Rainy Monday

My Mayor's Office (when it didn't rain)

At the time of writing, I am sitting in a one-room mudbrick building in the concession of Bitinkodji’s Secretary General. I am superfrustrated that I don’t know Zarma fluently. DARN I wish I new Zarma fluently this minute so that I could understand what people were saying and could get to work in installing some sense of civic duty and personal ownership in the villagers. The Secretary General is a lovely man and will henceforth be my official counterpart. If he knew of my frustration he would smile and tell me to ‘have patience’. In fact, that’s what any Nigerien would say. Things take tiiiiiiiiiiime and before I can actually do any work, people need to know and trust me. That takes even more time. People in Sagafondo are far worse off than people in Hamdallaye. Whereas in Hamdallaye malnutrition seems to be the biggest problem, starvation is very real here and disease is everywhere. My counterpart’s wife is a nurse but since Sagafondo does not have a health facility she travels 10 km to the neighboring village everyday to work but if it rains, as it did all morning today the road floods and she can’t go. Where in earth do you begin development work with the current state of things. Maybe it’s good that I don’t know the language because if I did I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from going around telling people to get a grip. Illiterate parents don’t send their children to school because they don’t see the immediate need. People don’t pay taxes because they don’t see the benefits of doing so. Before I even start thinking about how to remedy any of that, I need to be able to talk to people and they need to trust me.

When I arrived for live-in on Sunday I learned that I have a house but that it wasn’t nearly up to Peace Corps’ standards and that is why I am living with my counterpart’s family for now and inshallah, (if God so wills) I will be able to move all my stuff into my own house and concession by the end of the week. Quite incredible that once I get back from Live-In we only have two more weeks of training. CRAZY!!

Sand Dunes in Bitinkodji