First post in Niger :)

5 November 2010
Hello everyoneeeee! Sannu! Ina kwana? That means "Hello, how are you?" in Hausa. I am currently at the Peace Corps training site in Hamdallye. Our group of 43 flew into Niamey, Niger on Friday, October 22nd. Here is a recap of the training and experiences since then:

Saturday: Orientation about the training site and welcome from the Peace Corps Country Director, Valerie. Introduction to medical by the Peace Corps Medical Officer, Walter. We adore Walter, even though he gives us lots of shots :) (I've had five thus far since arriving). The afternoon on the first day was very busy. We had medical interviews to talk about what antimalarial medicine we will be on and ways to keep us healthy with the change in diet and environment. Then we had interviews with the person in charge of our sector. Our "stage" of 43 people has two sectors: CHA and FARM. CHA stands for Community Health Agent (that's me) and FARM represents Forest Agriculture Resource Management. Also, during that afternoon, we had a cultural fair which featured many local people to show us different traditions and customs we will be exposed to in Hamdallye and our sites. The fair included various types of food that we will recognize as well as singing and dancing and how to pound millet. The last event of the afternoon was a language interview. I interviewed to test my French-speaking skills. I passed :) which means I've retained French from high school. In the evening we had din and a free night for sleep catch-up and journal writing/playing cards.

Sunday: The morning began with a pre-service training overview so that we all could get a grasp of what was going to happen over the next 70-or-so days until swear-in as a volunteer. We then drove into Hamdallye to meet with the Chief de Canton, or the city king. He is the primary social figure and acts as the correspondent between the Nigerien government and the people of Hamdallye. He also acts as a lawyer figure. If two people are fighting about land or livestock or business matters in the village, they both approach him and settles their arguement by listening to both sides of the issue and determining what happened. Also, if people want to get divorced, he assists them to make that motion happen. It is a grand honor to meet with him and we all introduced ourselves to him and shook his hands. In the morning, we also learned what language we would be studying based on the previous day's interviews. Our group is factioned into Hausa and Zarma. It is estimated that 85% of Nigeriens speak Hausa, so the majority of us will be learning that language (myself included woot woot). But there are some villages that we will be volunteering where the people primarily speak Zarma, thus some in the group is learning that language. Our first class was good and gave us a chance to learn basic greetings before meeting our host family's in the afternoon. We had a host family debriefing following language class, and then got picked up by a host parent. We are staying alone or with a roommate in one of four village surrounding the training site: Hamdallye, Fandoga, Barchewal or Abaka. Tghe majority of us are staying in Hamdallye because that's where the most Hausa families are :). My roomie is a gal named Ellie from the Boston area. At first, I kinda wanted to be alone with my fam to better learn the language and have my personal space. Since living together, though, we have been so grateful to have each other for support, understanding what our fam is saying to us, and for borrowing each other's things. Our host mom, Hinda, picked us up at the training site and brought us back home for the evening.

Monday: CORE day, which means we were at the training site again for the whole day. In the morning we had a debriefing about our first night with host families. We then had an extensive medical session about getting sick, food hygiene and water filtration. We covered a lot of necessary information and learned how to filter our own water and what food to eat to maximize our vitamin intake. And what foods to stay away from (unwashed vegetables, "street food", unpasteurized milk). In the afternoon, we talked about learning objectives and what we will learn through sessions in the upcoming weeks that will prepare us culturally for living in Niger.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: non-CORE days, which means that we stay in Hamdallye for classes. For language classes, we are split into groups of either two or three people and are taught Hausa/Zarma by a native speaker. In class with me are Jacob and Yaa. We have class at Yaa's house. This first week our teacher is Mai-Moussa. Each week the teachers will rotate. We learn a lot but we have some fun, too. Yaa and Jacob are always making fun of me because they say I'm too serious about the language work. What's new, right? We learned greetings, basic vocab, forming questions and more recently, wants and needs. Hausa is fascinating to learn. For years and years, the language was never recorded until it became a French colony. So many of the sounds in the words have no Roman alphebatical equivalent, which makes for interesting lessons. And some words, although to us appear to sound the same, mean entirely different things. It is vital for us to learn the language in these weeks at training. The most important part of our volunteer service is begin accepted into our community. Or "integrating". If I had a dime, or 10 CFA if you will, for every time I heard "you need to INTEGRATE", I would be a millionaire. That is where the language becomes so important. When I move to my volunteer site on January 1st, I must be able to speak at an intermediate-medium Hausa level in Peace Corps terms. Personally though, I want to be better than that. To communicate with the people in my village and earn a mutual respect, I need to be able to converse with people on a level higher than simple greetings and questions. On each of these three days, we had language for 6 hours total. In the evenings, we went home to our host families and talked with them and ate food. Food in host homes usually consists of a grain (rice, sourgum not sure about the spelling on that, maize or millet) with a sauce (tomato, meat or ochre based). Our host father, Loyola, makes tea for us almost every night. It is very sweet and strong :), so Ellie and I have to be careful about drinking it too late because we don't want to stay up all night. We are fortunate that Loyola is a "Francais formateur" so he is fluent in French. We have been trying to talk to our host mom Hinda in Hausa mostly but when we need something we ask Loyola in French. The French has definetly been coming in handy. it shocked me how quick it has come back considering I haven't learned any new material since high school (Thanks U-32!!). Loyola has two wives, Hinda and Zanabu. They are both very nice. Zanabu speaks Zarma so it is more difficult to communicate with her. It is very common for men to have multiple wives in this Muslin culture. The more wives a man has is viewed as a positive thing and proves that he has a good job and can support his wives and children. Zanabu has one child, Lamine. Hinda has five children: Abdu, Aisha, Abdu Raham, Saminou and Razaac (from oldest to youngest). Razaac is Ellie's favorite kid and my fave is Saminou. They are so cute and lovable. It is nice to come home after a day of language lessons and destress by playing with the kids. All of the kids, minus the youngest (Razaac and Lamine) attend school. It is a nightly ritual after din to study. The kids all get out their school notebooks and practice by flashlight/one overhead light. Loyola assists with the French. Ellie and I assist with...guess...English. They assist us with Hausa :). It is nice to practice languages together. Loyola told Ellie and I that if we have a free weekday, he will take us to school with him. That would be great to see what his classroom is like and how the lessons are similar/different from those in the USA (especially Berlin Elem)!

