So it occurred to me that there has been so much going in since I arrived, that there is so much background missing behind even some very simple statements in my updates, that's why quick stories are mad hard to type up quick and my updates are leaving out a lot of stuff.
Some catch up;
- my Nigerien name is Magid (Abdul Magid). I like it because Magid sounds like both magic and magi. Poss Magid is one of god's name, so Abdul Magid means servant of god...or something like that
- My host family conists of a dad who works in forestry...something with staying on stop of smugglers or something like that. He has two wives. Five children with one wife and one child with the second, younger wife. There is a nephew of one of the mothers living with us. A nephew of the father (baba). A sister of the mother (nya...not to be confused with nwa, which is the Zarma word for to eat) also lives with us. And a girl who works for the family. Uh...I think I'm missing some people. I thought there were iwaay chinde tacaaci(14) people in the whole family (almayalo...sp?), but I'm not looking at my diagram now.
- the family lives in a "concession", which is like a yard. Mst concessions are walled off. Inside teh conession is the main house, sometimes an actual houes, as in m y case, or a hut. Inside the main concession, I have a mini concession with my own little hut. I have a shower area and a latrine and the family has a separate one. Bbut hte latrine lie outside of my little concession, so when I want to shower or go to the bathroom I ahve to walk out of my little conession area.
- my family is pretty well off. they joked last week it'sm like I live in the city becuse their house has electricity. they eat at tables, in chairs, and sometimes with spoons, though never for dinner. My little hutt does not have electricity. The whole conession is not lit, and now most often the family is outside, so they have a bunch of flashlights they use. Some other trainees were similarly suprised with electricty and TV, but I would say most people in even this village do not have electricity. The main issue is water. For the first little bit, we were provided with clean drinking water and "other" water to use for washing, but now we're on our own and supposed to procure water with the family (my fam has a tap in the concession, other trainees need to get water from a well) and use our filters to make the water safe to drink.
- All of this is good fun, but my joy in going to the bathroom has been greatly diminshed by the cockroaches that live around my latrine. They come out mostly at night....which coincidently is the time when I am most likely to be home and most likely to want to use the latrine.
- Getting things clean is also mad hard. We have stuff washed for us once a week, but we are not allowed to have underwear washed (I did accidentaly today...whooops). I tried washing a shirt and my sheets (after the dust storm they were mad dirty) last week and failed miserably. I think I did not devote enough time and energy to the process.
- We have "core days" about twice a week when all the traineees go to the training site together for medical training and other stuff. Other days we meet in smaller groups around our villages. Most days we have 2-5 hours of language. Sundays are off. This weekend we are going on "demystification"..uh,,,sp?...during which we will go in pairs to stay with current volunteers to see what the life is like. There are enough "exceptions" like this that I do not expect the routine to become exceedinly monotomous.
- I don't know if I mentioend this already, but I am learning Zarma the second most common language in the country. Zarma speakers are located mostly in the west/south of the country, around teh capital. This means I will most likely be placed not tooooo far from the capital and I am unlikely to be placed in the most remote of sites. I'm amibivilant about this because being closer to the city seems wussier, but most especially because Zarma, of the two main languages, is the minority and has limmited utility outside of Niger. I am told Hausa, the main language, is spoken, or a similar language, is spoken in several neighboring countries.
- There are currently FARM (some acronym for agriculture stuff) and CHA (community health agents) in my training group. The education and municipal development trainees completed their training during the summer. These are the four groups of volunteers serving in Niger. I'm a bit jealous of the cool stuff, hands on farm (pun intended) work the FARM people get to do, but CHA had an exciding discussion today on the Nigerien health system (suprise! it's in dissaray!) today. After hours of language classes, I am also piping ready for some real thining in our CHA sessions. But I've decided not to worry about the technical stuff until our In Service Training...in March. At that time, we'll have intergrated into our sites some and have the language skills to finally consider what exactly we plan to DO.
- If you look at a climate map (I think this would be the right kind of map) of Niger, you'll see different color bands. The green abd in the south, representing the most fertile land pretty well appoximates the area in which volunteers are allowed to travel. Due to security, we're not allowed to leave this belt. This means we will not be seeing or working with the worst of the worst. I imagine the hot season and food shortages hit the desert the hardest, but we will not be working in these areas.
Two quick anecdotes, then I want to make good on my promise to deliver only bullet points most often.
First, we had a med session about malaria last week. Long story short, if we think we have malaria on site, we have to send some blood samples to be tested. So, during the session, we practiced pricking our dinger to draw some blood to puton the slides. I thought this was pretty badass, but unfortunately, I'm a wuss because I had to prick my finger like five times to get the littlest amount of blood. I think if I think I have malaria, I will prick my finger harder. Luckily, during the diarrha (sp, sorry, this word blows my mind...no spell check in notepad) session of last week, we were not asked to practice giving the stool samples we will also have to send in from the field if the need be.
Second. Yesterday, during lunch, I was given my food inside and eating kinda by myself since baba was not home and I have to get back to class. Some kids were hanging out with me, and one little girl wanted to go for my food. I was having rice with some spice and oil, and eating with a spoon, which is less common for meals here. Now, on first pass, having a little kid stick their fingers in my food is pretty annoying in any country. Here it's acceptable most of the time because we eat with our hands. One of my little brothers tried to shoo her away. On the next level, in Niger, this little girl's hands are mad mad dirty and letting her finger my food is increasing the chances of getting sick. On the next level, a little girl hungry in Africa is a tough thing to shoo away. But, on the next level, in this family, the girl is probably better fed than most families. I'm a little confused still about the eating scheds, but it seems like the kids eat ok. So, she may have eaten her lunch a bit after me. I cannot really be sure exactly. But, on the last last level. the fact that most kids in Niger probably don't have enough to eat, and really this girl is definitely some degree of malnourished even though our family is pretty well off by standards here, means that this little encounter is a microcosm for what I will encounter in my village site and highlights the fact that my resources and priviledge follow me well even here. I think I've been eating mad well. The only time I've been hungry was when we were bouncing around on planes during our flights in. In this situation, I pulled my bowl away to avoid contamination and put some of the rice onto the table for the girl to eat. What will be done when the little girl with her hand out becomes my whole village?
Ok, this is killing my journal time, I don't have the bullet points for the actual post, and it's past my bedtime. Been waking up like 0710 or 0720 every day. Sunday we had the day totally off and without an alarm, I woke up at 0717 ish anyway. It's tough to sleep in with two calls to prayer in the early A.M., all sorts of animal noises at all hours of the night, and a 14 members of the family buslting around starting sometime in the six o'clock hour.
Oh, I sleep outside on a wooden bedframe a beat up matress. Bringing sheets was mad clutch. I sleep under a hard core mosquito net and inside it's the only space I feel is really MINE. Inside the hut it gets so hot, I want to find a way to cover the bed so I can sleep outside even when it rains.
Other good calls: mom with the toothbrush holder, Kushie with the pin bag and the tupperware and plastic bag. Others to for sure when I remember them.
Some morning it's only like 70-75 and we wake up chilly.
I have lots of good pics. Will try to post them when I have internet en route to my demyst site this weekend...but by the time you read this the pics will either be up or not, so it's mute. So much for the immediacy of blogs.
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