What's Not to Love?

Ahh.. Just a relaxing friday morning with nothing to do :) So Rose and I have been splitting up the weekends so that the only day one of us is not there is Saturday- either one of us take of friday and saturday, and the other, saturday and sunday- this way our food donation from the nearby hotel gets picked up every day and the animals don't miss out. Anyway, life is smoothing out and routine is slowly setting in. In some ways I am so glad to be here in Niamey- life is just so much easier!

10 things I love about living in the city:

1- Electricity!!!! It's so wierd staying up past when it gets dark at night!! (Why, yes... that does mean that I went to bed around 7 o'clock some nights in the bush)

2- Obviously my job is a huge part of loving where I live- I love what I get to do, I love having schedule in my life again, and I hope it never gets old!

3- Food. Wait, let me refrase that. Veggitables. After a year in the bush with often only onions and garlic (when I was lucky) for veggie-nutrition, I had lost a bit of weight... which I have promptly gained back...

4- I love the conglomeration of languages here in Niamey!! I greet people in an assortment of 4 sometimes 5 languages every morning (Hausa, Zarma, French, and even an occasional English 'Good morning' or Tamacheq)

5- My new house. It's this big, old, french style house, probably a zillion years old. My roomie, Maeghan and I call it 'Netherfield' :) I love that its surrounded by huge trees, it's made completely out of cement (kinda like a cave..) with tall ceilings and a cute poarch wrapping around the front. Oh! And we're putting in a tree-swing..

6- Cloth and Taylors.. So Maeghan has gotten me into the cloth shopping habit.. There is so much cloth here in such a variety; the typical West African colorful prints, beutiful cotton cloth, Mauritania cloths, pretty much anything you could want. Then, all you have to do is get a good taylor, give him a magazine picture of what you want, measurments, and poof.. two weeks later, really cute clothes, at about a quarter of what you'd pay in the U.S.

7- Internet Access!!!! I love reading the news!!! It's such a novel thing... I'll admit I'm becoming re-addicted to facebook..

8- Because it's the capital, I get to see a lot of volunteers coming in and out- so I'm getting to know a lot of peace corps volunteers I probably wouldnt have otherwise.

9- To go along with that, I'm getting to know the Peace Corps staff a lot better too. It's great seeing them every day and chatting with people I hadnt talked to much before.

10- The WestAfrican Culture of the city. Niamey has a whole different atmosphere than the bush. While I loved the bush as well, Niamey has this vibe that's hard to explain.. I guess it's just a little more relaxed from the strict, Muslim atmosphere of more rural places. Plus, working at the Musee National, I'm getting a good insite to the history and culture of Niger, both as a westerner sees it, and as Nigeriens see it. They have so much pride for the history and culture, and the longer I've lived here the more every now and again I feel little snippets of that pride myself.

So, some of the things I suprised myself by not including in this list:

-Transportation- while I thought taxis would be so convinient and a great change to walking three hours or biking to the market or main road, I miss my bike terribly, and have started walking a lot more to avoid the hastle of taking the taxis..

-The 'Anasara Novelty'... I thought that living in the city with so many other 'white' people, it wouldn't be such a novel thing to see me, and I could blend in a bit more... nope. I'm still a specticle. In fact, the other day I was in the Mule's cage at the zoo, and 2 Nigerians come up and ask if they can take a picture. 'Sure' I replied, I didnt care that they took a picture of the mule... 'well, should I come in the cage then?' I got a little angry and told him of course he couldnt come in the cage. I assumed he just wanted the mule in the picture and I was messing up the shot. So I was like, 'Fine, I'll get out.' I get out. He then turns and snaps the picture of me. Apparently it was the mule that was messing up the shot.

-Food- like resturants, cheese, other expensive items not even found in the bush.. or Konni... I admit I went crazy the first couple weeks and spent a ton of money, and now I'm back to normal, using my powdered milk and eating cous-cous and pasta.. I will admit it's nice to have the option of good food.. Even if I don't take it.

-Toilets and Showers. To be honest, I couldn't care less anymore if I take a bucket bath or a shower.. which, I'm in a really bad habit of neither becasue it's so cold these days... I either force myself to take a cold shower every now and again, violently shivering for the 5-10 minutes I can stand it, or, head to the hostel and make use of the hot water there. ahh. As for the toilet upgrade, I dont know, I miss that latrine in a weird way.. I was saving a lot of money on toilet paper in the bush..

