Swear-In

       Hey all! Happy almost New Years! So today was the swearing-in ceremony; the time when Peace Corps trainees become official Peace Corps volunteers. We headed into Niamey this morning and drove to the home of the US Ambassador in Niger, Bisa Williams. It was very generous of her to open her home to us for the ceremony. We had a "cocktail" of sodas and snacks before the ceremony. The ceremony consisted of speeches by the following people: Tondi, our program director/Nigerien dad; Myself, Dan and Alma who talked about volunteers in Niger and thanking our host families in Hamdallye, the Peace Corps Niger country director Valerie Staats, the deputy officer of the US Embassy and a Nigerien government official. Giving the speech was great. It was funny because Tondi finished up his speech (which was in both French and English, he's kindof a big deal) in which he talked about the highlights of our stage and PST: singing for Thanksgiving, Christmas and birthdays, the impressive results from our final LPI Language Proficiency Interivew, losing packages and letters, and the comrodery of our group.Then he called me up to give the speech. I wasn't up there for five seconds before every radio and tv station personnel who came to the event swarmed around me to tape the speech. It caught me off guard and I must have made a funny face cause all my fellow volunteers started laughing. I guess it was a good icebreaker :) No it was fine though. I wasn't even a little nervous, I think public speaking is growing on me. After all the speeches, the volunteers stood up. We all held up our right-hands and said the Peace Corps Volunteer Oath in both English and French. Then, shikena (all finished/complete/done), we were volunteers YAA It feels great! We all came out to lunch after at Almadines, our fave restaurant in Niamey. Tonight we will have a special going-away dinner. I anticipate a lot of singing and a lot of tears. Tears of happiness that we made it through training and grew close as a stage but also tears of sadness because we are all going to our own regions and villages and will not see each other on a daily basis. Thank goodness for the float plan on our phones so that we will be able to stay in touch for free. Tomorrow, the volunteers going to Zinder/Maradi will leave at 4am to catch the 10-hour bus ride out east. Holler holler. Plenty of time for me to ponder about my new years resolution(s) and world peace. And sleep. And read (thank heavens I don't get car sick). And listen to my ipod (thanks again Sharah).

 

Ali, Ellie and Alison Gr in Hamdallye before leaving for Niamey

 Alison & Tondi after ceremony

Peace Corps Niger Country Director, Valerie Staats, giving speech during swear-in ceremony

Ambassador Williams' backyard, where ceremony happened

End Note: I've tried to upload the speech videos, but they are too long and the bandwidth in this country is unable to support it. Sorry :( Love ya'll, talk to ya soon

P.S. Here is my speech in Hausa, and then English:
Mai girma ma taimakiyar jakadiyar kasar Amerika a Niger, Mai girma wakilin gwamnatin Niger, Mai girma darektan Peace Corps Niger, Mai martaba sarkin Hamdallye, Abokaina volontaire, Jama'a mata da maza.
Salamu Aleykum, sannunku da zuwa!
Sunana Alison cikin Amerika amma sunana Zara cikin Niger. Daga Vermont nike, karamar jaha kusa da New York. Barka mu da sallar swear-in. Cikin volontaires da suka zo Niger mune na karshen shekara hamsin. Yau, muna da sati goma a Niger. Mun zamna cikin Hamdallye da iyalanmu na Niger. Mun yi sallar Layya da iyalanmu kuma mun koyi yadda ake dafa abincin Niger. Hausawa suka ce: shinhudar huska ta hi shinhudar tabarma.Iyalina, sun bamu sunan Niger, Zara da Leya. Lokacin abinci, mun zamna bisan tabarma taray. Da farko, ba mu magana dayawa. Amma, kadan kadan mun koyi Hausa. Sun tamakay mu cikin koyon kalmomin Hausa hada karin magana, kamar "dumiya takashi kaza, yau koy, gobe tutu". Mun da yara, mun yi wasan kos kuma mun d'auki ruwan pumpo. Na d'auki bido babba. Yanzu, muna magana dayawa lokacin da mu kay ci abinci bisa tabarma. Mun gode ma iyalanmu don alherinsu kuma da hankurinsu.
Cikin wadanga sati goma mun koyi hausa da zarbarmanci, al'adun mutanen Niger kuma harakar aiki. Mun ga yadda ake bikin salla kuma mun koyi yanayin cikin Niger. Zamu bada taimako afannin kiwon lahiya ko aikin garka. Zamu yi aiki tare da al'uma; don haka, muna bukata goyon bayan su. Muna son koyon abubuwa bisa Niger, mutanenta kuma da al'adunta. Muna jin dadin zama sosai cikin Niger saboda kasa ce mai mutane masu halin kiriki kuma da abukantaka. Hannu da hannu, muna iya kawo gudunmowar mu a Niger. 'Yan magana suka ce: Babu bako cikin duniya, sai wanda ba ka sani ba. Muna jin daddi sosai da ganinku. Mun gode.

