10 October 2008
Just back from Maradi, again. 5 nights turned into a week working on sorting out work with the bean project and the upcoming seed saving training. Dr. K (the Maradi ‘head’ of the bean project) is in Niamey - which, from the sound of it, Dr. B (Head of all Maradi INRAN), didn’t know. If I ran work like this in the States, I’d be fired. C’est la vie Nigerienne I suppose…

In any case, from the beginning… Friday last I went in, both to work on projects and get errands run, and to go to a SIM (Serving in Mission - a religious NGO but I really like the work they do.) thing on agroforestry on Tuesday. In that time we lost two of the newbies - R from Dakoro and R from El Colta.  They will both be missed, but I do understand the call of life in the outside world, and Niger not being a fit for everyone. Heck, not even sure why I’m still here most days, other than a stubborn streak a mile wide and a healthy dose of masochism. I also watched all of season 6 Buffy, thanks to S, whose parents rock & who was in on her way to training of trainers for the new stage along with K. Had stopped watching after season 4 so it was great fun. Can’t believe James Marsters was close to 40 filming that. I wanna look that good in a decade! So, that, plus a trip to the tailor’s and general errands on the weekend. Monday was spent trying to get things sorted at INRAN. Seed saving is now October 24th-25th, which is unfortunately shitty for Maradi shuttles but worked better for everything else. The bean project is still up in the air. Loathe as I am to work with Dr. K, I’d still do it to get the job done. Unfortunately the jerkbunny’s in Niamey for the entire month, which Dr. B didn’t know, but somehow the ECD here did. (Our ECD is awesome!!) **sigh** But, progress made, so going in the 20th to get everything set for food and final presentations. Tuesday was all day at SIM learning about acacias - dan tahoua in Hausa. I really like their program of FMNR - farmer managed natural regeneration - teaching farmers to plant trees in their fields and husband them for resources both nutritional and financial. They pair two ore three types of acacia with alley cropping. The acacias provide shade, windbreaks, fix nitrogen, and provide highly nutritious seed meal. For me, the highlight was the acacia fanke - I’m a bit of a fanke addict… I’m hoping to get involved with their work come spring, when they hold tree nursery workshops. I’d love to use my teensy field as an example of getting nummy food and improving the soil. Especially the nummy food part - this is me, after all. I'd love to get a community pepiniere going with moringas and acacias. Will be going pack and picking their brains more.

11 October 2008

Note: I have “Proud to Be in that Carebear Company” stuck in my head from watching Kader do the 2nd Carebear puzzle. Parts of it are morphing to “We Are Family.” When are the nice young men in the clean white coats coming to take me away (ha ha he he ho ho)?

Harvested my millet today, such as it is. The trial didn’t go particularly well - only one really came up and I haven’t got local variety data as when the others failed to germinate I gave the local var space back to Issaka and it got planted with dawa and wake, which the others didn’t’. Harvesting was fun - crazy me wielding the saw blade of my Leatherman (need to get knife sharpened). Plus got a leg workout kicking over the stalks once I’d harvested the head. Once the dry I’ll pick the grains off and measure tiyas. Now I’m chilling out under the family shade hangar as Kader and Issaka play Carebear puzzles. So much fun. Plus I brought superstrong tea back from the Maradi Store - which is now my favorite place as it has real Lady Powerstick deodorant and Ajax for dishes. Oh, and Mott’s applesauce! I hate the stuff back in the States, but here it’s amazing - gobbled a cup last night for dinner and was in Heaven. Huzzah for the Maradi Store! It wasn’t even that expensive - 200F a cup (or a whopping 50¢). A and I split a pack, but I suspect I’ll be stocking when I’ve more disposable income. I’ll also be getting more shelves. The two I got - 1m across, palm-to-fingertips deep - are great, but I need more! Apparently I overpaid - 1000F v. 750F - but seriously it’s just great to not have my cooking table overflowing and no more leaning tower of Quaker Oat cans. I’m still far from neat, but it’s progress! The coolest progress, though, is the litter solar charger I found in the grab box. It has settings for charging phones and, while it’s proving temperamental, at least it seems to work.

12 October 2008

Market Day! (Sunday) Millet wasn’t dry enough yet so couldn’t take it off the stalks - left it to dry in the sun and get eaten by bugs for another day. Instead I went home, showered, ripped out more dying tomato vines, and headed to the kasuwa (market), which I am lucky to have in my town between hamlets. Ed note: Mehdi, my host brother’s son, just handed me another rotten battery. If I’ve done one thing it’s to start kids understanding that batteries!=chewtoys. Now they usually bring them to me so I can dump them down the latrine - need to find a better disposal method. Certainly far from sustainable… Napped after coming back from the market - stocked up on oil (450F ½L), sugar (200F ½ kg), 100F worth of fanke, and a long-sleeved mostly cotton dress shirt for 700F (assume 1USD = 400-450F). Getting the fanke was fun - the mai fanke knows me and told me a little about how they’re made. Basically, mix flour, water and yeast, let rise, beat it down, and then drop it by teaspoonfuls (or finger flicks in her case) into boiling oil. Then feed to hungry anasaras and whoever else is around. Not as completely wonderful as tofu (which I adore and which I load up on in Maradi) but I’ll definitely take it. Got asked today when I’m going back to Dakoro. Given that the bean project’s still up in the air and R’s gone, I doubt I will. It’s a nice town, but after the ordeal getting back, I think once is enough.