Ok, so that's that.. One more quick comment. With about 10 months left of service, I can't help but get a little ahead of myself wondering what to do after Peace Corps. I can't say I've made any final decisions yet, but I have a couple options I'm weighing the possibilities.. I'll let everyone know when I've figured it out!

Reminisces of the Bush and adjusting to life

First post of the New Year! Better make it a good one...

To begin, New Years was fun, a group of us went to a Nigerien rap concert (that was an experience.. concidering I've never been to a rap concert in the states!)- I think I'm getting old though; the concert was too loud and I was way too tired by 2:00 am, but otherwise a fun New Years!

Wow, I was reading through my last blogs and I realized there was so much I left out from my village experience! The things I really miss now, I hardly, if at all, mentioned! So, I'm going to try to fill in the blanks within the next year on culture differences, the people, what I miss most... I admit, the reason I was reading through them in the first place was that I was a little bush-sick. I really miss my life I had there and the unexpected friends I made. So, for the next portion of this post, some of my reminiscents of bush life:

First- the people of my village. As I read through old posts, I couldn't believe how much I'd left out some of the most important people of this last year! I don't want to put too much information out there about anyone, so I'll just use first names (no harm in that, right?) First- my home-away-from-home, Aisha's house. Aisha was one of my best women friends in the vil, she and her husband are absolutely open and giving with everything they have. Aisha and I would study little Hausa pamplets together to improve her literacy/my Hausa- usually ended up just me reading to her in Hausa... which got a little akward- most of her pamplets were given to her by medical/ sanitation type NGOs, so every now and again I'd find myself reading about something potentially akward... like condoms and STDs... best part is that it would just randomly don on me half way through the paragraph what I was reading out loud ('oooooooohh...'). Aisha and her family were always willing to help and were the first ones at my meetings. Oh, and she was a FABULOUS cook... ate her food more than my own (ok, I ate ANYONES food more than my own).

Next, Hilimou was also one of my best women friends and she always had a smile on her face. I absolutely loved hanging out at her house, and we never seemed to run out of things to talk about. Half our conversations were dedicated to arguing over my weight- she would tell me to drink lots of Hura (spiced millet and milk drink) so that I would get really fat, and I'd argue, 'but I don't want to be fat', she'd come back with, 'fat is beutiful! You need to get fat to find a husband!' Then we'd go back and forth on random other things... sigh, I miss her!

Hankuri, whom I believe I have mentioned before, is both my grandma (well, maybe great grandma) in the village and my best friend. If I was ever upset about something, no matter what it was, she was always on my side- whatever was wrong, she would do anything in her power to make it right. This one very frustrating afternoon, I was sitting with her and I told her my horse had no hay because the kid who was supposed to go get it had no honesty.. She says, ok, lets take care of it. We go find kids to pick hay for the next day, the we head out to the bush and we pick a bundle of hay! I just loved watching her whole face light up when you show up at her house, and I was so glad that on the last day I was in my village (had no idea it was my last day) I spend the day with her and we walked an hour to a neighboring village to a wedding. If I had one more day in my vil, I'd probably spend most of it at her house, helping her pound millet, or just sitting with the zillions of kids that always are there.

Idi was one of my best guy friends in the village I loved hanging out with his family even if he wasnt around. (we'd catch the ducklings and watch the momma duck freak out, then laugh.. hmm. yes I'm an animal husbandry volunteer...) Anyway, Idi and I would just hang out and talk most of the time- he was my official villiage counterpart, so anything I had going on he was in on and ready to help. We used to talk about anything under the sun- things like, explaining that at 12 o'clock our time, it was 5 am in America.. why? Well... then I'd explain about the sun and the earth and rotation... I got a little too technical sometimes, but he was always eager to hear more. He loved the world map I painted and would watch me paint and ask which countries where which, where America was, etc. My favorite memories are of when he thought this combination lock I had was amazing- so I gave it to him and taught him how to use it. for three days he unsuccessfully tried to use it, then one morning (around 6..) he knocks on my door, Look! I can open it! and then shows me. I loved it. He was one of those rare people that you just wanted to give tons of gifts to because he never asked for anything and was genuinely happy to be your friend.

Ok, just one more, this is getting long, Oumarou and Hiyali were the two husbands to the two families in my family concession. Both were always helpful and cheerful- Oumarou one dy caught me giving my horse a pepperment- he thought it was hillarious that I would give an animal a piece of candy and didnt leave me alone about it for weeks! Hiyali was one of my really good friends, and luckly for me, really liked my horse. He took as good of care of her as I did and I'd hear through the village that he'd ride her out to the bush and back bareback when I was gone :) Sigh.. good times..