US Deputy embassy officer in Niger, Niger Peace Corps director, Chief of Hamdallye, my fellow volunteers, ladies and gentlemen,
Greetings, thank you for coming!
My name is Alison in America but in Niger, my name is Zara. I am from Vermont, a small state near New York. Greetings on swear-in. Our group marks 50 years of volunteers coming to Niger. Today, we have been in Niger for ten weeks. We have been living in Hamdallye with host families. We celebrated Tabaski and learned how to cook Nigerien food. As the Hausa people say: to share your sell is better than sharing your stuff. My host family gave us Nigerien names, Zara and Leya. When we ate, we sat on the mat together. At the beginning, we didn't talk very much. But we slowly learned Hausa. They taught us Hausa vocabulary and proverbs, such as: Life is like a chicken. Today you get eggs, tomorrow you get poo. The children and us played games and fetched water from the well. I carried a large container. Now, we can talk a lot when we sit on the mat to eat together. We thank our families very much for their generosity and patience.
In ten weeks we have learned Hausa or Zarma, Nigerien culture and work-related information. We learned about celebrations and daily life in Niger. We will help in the sectors of health and agriculture. We will work together, so, we need your help. We want to learned things about Niger, her people and her customs. We are so happy to be in Niger for it is the land of kind people and friendship. Hand in hand, we will work to bring a change for Niger. One who speaks well says: There are no strangers in this world, just those you have not met. We are happy to meet all of you. Thank you.

Good News

Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the winter weather! I have two exciting bits of news:
1. I have a phone. YAAAA all of the staff and volunteers are now on a float plan so that we can all text and call each other. Great for security purposes and to provide support to each other. Calling from the US, my number is: 227-987-000-71. Try calling me on Skype or GoogleVoice. I heard that GoogleVoice is a bit cheaper per minute but I'm not sure what service is better. We'll have to test it out.
2. This Thursday, we have a large ceremony called Swear-In where we become official Peace Corps Niger volunteers. At the ceremony, a lot of people talk, including three people from our stage. One to give a speech in French, one in Hausa and one in Zarma. Guess who was voted to be the Hausa speaker? THIS GAL! Ya I'm pumped. It'll be interesting. I've written most of it but it will be interesting to address people when I'm still working on pronouncing most of the words :) Ya I'm pumped though!
So ya I'm going to charge my phoney phone and will be waiting for all of your calls! Heart, Alison

 Christmas tree with secret santa presents under it. Please note the drawn tree + ornaments, Charlie Brown tree and recycled package boxes used to wrap the gifts. :)

"The Joys of Christmas" blackboard

Dec. 26. Host family fete, last night in Hamdallye before moving back to the training site.

Dec. 26. Host family after we gave them presents.

Dec. 26. Petite Razaac with soccer ball we gave him for the salla=celebration.

I will really miss that little guy.

