A Taste of Reality

Before I begin this post, I would like to note my new mailing address at post. I should be posting it (along with some photos, hopefully) on Facebook soon. If anyone of you should be interested in sending over some goodies, make sure to put in a checklist of the box’s contents as some things can ‘disappear’ during customs.
Thomas Leonard, PCV
Corps de la Paix
Gothèye, Niger
West Africa
You may be wondering why there is no PO Box or address. It is because the six or seven PCVs in the Gothèye cluster are the only people to pick up their mail at this post office! I am posted about 24 km from Gothèye city. I also have changed my cell number from my original to (011227) 96 12 61 44.
My training group has about a week of training left before Swear-in, and I expect it to be a very busy few days. Thus, I am taking this time to share about our live-in experience completed last week and to preview the near future.
Sunday before last all thirty-one of left to the far reaches of Niger to visit our future posts for the week. My region, Tillaberi, surrounds Niamey, so our travel to site lasted all of one afternoon. That morning, the six Tillaberians in our stage met up with our Regional Representative (a PCV) and some other PCVs to buy the essentials for the week: cot, mat, table, pots, stove (and gas tank), buckets, cord, food and utensils. After lunch we split up into two cars and headed to our sites.
I won’t go into all the details, but suffice it to say we all had our share of adventures. Some trainees had unfinished houses, unusable latrines or missing ovens. I didn’t lack anything to essential. Still, I felt like I was at Boy Scout Summer Camp except there was no car to whisk me away, no trading post or swimmable water, and ‘wilderness survival’ actually meant survival. While education and municipality volunteers are often considered ‘spoiled’ compared to other Nigerien PCVs, there are some bush CYE (education) posts. Mine, which did not include a high school, school inspection, municipal government or a paved road, is included in the latter category. CYEs often follow directly after a previous CYE, while I was ‘opening’ a new post. While I have reliable cell phone service and the potential for electricity, my town of 7,000 (chef de village estimate) does not carry much economic or cultural clout. Whereas the training town of Hamdallaye is marginally smaller in size, it has a paved road lined with merchants and relatively constant motor traffic flow. Larba Birno, my site town, has a handful merchants in huts hidden seemingly at random along the main dirt road and in the ‘alleys’ winding throughout town. The sporadic (a few times per hour) traffic rarely stops on its way to the gold-mining operation in Samira 72 km west, hence the lack of imported goods.
On the flip side, Larba Birno had natural beauty not found elsewhere. The seasonal Sirba river whooshed by the south of town, cutting crevasses into the clay and feeding a multitude of trees and shrubs nearby. Additionally, the townspeople had a uniquely positive view of Americans, having welcomed in succession four previous volunteers in Agriculture and Nat. Resource Development (I believe) somewhere between a few years to twenty-some years ago (a point of contention between village elders!). At any rate, the immediate warmth with which I was received differed exceptionally from the awkwardness experienced by many of my stagemates. While at times I felt that certain villagers were trying to exploit their kindness for their own advantage, I greatly appreciated the opportunity to be shown about town like a dignitary. The slow pace of life around Larba seemed to suit me well as well, although I did feel more than a bit cut off from ‘real life’ - despite the fact that this will be my reality for two years. I also learned more Zarma than in I had in the weeks previous combined, although the little French I spoke acted as a mental popsicle.
I will return to Larba sometime around September 12. For the first month I will be staying exclusively in village with an exceptional market excursion to the next town over. That said, do not expect any new blogs for some time. Even when/if I do get electricity, Niamey is the closest internet, and that will be off-limits for my first three months - except for official business like regional team meetings.

Until next time,
Thomas

Birthday in Niger!

Hello everybody,
I know it's been forever since I posted and I've actually been pre-writing blog posts to put up right now, but unfortunately they cannot be read on the computer I am working on right now. Suffice it to say that I am alive and well, and thank you for all your birthday wishes on Facebook.

