courtyard, and people gather to watch.

Tuesday:
8-10am Hausa class (in Hausa/French) with Tahan’ci, Larai and our teacher, Issa. It is fabulous—Issa teaches Peace Corps volunteers, and he has just translated a Doctor Seuss book into Hausa! He bent over laughing for a full minute after Tahan’ci told him that she doesn’t want to get married until she’s twenty-nine.

2-4pm Introduction to International Development (in French) with a professor who used to be the Minister of Equipment for Niger. He is goofy and endearing. There are four of us in the class.

6:30-8:30pm Culture and Society of Niger class (in French) with Amina, who is a fantastic, Nigerien feminist. She talks about women’s issues a lot, but we’ve spent the last couple classes talking about possession ceremonies. We’ve been on a bunch of fieldtrips. I can’t believe this is school.


Wednesday:
8-10am Hausa class!

6:30-8:30pm More Intro to Development class. A couple times, we went to a local university to participate in their development class. Next week, we’re going to a conference with someone from the World Bank.


Thursday:
Like Tuesday—school, batiks, tea


Friday:
8-10am Performing Arts of Niger class (in French) with Yazi Dogo, the movie actor whose house I went to for lunch. He acts out a lot of things. Tahan’ci, who is only in First-Semester French, says that it’s like a big game of charades.

10:30-12:30 Hausa class!

4-6pm Culture and Society class again!

7pm Djembe (drumming) class with Oumarou, who was clearly born to drum


Saturday:
10am-afternoon. Batiks at the musée

5pm Teach English to Monsieur Sule, from the orphanage school.


Sunday:
Morning: Go to church (when we don’t have a “BU program activity”), and have lunch at the house of whomever brought us to church

6pm Teach an English class to a group of artisans to enable them to discuss their work and to negotiate prices with Anglophone tourists.


Of course, we rarely have a week that goes by this schedule. Life keeps us on our toes.



I don't know this guy's name, but he's a leather artisan who not only loves Obama (like everyone here) but shows it. The picture is too small to show, but the poster says, "Obama, President des Etats Unis. Les USA emerveillent (amaze/fascinate) la monde."

Gidan Yazi Dogo

Today, all of us split up to have lunch with Nigerien families. In a few weeks, we will be staying in Nigerien homes for a week, but this was a taste. Larai da na, mun zo gidan Yazi Dogo. Yazi is a famous artist here in Niger. He is a Hausa film actor, and he directs a theatre troupe, but he also seems to be the point person for just about any traditional artist. He comes to the CFCA (our home) a lot, because he teaches a course on the performing arts of Niger to the BU students. A few nights ago, Yazi brought the musicians who will teach our drumming classes to meet us. We each had a turn on the djembe, the kalangu, and the calabash. The djembe-kalangu guy is fantastic and incredibly goofy. He and Yazi make a pretty dynamic pair. The kalangu has a unique "doingy" sort of sound. The Nigerien kalangu is pretty small, and it fits tightly up against the armpit. That explains why it's known as the armpit drum. It has ropes on it that the player squeezes by lowering his arm. That changes the tone by tightening the drum's skin. The kalangu player demonstrated for us how the drum beats and tones have meanings which correspond with Hausa words. It was used to communicate over long distances. Yazi, who gave us our Nigerien names, explained to each of us the meaning. Mine is from the Kanori language. It means "Daughter of the Chief." Other meanings range from "Born when a pregnant woman is out in the bush, looking for a camel," "Born when the mother is looking for water in the desert," "Born on Friday," "Born at sunrise," "Light," "Patient," "Welcome" and "Shadow." Anyway, Yazi has a way of gathering interesting people together.

I didn't know what to expect of his house, but it was just right. It was very simple. His children and grandchildren live in adjoining rooms off a courtyard. We spent most of our time in the courtyard. Family members kept on passing through. He, his wife and their unmarried son appear to sleep in a room that doubles as a living room. It is off the courtyard as well. Madam Yazi Dogo started an NGO to teach women sewing and embroidery. Now, she runs a small business selling bags of water that they freeze in their freezer. Kids kept on coming in to buy ice bags. I'm sure business will pick up as it gets hotter. Word on the street is that it is 105 degrees today, but we've heard tell of temperatures of 136 degrees or even passing the thermometer's maximum of 140 when in the Sun. We'll take it as it comes. Yazi ended up showing us a short documentary that the Nigerien news channel made about him. Madam Yazi Dogo looked through the photos from home that we brought to show.

They told us that we should come back anytime, and I think that that is expected of us. We will visit for an afternoon here and there, and we will bring small gifts of food each time. I am looking forward to playing cards with Yazi's college-aged son. It is nice to have a Nigerien family. I hope that visiting people in their homes will allow me to make some female friends, especially. Many girls my age are busy keeping up their homes and having babies, so it has been a lot easier for us to find Nigerien men our age to talk to. The university is a bit of a trek away, but perhaps I can meet more people over there, too. Not every girl is married at 17.

