The Latest

Thank you to everyone who's written to make sure I'm okay- I am okay, really. I will be in Niger for one more week before flying to Morocco and, eventually, to Oregon. It's an earlier take-off than I'd had in mind, but given everything that's gone on here recently it is an acceptable compromise. I'll take two weeks in Morocco, why not?

And, because I promised to include more information about "the situation", here goes. To the best of my knowledge: two weeks ago there was an attempted kidnapping of Americans in Tahoua, which is the capital of my region and a few hours north of my home. There have been a series of attempted and/or successful kidnappings of Europeans in and around Niger/Mali over the last year; most (if not all) of these are presumed to be the acts of an Al Quaeda group based in Mali. Because of the proximity and boldness of the Tahoua attempt, and because it appeared to target Americans, Peace Corps withdrew immediately from the region.

And that's why I had to leave my village early. I've spent the last two weeks trying to be useful (or, alternately, sitting in an absolute daze) in Konni, Niamey, and the training site at Hamdallaye, and will tackle my end-of-service paperwork next week before embarking on my last-minute trip to Morocco.

I have managed to talk with my family and friends in my village every day; we all appear to be (mostly) over the huge bummer of my sudden departure and are just happy to be able to hear each other's voices. They're wrapping up the harvest and preparing for the biggest holiday of the year-- Tabaski, which will happen tomorrow. Obviously I won't be able to partake in the festivities with them this time, but I will celebrate here in Niamey with city-Nigerien friends. What will we do? Be thankful for each other, dress up, visit and greet many people, slaughter a sheep, and eat lots and lots of meat for two days. Barka da Salla!

Below are a few pictures from my last days in the village.

Above are Rahido, Alkasum, Idi, and Wan Mano filling a granary with newly-harvested bundles of millet. The average family will eat approximately one bundle's worth of millet a day. This year, in our area, a family is lucky to get 150 bundles out of their fields. After the bundles run out, they will rely on money sent home from sons and husbands on work exodus to purchase bags of millet from the market.

Two days before I left, a truck pulled up at 7:30 in the morning with our twenty-five gorgeous new school desks!! That was so exciting. In this picture you can see Chaibou, the school director, and Isseuf, the man who arranged the construction and delivery of the desks.

Here is the inside of the new classroom, with new desks in place. In this picture are Narba, Balkissa, Rabi, Malim, Chaibou, and Isseuf. Balkissa, Rabi, and Malim are teachers for the youngest students; Chaibou will teach the two oldest grades in this new building.

There are so many more pictures that I wanted to take before leaving. I guess those will have to wait.

News not related to hospitals, even though it is malaria season

Millet growing in my concession

Part of the winnowing process

The millet, stored on its stalks. This is in Narba's concession, with millet from the family's fields.

Other news that isn't related to hospitals! Let's see. Harvest is in full swing. Beans beans beans, everywhere. And millet. Yesterday a woman gave me an entire bucket of green beans which were sooo good and fresh. It's hot again, and we have fewer rains to cool us off, so I spend a lot of time looking for shade.

Malaria season is upon us--started a few weeks ago and will continue for several more. Malaria season sucks, and if I could think of a more powerful word than "sucks" I would use it. Every home I visit has someone down with malaria. Lots of kids have it; in my close family circle, which includes 12 kids under the age of 12, 4 have malaria this week. Two of them got meds from the clinic a couple miles away; the other two haven't gone yet. I realize that all of my messages to you guys for the last month have been semi-bummers. It is a fitting tale...this time of year is tough, and there's no way around it. Sick people, hot weather, mosquitoes.

But we're all hanging in there, treasuring the lighter moments--such as:

Two days ago I walked around (verrrry slowly) with Abarta, an old lady and former women's leader. She's awesome--even-tempered, candid, and logical, a good leveler for my sustained mild sense of panic of the last few weeks. She also doesn't see well, but she knows my voice, and we've become friends. Anyway, we shuffled around Foloa, and she told me why she chews tobacco. She made a convincing argument and I did not counter it. Her gums hurt from where her teeth fell out, and tobacco is the only thing that soothes them. So there.

Lunch in the field

July 14, 2009

Yesterday I walked out with Mariama to take hura and beans to the guys in the fields- I think you can see them at the top of the field, weeding away.

Weeding

Now that planting is mostly over, we are moving on to weeding. In some ways I think this work, while back-breaking, is also a blessing. It means that the rain was enough to get the millet to grow, and likewise the weeds are popping up. It's not like weeding at home, where you sit or crouch and pull on stems (which is also hard work, absolutely!) It's done with another hoe-like tool, which has a more curved end. You tackle the rows head on, and hack and chop madly through the dirt, uncovering everything except what you planted, which gets to stand proudly, all tufty and green. It's quite a show- muscular, sweaty, full-of-motion men and women bent over and pushing their way through the greengreengreen.

Salla and Shaibou on the first day of weeding; Narba is going out to greet them

It will take a month to weed one of Narba's fields- maybe that gives you an idea of how big the fields are, and how slow the work goes. We'll be more split up for this work- we may be at different fields, or in far apart sections of the same ones. But some days we'll be together. Salla, Shaibou, and Badaru will head out before sunrise, and Mariama, Rasida, Sadiya and I will follow with food mid-morning. Zuera will stay at home with her new baby, Minaya. The little kids- Kadir, Oweli, Rahman, and Rabi- will chase each other around in the shade and step on thorns, then holler for one of us to come pick them out. Narba will go where she pleases, and when she comes near me she will insist that I rest, which I will refuse to do.