Anyway, enough reminiscing for now. the zoo is going great and the animals are starting to really get used to me.. maybe even like me! (I get the evil eye from a monkey every now and then.. actually, there's this one monkey that thinks I'm the scariest thing on two feet and has a fit if I'm standing too close (thats gotta be good for the self-esteem! Lol)), but the baboons like me well enough now, so it all weighs out :) We're starting to get some projects started: first, working on a volunteer program with the University, so we'll start training new volunteers here soon, second, we've been working with our mule, Barry, and hope to have him up and going for pony-rides one day (more on him later!), third, I've started researching possible funding sources to build either a hyena or chimpanzee habitat (not so successfully, so if anyone has any ideas, let me know!), fourth, we really want to get a website up and going for the Musee, so I've been looking into how to go about doing that. Definately enough to keep us busy anyway! Oh, just a note- mail here in Niamey is kinda atrocious, and I still havent seen packages that were sent over a month ago. From what I hear, not a package goes by that doesnt get opened and peaked into... or stolen from.. or eaten out of by a critter.... but no matter what is missing when I do eventually get it, I really am thankful for everyone's support and letters/packages!

Clyde- one of our two Dorcas Gazelles!

Merry Christmas from Niger!

Whew- with daily internet access, you'd think I'd write so much more- I guess I've started taking the internet for granted, always figuring 'I'll write tomorrow'...

First off, Merry Christmas to everyone and Happy New Year! I can't believe 2009 went by so fast, and even more, I can't believe I only have a year left of Peace Corps! (aughh! what am I going to do??!! Still havent really figured out what I want to 'be' when I grow up!)

Anyway, Christmas in Niamey, I've gotta say, I was a little worried about. I'm the only one from my old region here right now, plus the only one in this region from my stage, so I don't know many of my new region. I was expecting it might be a bit of a lonely Christmas, but I was wrong- as much as I really really loved my last region, the people in this region are pretty awesome and Christmas was great. I'm really glad to be a part of this region now. Not only did we have DELICIOUS food (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, apple pie...), but being only 9 of us, it was a cozy christmas with christmas movies, board games, and 'santa', who brought each of us a stocking full of treats :).

Moving on- working at the zoo is going great and I love the daily interaction with the animals. Being my first zoo experience I'm learning a lot and even those less-exciting tasks, aka, scrubbing hippo tanks, or cleaning out the baboons water is fun (seriously) and I love having a little more structure in my job again. So, now that I've done about three weeks, heres what my workload has looked like:

Monday through friday, get there about 8 or 9 am, shadow/assist in one of the areas (5 total), doing things like cleaning out/hosing down the cages of wharthogs, hyenas, baboons, jackals, monkeys, or chimps, filling up waterers, sweeping out the bird cages, mule, ram, goat, crocadile pens, and feeding the livestock, including the ostriches and elan. So after the morning, usually around noon, Rose, the current volunteer (we're going to work together until she leaves sometime around march or april), and I head over to the nearby hotel for the food donation they give (veggie peelings, old bread, old fruit, etc) and then spend a couple hours hand feeding it out to the chimps, monkeys, baboons, civit, etc. To finish our day, we usually spend about 30 to 45 minutes working with the mule (Barry)- whom we hope to get saddled and bridled and 'pony'-ride in a few months. Other random jobs have included chopping wood and giving tours, and yelling at kids... the later, more often than anyother job. One thing I really love about this job is that it makes me so excited to research everything that I'm working with and I'm learning a lot. Anyway, thats usually the end of my typical day, around 3 or 4 ish, often we come back in the evening if something's going on, oh and we take the weekends off.

One thing I'm not to keen on in this job is that EVERYONE stops and stares ('look! it's an anisara doing WORK!') and then watches you for about 30 minutes.. (I mean, seriously, is it really that entertaining to watch me roll up the hose?!) Sometimes I wonder if I'm more part of the exibit that working for the exibit..

Anyway, thats all the news for now- I really really am going to try to write once a week (new years resolution!... that and learn french!) The longer I'm here in the city the more I miss the bush. I loved how simple and peaceful everything was, and ok, I'll admit, I loved being that one foreigner for miles; I loved being that voice for the women in my village, 'cool' and important because I have an education, and a celebrity (seriously, 15 minutes of fame?.. I got a year!) I even miss the kids, who all they want is to sit a half inch from your face and pull out your arm hair.. Don't get me wrong, I love my new post and wouldn't trade it for any other job, but I do miss my village!

