The rains return

Hello all,
It was before leaving for vacation that I wrote last, finishing up a two-week agricultural training and heading into my third consecutive bout with amoebas and subsequent 10-day medicine regimens. Besides a few moments the first week of vacation (including a moment in the courtyard of Versailles, doubled over from cramps with a long line at the toilets), the trip was a great way to chance to change pace and see some friends, sites and graduate schools. I came back refreshed, clean (acne and heat rash gone) and healthy. Of course it didn’t take more than a week for things to go back to Nigerien normal. Thankfully though, my many weeks of stomach issues have fallen back into the shadows, ever-present but manageable.
I returned to village to the first two nights of real rain of the season. Most of my village had already planted a few weeks prior, one of the first rains of the season. Since the rains have kept coming, while certain villages nearby have received very little and have yet to plant their fields. Such is the nature of rainy season: heavy winds and dust alternates with overwhelming heat and humidity, in the same day. With each rain the town clears out for the fields, leaving the impression of a ghost town. This, as one might imagine, makes projects a little bit difficult to carry out. Even my English club, comprised of last-year secondary students preparing to take the test to get into high school or professional schools, has been non-existent the last couple weeks. Though they are the only students still attending classes (the school-year ended yesterday but other kids left a few weeks earlier) family or host-family (most students are from neighboring villages) fields are the priority. While this has been frustrating, I felt somewhat vindicated for all the meetings I’ve held where people don’t show up for an hour or at all, by a recent event at the primary school. The director, who had organized an end-of-the-year party for all primary and secondary teachers, was deserted by most of his teachers the day before the party: they had all returned to their city homes for vacation without even saying goodbye.
With vacation I hope to spend more time getting to know my fellow villagers, working up my Hausa skills, and farming. I went out a couple times recently, once to burn shrub grasses in my friend’s field, where we hope to split his plot of bean plants this summer. The other time was to plant my village chief’s plot: it was like a family reunion (except that all the extended family sees each other every day) in that all sorts of relatives came together to plant the chief‘s fields in his absence, digging holes and sowing beans and millets in lines five abreast, chatting all the way. I sowed beans, barefoot (easier to swipe to dirt back into the hole), getting into a pretty quick cadence after some practice. It seem odd, but it felt somewhat like a landmark in my service, farming in this pastoral society where a job means either a teacher, doctor, or vendor, is liking driving a car in America. My villagers keep telling me that farming is too hard for me, that it’s back-breaking and too rough for my “baby-like hands” - perhaps true - but I want to try and prove them wrong, even if only on a part-time basis. I’m actually more worried about the sun than the physicality of the work, more heat rash than sunburn, though sunscreen is sweated off rapidly my straw hat is quite effective.
I am off to the eastern part of Niger as almost all of the Niger’s volunteers gather for an project ideas-sharing conference this coming week. I wish you all a great start to summer.

-Thomas