Friday: CORE day. Safety and Security discussion in the morning followed by malaria medical session. The S&S discussion was great and taught us tools on how to minimize risks and keep ourselves safe. For the most part, these tools are common sense: use the buddy system, don't stay out late at night, know your surroundings. These lessons are useful anywhere. The biggest thing that was stressed was, once again, INTEGRATE! If we integrate and have a strong presence in our volunteer village, then everyone will watch out for us. In the afternoon, we had two hours of language followed by sector meetings. In our CHA sector meeting, we designed plans for what we need to learn in order to follow the Ministry of Health's goals for health development in Niger. These goals are: 1. Maternal Nutrition, 2. Child Nutrition, 3. Disease Prevention and Treatment.

Saturday: Language for four hours in the morning, followed by a free afternoon. For the free afternoon, Ellie and I spent time with our host family as well as relaxed and read.

Sunday: FREE DAY! Happy Halloween :) Ellie and I spent a lot of time cleaning our gida (thatch roof home that we keep all our belongings in). We didn't have a chance to thoroughly clean and organize our belongings until this time. It felt nice to clean and prioritize what we need in the upcoming weeks and what can remain in the suitcase until a later time. For the rest of the day, we took some walks around Hamdallye to visit friends and spent time with our host family playing games and reading.
Looking ahead in our schedule, most weekdays for the rest of training will be similar to those described in my first week. Here and there variations will occur I'll talk about those individually.

Monday 1 Novembre: Language day as well as start our own gardening plots. Even though the majority of us are health volunteers, we each are given a gardening plot to use for the duration of pre-service training. All the health and FARM volunteers worked together to prepare the soil for plantation. Ellie and I have plots next to each other, plus a third for our family so we can all plant things together. It felt really good to do some manual labor and get our hands dirty, literally, in manure to mix with our sandy soil. The smell reminded me of Vermont a lil bit. One of the language teachers, Ila, helped Ellie and I with our plots. Maybe we looked helpless :) and like we couldn't tow the soil on our own. We've been good about watering our soil, and are looking forward to planting next week.

Wednesday 3 Novembre et Thursday 4 Novembre focused on PACA, which stands for Participatory Analytical Community Action, or in other words, How to Develop Projects in Your Village. We learned how to conduct a meeting in our village in order to assess what the villages need the most and thus can conduct projects that will yield the greatest benefit. It was extensive training and important to learn about.

Friday 5 Novembre: The day was very exciting because the new Ambassador to Niger from the United States came to visit. Her name is Lisa Williams. It was great to hear about her career in the foreign service. She has been to so many different countries representing the United States. She will be at the US Embassy for the next two years that we are here and she welcomed us to the embassy whenever we would like. She said she's very thankful for what we're going for Niger and for the continued service that Peace Corps does in this country.

Saturday November 6 through Wednesday November 10: Demystification. Demyst is an opportunity for trainees to stay at current volunteer's homes to see what life as a volunteer is like. Myself and four other people traveled 11 hours by bus to the eastern city of Maradi. We are visiting a married couple named Alice and Jesse. Their home is so nice; they have electricity and running water. Most likely, none of us will have this at our villages, but we have been making American food like mac and cheese and fajitas. Ha fajitas aren't really American! Oh well! But yes it has been a nice change of pace and shows what life will be like when we are at our villages :)

As a general note, I am still very excited to be here. I feel like I've been talking a lot about what I've been DOING, which has been amazing, but not what I've been FEELING. It is really great to be here and spent time with our host family to get a feel for a typical Nigerien family. It has been hot. I have a thermometer on my clock, and one day this week, the low temperature was 72 and the high was 121. The night time cool of 72 feels very cold and I am fortunate that I brought a nice sleeping bag. One of the days, the thermometer just read H for high because the temperature was above like 130 and wouldn't read it anymore. That's all for now! I miss you all! Talk to ya soon!