Wow, exactly a month since I wrote last- the internet has been either down, or incredibly slow (as in, 45 minutes didn’t even get me into my email inbox) and this is the first time I’ve been in with working internet. Well, month after vacation- its been really good to get back into the swing of things. Been out in the fields working with my villagers, whom, because of recent drought throughout all of Niger are incredibly fortunate to have an ok crop of millet this year- parts of the country have literally had to replant 3 or 4 times because of lack of rain and honestly have little to no crops… so that’s kindof hard to watch- they work all day every day for the grain their family is going to be living off of throughout the year, and I just cant imagine how it would be to see that crop fail planting after planting.
On a lighter note, work has been fun and picking up! (FINALLY!) My latest projects have been a lot of painting- which is a really good change from planting… So, myself and another volunteer, Meaghan, planned some girls education sensibilization murals in my nearby market town- they turned out really good! So we did two- one at the cultural center, and one at the secondary (?) school (the French school system still confuses me). So the first one has a cartoon figure of a girl in a class room raising her hand- to the side of that says: “Rishin Sani Ya Hi Dare Duhu”, a Hausa proverb meaning; Lack of Knowledge is darker than night. Then beneath that we had in French a little blurb about the education of girls can benefit everyone and to send girls to school. The second mural was pretty similar, with a similar cartoon girl sitting at a desk, and to the side, “Allah, Ya Ce, Tashi in Taimake Ka.” Another Housa proverb which is basically, ‘God helps those who help themselves’. And the same French message on the importance of girls education. Anyway, so the whole project was a lot of fun- we worked with a couple of the JICA volunteers (Japan’s equivalent of Peace Corps) in the painting and just spent a couple of days at it. Hopefully the murals and a couple radio shows we plan on doing later, will just get people thinking and opening their minds to girls education.
In my village, last I talked to my school headmaster, we had around 4 girls in all of 35 students in school. It is a little frustrating to ask parents why only the boys go to school- usually there’s a conversation of, oh, she has too much work to do, or, she’s at more use at home, or worse, well, she doesn’t want to, plus, how is that going to help her get married (educated women tend to not be as quickly married.. hmmm)? Especially in the bush, even most girls have an outlook of, knowing how to read and write isn’t going to help me get married, have lots of kids, and pound millet/pull water each day. I feel like sometimes a woman’s status is based on how many children she has- most women are so timid and intimidated when they’re around men, that very few get the respect they I think they deserve- I try to hint that women’s education is a way of ‘evening the playing field’ so to speak, but I think it’s going to be a slow and gradual change. I do feel like it is getting better- it just takes time!
Anyway, enough on that topic, so after we finished the murals, I took the paints to my village and I began a world map in my school. Since the school has very limited resources, they don’t have a world map and I doubt most in my village have ever seen a world map (one day a women asked me how long the bus ride to America was… “isn’t it next to Nigeria?”… um a little farther…) So there’s a world map booklet with a grid to help paint in onto the wall. So I’ve just started that, and so far I’ve got about half drawn up on the wall in sharpie- it’s kinda a pain, but still a really enjoyable project!
OK, so. It’s official- I am going to the animal market next week to buy my horse! I still have a lot to get done before that, (like, buy a saddle, put a stick in the ground to tether him to, buy a 50 Kilo sack of millet, oh, and hire about three little kids to pick 3 big bags of grass/weeds for him each day) oh, and the saddle in the market is going to cost me about 20 us dollars… pretty amazing considering the last saddle I bought was several hundred more than that… I’m pretty excited J So donations of peppermints will be greatly appreciated!
On a lighter note, work has been fun and picking up! (FINALLY!) My latest projects have been a lot of painting- which is a really good change from planting… So, myself and another volunteer, Meaghan, planned some girls education sensibilization murals in my nearby market town- they turned out really good! So we did two- one at the cultural center, and one at the secondary (?) school (the French school system still confuses me). So the first one has a cartoon figure of a girl in a class room raising her hand- to the side of that says: “Rishin Sani Ya Hi Dare Duhu”, a Hausa proverb meaning; Lack of Knowledge is darker than night. Then beneath that we had in French a little blurb about the education of girls can benefit everyone and to send girls to school. The second mural was pretty similar, with a similar cartoon girl sitting at a desk, and to the side, “Allah, Ya Ce, Tashi in Taimake Ka.” Another Housa proverb which is basically, ‘God helps those who help themselves’. And the same French message on the importance of girls education. Anyway, so the whole project was a lot of fun- we worked with a couple of the JICA volunteers (Japan’s equivalent of Peace Corps) in the painting and just spent a couple of days at it. Hopefully the murals and a couple radio shows we plan on doing later, will just get people thinking and opening their minds to girls education.
In my village, last I talked to my school headmaster, we had around 4 girls in all of 35 students in school. It is a little frustrating to ask parents why only the boys go to school- usually there’s a conversation of, oh, she has too much work to do, or, she’s at more use at home, or worse, well, she doesn’t want to, plus, how is that going to help her get married (educated women tend to not be as quickly married.. hmmm)? Especially in the bush, even most girls have an outlook of, knowing how to read and write isn’t going to help me get married, have lots of kids, and pound millet/pull water each day. I feel like sometimes a woman’s status is based on how many children she has- most women are so timid and intimidated when they’re around men, that very few get the respect they I think they deserve- I try to hint that women’s education is a way of ‘evening the playing field’ so to speak, but I think it’s going to be a slow and gradual change. I do feel like it is getting better- it just takes time!
Anyway, enough on that topic, so after we finished the murals, I took the paints to my village and I began a world map in my school. Since the school has very limited resources, they don’t have a world map and I doubt most in my village have ever seen a world map (one day a women asked me how long the bus ride to America was… “isn’t it next to Nigeria?”… um a little farther…) So there’s a world map booklet with a grid to help paint in onto the wall. So I’ve just started that, and so far I’ve got about half drawn up on the wall in sharpie- it’s kinda a pain, but still a really enjoyable project!
OK, so. It’s official- I am going to the animal market next week to buy my horse! I still have a lot to get done before that, (like, buy a saddle, put a stick in the ground to tether him to, buy a 50 Kilo sack of millet, oh, and hire about three little kids to pick 3 big bags of grass/weeds for him each day) oh, and the saddle in the market is going to cost me about 20 us dollars… pretty amazing considering the last saddle I bought was several hundred more than that… I’m pretty excited J So donations of peppermints will be greatly appreciated!
