An Update!

First, and possibly most importantly, I've uploaded a few more pictures. Check the right side of the screen. Now, for the news...

So, I'm currently in Maradi, working on the INRAN computers to make them not suck (who the hell still uses Yahoo? Or Exploder? Or...you get my point). We actually ended up having to reinstall Windows on the machine I'm working on now, so I'm enjoying having a not entirely sucky computer to play with for free, if I don't mind having bugs fall on my head from getting too close to the light directly above me (it's gross, but hell, it's free internet...) I'll post another bit probably about current life after Monday (maybe before if I have kokari but I doubt it) regarding what's currently going on in my life and how I'm beginning to be convinced our CD doesn't want me to be the happiest ever in the whole wide world at a later date, but right now, Mom was kind enough to send me the text of my latest missive to the parents all nice and typed so I don't have to, so I can share it with you. Enjoy.

June 8, 2008 – Huddled inside my house – village, Niger

Hi! I’m currently crosslegged on a hastily assembled bed with my lone kitten, Ghanima, in my lap, listening to the horrendous dust storm outside, which I hope will pay back our suffering (our sha-ing of wahalla, as it were) with some much-needed rain. Ghanima is not a fan of the thunder and so has forgiven me for tying her up. They do not make kittens cute so you won’t kill them, they make them cute so won’t just say “*%!# it” when they go out into the storm and try to kill themselves. That I gave her the bones from the market meat may also have aided our reconciliation. We had a storm like this at IST; Krista got some fantastic video, if she ever gets it posted on the slow connection, I’ll let you know. Albq’s got nothing on Niger. While the sun was up, the sky, as far as I could see (i.e. barely to my wall), was blood red.

June 10, 2008 (continued—light went wonky)

Well, unfortunately, the storm brought precious little rain so we couldn’t plant. I’m getting more than a little worried but hope springs eternal here in the form of carving a channel in my yard and a hole in my wall for the water to escape, lest it be flooded when it finally gets here. I may have early-maturing (short growth cycle) seeds to plant, but the water better get here soon or they won’t help me much. Yesterday was crazy busy. First, sat all morning with the host-dad and host-brother (Issaka and Abdu-Khadere) drinking tea in my pajamas and listening to my CD player piped through Khadere’s boombox speaker (he fixes electronics; if I understand, darma=solder). This is after I pounded nails in my wall with the handle of my short hoe (kwashe) to hang my pots and used almost an entire one of the small duct tape rolls to cover my tables securely with oilcloth (purple with snowflakish pattern). Oh, and laundering my skirt for meeting, reassembling my bed and sweeping a ton and a half of dirt from my house after the storm. Then lunch and shower (and disturbing hair loss, though I’m still far from bald). Then prepping for the meeting—going over vocab and seeds, etc. Then I sat and shelled peanuts while I waited for the women to come – all 5 of them and an hour late. Meeting proceeded, got seeds dispersed and scheduled the next five meetings – one a day for the next four days, divided into old men, old women, young men, young women – to do a needs assessment with each group before reconvening next week. Kind of silly as I can almost guarantee they all want a water pump and tower, but forms must be obeyed. Then I can go into Maradi and start trying to figure out how to get it done (no clue, but I know who to ask first). Then you called. Hope you guys had fun in Greece (& Lithuania). Then home to watch Issaka & company toss mud balls around—I helped! They’re closing the roof on a new room—all rooms are open to a central courtyard and use the mud to protect the underlying plastic sheeting (old grain and cement bags) from sun damage. Then dinner, then over to charge my phone, a story in itself. One of village residents works in Maradi most of the time. He brought out a generator, DVD player and TV and let me and others charge our phones gratis, while we watched Hausa music videos and part of a Bruce Lee film. As for the first, allow me to say that waterboarding is an insufficient punishment for whomever introduced Nigeria (from which all music videos come) to BoyzIIMen, home videos, voice modulation tech (used here to up all female vocals by at least two octaves) and the volume up button (I live 2 “blocks” away and could hear just fine). The Bruce Lee one (Fists of Fury?) was fun, once I showed them how to put English subtitles on so I could translate. They got bored with not hearing Hausa (Chinese audio only), and we only watched maybe 10 minutes—short attention span, especially when no one was fighting. Now I’m sitting on my mat outside, prepping for today’s meeting and resisting the urge to blow off work and read more of Ahab’s Wife (finished Time Traveler’s Wife a few days ago—both very good.) instead while I wait to see if my gardens will get built today or not and whether Laurent, our PC doctor, will make it here today on his annual tour. He’s fun, very French. Has a very laid-back approach, unless we’re actually dying at that moment. May ask him about my hair…Out of room, so now to work, Love M

