Back in the BUSH!

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!

The first picture- The Point of No return, Ouida, Benin next, Liz Myself, and Ariana on a hike through the rainforests of the Volta Region, third, One of our little monkey friends in Tafi Atome just eating his banana...

Fifth, the Wli falls- just the lower ones, since it was rainey season, we couldnt hike to the upper falls. Below, me feeding the monkeys, next the fishing port at Cape Coast, I loved this scene- I think it'd make a great watercolor painting...

Next, on the river at a small fishing village near the Green Turtle lodge, after that, at cape coast again, these two boats and the flag just looked too picturesk to pass up.

The bridges at the canopy walk in Kukum Rainforest, and Liz, Myself, and Ariana pausing for a photo on the rope bridges.

Ok, so I have a bunch more photos on my facebook page, but I figured this was enough for one post!

Vacation Part 2! (sorry this one's kinda long...)

Well, my plan to write in Ghana didn’t work out too well… We probably spent numerous hours in internet cafes in Accra, but most of that time was used in TRYING (unsuccessfully) to upload pictures… so much for the idea that that would be easier in Ghana…
Anyway, Ghana was absolutely beautiful- so much water and greenery, almost made me wish I was in Peace Corps, Ghana. After our day and a half wait in Lome, Togo, for our Ghana visa, we left (straight from the Ghanaian Embassy) for a village called Kpalme, Togo, which had bush taxis through the border to Hohoe, Ghana in the Volta region. I think we got to the bush taxi station around 1:30, but we waited there for 6 hours…. for a 32 K drive. Oh, and we had to personally wake up the border guards to get our passports stamped. The Volta region of Ghana, however, was definitely worth the hassle. After what we voted our most rundown-sketchy hotel of the entire trip (that’s saying something considering we averaged about 7 USD a night per person), we got up early and (well, switched hotels first) went to the Wli waterfalls. Absolutely beautiful walk through the tropical rainforest up to the Wli falls, where swimming was an option we of course couldn’t pass up. It was FREEZING, but this is coming from the land of never-under-98-degrees-farenheight. There was also a hotel/restaurant a short walk from the tourist centre with a beautiful view of the falls and delicious food. I think that was the point that started our chain of eating out like queens (or pigs), and that’s probably where a good portion of our trip money went… that and football jerseys (ok, SOCCER) but anyway. So the next morning we set off to Accra, stopping at a monkey sanctuary in a village just outside of Hohoe. For about 5 Ghanaian Cedis we got a bag of bananas and a 15 minute walk through the trees… but we also got to feed the monkeys, so I guess it was worth it. What you did was hold out a banana, as tightly as possible and about 5-7 little monkeys would attack it- it was gone within 5 seconds- once we were out of bananas, they wouldn’t come down from the trees.. the tour was over.
On to Accra, capitol of Ghana. We were a little overwhelmed how much this city is like AMERICA!!! Every kind of food just around the corner, a MALL, even a big movie theatre!!! We watched our first big-screen film in 10 months, The Proposal, and maybe because it had been so long, it might be one of my favorite flicks. Our real reason for going was to see when Harry Potter 6 was playing (a crucial element in our vacation) but it wasn’t out for a week- so we made plans to come back… other than that, Accra was pretty exciting as we happened to be there the same time as President Obama, but we didn’t see him (unless you count seeing his helicopter overhead.. I do. ) To be honest, we didn’t make a huge effort to see him- we weighed out our possibilities; mall and the movies, or waiting outside a building for 7 hours in hopes to glimpse the back of his head… The Obama paraphernalia was astounding though- everywhere you looked were banners, posters, flags, t-shirts; all with Obama on it (even little American Flags with Obama’s face in the stripes). It was really great to see how much support Obama has in Ghana- or really in any West African country I’ve been to- if they hear you speak English, the first thing they say is “Obama!”.
After one night in Accra, we went down to our first on-the-beach reservation spot, a big Rasta-type resort called ‘Big Milly’s Back Yard’ (Milly being this sweet little old British woman). I think it would have been a lot of fun and a couple days of relaxing, but we kinda got of on the wrong foot with this place. When we first showed up, at about 5:15 that evening, they were like, sorry! You were late, we gave your room away! LATE? We had no idea 5:15 was late. Especially for a laidback backpackers resort. Anyway, so they took us down the road to this Black Stone hotel… possibly second or third on our list of not so great places to stay… But we moved to big Milly’s the next day. As we were sitting on the beach, there were a couple of Rasta guys talking about us. Their tactic was to talk about us in Hausa so that none of us ‘white people’ could understand them… but when we turned around and asked in Hausa who they were calling white people and why they speak Hausa, it was fun to see the surprise on their faces..HA.
True to our form so far, we only stayed one night in this place and moved on to Cape Coast the next morning. (We did 9 hotels in the first 10 days of our trip) Cape Coast is a gorgeous fishing-type town on the coast, with the Cape Coast Castle just a walk down the beach from our hotel (the Oasis) The castle itself was very pretty and a really interesting part of African slave trade history. We took a tour of the castle and got to see the holding chambers for the slave men and women- tiny little dark damp rooms for 200 to 500 people. Even worse were the chambers designed to hold those that rebelled- small, windowless chambers where they were put in for 48 or so hours or until they died; this was also reserved for the women who refused to be raped by the military captains and always ended in death. Because the fort was originally built for trade of goods and then later converted to slaves, the rooms were so small and dim and stuffy that it was hard to be in them for a few minutes with 20 other people on the tour- I can’t even imagine what it must have been like.
Other than touring the castle, we spent our day perusing the shops on the streets of Cape Coast, and then watched some Ghanaian dancing at the hotel- it was a good day… The next morning we were off again for Kukum national rainforest where we got to do a Canopy walk (which I learned is only 1 of 5 public canopy walks in the world..oooh) We got to walk out on these swinging rope bridges 50 Meters above ground- the view was BEAUTIFUL and it was a great experience… It may not have been such a great experience for the guy in our tour group who was terrified of heights and thought there was only one bridge instead of 7… bet that was a nasty shock (he let us know with a few choice words)! After Kukum, we bush taxied on to the Green Turtle Lodge, an eco-friendly backpackers beach resort (full of West African NGO volunteers from all over the world all on a quick vacation before heading home). Here, we finally relaxed and stayed for 5 days- the food was DELICIOUS, and the best part, I only spent 115 Cedis (around 85 dollars?) for everything- food, lodging, boat tour, everything. I’ll definitely be back! There’s not much exciting to write about this portion of the vacation, except that lying on the beach for 5 days does in fact get boring. For Ariana’s birthday, one of our favorite staff members, Naomi, baked her a cake, and we got all dressed up… Liz and I had a dance party at one point with some of the staff, and we spent the evening dancing around a fire with the locals to the drums (I’m serious.) Bet not many people can say they did that for their 25th B-day! We did also take a canoe trip through the mangroves, but it wasn’t much to shout about, and we spent most of the time worrying about crabs falling from the trees (they were EVERYWHERE) but we did meet some fun people, returned Peace Corps volunteers, NGO workers…
Anyway, back to Accra, saw HARRY POTTER 6!!! it was awesome… one of the highlights of my trip. Which is good, because following that was a 24 hour bus ride to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, followed by what was supposed to be only an 8 hour bus ride (but took 13) to Niamey. All in two days (or three? I may have lost a day in there…). Oh, and the 24 hour bus ride? We left 4 hours late… and the one to Niamey? Never went over about 45 miles an hour. It was fun.
Either way, were back home in Niger and it’s actually really good to be back! It’s so nice to speak Hausa again and to be understood, and I really missed the hospitality of the Nigerien people. Nigeriens really are the most welcoming and friendly people I’ve met in West Africa and are genuinely happy you’re here. That’s not to say Ghanaians aren’t nice, just that it’s good to be home!