Working with everyone in the fields has been a strong reminder of how much I have learned in the last year. To understand how and when and why people do the work that they do- I am getting there! I am learning what is necessary, what is extra, what isn't quite enough to live.

Last year, I couldn't quite follow the beat- I felt like a pale little rock in a dark stream of very busy, beautiful, moving people. This year, I have a family and a place. Now, I guess you could say that the current has lifted me up. Sometimes I fight it, but I live for the moments when I realize I'm moving with it.

Planting

Rain

6/30/09

We got our first big rains two weeks ago, signifying a sudden shift in the daily rhythm that had been more or less constant since last fall. Everything changes with the rain. Once a big enough storm has passed- meaning the ground is soaked enough that a hole dug with your foot is damp at the bottom- men, women, kids, everybody, vacate the village for the fields.

Issa, Lahadi's son, with a sari (planting tool)

The strongest ones have the job of "sari": walking out ahead with a long, heavy hoe-type tool that they strike into the ground with every step, creating holes with small mounds of dug-out sand next to them. They make row upon row of these holes, which from a distance look like expansive, linear colonies of molehills.

Mariama, planting in the distance

Following behind the Mai saris (those who do the "sari" job) come the Masu taki (those who plant). These guys- usually women and kids- hold a bowl or calabash of millet seeds in the crook of their left arm, and walk along the rows, using their right hand to drop seeds into the holes, and their right foot to push sand back over the seeds. The best, quickest planters move so smoothly that you don't even notice they are planting; they simply look like they are strolling through the field, waving their hand over the dips in the earth. It looks and feels like dancing.

There is a rush to do as much planting as possible before the soil dries out, so families spend all day every day out in the fields, working hard to get all of their millet, sorghum, beans, sesame, and peanuts in the ground. Millet is the priority; once an entire field is planted in millet, people will go back and plant the other crops in the spaces between.

We got in four full days of planting after our last good rain, enough to plant all of Narba's family's fields with millet and one of them with beans and sorghum as well. When it rains again, we'll plant the rest. It's hard work, but I really like it. I like how it brings women and men together, and how it gives everyone a common purpose in a common space. There's an etiquette to it, too- you plant in pairs if you can, so you always have a companion planting the row next to yours. Even though I was slower at first, Mariama and Rasida always, always waited for me. They'd either slow down, or double back and plant the rest of my row for me, meeting me in the middle. We talked and sang songs, and time was irrelevant.

Millet harvest

Millet that I planted in my concession

9/2/08
I'm trying to remember what the last season was that I described to you; I think it must've been when things started to turn lush green. Oh, and then I wrote about the dry spell when things turned yellow. Let me catch you up. The hasi (millet) is now several feet over my head, and it has started to lean and bend in tall green curves from the weight of its seeds. In most fields, the millet heads are filled out and still slightly green, though some are dried out and ready to harvest. Last week people started to harvest some of the green heads; they can be grilled over coals and eaten like that, or set out to dry in the sun and then pounded as usual. To help you imagine, millet plants resemble corn plants, and the heads are a similar shape and size, but they aren't covered by husks. The seeds are much smaller, and round (just take a peek at your birdseed mix). The heads are harvested kind of the same way as corn--well, not exactly--you cut the stalk close to the base of the seed head. It is the hungriest families who harvest the green millet; they do so because their personal stores have run out.

Harvesting my own millet:

The knife was a piece of scrap metal; Narba finally just took it from me, and I was glad.

A sigh of relief, and current food security in Niger

Estimated food security conditions, 4th Quarter 2008 (October-December)
US AID /Famine Early Warning Systems

Green: Generally food secure
Yellow: Moderately Food Insecure
Orange: Highly Food Insecure
Red: Extremely Food Insecure
Black: Famine
Gray: No Data

(My village is in the "yellow zone" on this map)


8/19/08 What "moderately insecure" actually feels like:

IT RAINED! Finally! After three long weeks of not-a-drop, after which the millet had gone brittle and yellow and slouchy in the fields, the sky finally filled with cloudy water balloons that popped above us. Mun gode Allah! Thank god! Sunday morning at 4 AM--wait it was Monday-- wind and splatter drops woke me and brought me indoors, where I sat and listened to the downpour begin. It is fabulous news, the best thing for farmers far and wide--everyone is talking about it, and praising God and smiling skywards. We got a good soaking! And then, not two hours later, another storm came through. So there is a sigh of relief shared by the thousand or so of us in town.
My roof is a little more waterproof since Ayuba and Shaibu fixed it up, but it still leaks in several spots, so I'm getting good at timing when I need to move and/or empty water buckets, pots, and cups that I rotate from drop to drop. One way you can gauge how hard it rained is by the number of household articles set out to dry in the sun the next day: clothes, mats, mattresses. This morning all of the contents of Narba's little hut were strewn about her concession! And yet no one complains because the blessing of rain for the harvest trumps all, even the caving in of mud walls and huts that I saw this afternoon.