June 19, 2008

So, surprise, surprise, each group chose a water tower as what they want more—can’t blame them as it’s at least 66 meters to the water table and the pump breaks frequently. I’m heading into Maradi tomorrow, a bit earlier than planned, to get a bunch of big stuff. I want two rondas and a watering can and other things that would be a pain to get back on a bush taxi. There’s a shuttle on the 22nd that will take it all for me. Plus, it keeps me from screaming at Hausa women. I swear this country is turning me into a misogynist. The women, with some few wonderful exceptions, drive me nuts. They don’t want progress. They just want handouts. Give me money, give me food, give me, give me, give me. The men are great—they ask for stuff, don’t get me wrong, but when I explain that I’m here to help them help themselves, they usually get it. Sort of case in point: All 4 groups picked a water tower. The young women were the only ones who didn’t even consider a school. Babies and pounding millet. Give me, give me. On a more pleasant note, my gardens are in—they take over most of my yard, but I don’t mind. I planted all the seeds from Gardener’s Guild and am now waiting to see what grows. So far, the beans and squash are up, the basil’s coming along, and I think I’ve got some tiny tomatoes and peppers (don’t think they’re weeds?). I’ve upped my water request and the money. (It’s a whopping 4000F or $10) so that they’ll bring me two huge kettles in excess of my daily gerka (old plastic oil container), well worth it. Pulling water or using the foot pump is all well and good, but I’d never get anything else done. I feel vaguely like a celestial power, but console myself I’m paying more than market value (by 1000F) for my water, and I’ll be sharing the produce. I also brought moringa (H: zogala or tamakka) seeds. It’s supposed to be a miracle tree—high protein and vitamins and grows fast as long as it has water. We’re trying to plant it first in old dumas—the gourds they use to make calabashes (H:koriya) to prove you don’t need plastic bags—sort of a proof of sustainability. Back to the Hausa women. I gave each woman one at the close of the big meeting, and they tried to get 2 or 3 or… And I didn’t have enough, but they kept at it so I told them they could have 1 or 0. Then they totally ignored the men making a report on what World Vision is doing in the area with their sponsorship program. It’s like they are deliberately choosing ignorance. Thankfully, my program is primarily working with the men or I’d go mad. At least I know it’s not just me—most of us find the women ridiculously frustrating to work with. Will be glad to get into Maradi, talk with Ousamane and Becca about the project, hit the market and the tailor for some more skirts with pockets and, hopefully, still have time for the pool somewhere in there. It’s bloody hot and humid, and it still hasn’t rained enough for us to plant. I hear it’s flooding elsewhere and wish we could find a way to get those clouds here. We were all excited for about five minutes this morning, but the rain was a no-go. Definitely not a good thing. We’re really going to need short-season improved varieties, if this keeps up—the rains are at least a month late, from the sound of it. When Dr. Laurent came for his annual site check and asked about stress, that was my concern—that the rains wouldn’t come soon enough, and the hunger here would be so great, and I’d be the only one with food and know even if I gave them everything, they’d still starve. If that happened, I’d probably be wack-evacced (evacuated for mental health reasons), so I’m really hoping it doesn’t come to that. Hence the garden and the moringas and the consistent prayers to whatever powers there be, that the rains get their act together soon. And now to mail this. Really.

Love, Marika

Brief excerpt

Brief excerpt from our fearless 2IC. I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions.

• It has been suggested that Niger will now need a minimum of 120,000 tons of cereals (half rice, half millet/sorghum) to get the vulnerable and urban populations through rainy season, until harvest in late September. This will cost an estimated $146 million.
• If the rainy season and subsequent harvest is bad (i.e. anything less than above average), Niger will need even more.
  
• It has also been suggested that the Government of Niger has way over-stated its reserves, which if true would further exacerbate the situation and level of need.
  
• The Government of Nigeria is ordering 500,000 tons of rice alone to feed its people. This will certainly impact what Niger is able to import from its southern neighbor. It will also impact Niger's search on the global market which is already pretty much tapped out.
  