Some Benin and Togo Time

I am right now sitting in an internet cafe in Lome, the capitol of Togo... I don't know which makes me more excited- the amount of water they have, or the amount of green-ness... Or maybe the food... Anyway, so far its been a pretty sweeet vacation. So I'll give the play-by-play.. We left on the 4th of July from Niamey and got on what was suposed to be only a 16 hour bus ride, but there was a bit of an accedent along the way and our bus swerved off the road to avoid an oncomming semi truck who was passing another semi truck. We were fine, the guy doing the passing was fine, but the semi truck that he passed was forced off the road and flipped. So the bus stopped for a good three hours to get the guy out.. Guess it just goes to show that Benin roads and drivers are about the same as Niger's... (I think Benin has better roads though)
Moving on. So after an increadably long bus trip we finally arrived in Cotonou, Benin, stayed the night, and then headed first to a spot called the 'point of no return', where African slaves were walked down this path to the beach and put on their boat... never to return. It made that whole portion of history that much more real- especially to see the land they were taken out of (BEUTIFUL) only to be shoved on a boat where half would die before reaching a daunting final destination. So that was a really good experience and I'll try to get the pictures up when I get back to niamey.
After that, we went to a fishing village called Grand Popo (I'd live there just for the name) and stayed at this Regge/Rasta place on the beach called Le Lion Bar. It was so awesome and chill of a place, we're still wishing we'd just stayed another night! Basically we just lounged around on the beach listening to Bob Marley and sipping from coconuts.. oh good fish too.
Ok.. Moving on, the next morning we took a boat cruise (the hollowed out tree trunk kind) on this river (cant remember the name) and whent to a VooDoo village and got to walk around with our guide. It was REALLY interesting and made me realize there's a lot more to VooDooism than flying white flags and little pin-cushion dolls- Its really fascinating- I really want to do a little more research.
After the Village, we continued up river to a coconut grove and drank coconut milk and ate coconut.. Kinda amazing how that little kid could just shimmi right up the coconut tree..
Anyway, not to cut the story short, it just gets a little dull- we traveled to Lome, this morning we applied for the Gahnian visa, which should be ready tomorrow, and we've spent the day at the peace corps bureau here and down at the market doing a little (or a lot) of shopping.. Tomorrow, off to some hiking and waterfalls!
I'll try to write again in Ghana!