Have been thinking about grad schools - I don’t have the degree for the work I want to do, it seems. I need more of an economics/general ag program to balance out my lab science background. Have been trying to write my statement of purpose and/or cover letter to get going. I alternate between pompous ass and lost lamb. One of these days I’ll get to where I want to be and still want to be there when I get there. The grass is perpetually greener I suppose. In any case, market then nap then more garden mayhem. Watered what’s left, through running low on water - Sa’a just got back from a biki in Maradi and she’s the water bringer. Then planted 3 of the 4 moringas I’d judged least likely to die into the back wall of my newly-spacious garden. My poor moringas were one of the sad things greeting me when I got back from Maradi - worm-killed moringas, dying tomatoes, and a kitten with a limp. Apparently she’s been having to defend her territory; a feat I would imagine to be much easier if she’d stay in said territory and didn’t wander off. Silly kitten.

14 October 2008

Yesterday I solved one of my biggest problems in the bush - change. Being an anasara I get my money from the bank, in the never-very-helpful form of 5 and 10,000F bills. These are about as useful in my village as a $20 in a penny arcade with a broken change machine. I can occasionally break a 5,000F at the market buying fabric or oil, but it’s a hassle. Until… the women’s asusu (group savings fund). The weekly pay-in is kadago or 25F, and they’ve got around 65 women and have been going for 7 weeks so far, meaning they theoretically have over 10,000F in small change. Very heavy, unwieldy, pain-in-the-arse-to-count small change. Soooo… I managed to reduce the wahalla for all of use - they now have 7,000F in easy-to-count-and-manage bills, and I have enough change to keep me out of trouble for a while. Win-win! 

Yesterday was also the first outing of the men’s shirt. I had been worried I might get crap for it like the pants and my sporadic use of the headscarf. Nope. Tossed it on over a tank (work in concession only, mind you, but a blessing in this heat) and headed out. Issaka was thrilled. Yayi kyau’s abounded. Wore it out again today-so useful. Will have to stock up at Maradi’s deadman’s market (the equivalent of Goodwill and where I suspect most of the US and Europe’s clothing goes when Goodwill etc. doesn’t want it anymore. Come to think of it I seem to remember reading articles on the effects our castoff clothing is having on the domestic clothing markets in Africa…)

Today’s a slow, hazy day. The millet is finally dry enough to remove the seed and chaff from the head - a process called karta. The millet’s from the remnants of the seedtrial so I’m carefully keeping each group separate. Plus, I’m using it to demo seed selection - choosing only the best heads to keep to plant next year from each of the three varieties. Only two, really, as one of them was weedy and the farmers were unimpressed. That we’ll just eat. But first, to peel the seeds off the stalk. Time consuming, but that’s what BBC is for. Peeling doesn’t take much brain power. I will, however, probably end up with blisters and/or calli on my thumbs. Once I’ve got all the seed off the stem I’ll have one of the moms show me how to winnow out the chaff (kaykayi). From what I understand you pound (daka) the seed lightly then let the air carry the chaff away as you pour it back and forth (susuka). We have machines for that back in the States…

15 October 2008

2 months until Germany!!! Woohoo!! Here’s hoping that times well, too, with the new stage’s swear in. I can’t believe they’re already here. We should have the 1st trickles of info on them by the time I get in next Monday (Ed note: we do - 26 newbies, evenly split AG/NRM, complete with most photos. No idea on Hausa v. Zarma yet though) I’ve spent yesterday evening and this morning susuka-ing. I know now why the same word is used for the chaff and the verb ‘to itch’. It gets everywhere! And I’m apparently allergic. Argh! Once you’ve karta’ed the millet, you pound it (while everyone laughs because it takes the anasaras two hands to pick up the large stick and pound the millet, which any of them could do one-handed with a baby on their back. Again, we have machines for this…) Then you use the wind to blow all the chaff into a pile by pouring the mixed seeds and chaff from high up into another koriya (calabash). Strangely enough, we still do this in the States, just with nice machines. I remember using a miniature blower back in the States working for Dr. O, though I can’t remember the name of the plant species we were working with. Small and black and orange… V something? Chaff, being lighter, floats away and you go from a full bucket of fluff to a 2/3 full gallon ziplock. Will end up storing the good stuff in a PICS bag, as the evil bugs ate all the beans. All of ‘em. There needs to be a way to increase access and decrease costs and increase safety of pesticides out here. Would love some Bt beans or millet around here - we know it’s safe given that we’ve been dumping it by the plane load over California and elsewhere for the past 50 years. I can’t even imagine how one would institute a crop dusting program around here. The money would probably get diverted 300 times and only succeed in getting some hadji a 4th wife. Not that I’m cynical…

20 October 2008

So, I spent the rest of the week grating my fingers off (blisters galore) and pounding millet and sneezing and developing runny eyes, but finally succeeded in processing all of my millet by the end of Saturday, meaning I could take a break on Sunday for market (yay!) My garden is now completely gone except for three basil plants that I pruned, and 5 moringas saved (hopefully) from the ravages of the evil worms. I saved the best for my host family to plant so they’ll do that while I’m in town, which I will be until next Monday if anyone wants to shoot me an email or call me or… Hopefully everything will go well with the seed saving training. Haven’t been sleeping so much in the village with the allergies from hell and the full moon and who knows what else, so taking today to chill out - going to tailor to get my new skirts (yay!) and gorging on tofu and watching movies with friends. Tomorrow I’ll hit INRAN full force and hopefully get everything set to go.

Market yesterday was fun. I was adventurous and hung out with the mai fanke for a couple hours just watching people go by and trying out her tuwo - surprisingly good. It’s amazing how cheap you can eat if you’re willing to eat non-American food. But now I’m tired and going to go crash out for a bit.

HUGS!
M

23 October 2008

I just read Twilight in 5 hours. Actually, if you consider the time out to have a conversation – less. Talk about wonderful escapism. Looking forward to the movie now in other news, so far so good on the getting set up for the training. Nerve-wracking, but progressing. I am not designed to engage in roles that require me to organize anyone other than myself. Aie.