A fulani boy on Dutsin Leila with the town in the distance
Seydou and Isiya near the top of the mesa
The eastern approach, it's steeper than it looks
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Pix of Dutsin Leila
A fulani boy on Dutsin Leila with the town in the distanceSeydou and Isiya near the top of the mesaThe eastern approach, it's steeper than it looks
Not so bad after all...or wait, maybe it is?
Hello everybody,
I will be heading off to Europe early tomorrow morning so I thought I’d try to squeeze in a couple thoughts before heading out the door.
Now is the time when many Niger volunteers get out of town to beat the heat.. Hot season is upon us and temperatures have regularly been reaching 110 or higher. We talk about how rough life is in Niger, but occasionally it feels so, well, normal, that I feel obliged to disagree. Part of it has to do with living in the Dogondoutchi department, which as I have mentioned in previous posts, is highly developed by Nigerien standards.
I’ve just read Nicholas Kristof’s book, called Half the Sky, quite popular among our PCVs these days, in which he recounts stories of women’s development across the globe. As I read the gruesome, aggravating, yet ultimately uplifting stories of empowered women and valiant aid efforts, I started wondering why Niger seems so docile in comparison. Here’s what I came up with based on experiences in Lido:
-Medical clinics exist, women talk to men, even outside the family (not always true in other parts of Niger), not much history of tribal violence - low population density and low access to guns from neighboring countries
-Death persistent in hot season but seems confined to elderly
-Decent amount of fruits and vegetables in season
-Both sexes contribute to harvest, although women’s chores continue year-round while most men only farm only in the rainy season
-Not a lot of alcohol or prostitution, and only in the cities
-Roads passable, cars breakdown but not too frequently or gravely, kids rent bikes from school, relatively dense population so that kids don’t have to come from more than 15k to school
-Don’t hear stories of rape, infant mortality, maternal mortality (being a guy, I would probably see and hear less of these stories), some elderly go to Dosso for treatment
Upon closer examination, however, I’ve observed a number of recent events that brought me back closer to reality - Niger may be the poorest country in the world by the UN’s standards, but the poverty is often anticlimactic and softened by strong community ties. Plus, unlike Ivory Coast’s civil unrest or Ethiopia’s famine, Niger has never known times or had places of immense growth from which they have descended into poverty. The uranium boom in the 70’s and 80’s is the closest they got here, and the effects did not issue far beyond Niamey. However the signs of poverty and distress are not far if you look for them. Here are some recent examples I have experienced:
-Steps it took to find blackboard for our recent agricultural methods workshop - primary director-no, schools don’t have enough; hausa literacy program - it’s shut down here go to Bayawa (6k away); asked the president of community action committee - sure, we’ll get it from Bayawa (never did); 3e (last year of middle school) students study group - sure, but for one day; finally the teacher rented a motorcycle taxi to his town of Tolouwa (11k away) and back, carrying the blackboard on his head.
-Walking around town I was asked if I had seen the possession dance, confused I asked the person if he was referring to the witch doctor in the neighboring town of Fada. He said no, this is hot season and that means it is the time of the year for genies to bring the rain…curious what it looked like. I’ll get more chances later, the region is known for its Animism.
-A couple months ago I saw that witch doctor try to heal a kid with what I assume was polio, kind bizarre experience with her spit into his face, rubbing sand into his hair and causing his mother (who was holding him up) to cry by accusing her to be the source of his illness, this was all accompanied by a lot of screaming and an intent crowd gathered around.
-I visited a beautiful mesa called Dutsin Leila - I’ll try to attach pix - that, the story goes, will blow up if the neighboring village if its citizens try to dig into it, apparently because the phantoms inside the hill don’t want their riches stolen. As my ever-rational friend pointed out, this story was probably invented to make up for the fact that the contents of the mound were worthless, as they would have long been extracted if there was anything valuable inside.
-I was telling this same friend that I hadn’t been able to take my early afternoon nap for weeks because it was too hot to get comfortable (absolutely sopping wet with sweat in a matter of seconds indoors and not enough shade outdoors). He thought I was purposely not sleeping to avoid meningitis. Seeing me puzzled by that explanation, he explained that people said meningitis attacks people if they fall asleep at noon. I said no, that the hot season is a time when people are hungry and weak, making them more susceptible to such a virus/bacteria.
-I saw my primary director cut from motorcycle across a swath of his hand - I’ve seen a few other such incidents left untreated. Being a sensible chap he went to the clinic in town and they dumped what must a ton of iodine on it (apparently this is a pan-regional treatment as I heard a story of Westerners in Mali having the same treatment for a motorcycle fall), turning it black and itchy, though warding off infection.
-After working towards getting a new water tower to replace the unreliable existing one, it broke again. It’s been off for 10 days now. This means that 4,000 or more citizens and as more livestock are using three open wells, as opposed to these three wells and nine taps spread throughout town.
-Women who participated in the agricultural workshop rave about the chance to learn such techniques, they said they had never participated in any training of any kind up till now.