-Thomas

Any Given Sunday

As you can tell, my last blog posts are completely false on a particular point. While I did get back to Niamey, the server that I hooked up to was not connected to the internet. The sub-oceanic cable that was cut some time ago is still affecting Nigerien internet, which is being redirected through other cables, slowing down or stopping up the whole operation. The pool along with the milkshake and chicken caesar salad found therein were still heavenly.
The past week and a half have sped by, filled with more adventure and progress towards our new lives in the field. The number of untold stories piles up while I continue to lack internet access. Our stage has meshed very well and personalities have emerged as comfort levels have risen. Getting sick brings people together, as does shared hardship in general. A week ago I began to feel little beasts scurry about my intestines with an intensity akin to that of liquid hot magma. With powerful meds. it still takes about a week to completely get rid of them - that is amoebas. At the same time I was able to find out more about our new set of volunteer trainers and got to stay in Hamdallaye for one wacky Sunday - our one completely open day of the week.
The rainy season brings Niger its only rain of the year. It’s a bit hard to imagine Niger having problems with desertification when the streets flood multiple times per week. While my hut is doing fine with its cemented albeit holey walls, the mud wall around my concession loses significant mass with each rainfall and this Sunday the liquid level in my latrine rose alarmingly high. When the straw door to my concession fell apart due to the rain, I was admittedly frustrated. Then, after another disappointing lunch I decided to head to the road and find some more nutrition. I was accosted by the college students chilling in their summer pad and was invited to a wedding of one of their brothers within five minutes. Seeking back up, I stopped by a friend nearby who I found out had just had her cement latrine collapse after the morning rain, cutting one of her legs with falling concrete as she managed to only get her toes wet. This only hours after a tree fell on her and her concession-mate’s beds shortly after sunrise. After chatting about that and her trip plans for the end of service, we went to the wedding pre-reception by the marketplace. We were offered food and met the bride off surrounded by her entourage in a house. The wedding was to take place at 4:00. Right around four o’clock a bunch of people left and said that they would be back soon. A handful stuck around while others came back in twenty minutes and said that the wedding was done and that the couple had already headed off to Niamey, where they will live. Confusing, no? Guess what, a Nigerien groom often doesn’t ‘propose’ until two weeks prior to the wedding date! We all should be invited to a number of weddings, naming ceremonies and such similar events, that cultural norms should clear up in our minds. Explaining them to someone who hasn’t attended all our cross-culturally themed sessions might still be kind of difficult.
In other news, late last week we received our site announcements and earlier this week we were able to meet our future supervisors. Next week we will all spend a week going through a ‘live-in’ acclimation in our respective sites. After that only two weeks of training will remain. Wow.
Next time I hope my news will be more up to date, and a full-scale introduction to my site should be in order.
-Thomas

Niamey!

This will be a short blog post written (hopefully) the evening before it can be read on my blog.
The referendum was fairly uneventful. After seeing military uniforms around Hamdallaye and ‘vote taxis’ departing and arriving, I still didn’t feel nervous. I just today found the complete results of the elections: something like 92% voted yes for the referendum, ‘approving’ President Tandja’s dissolution of parliament and the constitutional court as well as his decision to surpass the constitutional two-term limit for another three years of service. One of my formatrices (language teachers) said that she found all the foreign press attention regarding potential opposition violence funny, as Nigeriens wish to preserve peace more than anything else. More than anything else, I sensed that life for the average Nigerien town remains largely unaffected by national politics - Nigerien families are more autonomous than their counterparts throughout much of the world today.
Today we received our Niamey safety and security tour, a bus tour of much of the city, and experienced a grocery store and restaurant for the first time since we left the States. Our Chinese food was amazing and the fruit, A/C and candy bars made for quite the reverse cultural shock. Tomorrow (today) I plan to go back with much of the group to catch a bit of internet access and a swim at the American Recreation Center pool. Quite the treat of a weekend!
Cheers,
-Thomas

On the Eve of the Referendum

While I should be able to write you a more up-to-date blog post in a few days when we should be able to use the internet for the first time, I thought that it would be best recount the past couple weeks and spend the next post only on the goings-on of the referendum vote which is scheduled for tomorrow. In case you haven’t read much about it, I will do my best to fill you in on some details, especially the perspective you can’t get from the news website.
The last weekend of July we had our first chance to leave Hamdallaye, or Hamdy, to see a bit of Niger and real Peace Corps life. Like everything in Peace Corps, this weekend has a name and its abbreviation: Demystification and Demyst. We are called Demysters for the weekend. All thirty-two of us set out in groups of one, two or three to stay with PCV hosts serving in the two regions nearest Niamey - Dosso and Tillaberi. Since access to much of Tillaberi’s territory has been restricted for US citizens as a precautionary measures (you can read up on that at the State Dept.’s website) only seven of us ‘demisted’ in Tillaberi. I and two others ended up in Torodi with PCV who had been serving. Torodi is one of the few notable towns on the road from Niamey to Burkina Faso (or Burkina, as the locals say) and was a prime location to chill out by the vernal river, sample the delicious meat and honey. Our demystifier cooked us scrambled guinea fowl eggs for breakfast - may I say that guinea fowl meat and eggs beat out chicken any day - with cereal and powdered milk. After beans and rice for oh so many days, ‘twas like manna to our bellies. We spent much of our time reading, journaling, chatting and playing cards. We also were able to meet many of our demystifier’s friends in town, including the smith, who created personalized silver rings for all three of us. The R and R was well-timed as well, as we were becoming overwhelmed by the repetitive language lessons and endless medical, technical and cross-cultural sessions. More than anything, it made me truly begin to anticipate my arrival at site, and my life thereafter.
Something that our demystifier mentioned in passing stuck with me in the following form: “In Niger, nothing ever works like new.” He was talking about a flashlight, but he could have meant many other things, including human bodies. As we were told, a number of us fell sick after Demyst. While I had Mr. D before and after demyst for about six days or so, it was fairly controllable. For others though, medications had caused up to two weeks of constipation. Still others had to swallow a cornucopia of pills for amoebas and bacteria having the opposite effect on the bowels. While this may not seem the most appropriate topic for the blog, you have to understand it has been my primary topic of conversation for the past few days as seven or eight of us spent quality time at the infirmary this weekend.
My lot was different in that I experienced fevers every afternoon and early morning from Friday afternoon till Sunday morning. Combined with continued stomach problems, everything seemed manageable but uncomfortable. At rock bottom I was left on Saturday afternoon with 102.9 temperature that had risen a degree and a half in just under an hour without a clear idea of what I had or even what medicine I should be taking. After an appraisal of the symptoms it was clear a malaria test was more than due. Fortunately, the fever broke yesterday and I feel much better. At the same time, the malaria slide completed under much supervision couldn’t be read. I doubt many of us could imagine what beatings our bodies would take before Niger, but camaraderie has its benefits…including those who can make light out of any situation.
- Thomas

