Miss Meraleen, I Presume?

My Blog About Peace Corps Service in Niger

Disclaimer: The views and opinions reflected throughout this site are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Bureau Reconciliation

It is quite amazing how one person’s decision can effect so much. In my case, this decision was made by my newly appointed boss at the Peace Corps Bureau; Assistant Program Country Director (APCD) for the MCD Program. As I wrote in a blog post back in September, the country administration, more commonly known as 'the Bureau' denied my vacation request for this Christmas arguing several reasons that basically boiled down to; I had not been in country long enough to warrant a vacation. Well, given all the work that I’ve been doing in my village since and given that I had a new person to go to, I decided it might be worth asking again. Hence, around Thanksgiving I approached my APCD about going to America for Christmas. He had just visited me in Sagafondo a few days earlier and thus had seen both my work at the mayor’s office and my integration in the village. His first response was “I need to talk to some other people but will get back to you soon”. Three days later he called and sayd “I’m sorry but there is just no way you can go….”.


Well I wasn't just going to sit back and take that. There is a lot of discussion about the morale and trust between volunteers and the bureau, especially in my group since 15 people have decided to terminate their service early and basically quit the Peace Corps. I mentioned to my APCD that “if the bureau wants to know where the issue of bad morale comes from between volunteers and the administration, it is precisely because of decisions like these” and asked him to pass that on to the other senior staff members. Well, low and behold. Five minutes after getting off the phone, my APCD calls me back with a new decision…… I CAN GO!!!!

From absolute devastation, my mood turned to that of triumphant joy in a matter of 30 seconds. With this change a mood also came a change in my entire outlook of the Peace Corps and the people running the Niger Country Office. In letting me go, I feel like they recognize and appreciate the work I’ve been doing, the effort I have put in to integrating into the community and learning the language. In letting me go, I feel like the bureau has assumed their proper role of supporting me as a volunteer here in Niger but also understanding that I will not be happy and successful here unless I can maintain connections with loved ones back home. Finally, I feel like the bureau understood that it is in THEIR best interest to let me go because I will be a much better, dedicated volunteer because I will feel that the bureau has my back covered rather than being thereto act as a Police force.

YAAAAAY! I’m going to America for Christmas! On Wednesday the 17th I will head to the airport, fly through Casablanca and New York to Boston where I will meet the love of my life. We will then drive to his family in Ohio for Christmas and I will be back in Niger on the 30th. I’ll still get to celebrate the coming of 2009 six hours before my American friends ;)

Until I return,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!





Getting my hair braided in preparation for my trip back home


The finished result!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Sacrifice



Today is the second day of the biggest holiday of all year in Niger. In French it is known as Tabaski and in Arabic Eid al-Adha. In Zarma it is simply ‘Cimso’. It is the Muslim New Year holiday so the greetings I find myself saying every 10 seconds translate to things like:


- “Happy New Year, that it right now”
- “May your feet enter the new year a-walking”
- “Please forgive anything I did last year, as it is now a new one”
- “Where is my New year’s Present? (this one goes to people who first ask me for presents resorting to the idea that white people have tons of money and comeonly to throw money around, BAH. As if a Peace Corps volunteer has tons of money……)

So let me share with you this most important tradition of tabaski, the tradition that people begin preparing for months in advance, begin talking about even earlier and spend all of the two days executing: animal sacrifice. You see, tabaski always takes place 70 days after the end of Ramadan and since Ramadan is governed by the moon and consequentially shifts to be 10 days earlier every year, so does Tabaski meaning that that in 15 years, the Muslim New Year will be in July) Anyways, tabaski is celebrated in honor of prophet known in several other religions; Abraham. God told Abraham to sacrifice his son and only in the last moment did got replace the son with a ram. Consequentially the entire festival is dedicated to the killing of a ram (or goat or chicken if you are of lesser means). I, as a Peace Corps volunteer am of extremely small means, or so I told my villagers as the reason for why I did not “do cimso”.

Despite my eagerness to integrate in Nigeren Culture, I could not bring myself to partake in this tradition of buying and killing an animal and even though I got scolded for it, I feel like my money can be much better spent, even if it is buying and killing a sheep 6 month from now when the meat will be a million times more appreciated. Right now there is an abundance of food right after harvest season and everybody is doing cold season gardening. In April food will be almost gone and meat will be extremely hard to come by since the animals will also be hungry…. If I bring people presents of meat at that time, my money spent will be much more appreciated. I counted over 100 sheep killed and prepared in Sagafondo alone yesterday.

But I wasn’t completely culturally insensitive! Rather than meat, I made 30 little boxes out of folded paper and filled with peanuts and popcorn bringing to all village officials, women’s leaders and friends. This meant 5 hours of non-stop walking around and greeting people, repeating the aforementioned greetings and giving out presents as well as candy to children, this is after all their equivalent of Christmas and presents are not restricted to family alone.

It is now afternoon and despite my thought that I would be receiving lots of meat, not one person has come by as of now…. Yesterday was intestines day and I politely declined two or three offers. I know I said that I was excited about eating meat again but I don’t think I will ever be able to come to terms with eating the heart, lungs or kidneys of an animal. Hopefully the villagers have not forgotten about me and are just busy preparing it…. (Having posted this retroactively I can testify that the latter was true… over the next few days I received more meat than I could ever eat)

Anyways, I am off blow up the Pilates ball that Ryan sent me and to do a little modern exercise followed by a not so modern shower….


Some graphic Pictures of Nigerien New Year's Celebration. Sensitive eyes beware!