War or Peace?

Originally uploaded by lulum1032

An injustice has occured.

When I left America last January given our "Mc" last names Matt McCue and I were seated next to eachother on the airplane. We both shared the same excitement of coming to Niger and talked about what the next two years of our life would bring. Matt was an Iraq war vet but when he returned he became a passionate agriculturist and an active anti-war campaigner. In mid-September Farms Not Arms flew Matt back to the states to speak about his experience of being a returned war vet turned agriculturist. About a month later Matt was reissued orders to return to Iraq. Coincidence?

So sadly enough Matt left Niger last night, but hopes to fight his way not back to Iraq. Is it really fair to pull a current Peace Corps volunteer who is already serving their country for peace to pull them out for war?

How do we explain to our villagers that we are here to promote peace when we pull them out to fight in a war.

So, a fellow PCV has written up a petition to attempt to bring attention to his cause:
http://www.gopetition.com/online/14951.html

Also here's a link to an article Matt wrote on the Farms Not Arms website:
http://www.farmsnotarms.org/statements/one_soldier%60apos%60s_story.aspx

Another Month in Review

It's getting more and more difficult to write on my blog...what to write about??
So here's another rundown of some random stories of the village for the past few weeks:

~Ramadan has begun, 30 days of fasting. It's been exhausting for me in the village as people really don't understand Islam here and have difficulty differentiating culture/religion. I'm constantly explaining to people why I don't fast or pray. Sometimes people just nod their head at me saying they understand when I try to explain it. One of my villagers is constantly telling me to take her daughter, Leila, to America. I knew she understood the concept of praying, however, when she looked at me in fear and asked "Kadija, if you take Leila to Amerik, she won't pray?" Nope. "OH, okay don't take her!"



~As much as I try, some things are nearly impossible to explain to my villagers. Each farming season Nigeriens work in the fields to harvest their own food for the year and store it. As they are aware Americans don't really eat millet, my villagers are constantly asking me what Americans plant. Corn? Peanuts? Okra? Well sort of, there's just no way to explain it that if we need something we buy it, and that most Americans don't farm. Not only do we not farm, I've never planted anything in my life, besides those pumpkins.



~Another thing I tried to explain is the concept of plumbing in a house. When I say each house has a pump in America, they tell me they understand, probably assuming one pump faucet outside. "When you need to use the bathroom you sit down on a little seat with a bowl of water underneath it. When you're done, you push a little button and it all disappears and more water comes out!" Yes, God is big!



~The amount of respect I get here being an American is nearly unexplainable. The men never did the work on the gum arabic trees back in June. So I shamed them. Standing in front of 20+ middle aged men: "I came here because people said the men of Babagade Koira have a lot of effort. [cheers] But, you never did the tree work, you don't have the effort. People in Niamey and neighboring villages asked me if my villagers got the work done, I said no. Not even a little." And that's all it took, they spent 3 days out in the field and got all (500??) trees pruned within that week.



~World Vision recently did a food drop in my village. Most villagers received a soy/corn blend and oil. ""Kadija, did you get your oil?" First everyone kept trying to give me some of their oil, and then they were demanding I go get my own oil. I just couldn't really explain why I wasn't taking the free oil. I tried telling them if I want oil I buy it at the market. They told me I don't pay for this oil, it's free. Okay, if I take your oil, you won't receive any. That didn't work either; they told me there's enough for everyone. I think I was finally able to explain it to them but most people still didn't agree. And 3 days later when I came back from market with oil I bought, "Kadija, why did you buy oil? We have oil to give to you!" Generous is definitely a word to describe a Nigerien.