Peace Corps Hardcore

I’m writing this not knowing exactly when I’ll be able to post it online. While much has happened since I last wrote in Philadelphia, I know the biggest events of my entry into Peace Corps Niger are still to come. After a flight to Paris and from there to Niamey, we were greeted by a red land more resembling Mars than North America and a number of volunteers who will serve as ‘summer camp counselors’ for the 32 of us (my term) the next nine weeks.
The first three VATs (Volunteers at Training) escorted us in two vans about 30km from the capital to the village of Hamdallaye, where Peace Corps has been training potential PCVs for decades. A smooth transition has been put in place for us, graded gradually down from American amenities to Nigerien bare necessities. While I don’t think we will ever ‘have’ to live as stripped down as your average Nigerien, it won’t be easy. For my group, made up of MCDs (municipal) and CYE (education) volunteers, we will probably receive an upgrade when we move from training to our posts around the country.
A little a bit about those conditions, shall we? Our first step down from the Philly luxe was the training site, where we slept two nights with lukewarm showers and nicely prepared, balanced meals, sat on chairs with pads, had “flush” toilets and electrical outlets. The first Sunday we were moved down from our gated site into the community. We were split into individuals or pairs and placed in compounds shared with local families. The conditions varied from an individual with a flimsy hut and concession (wall inside compound) made completely of straw, no electricity or TV, nothing but rice or millet to eat with his hands, and no French spoken at home. On the other hand, some people got a companion, a clay hut, a family with a TV and electricity, meat and a spoon, and French spoken in the family. I’m right about in the middle. No matter what, we all take baths with buckets of water under a glorious Milky Way, go to the bathroom in a whole in the ground, have innumerable naked kids running around our compounds, and hand wash at least part of our laundry. At least we don’t do our business way out in the fields or carry enormous water buckets on our heads. And I even escaped the carb-only diet when a group of French nursing interns stayed across my compound for a few days: I not only got to practice my French, but had some mango, egg on toast, and mint water….Ahh, I could die for some mint water right now!
Today marks our first full week in family, we all agree we’ve been able to adjust to the fact that we were able to handle an entire Sunday with absolutely nothing to do (although one girl in the group was put to work hauling water and wood right off the bat!). To me, I kept feeling as if I was in a living-history museum like Greenfield Village, except the fires actually were cooking food I would eat and the blacksmith was making real tools people would really use. Sleeping through the wee hours with donkeys, roosters, goats and sheep offering a cacophony of misfiring alarms brought reality closer to home. A sudden gust of wind and dust woke us all up our first night, as we were rudely welcomed to Nigerien rainy season: where you get more dust and wind than rain. Despite our groggy sprint with mattresses and mosquito netting from our outdoor platforms to shelter, we woke to eyes, clothing, and luggage coated, or even infiltrated with dust.
In our first of many medical training sessions, our Med officer introduced us to Mr. D - Diarrhea. We soon learned one of Peace Corps Niger’s most infamous claims: the highest ratio of gastrointestinal illnesses per volunteer in all of Peace Corps. While I want to say it was 175/year (with between 90-120 volunteers serving), there are of course numbers of unreported bouts. And we’ve already had at least one. This claim to fame categorizes Niger in the Peace Corps Hard Core category with the likes of Tajikistan, as opposed to Peace Corps Soft Core (Philippines - volunteering in a resort with tourists, what!?). As you may know, Niger has been 177 and 174 out of 177 on the UN’s list of human development for the last two years. Nonetheless, we seem to be having it better than I expected. And given that I am learning Zarma, I will most likely be posted well within a day’s drive from Niamey (the capital). When I return to the training site, I marvel at how much work is done by a toilet that flushes, even if it doesn’t quite do it right, or when I want it to.
-Thomas

In and Out of Philly in 30 hours

Hi everybody,
I'm writing from my hotel room in Philadelphia in the middle of my staging process. I got in this morning and am leaving tomorrow afternoon. It's been a very busy time getting to meet everybody, learning rules and regulations...getting a crash course on loads of fun stuff like that. I won't be able to write for a while during in training, so I thought I'd write right now while I can. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers, I'll be thinking of you when I have a chance to think (or breathe).

-Thomas