Merry Christmas

26 Decembre 2010
Hello everyone! Merry belated Christmas! I hope you all are doing well and that the snow storm heading for New England doesn't hit too hard :) Here is what I've been up to for the holidays:
-Christmas Eve: I was part of the Christmas committee, so all afternoon a group of us worked in the kitchen on the training site in Hamdallye. With a lot of assistance from the cooks on site, we put together a feast of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, cooked potatoes, green beans & carrots, zuccini & eggplant, bread with garlic & butter sauce, cake and orange 'n apple 'n watermelon salad. One of the Peace Corps staff generously made us Christmas cookies and the trainees shared treats and candies that were sent from home. Post din, we sang carols and watched Love Actually. Ate a whole huge bag of twizzlers with the assistance of some friends :) thanks mama for the care package. Ellie and I slept up at the training site so we would be there for the morning festivities.
-Christmas: Ran early in the morn, it felt great to get up when it was still cool. Had pancakes and eggs for brunch, watched movies, and then had pizza for lunch. Didn't really feel like Christmas. It was about 90 degrees, lots of sand and no snow. Sad to not be home but nice to have company of my fellow trainees that I've grown close with over the past two months. We did secret santa for a gift exchange. I had Carolyn and I bought her a budda filled with candies and a Cliff bar. Andrew gave me a zani (fabric that's been tailored into a skirt). We decorated the blackboards around the training site with holiday notes and we had a little Charlie Brown tree that Dan received in a care package.
-Upcoming events: We have a biiiiiiig week. Tonight we have the family fete/festival. We are making food with our host families and having a final celebration of living with them for the past two months. Ellie and I bought the kids a soccer ball, Hinda and Zanabu earrings, and a flashlight for Loyola. It will be sad to leave them (especially petite Razaac) but I think Ellie and I are both ready for the next step in our journey in Niger. Tomorrow, we have our final language assessment ahh nerve-racking but it will be fine, insha allah. Then we spend a couple of days in Niamey discussing logistics about our sites and banking while at post. We swear-in as volunteers on the 30th (YAAAAA almost made it) and then take the bus out to Maradi on the 31st to begin the Installation to Site process. A lot is going on this week but when I get to Maradi, I anticipate that I will have internet access for a few days before I move out to my site.
I hope everyone is doing well and eating tons of great food! I've been dreaming about Christmas food lately and decided to make a dream wishlist of the desserts I miss the most this season:
5. Peanut brittle crunchy, full of protein, sweet deliciousness
4. Chocolate oranges. Do ya'll know what I'm talking about? Chocolate ball, you crack it and it's slices of orangechocolate goodness. Thank the Lord, on Christmas Eve I have an orangechocolate slice from a very-generous trainee who was sharing treats.
3. Poppyseed bread = my existence
2. chocolate + sprinkle-covered pretzels . We always made these growing up around Christmastime. Salty and sweet = yum
1. Cheesecake with strawberries on top. I'm hungry just thinking about it. Hello calcium deficiency!

Enjoy the video of Christmas caroling. Ignore Dan on the left who clearly doesn't love Silent Night as much as I do!

`Site Announcement

Hey ya'll! Hope everyone is doing well and on holiday break (or close to it!) Us trainees are in Niamey today for Site Announcement. It has been a very exciting day. I AM GOING TO MARADI! Ya this is where I wanted to be. I love the city of Maradi and all the volunteers there that I've met so far. I am in a town that has both a health center and a primary school; all the things I asked for. My village has approximately 5,000 people. More details to come!! For now, safe travels homeeeee for the holidays everyone! Check out this awesome blog from a fellow trainee in the meantime:
http://jacobmbarela.wordpress.com/

Language Immersion :)

