'sha Biyar

Over the past month the potential title for this entry has changed multiple times, quite possibly the "sha biyar" (15) that it ended up being, but I will get to that in due time.

First, I am happy to say that I have officially survived my first month as a PCV, living in the Nigerien bush! I can't believe it has already been a month!!!! Believe it or not, the time really flew by!

Again there is so much to tell, a months worth of adventures, misadventures, mishaps, and heartwarming events, so don't be surprised if this is a bit chaotic.

Refering back to the title, during the first week I was thinking more along the lines of "it is tough all over." I can honestly say that my first week out in the bush was quite possibly the most challenging/difficult of my life. I was expecting it to be hard, so I don't think I was blind sided, but actually dealing with the difficulty of moving into a new village, in a new country, with the equivalent language of "Hausa II" was unlike any other moving in or adjusting I've ever done to date. It's 'slightly' different then moving down the street or even to a new state, and it was intense to say the least.

***For those of you who checked this out yesterday, here is where I left off (for the record I'm feeling much better now that I have medicine so hopefully I'll be heading back to the bush tomorrow).***

A combination of factors contributed to that first week in the bush being so challenging. It was the first time in 2+ months that I had time to think about missing the people I love back home. It was also the first time I really longed for how simple and easy it is to do daily things in the States. For that first week every step I took was a concious effort, and after thinking about how much water you need for the day, how to pull the water, what you should say to your villagers, how to say it....and the list goes on and on, was exhausting!!

The first week my body also switched into survival mode. It was impossible for me to get enough to drink. I was drinking multiple gallons of water a day but I just couldn't quench my thirst. When walking (actually nearly crawling) back from working in the gardens one day, while rationing the horrifically hot water in my Nalgene in order to make it back to my village, I decided then and there that it would be much worse to die of thirst than to die of hunger!

So the combination of getting acclimated to my village, having time to be homesick, not having any connections with anyone, trying to survive, and having way too much time to think all contributed to the stress that made that first week so tough.

When I went into Matameye for market the a week after I'd been out in the bush, another PCV in town just laughed when I came into our transit house with a breakfast of water, liquid yogurt, and tomatoes...hopefully you notice the liquid theme there. I also resolved that once I get back to the states I'm only going to eat fruit....I also have (still do) a strange desire to go to Noah's Ark, which is funny because I haven' thought about that place in years, but the thought of being surrounded by so much cool water is something that crosses my mind on a daily basis....did I mention I how much I love livining in the middle of the bush?!

Well, I survived the first week, in which I attended 2 naming ceremonies of 2 newborns in my village, I think I mentioned it before, but there are babies everywhere!!! Also because I'm new and considered to be a "guest" in the village I was also 'lucky' enough to be given the "choice cut" of the lamb that they slaughter for naming ceremonies, which happens to be the intestine. I didn't like it the first time, and it wasn't any better the second...I'll leave that one right there...

I remember thinking that if the first week was the hardest, of the first month (which everyone says is the hardest) I was going to be okay. And sure enough, each week progressively got better, to the point where on last Thursday before coming in to Zinder to celebrate our month at post, I realized that my thoughts from that initial week of "I'm going to be here for 2 whole years?!?!?!" have become "I only have 2 years to be with these amazing people"....so I think that pretty much sums up that the rest of the month went very well!

Each week got progressively better as I have begun to find my footing in bush life. I have been making some connections in my village and I really love and am so grateful to my villagers for accepting me and letting me come into their lives, I think we are going to have a great two years!

Well some people have asked what I do to occupy my days.... so I'll give a "brief" summary. I am now on the cycle of the sun/moon, which is nice. so I start my day @ 6 with the sunrise, I take a jog through the bush which is nice just to clear my head and get ready for the day. Then I walk through the village, which I have decided would fit inside of a super walmart (with room to spare....it is THAT tiny!) and I greet the villagers that are out and about and in their concessions. I stop by a few families concessions and chat and greet and then hold their newborns for a while (and typically end up getting at least peed on while there). That takes about an hour or so and then I head back to my concession and sweep it out. It's kind of like mowing a lawn, but instead I think of it as manicuring my sandbox (it really does look nice when I'm all done!)