~One of my villagers braided my hair so I told her I would cook dinner for her since all of my villagers are constantly asking me to cook for them. So she came over my house at about 8:45 and I asked if she was hungry, if her daughter was eating. Yes. She said she will go and come, when she came back, she said she was tired; she was going to go to bed. "No, you are not going to bed, you need to eat. I just cooked for you!" Figuring that since it was hunger season I would treat her to a large bowl of pasta, since that is a luxury item for them. So after cooking up nearly an entire bag of pasta I made a basic alfredo sauce. When we started eating, she took one bite, and said she was full. "No you are not full; you have not eaten at all." I was extra frustrated given that Zarma is such a basic language, and the only way to describe how you feel is the word "happy." I am happy, I am not happy. My blood was boiling as she pretended to eat, while actually refusing to swallow a bite. I tried to explain that, in America, it's polite to eat the food even if we don't like it. I explained that if I'm at her house, I still eat her slime sauce and say its tasty! But she still refused to eat. After nearly a half hour of demanding she eat, I eventually made her leave. I haven't cooked for anyone since! And when she asks me to take her to America, I can now just say she will never go to America because she won't eat American food and will get sick. "Oh but Kadija, I like American food." Okay it's true, she only had one dish. But if its not Nigerien style they might not like it!

This week another group of PCV's have sworn-in so I'm here for the week. Tonight I'm headed to the GAD dinner/auction then hopefully back to post by Saturday...

Doo-Rags

My mom accidentally bought me a doo-rag for Xmas instead of buying a bandanna, it was even Harley Davidson brand. She never showed/gave it to me but told me about it. But it recently showed up in my latest care package. I laughed as I opened it up and had been wearing it around the Peace corps hostel for a few days when only one person had said anything to me about how ridiculous it was. Finally I wore it to the GLOBE conference on Wednesday. Keeping in mind this is a Muslim country so everyone prefers to have their hair covered. I took it off half way through the day and my counterpart asked me why I took it off, keeping in mind this is a Muslim country so everyone prefers to have their hair covered. I tried to explain that it's not my style, but he kept telling me how pretty it is. Whoa whoa, pretty? Not quite the word I would use for it. Then I tried to explain to him that this is for a certain type of person in the states, many of them drive motorcycles. His face lit up and he started smiling at me telling me how great it was and to put it back on. That's when I realized his viewpoint of it: the only people in Niger that own motorcycles are the wealthiest that have the funds to buy it. Moral of the story? Don't wear doo-rags and try to explain the motorcycle culture of America, it doesn't' work. Here's the link to check out the definition of doo-rag's on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-rag

On a another note, Piper's counterpart's wife had a baby last week. Because he was at the GLOBE conference during the birth, he will be naming the girl "Globe". Normal. Hopefully I can meet baby Globe in the near future.

Brochettes

Last night Brittany and I went out to a bar to listen to a band play, meeting Brittany's school teacher, Iliayasu, out. . After eating out the other night we found out he does occasionally drink alcohol so we thought it would be fun to meet him out. So when we got there he had already been there and had already bought our tickets, 500 CFA. So after ordering a few beers I had wanted some food. I ordered 2 brochettes(i.e. meat on a stick) and some fries. Then I heard him add 1 brochette to the order, thinking that was a bit odd. Normally if you order brochettes you order anywhere between 5-10, so I couldn't' figure out why he wanted only one. So when the food came, I gave him the plate with the 1 brochette on it he had ordered. But he didn't want it, Iliayasu had already eaten. After a lot of confusion, he finally explained he decided to add 1 to my order so I will eat more to get fatter. After being irritated and trying not to show it, i felt pressured to eat all of the food, which means his plan worked! He was demanding to pay, but of course I paid for myself. So today, I am 250 CFA down and a little bit fatter.

Tables and Chairs

People ask me all the time what it is I miss most about America. The food? The people? The transportation? The music? Well, it’s none of these. It’s the act of eating dinner. You sit at a chair with a table in front of you at elbow height. You have a plate, with a little napkin folded next to it. On it is a fork, knife and a spoon. Behind the plate there is a glass of water, with ice. Generally there are people around to stimulate conversation. Then to top it all off, a glass of wine. Instead, I sit in my mud brick house on a stool. Eating out of the same bowl that I cooked in, out of a spoon. To the sounds of babies crying and my neighbors new radio blasting that he brought back from Nigeria. Oh the luxuries.

