One Day

Per request I am providing a run down of a typical day as a Peace Corps day. Here’s what I did yesterday, Thursday November 20:

6:30am I woke up and petted Maya who has taken to sleeping next to me. Don’t you just love the comfort of a warm, purring cat?

7:00am I eat breakfast consisting of oatmeal and a cup of coffee with lots of concentrated milk/sugar. Even though Nigeriens cook their food over open flames, Peace Corps provides its volunteers with a gas powered stove so it's just like cooking in the US!

7:45am I headed out to the secondary school to teach two PE classes, crossing though the overflooded road that runs kneedeep

The flooded road that serves as latrine, washing machine,

dishwasher, shower and watering hole for animals

(as the goats above testify)

8:00am I begun teaching PE, today kickboxing was on the agenda using ipod loudspeakers I recently got in a package. Yay boyfriend!

A classroom at the Secondary School.
10 points if you guess the building material... it's millet stalk

9:00am I begun the second class that l is exactly like the first. Every week I teach 6 repeats of the same class.

10:00am I headed over to the mayor’s office and change into office clothes consisting of a an extremely colorful, patterned dress. I helped the accountant with his job of reporting all financial activity, putting my computer to good use! I also wrote a couple letters in response to ones that I’ve gotten. I don’t have a desk in my house so all office like work I prefer to do at the mairie.

An example of my work at the mairie.

A first step in mapping the Commune's Resources

2:00pm I left the mayor’s office as the afternoon prayer call rung and made my way around the village to buy meat and tomatoes for todays lunch. I made sure to greet everyone I passed and to visit a couple of my adopted family members. At this time I have four mothers, two fathers, dussins of little siblings and my very first big brother!

2:30pm I made and ate lunch consisting of potatoes a sauce made from the newly purchased ingredients and flavored with the mushroom gravy powder that Mom so kindly sent to me.

3:00pm I did the dishes to my neighbor’s amusement. I found a dishbrush in Niamey as well as detergent so I have quite an easy job of cleaning my pots which people in Sagafondo find extremely entertaining to watch given that they lug all their pots and pans to the river and wash them with mud and sand.

3:30pm I bought a chicken that will live with a friend who in exchange for a money to buy its food will bring me eggs.

4:00pm I took out my mat and swept my hut, gathering up a pint of sand that had fallen from the walls and roof over the last 24 hours, finishing it off with a couple whisks of lily scented air freshener. (purchased in Niamey)

4:30pm I collected my weigths made out of small aluminium cans filled with mud and selected some upbeat music to power through a workout session mixing aerobics, pilates and strength training.

5:15pm I went to the pump to get water for a bucket bath, carrying it on my head like a real pro. I then then went back to take that bath while I greeted people who passed by as they came back from whatever work or nonwork they had been doing. Privacy, what’s that?

6:00pm I watched a couple episodes of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ on my ipod. I am totally using this time in Africa to catch up on TV shows that sort of belong to American common knowledge. I’ve already gotten through four seasons of Lost. Next is Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy.

7:30pm I begun my nightly round of visiting the family members, selecting those that I didn’t get to earlier in the day. Forget one and I’ll here about it the next day…

8:00pm I ended my walk at my counterpart’s house, the Secretary General at the mairie. There I ate the traditional Nigerien dinner, repeated every dinner, every day; white milletmush and brown okra sauce. At first this was disquisting. Now it’s quite yummy…just maybe not every day. I mean, come on people, every day? The SG (which is what I call him since pretty much every male here is named Amadou - after the prophet), has a little generator that powers a TV and several outlets. Here is where I recharge ipod and cellphone, free to me but quite the income generating acticity for the SG since people pay him a little in exchange for access to electricity a few hours every night.

9:30pm I headed back and am joined by Maya at the door who somehow always knows that it’s me coming home so she rushes back from whatever adventure she was on. We then begun our nightly cricket hunt. It works like this: I shine a light around the walls of the apartment, swatting all the crickets and she follows, catching and eating them as soon as they drop to the floor. She’s getting increasingly better at jumping up and catching them herself!

10:30pm I crawled into bed and watched another couple episodes of HIMYM.

11:30pm I fell asleep

Except for the Chicken buying, this is a typical day in Maria’s new life in Africa.

A confession

This post is going to be informative nad content heavy so bear with me. First of all let me extend a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Barack Obama and to all Americans who came to their senses and voted for him. I am proud of you, maybe even proud to be one of you which is more than I can say for the last eight years.

At this time I have been in Sagafondo for almost a month and a half and I am really glad that I don’t ever have to relive this time because setting up routines, getting to know people and navigating your way around a new place in terms of who to talk to to get what done, is quite exhausting and once you’re completely familiar with your surroundings, as I am on fast track to becoming, it’s like a huge burden taken of one’s shoulders. YAY INTEGRATION!

I have a confession: I am a workaholic. Let me back this up with two explanations: First is the personal gratification of hard work. I am absolutely happiest about myself when I feel productive and useful. This being said I am extremely lucky that people that I work with are equally determined to get the work done. Second is the pretense for me being in Niger in the first place. Because I risked my relationship with the man I love to join the Peace Corps, I feel like every moment here needs to count and thus I am constantly seeking out ways to learn as much as I possibly can about Niger and make the biggest difference for the people in my community and the Mairie.

So, my love of work defended, what am I actually doing to be so busy? My work so far can be divided into four main areas:

1. In the mayor’s office assisting the employees with day to day activities like writing up birth certificates and collecting taxes but also with larger projects like mapping the Communes resources , marketing the tourist sites (sand dunes, hippos, caves and Fulani Camps) and updating the development plan from its original 2005 version.

2. With women’s groups in Saga-fondo and the neighboring villages. They all have relatively well structured groups with elected presidents and a desire to begin their on-income generating activities. Still, a lot of them lack a mission statement, i.e. actual work. Although they are disappointed that I can’t bring money to the table, several groups have expressed interest in working with my, making use of administrative skills like setting up a system of microfinance and creating a project plan for the work to be done.

3. As a PE teacher in the CEG (middle school). It’s certainly amusing how I can’t seem to get away from leading classes of physical exercise. (not that I try to) Some student saw me running one morning and asked if I wanted to teach them PE. Inititally they were sad that I didn’t know karate, as Jackie Chan is their all time hero, but now with my first week done, I am certain that we’ll have a great time together with or without karate. 6 classes at the CEG so that gives me a guaranteed 6 hours of exercise every week. SWEET!

4. Integrating in to the community. This is definitely not a traditional job but part of Peace Corps commitment to Cross Culture and I try to make daily rounds to my adopted mothers and fathers, knowing that if I don’t they will scold me for it later, saying that I’ve forgotten them ;).

“Be careful what you ask for”, my Mom always said and here I am, the girl who always sought to be the center of attention, surrounded by people who want nothing more than to do work with me, visit me, be my friend and for me to come see them. I enjoy the one or two episodes of Lost that I watch every night because that is also the only time I am truly alone. Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It is because it is the abnormally that I welcome the solitude. With all its peculiarities, Niger is my home now and I am happy here.

Me Being Happy

Maya being happy on top of my shade hanger (until it was time to come down and she forgot how she got up)

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