-A man who was able to get into the men’s section of the workshop before it filled up signed up his wife in the thoughts that she would get millet and fertilizer that he would use for his own fields. Luckily we had already established that the women were going to get vegetable seeds instead - he threatened to pull her and the fee paid out of the workshop. She and a bunch of others didn’t show up, but enough did to make it a fruitful experience.
-Cold season was the time for weddings, people coming in rich from the fall’s harvest. Hot season is the time for death. For the past few weeks, in my village alone, about every other day I hear about another passing, occasionally two in the same day. One such death was an excruciating story to listen to. I heard it the same day that I had visited the health clinic (which has neither a morgue nor a maternity ward, although it’s asked for both) and happened upon a women lying in fetal position, her emaciated body evidently not able to support her weight - I didn’t even bother to ask what she had. The story was of a woman from Goubawa (6k away) who had what sounds like obstructed labor, common among narrow-hipped women throughout Africa, she was taken by ox-cart to Lido’s clinic and gave birth on the road in the middle of the day. After all that effort the baby died upon arrival in Lido…it’s hard to believe any baby could survive this heat.
-It took me 7.5 hours to take a bush taxi into Niamey from Lido (190 km, just under 120 miles) last market day. Within a meter of departure the side door had fallen off. It took an hour and a half of tooling around to get the engine started again. We traveled the next 19 kilometers in an hour and a half, including one stop of 20 minutes to tie on new luggage - avg. of 12 km/h or 7 mph. Never getting much above what I guessed to be 30 mph on the main highway (of course there was no speedometer, rearview mirror, speaker, a/c, but that’s always the case) as we would rim out every time we careened to the right, the whole chassis seemed ready to burst like the Blues Brothers car at the end of the chase scene. My water bottle was broken and our grumpy driver would share his water with anyone. When I asked to switch to a new car in Dosso he said that he wouldn’t transfer the money to the new driver, he’d spent it all on fixing his car - I didn’t have enough cash to pay for the whole thing, so I waited it out.
-I saw a concert the other day while here in Niamey. While it started over two hours late and was attended by a typically sparse and unenthusiastic Nigerien crowd, a drum and dance troupe from Burkina Faso and a woman Nigerien rapper highlighted an eventful, though not fully-appreciated night. To be expected when it is sponsored by the likes of the US Embassy and some big international projects. What I didn’t expect to see, however, was a young kid mimic cutting himself with the sharp side of a knife, while squealing incessantly in the most inhuman voice. He was accompanied by an adult who would demonstrate the blade’s sharpness by cutting a stick, then handing the kid the knife. The background noise/music for this was a group of old men croaking out a bunch of typical Nigerien folksongs.
So there you have it, Niger is poor, but it its own unique way…not always so bad, but sometimes downright aggravating (just like the heat rash covering my upper body). I’ve gone on far long enough. So cheerio, and here’s hoping I don’t experience too much reverse cultural shock in Europe
-Thomas
I will be heading off to Europe early tomorrow morning so I thought I’d try to squeeze in a couple thoughts before heading out the door.
Now is the time when many Niger volunteers get out of town to beat the heat.. Hot season is upon us and temperatures have regularly been reaching 110 or higher. We talk about how rough life is in Niger, but occasionally it feels so, well, normal, that I feel obliged to disagree. Part of it has to do with living in the Dogondoutchi department, which as I have mentioned in previous posts, is highly developed by Nigerien standards.
I’ve just read Nicholas Kristof’s book, called Half the Sky, quite popular among our PCVs these days, in which he recounts stories of women’s development across the globe. As I read the gruesome, aggravating, yet ultimately uplifting stories of empowered women and valiant aid efforts, I started wondering why Niger seems so docile in comparison. Here’s what I came up with based on experiences in Lido:
-Medical clinics exist, women talk to men, even outside the family (not always true in other parts of Niger), not much history of tribal violence - low population density and low access to guns from neighboring countries
-Death persistent in hot season but seems confined to elderly
-Decent amount of fruits and vegetables in season
-Both sexes contribute to harvest, although women’s chores continue year-round while most men only farm only in the rainy season
-Not a lot of alcohol or prostitution, and only in the cities
-Roads passable, cars breakdown but not too frequently or gravely, kids rent bikes from school, relatively dense population so that kids don’t have to come from more than 15k to school
-Don’t hear stories of rape, infant mortality, maternal mortality (being a guy, I would probably see and hear less of these stories), some elderly go to Dosso for treatment
Upon closer examination, however, I’ve observed a number of recent events that brought me back closer to reality - Niger may be the poorest country in the world by the UN’s standards, but the poverty is often anticlimactic and softened by strong community ties. Plus, unlike Ivory Coast’s civil unrest or Ethiopia’s famine, Niger has never known times or had places of immense growth from which they have descended into poverty. The uranium boom in the 70’s and 80’s is the closest they got here, and the effects did not issue far beyond Niamey. However the signs of poverty and distress are not far if you look for them. Here are some recent examples I have experienced:
-Steps it took to find blackboard for our recent agricultural methods workshop - primary director-no, schools don’t have enough; hausa literacy program - it’s shut down here go to Bayawa (6k away); asked the president of community action committee - sure, we’ll get it from Bayawa (never did); 3e (last year of middle school) students study group - sure, but for one day; finally the teacher rented a motorcycle taxi to his town of Tolouwa (11k away) and back, carrying the blackboard on his head.