• Cost of rice is now hovering around $1,000/ton which is nearly three times the price from December 2007. Of course, this mainly effects urban wage earners as opposed to subsistence rural farmers.
  
• Urban residents in Niger consume between 15,000-20,000 metric tons (MT) of rice per month. With the elevated costs, average urban wage earners must now spend more than 50% of monthly salaries just to buy rice for their families!
  
• The current estimated rice stock in the hands of private traders in urban areas throughout Niger is less than 7,000 MT, or the equivalent of 10 days of national consumption (this quantity does not include rice already in retails stores and market stalls, nor does it include stocks that traders are reluctant to report, assuming they are waiting for the prices to reach maximum)
  
• During previous food crises, Niger would resort to importing cheap Asian rice to offset the food gap. This is not an option this year. It becomes particularly more strained by the recent natural disasters in Burma and China.
  
• All told, all signs point to a rice shortage/stoppage in Niger by the end of June.
  

Just so you know what the local effects are expected to be

IST

Hail hail the gang's all here.

It's IST time and I'm in Hamdy with weekends in Niamey for the next two weeks. It's great to see everyone again and we lucked out with the ride in - a cool day and a packed but not overcrowded bus. I managed to sleep for most of it, given that the amoeba medication comes with anti-nausea medication so you can keep it down, AND the fact that Krista and I stayed up all night so we would sleep. It was a good trip.

Really looking forward to seeing everyone now that we're all in - we've still got almost a full contingent - only 2 people have left so far of our original gang of 34. Pretty good numbers.

Village life is good. My people are really nice, and seem to have a lot of kokari (effort). I'm going to be working with an improved bean project once I get back, as well as trying some seeds I brought from home. Squash, melons, and corn, plus I'm getting garden beds built in my concession so I can plant tomatoes and peppers and things that require a bit more tending. I'm also trying to figure out a way to bring a water tower to my village in a sustainable manner so that we can start gardening and making pepinieres and reclaiming the accursed desert.

In the future, I'm lookign at trying to move into Niamey to replace a volunteer planning to leave in March-ish. She works at INRAN, the national agricultural research organization here in Niger. She's the one that's organizing the bean project with the PCVs and I think that, once I've gotten my language skills very down and all that I'd be a good fit there. Plus, you know, I might actually get to use my degree! Imagine that!

But that's pretty much life here - other than amoebas and bacteria I'm in health, and on meds so not feeling bad. Really excited to be here, even on the really tough days when I want to drown the majority of the women in the well... It's remaining a good experience for me.

Love and HUGS
M

P.S. I want to send a loud congratulations out to Kate and Gilbert - may Allah bless your union with happiness and many children (they like to wish 10 kids around here but I'll let you two get away with 5 :) )

For all friends of Marika, I am posting some earlier transmissions. They are interesting, enjoy!

3/29/08
Phone conversation
Marika doing fine. Naming ceremony was actually for babies, not “Malika”, but she was a guest at the ceremony. Hopefully, mail will come on Tuesday from Maradi, and is hoping for the REI camp shower to arrive as it will be easier, especially for washing hair (at the moment, she has something rigged with a plastic kettle??). Told her about finding references to “gris gris” charms and “pirogue” boats in the Niger travel book, and she added that the word for okra is “gumbo” and that there is a Hausa proverb equivalent to the French “Petit a peti, l’oiseau fait son nid”—so all her early Cajun words are showing their African origins! Solar charger is working fine.

3/27/08
Phone conversation w/Marika
Was standing at the health hut where reception is best and just happened to catch her at that time. Learning language, coping with fact that water is required for her projects (tree nursery, general plant starting) and well is 128 feet down (water comes up by foot treadle pump), needs instructions from PC on building improved cookstove (at present, is pot on top of three rocks with fire below), has been hennaed! in last few days and will have her naming ceremony in next few days.

Feeling better (had a bit of a cold a week ago) and trying to avoid drinking the milk, which could carry tuberculosis…PC doctor has asked PCV’s avoid it, as they can cure it with meds, but one would still always show up TB positive.

Has been receiving quite a few of packets sent to her; always craving more reading material!

Phone conversation
March 14, 2008
Have been back at headquarters for over a week, completing the final preparations for the Swearing In, packing and departure for the installation at assigned village. There has also been a BBQ and socializing and shopping for needs and wants for the time ahead on site. The Swearing In in country garb is today and follows testing for language, Hausa in this case (which was passed with flying colors). Tomorrow will be a day of rest and packing, the next day will be departure for the long bus ride to the next PC regional office and to village by end of week. The almost six-week training period is almost over and now on to the real thing for the next two years!