Well, thats it for now- I hope everyone had a wonderful christmas and I'll write again next year!

Sunset over the Niger river!

Little Village, Big City!

Finally I have news! After a few weeks shuffling our feet around the city, most of us now have options and have made our decisions.

First the good news- I've been waiting anxiously to hear about a job here working at the zoo, and, as of this morning, I officially have the position! Which means I'm not going to have to leave yet!

The zoo position will be night and day compared to my past experience in this country- there is such a huge gap between lifestyles of Nigeriens in the bush and Nigeriens in the city that it's like jumping a few hundred years forward (I'm using WIRELESS internet right now... I didn't even know that existed here). I am really lucky to have experienced the bush life and will miss it.. However, I think I'm also very fortunate for the oportunity to experience the city life too (and work in a ZOO!?! Who gets to do that every day??!!) I feel I'll leave this country with a better understanding of the country and the people.

So, as far as daily routine, I couldn't tell you for sure until I start (anywhere from 2 weeks to a month) but I think it'll be around a 6 day a week job, mostling feeding hippos, hosing down hyenas, cleaning out the lion cage, you know... typical stuff :). On a side portion, I'm hoping to continue the past volunteers work is working towards developing a website for the zoo (maybe a sponsor-an-animal type program) and working to find funding to build a chimpanzee habitat. (She- the previous volunteer- is woring right now to build a lion habitat) The problem with the zoo is lack of funding- which results in poor housing, lack of food, too small cages- which leads to poor health, etc. etc... Another problem, I guess related to housing, is that kids, or anyone, has easy access to any of the animals. If a kid wanted to hop into the hippo cage, its literally a matter of stepping over the fence. The hyena cage is close enough to stick your hand in. Anyway, the point is, kinda dangerous for both the people and the animals.

Basically, it may just be my dream job and I am so excited! I guess all these security problems/evacuation all worked out in the end :).

Now, the bad news... Because of all this going on, a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers are choosing to take an interupted service and head home. Especially those in my region and other parts of other reagions who were evacuated, starting all over again in a new village is a pretty daunting and overwelming idea, so I really can't blame them for saying their goodbyes and heading back. I think from my stage, at the moment, there are somewhere between 6 and 8 choosing to go home. A few (5 maybe?) from the stage after us chose to leave, and a couple more from the stage right before us are thinking about it. To make it even harder, the Oldest stage, who was about a month away from completion of service were asked to leave early, and the newest stage, who were still in training, are now being relocated to another country in the continent. So through and through, our numbers fell drastically..

More 'good' news (gotta end on a good note!), yesterday, myself, Heidi and Lindsey all got our hair done.. Heidi and I with 2 bags of extention hair and rasta braids... it only took 7 hours (no seriously)... We look pretty cool if I may say so...

Right, Left, and bottom left: Just a few zoo pictures!

Below right: Lindsey and I at our Halloween party in Tahoua (wasnt big on costumes- unless the Niger-outfit counts!) Very bottom- Colin and I donned our fancy tradition wear for Tabaski celebration at a friends house

abrupt changes

This'll be short, but it's overdue for an update.. I've got news..
First, to start out with something a little more light and fluffy, I BAUGHT GRAIN FOR THE GRAIN BANK!!! It felt like a huge milestone and I was so proud of everyones work when it was finally stored and set.
I was still working on my womens garden plans, but still unsucessfully searching for someone to fix the well- other than that, we were ready to go.. (water's kinda important, I guess...)
Anyway. SO.. there was a securty incident in the Tahoua region- I know I'm being a bit vague, but I'm not sure just what is appropriate to mention right now.. I think you might be able to find some sort of news update on the internet... Anyway, long story short, we were picked up from our villages and a few days later we get an annoucement that we are evacuating that region.
I think the hardest part is not getting to say goodbye to any of my villagers, followed shortly by a horse I baught only 2 months ago, which my villagers are working on selling for me.
Its been a crazy couple of days where everything seems to just have fallen apart. Not only did I lose my village, but also my reagion; my American family/support system this past year. Peace Corps is being really great about our safety and are working around the clock- and, InShaAllah, it'll all blow over and we'll be back to work in no time. As for those of us in the region, I think we have some options and I'll keep everyone updated what turns out. I haven't heard the options yet, but I'd venture to guess that it'll be something like, go home now with an 'interupted service', or new village in a new region. All I can say though, is that I love it here; I love this country and this job and I'm going to stay if I can!