Happy Thanksgiving/My crazy life these past two weeks

Before you take another dig into those mashed potatoes and another whack at that turkey, here’s a little diversion to liven up another one of oh-so-nail-biting Lion’s Thanksgiving Day games and to take the edge of the tryptophene effect. Hold onto your seats, because if you don’t like rollercoasters you might want to let the turkey sit a little while longer.

The tenor of the Peace Corps rumor mill in any country never is one to lighten one’s heart - frequent stories of volunteers leaving for family reasons, folks getting flown around the continent for what Americans would consider routine dental care, and the always juicy geographically-doomed lovers. But as of late the tune has changed so rapidly and frequently that over a three-minute span last night I was asked by volunteers from three different regions if my cluster (sub-region) was being shipped off to a certain ironic isle off the coast of southern Africa (Ironic in the sense that it handed Niger ‘refugees’ from political instability less than 12 months ago and now a set of yet-to-be sworn-in volunteers are headed to that same country to re-open the program). I still must refer you to the travel warden page of the US Embassy in Niamey to tell you what started this whole hullabaloo.
Before we get any further in the story, let you take back to the moment it all began. It was an early Sunday afternoon, lazy as lazy can be, and I was approaching my weekly call with my parents. All of the sudden I was packing my backpack to head off to my sub-regional (cluster) capital: the security breach mentioned in the warden’s message (see my last post) had incurred the security measure that brings people to centrally-located houses to stay until the threat lessens (sorry for the vague language, but in case it happens again I shouldn’t reveal more). From what I remembered from training, this could only last a few nights as all Niger’s houses (called hostels) did not have adequate capacity for extended stays. After finding a car, playing cat-and-mouse on the phone with my parents and my PCV neighbor - also searching for a difficult-to-find midday ride down my dirt road - I ended up in said town with a change of clothes, my laptop and toiletries.
By midweek we were starting to go stir crazy. Running off of adrenaline and the rumor-mill, with and occasional dose of fact, the four of us were getting low on clean clothes, beer, food and patience. Luckily, one of our number belonged to the stage of volunteers whose close-of-service date (COS) was now being moved up to the soonest date possible. This meant for her tickets to reverse, grad apps to write, paperwork in Niamey to fill out, etc. A special car was sent out for us in the morning, by midday the COSer had said her goodbyes and taken her valuables out of her house in village, by early afternoon we were in Niamey, having gotten there twice as fast as any of us had ever remembered…I remember wondering if the tires could grip any harder onto the gravel and banging my head on a metal bar at every washout.
Fast-forward another five or six days, past an amazing Thanksgiving potluck which made many sick - myself violently so - daily doses of rumor and fact, new volunteers piling into town every day, and ever-mounting stress, and we arrive at ‘judgement day’. I guess I call it that in retrospect, as I assumed that on this eve of our potential re-departure for villages, that only those in the Tahoua/Konni region would be addressed in the Country Director’s lifting of precautionary restrictions. Unfortunately, in a stroke of Microsoft Word, the villages of mine and three other PCVs were gone in Peace Corps terms, our whole cluster shut down indefinitely, hostel included. A few other high-profile posts were also removed, the current training stage was erased, and my stagemates from one of the eastern regions began proposing a mass exodus out of this place. To make matters worse, two further security issues arose over the weekend and last night (I’m now writing on Friday) near the Mali border (look it up on BBC). With dozens of us in town, we could not help but to play off of each others pessimism about the weeks and months to come.
Now, with most of the PCV populace out of town, begins the long and drawn out search for a new village. It looks certain I will remain an volunteer, and an education volunteer as well, but it also looks likely that I will move to a new region, learn a new language, have new neighbors and a new set of working conditions. It may seem hard to take, but it is a chance at a do-over: to begin the integration process anew, drawing upon Larba and all its challenges and blessings. I hope this time to find a host family instead of falling back on the chief, to work harder to find friends my own age, to engage the movers and shakers of my town consistently and expectantly, to explore the new options on the NGO-front and work with my PCV neighbors (who won’t be COSers any time soon). Things are looking up, and even if PC Niger is living on borrowed time, I plan on making the most of every minute of it…even if those minutes may not come until January (or maybe February, considering my Inter-service training is slated for most of January) for Niger’s PCV refugees. For now I might play the tourist around Niamey a bit, hopefully find a good connection at the right time to get loads of photos up, work on the hostel and maybe even consolidate my French and English blogs into a whole new look (I might switch to Wordpress, but don’t tell Blogspot!), because “Along the Sirba” just doesn’t quite cut it anymore.