February 27, 2008
Gaisuwa!

I’ve been in my village for live-in for a few days now, and so far, it’s lovely. I have a 2-room adobe house with high ceilings and cement floors, a small but comfortable yard, my very own shower/latrine and high 6’ walls. I arrived on Monday with a ton of stuff and a fellow PCV to help me get situated. I’ve got my bed and copious “stuff” in one room, kitchen in the one with the door. We walked around with my new host “dad”. As these things go, my concession is in the front of his, kind of. He’s a builder but also seems to make the gourd bowls common around here. Very nice. We met the maigri and the teachers and saw the mosque, schools and cereal bank, wells, pumps and health hut. For a small village, it’s very well appointed. The PCV talked the nice teacher into letting him ride on his motorcycle—not at all sure I’d like that ride myself, so am sticking with bush taxis.

Will head back to the hostel on Friday and then back to Niamey on Saturday on the 12-hr bus ride. Thankfully, the bus to here was at recommended capacity and not overflow. We stopped in all the major towns on the way, and it was neat to get to buy stuff out the window. When we got to the town, we were met by the regional rep (head of the region) who hauled us back to the hostel. The hostel’s best feature was a hot shower, real hot water showers. This was followed by a huge library and a PCV’s cooking, but after 12 hours on the bus, the showers won out. So, the newbies got to meet the veterans, and one showed me how to allow the hostel’s email to update my site. There won’t be pix for a very long while, I’m afraid.

The past two days have had the whole grey dust sky here in my village. When I get my trees planted, I may be able to take some photos. Now, the yard’s just sand and clay from where they just finished my wall. They’ll finish cementing the shower between my departure and my installation, as well as putting up my shade hangar (runfa). I think I really will like it here. I’m already starting to brainstorm possible projects—school garden, millet grinder, Sahelian eco-farm demo, millet trials, etc. Plus my own personal pet—teaching farmers to select within their own fields. The lack of any gardens at all makes me want to haul a new acquaintance over here so we can do a joint series on nutrition and garden veggies. Before that, though, I may be helping another volunteer already here put together a similar demonstration of seed selection and genetics, as she works with INRAN, Niger’s Ag program. Apparently my university career may be useful—who knew?! Plus, of course, after install, I’ll meet the World Vision folks and possibly the Purdue people to figure out my status on their bean storage project.

Today, I’m just chilling in my house, hiding from the wind, dust, sticks that eat my toes and women who want me to hold or heal (not clear which but people came in while I was fixing my toe and they may think I’m a doctor now—a common PC misconception). I will go out later and try to map the other side of town, both for my own sake and for the safety coordinator who worries to the point of wanting to know where a plane or helicopter could land. He’s both that good and that paranoid at what he does. All the PC staff are just fantastic. The trainers and the APCD’s and the alphabet soup of titles. Wouldn’t be Peace Corps without acronyms! Truly a great village here. They really get the hospitality thing here—they have a proverb that your guest is your god, but thankfully here they aren’t trying to feed me. My fellow PC showed me how to make a good cream sauce for pasta by mixing in powdered milk and I bought veggies at the market (eggplant is really good with cream sauce, by the way—just a little bit of bleach…I’ll have the world’s toughest stomach after two years of this!)

But now, I’m going to whip myself up a nice bread and cheese (ish thing) with a side of “kilshi” (think spicy jerky) for protein, take my Doxy (anti-malarial medicine) and take another stroll around town.

January 29, 2008

Greeting! Gaisuwa!

Babu lahi—no worries!

I’ve been selected for the Hausa group, which is farther east. Will visit my village, which I won’t know for another couple weeks, and which I won’t visit for a few more after that.. I visited the person who works with ICRISAT. Spoke for a long while with one of the plant breeders there and may run some seeds wherever I’m posted.

Sai hankuri – have patience…used a lot!
Tonight is our fashion show, where the host family dresses us up in native garb. Will try to get some photos taken to send back, though don’t know when I’ll have net access again. Saw the photo of the group on my blog, so now you know what we all look like. I have a mini concession inside my host family’s. The host mama has three daughters, two of which live with her; the third has her own place a few “blocks” away. Between Hausa and French, we communicate pretty well. Here I’m know as Rashida, which means “guide”; when I get to my village, I’m changing it to Malika, which is what they pronounce my name as anyway and which means “queen”!