-Walking around town I was asked if I had seen the possession dance, confused I asked the person if he was referring to the witch doctor in the neighboring town of Fada. He said no, this is hot season and that means it is the time of the year for genies to bring the rain…curious what it looked like. I’ll get more chances later, the region is known for its Animism.
-A couple months ago I saw that witch doctor try to heal a kid with what I assume was polio, kind bizarre experience with her spit into his face, rubbing sand into his hair and causing his mother (who was holding him up) to cry by accusing her to be the source of his illness, this was all accompanied by a lot of screaming and an intent crowd gathered around.
-I visited a beautiful mesa called Dutsin Leila - I’ll try to attach pix - that, the story goes, will blow up if the neighboring village if its citizens try to dig into it, apparently because the phantoms inside the hill don’t want their riches stolen. As my ever-rational friend pointed out, this story was probably invented to make up for the fact that the contents of the mound were worthless, as they would have long been extracted if there was anything valuable inside.
-I was telling this same friend that I hadn’t been able to take my early afternoon nap for weeks because it was too hot to get comfortable (absolutely sopping wet with sweat in a matter of seconds indoors and not enough shade outdoors). He thought I was purposely not sleeping to avoid meningitis. Seeing me puzzled by that explanation, he explained that people said meningitis attacks people if they fall asleep at noon. I said no, that the hot season is a time when people are hungry and weak, making them more susceptible to such a virus/bacteria.
-I saw my primary director cut from motorcycle across a swath of his hand - I’ve seen a few other such incidents left untreated. Being a sensible chap he went to the clinic in town and they dumped what must a ton of iodine on it (apparently this is a pan-regional treatment as I heard a story of Westerners in Mali having the same treatment for a motorcycle fall), turning it black and itchy, though warding off infection.
-After working towards getting a new water tower to replace the unreliable existing one, it broke again. It’s been off for 10 days now. This means that 4,000 or more citizens and as more livestock are using three open wells, as opposed to these three wells and nine taps spread throughout town.
-Women who participated in the agricultural workshop rave about the chance to learn such techniques, they said they had never participated in any training of any kind up till now.
-A man who was able to get into the men’s section of the workshop before it filled up signed up his wife in the thoughts that she would get millet and fertilizer that he would use for his own fields. Luckily we had already established that the women were going to get vegetable seeds instead - he threatened to pull her and the fee paid out of the workshop. She and a bunch of others didn’t show up, but enough did to make it a fruitful experience.
-Cold season was the time for weddings, people coming in rich from the fall’s harvest. Hot season is the time for death. For the past few weeks, in my village alone, about every other day I hear about another passing, occasionally two in the same day. One such death was an excruciating story to listen to. I heard it the same day that I had visited the health clinic (which has neither a morgue nor a maternity ward, although it’s asked for both) and happened upon a women lying in fetal position, her emaciated body evidently not able to support her weight - I didn’t even bother to ask what she had. The story was of a woman from Goubawa (6k away) who had what sounds like obstructed labor, common among narrow-hipped women throughout Africa, she was taken by ox-cart to Lido’s clinic and gave birth on the road in the middle of the day. After all that effort the baby died upon arrival in Lido…it’s hard to believe any baby could survive this heat.
-It took me 7.5 hours to take a bush taxi into Niamey from Lido (190 km, just under 120 miles) last market day. Within a meter of departure the side door had fallen off. It took an hour and a half of tooling around to get the engine started again. We traveled the next 19 kilometers in an hour and a half, including one stop of 20 minutes to tie on new luggage - avg. of 12 km/h or 7 mph. Never getting much above what I guessed to be 30 mph on the main highway (of course there was no speedometer, rearview mirror, speaker, a/c, but that’s always the case) as we would rim out every time we careened to the right, the whole chassis seemed ready to burst like the Blues Brothers car at the end of the chase scene. My water bottle was broken and our grumpy driver would share his water with anyone. When I asked to switch to a new car in Dosso he said that he wouldn’t transfer the money to the new driver, he’d spent it all on fixing his car - I didn’t have enough cash to pay for the whole thing, so I waited it out.
-I saw a concert the other day while here in Niamey. While it started over two hours late and was attended by a typically sparse and unenthusiastic Nigerien crowd, a drum and dance troupe from Burkina Faso and a woman Nigerien rapper highlighted an eventful, though not fully-appreciated night. To be expected when it is sponsored by the likes of the US Embassy and some big international projects. What I didn’t expect to see, however, was a young kid mimic cutting himself with the sharp side of a knife, while squealing incessantly in the most inhuman voice. He was accompanied by an adult who would demonstrate the blade’s sharpness by cutting a stick, then handing the kid the knife. The background noise/music for this was a group of old men croaking out a bunch of typical Nigerien folksongs.
So there you have it, Niger is poor, but it its own unique way…not always so bad, but sometimes downright aggravating (just like the heat rash covering my upper body). I’ve gone on far long enough. So cheerio, and here’s hoping I don’t experience too much reverse cultural shock in Europe
-Thomas
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