To. Kala tonton. Next time, perhaps I will tell you about all the joking here. There is a lot of laughing and teasing among the Nigerien staff and teachers. I love that.

Les Langues

FoFo!
Sannu da zuwa. Yauwa, sannu dai. Ina kwana? Lafiya lo. Ina gagia? Babu gagia. Ina aiki? Aiki da godiya. Ina gida? Gida lafiya. Ina ciniki? Alhamdu lilahi. Ina saniyi? Aqwe saniyi. Me sunnanki? Sunnana Maduram. To, madella. To, kala tonton. Sai anjima.

Suddenly, the litany of greetings that we learned around a table in the library of the BU African Studies department have earned us huge smiles, shared laughter and a bunch of ridiculous situations.

Yesterday, we went to Le Musee. Niamey is not exactly a tourist capital, but it Le Musee nice national museum sort of place. It is a park with scattered buildings containing artifacts, cages with cramped animals and model villages. My favourite part, however, was the tent that is filled with traditional artisans working with leather, metal, wool and wood. When Tahanci (Shira), Larai (Laura) and I were able to greet them with "Sannu da aiki!" (Greetings as you work!), their faces immediately brightened. They explained what they were doing and taught us new vocabulary. They speak Hausa and Zarma in addition to varying levels of elementary French. Everyone was so eager to speak, so patient, and so enthusiastic.

The big topic of conversation is the "saniyi" (cold). Apparently, it's quite cold here. I've been wearing a light sweater in the evening, so yes, I suppose it's cold.

This evening, I sat on the stairs near the night watchman and added sentences from him to my Hausa notebook. I'm quite taken with learning Hausa through Hausa or Hausa through French. Our orientation Zarma class is taught using French.

Yesterday, we also went to visit Barke, a former BU student, in his house outside the city. There are sandy expanses everywhere here, so his house felt very isolated. He and his adopted son made us very strong tea. I ended up wandering outside and sitting on a bench beside a small group of girls aged 3-9. The 9-year-old was the only one who spoke a little bit of Hausa and French. The others only speak Zarma. After a bit, they became less shy. I picked up a stick and began to teach the eldest one tic-tac-toe with rocks and sticks. I wasn't sure if she really understood, but we played several rounds. Many more kids gathered, so I organized a circle for the "Down By the Banks" hand clapping game. Instead of learning the song, we counted up to dix as we went around the circle. The kid whose hand gets hit on dix was out. I've decided that I love teaching simple games like that without using much language. It involved a lot of jumping around, moving kids' hands and dramatic facial expressions. The game was a huge hit. Soon, we had tons of kids and many from our American group playing. Meanwhile, some of the guys from our group were playing a big game of soccer with the older boys.

That evening, we went to visit Barke's friends, who are fishermen on the Niger River. Everything around us is pretty arid at this time of the year, but there is quite a bit of green by the river. They invited us to go for a ride in their wooden canoes at dusk. They paddled and we bailed out water. The river was beautiful--so calm and misty. Some people saw a hippo, which is actually pretty frightening, because they are quite dangerous. Tahanci and I spoke with our First-semester Hausa knowledge to one of the fishermen as he paddled. We were very excited about asking questions and breaking out some of our vocabulary, but when I translated it into what the English equivalent of the conversation would be, it was pretty hilarious.

Imagine this with exaturated body actions.

Us: Bird! That is a bird!
Hamad: Yes, bird.
Us: Ohh! That is a boog bird, right? The boog bird is above the water.
Hamad: What?
Us: Boog. Little, boog. Little, boog. (hand gestures).
Hamad: Big. Big bird.
Us: Oh. That is a big bird.
Hamad: Yes.

Needless to say, Hamad, Tahanci and I laughed a lot on that boatride.

We went on a "windy-windy" (promenade) in groups of two, each with a Nigerien guy from the neighborhood. Sani, Hamudsha and I went to la grande marche and la petite marche, which are crowded, winding markets/bazaars with a huge assortment of things. I spoke a lot of French with Sani, and he told me the Hausa names for each of the things. We came across a bunch of clay, bark, sticks, and amber that have medicinal uses.

As you may have gathered, I am enjoying immensely the chance to learn and speak many different languages. In a land with many languages, everyone is acustomed to teaching, learning and stumbling along. Sure, there are lots of things that I wish I were able to express, and the language barrier is real, but over the last few days, language-learning has been a good way of connecting, too.

Sai anjima.
Maduram (which is the Nigerien name that was given me in a naming ceremony.)

Top: Larai, Tahanci, Zarai, Maduram, Yakawa, Ettikas, Alkemisa, Naito
Bottom: Inazaden, Cawje, Hamudsha, Lawali, Inuwa, Betoji
We were visiting a women's microfinance collective, and they helped us tie our scarves.

Sannunku!

Sannu da zuwa!
Welcome to my blog. Thanks (Na gode) for coming. This is about all I have for now. I'll be leaving on January 21st and returning May 15th.
Sai anjima.
Libby

Some news clips about Africa of the Onion variety:

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwom49awRKg

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=3q_iqrvnC_4&NR=1