My fellow volunteers all rock. Our entire stage is very-self-supporting. We’re always there for each other, not just the sickies in the infirmary, which I’ve only been once, but just for everything.

News from the outside is appreciated. The cards are neat, but an honest to goodness letter would be great; letters seem to take only a week or ten days.

I’m writing now by flashlight. I suppose I should tell you about my concession. It’s tiny, but it’s mine. I’ve moved the bed inside now; it was too cold, even with a blanket, to do otherwise and the host family is right across from the cinema, which goes until 12 am. It’s surprisingly spacious, more so than my freshman dorm room! I’ve got my netted bed on one side, and my trunks on the others, with my water filter on the stool between them. It’s cozy—just need my cat! I’m, again, really looking forward to getting my post village assigned, so I can move in and adapt…and get a phone…and a mat…and control my food. As of yet, I’ve not lost weight, due to the large proportion of carbs served to us here. Shinkafa, or rice, is super nummy here, and while also served with miya (sauce), it tends to be very spicy and flavorful. Oh, and we eat with our hands, our right hands, to be precise, much to the consternation of my left-handed friend. In my own future concession, I can buy eggs, or keep chickens, depending, and I’m making arrangements to have beekeeping and possibly fruit trees—mango and pomme de sahel, which is more of a pear, being fleshy, pitted fruit that’s quite nummy.

It’s past 11 pm now and I have to get up at 6:00 am in time for our day in the village. The site is closed, and we eat street food for breakfast and with our host families for lunch and dinner. Carbs galore! Actually, the street food breakfast is very good. The have farin masa, the Nigerien answer to beignets, and served either sweet or savory, but always burning hot, as all Nigerien food is served, though the host family has now figured that ansaras (outsiders) can’t eat food that’s 200 degrees. Tomorrow, there’s even talk of tracking down the egg sandwich guy—living here has made us skilled at finding the protein sources. Hopefully, I won’t sleep through my alarm like I did this morning—“baba kyau”…not good. This morning, though, aie, but I hustled and it was fine—time to spare, even after watering the garden. It’s very like Girl Scout camp, if GSC had a cow, a goat, a donkey and some chickens in the front yard. I’ve even started adapting the camp songs to fit PCC—“The health care that they give you, they say is mighty fine, but the injections that I’ve gotten, now number 99. Oh, I don’t wanna go to PC camp…” This only one of the many verses I created on an overpacked bush taxi coming back to training camp! But now I need to sleep. I miss and love you all and send cuddles to my cat.

Officially Real Now

Hey there! I'm officially a PCV rather than a PCT now! I passed the evil language test of doom and will be headed to Maradi on Sunday. Last night was... wow. Awesome. Sworn in by the ambassador and a ton of people and laughing and all in all great fun. You'll all love my outfit, made of computer material pagnes. I will post pictures eventually, once I get off my ass and resize them from their current 4M status... Yah, had to play with the camera a bit. It was fun, though. I was bringing geeky back. Not, from what I can tell, that it ever truly left Niger. So fun. Exhausted now, and there will be a ton of other stuff to get done and packed, so we're figuring out how to get our newly free butts back to Hamdy for one last night. LOVE to you all.
M

Hey guys.
Scurried in to Niamey today for a little bit of escapism. Life's good here - in health :) Have met team Maradi, and been to my village, and I'm really excited about all of it. Miss you guys bunches, so send me emails! Other than that, looking forward to an incredibly busy week coming up - lots of socializing so I'm sure I'll be found lurking in a corner somewhere. Hey, that's where the shade is!! And shade is your friend around here. I've met with some of the people I'm going to be workign with on cowpeas storage. Should be good. And I actually get to use my French! OMG! But yes, life is good here. HUGS to you all.
M

Update from Marika

Another Marika siting!

Marika is moving to her village in the Maradi region of Niger. If you wish to send her mail, please use this address:

Marika Olson, PCV
Corps de la Paix
BP 291
Maradi, Niger
West Africa

If you wish to send an email, you may send it to a shared account. Email: marpcvs@intnet.ne In the subject line put in "Marika Olson." Their computer will shuttle the message to her folder.
Frosty