A couple times a week I switch it up by going to the gardens to work. The men there are so funny, the always stop by the plot I work in and say things along the line of "she can do it?!" she can pull and give water?!" It's pretty entertaining, and sure enough I am able to pull water in a calabash bowl and then proceed to give that water to the plants....good thing I spent 4 years in college, not sure I would be able to do this without it ;)

I normally stick fairly close to home in the late morning. It is nice to have some time to myself, I read and do some research for the upcoming farming season. Some days though I go to a woman's house in the village and make Dankuli (fried peanut butter balls) with her and some of the women in the village which she sells to people who come through our village on Thursdays to go to the night market in a neighboring village. It took me a while to get the hang of making them the "right way" but it's nice to sit with them and try to pick up what they're talking about.

Afternoons are by far my favorite in the village. I'm not sure how it came to be, but I have a little "posse/fada" that comes to my concession every afternoon. It is comprised of 5 or 6 guys between the ages of 16 and around 25. We play cards, lots of UNO, and I recently taught my friend Chilou how to play Cribbage, (which was a challenge in Hausa since the words pair and straight/runs don't exist), he has a hard time saying cribbage so now he just says we need to play 15 (sha biyar). We also play a lot of UNO and I am so excited to have brought the game of "spoons" to my village. Although, since we eat with our hands, (no spoons here) I have coined the Nigerien version as HATSI, which is millet in Hausa. So we play with millet stalks, and for all of you familiar with the game you know how crazy it can get, well these guys take it up a notch by hitting whom ever doesn't get a stalk...it is too funny!

The best part though occured last week. One of the guys brought his 2 or 3 year old niece with him. So I brought out a coloring book and some crayons that I brought with me from the States so she had something to do while we played cards. Well, as the afternoon progressed, one by one each of the guys stopped playing cards and started coloring. And for my last three days in the bush before coming into Zinder they asked if we could just color, so for 2 or 3 hours each afternoon these adult guys just sit quitely and contentendly and color their little hearts out!!! I love it so much, it is so cute!!!! They are very good at it and love to make each object about 10 different colors...needless to say we've been having a good time!!!

Around 5pm each day I "kick" all the guys out to go pull water from the well with the women. I started by pulling my water with my own guga (water bucket) but week two it fell off my rope into the well where it still sits, so now I pull together with the women and then take my water back to my concession, on my head. I still have to use my hands to help balance, but hopefully by the time all is said and done, I will be able to walk with "no hands" as gracefully as my villagers do....and most times they have a baby strapped onto their backs!!! (I definitely won't be doing that!!!)

Around 6 I take another round through the village and do evening greetings with the people who are out and about. I play with the kids who are gathered in the "streets" playing local games in the sand.

I then go to eat with a teacher and his wife. I hold their 2 mos old son and try to entertain him/keep him from crying while Binta makes dinner. I eat tuwo with them and then in the past couple of weeks I've been "moonlighting" by eating with my friend Chilou and his wife. It is an interesting story, but everyone is just so eager to feed me tuwo, and no one will accept that I only can eat with one family each night...man that's a lot of tuwo. I tried to let Binta's family know I am only going to eat with them a couple of days a week because I need to get to know other families in the village, well then she guilted me to come over and have "conversation" before going to the other family...well she then forced me to eat her tuwo...and now the new family insisted that I eat with them "always always"....it's nice to be loved, but man I'm not sure how much tuwo I can take ;)

I am back at my concession by 8:30 and asleep by 9:30 almost everynight. And then start the whole thing over again in the morning. While the activities can be a little mundane sounding, I've yet to tire of them and the days and weeks just fly by. I am sure as I begin to undertake actual projects and begin the farming season they will only go faster!!!

In reference to that, the first month was dedicated to adjusting, learning Hausa (which is a daily struggle, I'm not sure if I am getting any better at all, my villagers speak quickly and don't enunciate, so I often think that if they actual spoke Hausa I'd be able to hear it ;), and getting to know my villagers. The second half of May all of us newbies will be going back to Hamdalleye for more intensive technical trainning. Once that's done we will be appraoching the rainy season so we will beging preparing our fields. I am hoping to grow soybeans and try to introduce tofu (lots of protien!!! which my body has really been craving, since hardly any meat is consumed in the village, only on special occasions) to the village. They have it in the bigger cities, and inaddition to offering protein it will also be a good income generating project. I am also contemplating a bee keeping project which also has lots of income generating potential...but we'll see.