Happy Halloween (Dated Oct. 30)

Hi everybody,
Happy eve of All Hallow’s Eve/Halloween. I’m back in Niamey after a couple more weeks in Larba Birno. While no earth-shattering events have taken place, I did get electricity installed in my house, which may as well count as earth shattering in my little world. I had bought the cable during my last trip to Niamey, not knowing what kind of cable or even how much of it I would need. A couple days later some guys from the village chief’s concession and down the street came over to hook it up. One had some outlets and light bulbs and fixtures, which I bought off him. They got straight to work walking across a few hut roofs, only to find out it wasn’t long enough for the house a few doors down, so they set to digging a trench across the road with a pick and spike. The one with the fixtures went about digging a hole in my house with a screwdriver, then using his teeth to peel the plastic off the wire to attach to the fixtures. I offered my scissors, nails and tape: the nails were driven into the clay/cement to keep the wire from falling down, the scissors replaced teeth and the tape tidied up parts of the cable where copper was disconnected or broken. While we had to hunt around for a few more meters of cable to finish the job, the bulk of the project took all of a half-hour with a half-dozen helpers and another dozen lookers-on. To call the whole operation a ‘jerry-rigging’ would be an understatement, it felt downright illegal - maybe it was the fact that I was hooking my line up to the chief’s across the street and paying for a chunk of his bill. On the other hand, such is the way of Niger…just reference my last blog post for a few more examples. Ironically I spent part of the operation helping some folks build a wall out of clay bricks and mud in the chief’s concession.
Classes have begun to pick up at the collège (middle school), and I have sat in on a couple different grades during different subjects. Needless to say, the differences between the American and Nigerien education system are striking. In American public schools, kids walk about in hallways and attend classes in air-conditioned classrooms with enough room for cabinets and desks and posters. Nigeriens sweat through classes and crowd three to a one-person bench. Yet at the same time, some American students, at least in the public schools I attended, were prone to giving teachers fits for talking in class, wearing inappropriate clothes, apathy and the like. In Niger, at least in Larba, students stand and recognize a teacher when he enters the room, wear uniforms (if they can afford them), and repeat answers memorized from the previous day’s lecture. All the same, American students stay motivated through a variety of classes and electives that suit their interests, after-school clubs, extra study help for those who need it, while Nigerien students have some of the lowest rates in the world in literacy, failure to make it into or past secondary school, and girls enrollment. As I may have mentioned in a previous blog, Niger has re-found itself in last place on the UN’s Human Development Index, education contributing a number of dismal figures to this composite study of societies across the globe. The reasons behind this poverty are multitudinous, many of which I may never fully understand. But once one understands that for a kid growing up in the bush, middle school may mean months separated from one’s family, learning languages and skills that most likely will never be applied in real life jobs, and association with mentors/ teachers who would rather be spending time at home in Niamey than in ‘the sticks.’ The somewhat supercilious attitude of the teachers, whose authoritative and somewhat distant teaching style has been a bit of a shock to the system, and has pushed me to create stronger and more productive relationships with my villagers, as it will be they who will sustain the projects I help to get off the ground. From the previous volunteers in Larba and other PCVs across the country, teachers rarely last more than a few years in a single town.
As I head out back out for the hot and humid month of November (yup, cold season won’t be here for a little while - they call it the ‘mini hot season’), I hope to learn more about what can improve the futures of the kids of Larba and neighboring towns; I counted students from 16 towns attending the CEG (collège), including Boulkagou, Touré, Chaptondé and Hanti Goura, estimated to be 40km away. In case I don’t get back into Niamey by Thanksgiving, Happy Turkey Day, ma y it be thankful day.

Countdown to T-day

Thanksgiving approaches, but here in Niamey we will celebrate it on Sunday. I may have mentioned that I didn't expect to spend Thanksgiving in Niamey. However, circumstances have changed (which I am not permitted to disclose at this time). As I will be in Niamey for the next little while here I hope to write a more complete posting once my future plans find a solid footing...for the time being I can only direct you to my superiors at the dept. of state: http://niamey.usembassy.gov/niger/warden_messages.html

Take care and talk to you soon,
Thomas

p.s. Look out for facebook photos and possibly on google picasa soon

A few more pics

Hello everyone,
I have a blog post ready to go, right as I'm about to head back out to village from a Niamey Halloween. Unfortunately, it is not in the right format for this computer and yesterday I was unable to connect on my own computer. Here are a few pics to keep you busy...
-Thomas
Folks gathered at the central mosque for the end of Ramadan (my chief is in front at far right)

Our stage seated at the swearing-in ceremony at the Ambassador's residence

The Grand Mosque of Niamey, as seen from the road

PC personnel gathered at the Gotheye mayor's office for the installation of two PCV's in this commune (one of which is me).