Chariot Spiders Anyone?

Off to Ghana in less than a week! (I’m pretty excited…) First a little recap on the last two weeks in the bush: Finished planting all our stuff- millet, beans, ground nuts; started the next process, which they call ‘noma’, basically tilling the entire field by hand... You can probably guess I didn’t help out too much with this part. After about one row, I was like, whew, well guys, good work, the sun’s out, I gotta go home… That one row was more than they expected me to do in the first place, so I think it was ok .. Had my first women’s group meeting on our Grain Bank project (I’ll talk about it more when my proposal gets on line to start the funding) but I’m really excited and I think these women are going to do an excellent job- they
So I’m pretty sure I mentioned that I got a cat about a month ago; so there’s a sad story now about that… The day I got back into the bush Musuru (that’s his name.. it’s just the Hausa word for ‘male cat’, but it sounded cool ) was perfectly healthy and really cute and excited to see me, probably because I’m the only one in the concession that doesn’t terrorize him, but anyway. So, that night we had a huge storm (irrelevant…sorry) and the next morning I couldn’t find him anywhere. Then I heard these little whimpers coming from underneath my cika-bed (millet-stock mat propped up on mud bricks) so I look under it and there he his, laying there whimpering. So, he can’t get up or anything, and to be honest, the moment I saw him I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to make it. So for about three hours I just had to kinda sit and wait, not being able to do anything for him- I tried to keep him hydrated, but by the end he was having muscle spasms and couldn’t breathe. I was so frustrated that I didn’t know what it was or what to do about it- but later on that day I found a dead scorpion that was in a couple chewed pieces. So my theory is that sometime during the big storm he either went in the house or under some dark corner to escape the rain and got stung and then tried to eat it, or, tried to eat it and then got stung, and, because he’s still really little, it killed him. It was sad. Oh, and possibly the worst part is the Nigerien perception of pets- my women’s group leader came in during those three hours and just looked at him and was like, ‘eww, don’t put that thing on the mat, its dying… you can just get a new one… lets go to the fields!’. Most of my neighbors were kinda like, oh its no big deal, you can just get a new one. Frustrating. Proudly I can say I kept my cool and didn’t cry… in front of them.
Sorry, but one more not-so-up-beat story: So that same night, I was going through the routine, getting ready for bed- it’s about 8:30 and it’s dark outside, so I have my headlamp on. I take a step out of my house and I see a large spider-like figure shoot across the ground at high speed… TWO of them. Oh- and they’re about as big as the palm of my hand. My cat just having been stung and killed by a creature, I freak out a bit and run back inside cowering.. They’re Chariot spiders, and they run around at top speed and they have these huge arms. They’re totally harmless, but the worse part about them is if they see light they kinda go crazy and charge it; so for about an hour and a half every time I got the courage to leave my house and set my bed and bug-net up, they would come flying out at me and ‘chase’ me back into the house. ( I finally put on some hiking boots, a rain coat, and gloves and set my bed up in several short increments) Needless to say it wasn’t one of my favorite days in Niger (I watched “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” on my Ipod, it helped the situation) So the next morning I tell one of the men in my family concession that there is a large chariot spider in my concession and that he needed to kill it… Actually, the exact translation was, ‘there is a too-big spider in my shade hanger, you need to give it death”… Anyway. He got the point, I went to market, came back and he was like, uh, Balkissa, I looked everywhere, I couldn’t find the chariot-spider.. So then I felt like the girl with a monster under the bed (literally) and was like, no! I SAW it. Well, a few days went by with no sign of them, and it wasn’t until the past couple of days that I saw them again. Don’t worry- the initial fear of the things kinda left, now when I see one, I just jump about a foot, turn off the light and leap into bed (which I have learned to set up BEFORE it gets dark). Ok. Moving on.
We're heading to Niamey for a few days before heading down to Ghana, so I'll try to take advantage of the fast 'city' internet and put up some pictures!