10 Decembre 2010
Happy Winter everyone! I hope that ya'll are doing well and getting into the holiday spirit. Christmas is approaching so quickly ahh where did this 2010 year go? For the past two weeks, I have been outside of Maradi, staying in the bush village of Ouban Djada. Myself, five other trainees and two language teachers have been staying there for Language Immersion. The goal of immersion was to expose us to Hausa as many hours of the day as humanly possible. Every day except for Sunday consisted of the following schedule: class in the morning from 8:00-12:30 (with a 30-minute breaky break in the middle) and activities in the afternoon. We were each given a Language Immersion Booklet with specific activities that we had to do in the village. Some of these afternoon activities included: visiting the local store (shago) and finding the names of prices of 10 different goods, talking to local gardeners about what crops they are planting and how the winter (sanyi) season is going, visiting the local health center (gidan likita) and asking questions about their services provided, going to the school and asking the director about the classes and students, and the activities went on and on. The only activity we weren't able to do was visiting the market (kasuwa), because Ouban Djada is such a small village that it doesn't have a market. It gets dark around 6:30 every evening so our nightly fun after dinner consisted of reading (thankfully we were allowed to read novels in English), listening to music and going to sleep early.
The gals in the group (four of us) stayed in the magori's (town mayor) concession in a home that a past Peace Corps volunteer stayed. It is clear that no volunteers or anyone else has lived in the home since then. Lots of cockroaches in the latrine. Lots of wildlife in the house: spiders, frogs and a mouse family. The four boys stay down the street in the tailor's concession. Our group was broken up into two classes, so in the mornings, Yaa and I had class in the tailor's concession while the others were here in the magori's concession. Language has been getting better day by day, it is still difficult for me to decipher when people speak quickly to me in Hausa. But I'm working on those auditory skills.
Although class has been long and the activities at times daunting and frustrating due to the language barrier, there have been quite a few personal highlights over the past two weeks. These are:
-Morning running. The sun (rana) rises around 7:00, but I get up around 6:30 and run out of the village. There are no paved areas in this town, just sand, so I run down the sand road outside of the magori's house. Fields surround the village on all sides but the sand path continues through the fields until the next village I'm assuming. That could be miles and miles away though. It is so beautiful to run in the morning, though, especially as the sun is rising. Over Ouban Djada in the morning, the sun just looks like a large red balloon floating above the land (kasa). No one else is on the sand roadway andit is still cool at this time of day. I have found that running puts me in a great mood for the rest of the day. I hope that whatever village I go to on January first will have a nice sand path for me to run.
-Watermelon=kankana and guess what? It's watermelon season right now in Niger! I have never tasted a better fruit. We were doing an afternoon activity in the garden (garka) and one of the gardeners picked up a watermelon, split it right there, and shared it with us. I'm pretty sure that was as close to heaven as I've ever come. The taste is so sweet and so natural. I kept some of the seeds so that I can plant watermelon at my site. I bought another watermelon in the village and people have been giving them to us, so for the last few days we have had watermelon with dinner.
-Getting water from the well. Two days ago, Yaa, Alison Gr and I were walking around town and we came upon one of the two wells. There are a few "pumpo" stations where people pay to get their water, but at the well, the women haul water up from gosh-knows how many feet down. They haul the water up in what looks like a bag of rubber attached to a rope. They throw the rubber container over the side and somehow move the bag around for it to collect water. Then they haul it on up. Sooooo we're walking past the well and admiring these women (it's always women, I feel like they do all the work all the time) and how strong they are, and a guy walking by asks if we can pull water. I'm like "I can get water" in Hausa, he's like "no you can't". Welllll I showed him and I pulled water all the way up the well. It was hard but I did it :) and now when I walk down the street random people yell out to me, calling me the girl who pulled the water up from the well.
People in this village are really nice and I can see why as a volunteer I definetly want to be in a bush village. Even after two weeks, people have become familar and we know many names of people in town. The magori told us that 2,500 people live in this village. I'm not sure how accurate that number is, it's most likely a few more, but I think that this is the ideal size for my post. It's a small enough village that I could become friends with many people and feel like I'm having an impact on their lives, but not so small that an outsider (like myself) coming in would cause a change in the village dynamic.
Now, we are headed back to Hamdy hamdy for a few more weeks of culture, language and health-training lessons. We will have another language exam when we get back to see how much our language improved during immersion (I still have studying to do before then, let's hope I moved up on the scale). Next Friday we have a big day: site announcement. We will all go to Niamey and find out where our site will be for the next two years. I anticipate it will be an emotional time. I think one of our 41 volunteers is coming back to Ouban Djada :) That's all for now, love ya and leave ya, Ali

Hausa vocabulary from this blog for Berlin Elementary School kiddos:
store - shago
winter - sanyi (also means cold)
health center - gidan likita (home of the doctor)
kasuwa - market
magori - mayor
rana - sun
kasa - land
watermelon - kankana
garka - garden

kankana

sunrise in ouban djada

zara son kankana: alison loves watermelon

sand street in ouban djada