I'm looking forward to the farming season, it is going to be a lot of work, but i'm looking forward to being physically busy on a daily basis. I also mentioned to some of you that i was hoping to get a camel or a donkey, but neither are really in my area, so as a consolation I am hoping to get a horse sometime this summer. I've alwayvince my dad we could keep one in our yard, more than once) and I figure if the opportunity never arises again, at least I can at least say I owned a horse once in my life!

Fridays are also great days in the bush. Those are the days I go into Matameye for the market. For the next month I have a PCV neighbor, we live about 2 hours walk from each other, but in June she's ending her service and moving to Sudan. After that I won't have any "close" neighbors. The nearest one will be the PCV living in Matameye (which is an hour walk and a 30-45 min. bush taxi ride from me). But anyway, Fridays are the days I venture into Matameye and get to see the other PCV's in the region. It is nice to be able to speak English and communicate so effortlessly and to just catch my breath and recharge for the next week in the bush. It is also great to be able to have a cold soda and cold water. I never realized how much I would miss cold beverages...pee warm water can be swallowed if necessary (and it's necessary) but it isn't enjoyable!

I typically stay at the transit house Friday night and head back to my village early Sat morning so I am doing my walking before the sun gets too hot. I could go back on Friday nights but I'm normally beat and the thought of walking the hour back to the village isn't altogether appealing then. The first week though, I got a little lost in the bush and was luckily "saved" by this nice little Fulani man who took me to his family's compound, offered me hura (millet/water drink) and then took me back to my village. It was way more scary at the time it was happening, as I realized that all those little "roads" don't eventually meet up, but I survived it and can laugh about my little adventure now...but let me tell you that it wasn't so wonderful coming on the heels of my first week!

Well, I've been rambling for sometime now, so I'll wrap things up. On Friday all of us newbies (in the region) came back into Zinder and all 6 of us survived our first month, all with similar stories of survival and misadventure and the general concensus that the first week was one of the hardest of our lives! We then had a team meeting in Saturday followed by a mango eating contest....which I will again refer to the 'sha biyar' or 15 of the title. So it is an annual tradition to hold a mango eating contest after the newbies 1st month at post. Last year my neighbor Gina and another girl won by eating 12 mangos. The contest isn't timed, its just eat mangos until you can't anymore. Well, this time there was an infiltrator from team Maradi (the nearest region to my West) and he was bound and determined to take the title away from Zinder. My competitive spirit got the best of me and 3 hours and 15 mangos later Corey and I decided to tie at 15 because neither of us were capable of putting another mango into our stomachs...so I am the reigning co-champ of the mango eating contest, but it was the most painful and arguably one of the most dumb things I've done. I can't describe how painfully full the two of us were, and instead of "celebrate" the victory we were sprawled out unable to move....but hey, I didn't get beat and the title is still in Zinder.

Since that fateful event the last 72 hours have been quite unpleasant as inaddition to dealing with digesting all of those mangos...I still can't believe I ate 15 (it will be a long long time until I eat another, let me tell you!), but i also have a touch of e.coli. I'm not sure if it came from the mangos or if it was lying dormant for awhile, but I've been quite a sick little pup for the last few days. Things are one the up swing though and I'll be going back to my village in the morning, health pending.

So that's what I've been up to, I hope you're all doing well and enjoying your Spring. I can only imagine how nice it must be to have green all around again. It is 110 and brown here today, and everyday until the rains come in June. Well I'll leave you with this list I've compiled during my 1st month in the bush....

- I've made myself honestly believe that Hura (millet, sour milk, and a little water) mixed with cinnamon is a dead ringer for blueberry pie...odd since blueberries have nothing in common with millet.
- I have a 'favorite' type of tuwo, which is corn
-I finally have perfect aim (I'll let you put two and two together on that one)
- I look forward to each bush taxi adventure (think livestock, gas pedals attached by strings, and starting them ala Little Miss Sunshine with a push start)
- I can pull and give water with the best of them
- Even when given the chance to sleep inside, I'd much rather sleep outside
- I don't remember the last time I had an actual shower, and won't mention how 'often' I bucket bathe
- I long for fruit and protien instead of for the ice cream and chocolate I anticipated craving
- I can now play UNO in 5 lanuages (English, Spanish, Croatian, French, and Hausa).

Here's to the next 3 weeks in the bush, and hopefully I'll get a chance to talk to you all real soon!

Ciao,

Jamie