GLOBE

So this week I'm in town for GLOBE. GLOBE is in 109 different countries and focuses in environmental education. Since Niger didn't have the funding for GLOBE they asked 2 peace corps volunteers to take it over. So this week they've put on a conference for about 10 PCV's and their Nigerien counterpart. It's been really interesting to see how educated Nigeriens learn, which is a lot different then Americans. They are constantly getting in fights over the smallest things. For example, we tried to play a game of jeopardy and their were constant fights over every single answer. They had to get every answer word for word. So it's been kind of a long week but interesting to see the Americans versus the Nigeriens.

It's not very often that my school teacher from my village gets to come to Niamey, much less I don't think he's ever eaten in a restaurant. We thought we would take them out for some American food: hamburgers and fries. By American standards they might be the most disgusting hamburgers but by ours they are delicious! Each of our teachers seemed to enjoy the food however they saw pool tables and kept asking about them. Barbara and I were a little bit exhausted and kept saying that we didn't know how to play and its very difficult. However they were so curious we figured we would play the game. As they watched the 500 CFA go into the game, they both nearly fell over in shock knowing that the money could probably feed their families for a week. But they were so excited about the game, but struggled with the concepts of hitting the ball. Both teachers were poking it like a stick as Barbara and I both tried to explain and had a good laugh. By the end I think they had figured out that you need to support your stick with a bridge made by your hand and probably got more balls in than both Barbara and I combined! It was fun as I feel like I'm always learning their culture and nearly explaining a small piece of American culture that they could finally see the types of games Americans play.

So, on another note, for some reason my blog doesn't have my Gotheye address posted, so here it is:
Lulu McCourt, PCV
Corps de la Paix
Gotheye, Niger
West Africa

Also I changed where my pictures are being posted as I've had some trouble:
http://www.flickr.com/lulum1032
And I finally got some pictures up of Niamey, the city of....sand. Keep in mind, however, its difficult to take pictueres in teh cities and Nigeriens were yelling at me when i took these. "Bring money" is all I kept hearing. So they were more me just snapping my camera. If I get more opportunities I'll take some again....

English, Zarma, French or Hausa?

Last night a couple of us went out for some beers. When it was time to come home it was about 1ish in the morning so Joey and I went to catch a cab. When we got in we were the only two people in the taxi, but in Niger it is custom to share cabs and taxi drivers pick up other people on the way. So, the cab driver was stopping for other guys at the bar when 2 really drunk guys came up. I was asking the taxi driver "Please, could we just go, they are very very drunk. Let's just go." He kind of kept waiting and talking to the guys but finally drove off. Eventually we reached the Peace Corps hostel and we give him the cost of the taxi, 800 CFA. He stops the car and says that is not enough, and that we agreed on 1000CFA each. We had never agreed on 1000 CFA, however, he finally says it was our "friends" at the bar, aka, the drunk guys, that said 1000 CFA. The three embassy guards are there trying to calm this guy down, sticking up for Joey and I the entire time. So, after nearly a half hour of arguing between us, 5 people against the cab driver, the guards had us go inside the hostel. 10 minutes later as I was going to bed I still heard the guy arguing it out with the guards. And with all that, he never even accepted the money we offered him.

So here was the problem of the argument: none of us spoke the same language. Joey and I speak English to each other. I could speak Zarma and French to the guards and cab driver. And Joey could speak Hausa to the cab driver and guards. So, in a normal setting this would get settled quick. But instead, it was like a circle of people yelling stuff back and forth, with the language changing by the sentence.

Joey and I kind of laughed our way through it at times though, come on, how many times are you arguing with a cab driver in Africa in 4 different languages?!?!

In other news, I'm now going to start using Flickr for photos, so heres the new url:



I updated today and hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to get some pictures of Niamey up....A bientot!