Just a few pics from this final project I did. We took 15 young women (married or soon to be) from the bush from monday to friday. We organized a number of health sessions with a local health worker, taught them to cook tofu (to generate some income), taught them how to make more efficient cookstoves, and had lots of dance parties. It was really fun. A few of these young ladies were really fantastic.

This was really my last full project for work. Crazy. I don't have time to type my thoughts on this now, but its scary and surreal to be almost done. I'm in Niamey now where we're about to start our close of service conference. Then I'll sprint back to Matameye for about 2-3 weeks of saying goodbyes, back to Niamey to actually close my service, and then home. Mind blowing.

Oh, and I actually have some other pictures of my girls' group trip to Zinder but forgot to put them on my flash drive so I'll post them later.

These pictures from the work/health fair are of the girls napping, a health session, dancing, and hennaing...

Just a quick note with a couple pictures. I think I already said that we had Pelele’s birthday celebration which was super fun and crazy. There’s a very blurry picture of me with some of the kids and Pelele sitting on my lap. Right now I’m only in for one night, bringing a group of first year College students in from Matameye to visit the professional schools and meet with some professional women in Zinder. Hopefully its going well when I post this (I’m writing right now from Matameye the eve of…) But I’m excited and I’ll put up other pictures later. The picture of the students framed by the thatch, is actually taken through the back of their classroom (most sixieme students are in classes made of thatch walls instead of cement since the population is just growing to quickly to make classrooms quick enough, on top of the lack of money do so even if they had the time). But the two girls on the bottom left are Firdaoussi and Zouleye who are (hopefully) with me in Zinder. Sweethearts.

Another picture is of a student doing the long jump in the end of the year sports exam, the girls in all their track suits are… Well, the end of the year sports exams are sort of a field day and people like getting decked out in the flyest gear they can find. So that’s why they all are sporting their slick outfits.

Finally, yesterday I went to Kantche where some other volunteers were having a soccer match. A girl from each of the two teams had been in Zinder with us a while back when we did the Young Girls’ Conference. And since I knew they were coming to Kantche (just 15km away) I grabbed the girl that I had brought to Matameye and they had a mini reunion. It was awesome and super sweet to see how excited they all were to see each other.

Otherwise, life is good. I have SO LITTLE time left its terrifying. After I get back from Zinder we (me and some other peace corps girls from surrounding region) are doing a five day young women’s health and income generation fair. Then I’m racing to Niamey for one week for our Close of Service Conference. Sprinting back to Matameye for about 3 more weeks, saying goodbyes (oh my god, I just felt a pang even writing that), back to Niamey to actually close my service and then home.

My ETA for New York is July 17th. I expect you there. And you can expect me to be an emotional mess.

PS my time on the internet is super limited with the girls waiting for me at our hostel, so if any show up at all it wont be all the pictures I mentioned, and I’ll try and get them up soon… Damn, dont think any went through... i'll try and get them up later... rrrrr

In Zinder for a couple days and just got from hanging out with Nouria and Yilli (in pink). They're amazing. I love them. Girl on the bottom with me, Ramatou, lives in the same group of houses with Nouria and is a sweetheart.

They're building a new cellphone tower in Matameye (actually two) and I convinced some of the construction guys to climb up and take some aerial photos of the town for me. Really cool for me at least. Its so flat here that its just really cool seeing things from a totally different perspective. In the photo with the other cell tower in it you can see my house, half cut off by the edge of the pic, right in the center.

I'm sort of surprised by how green the other picture it is... All streets (except the one main paved one) are totally sand. In town there are lots of trees though from street level you dont appreciate the green as much as you can from up high. Though now that its hot season we certainly appreciate the shade.

Anyway, overall things are good. Going through mental adjustments and bracing myself for the trauma of saying bye to everyone, but VERY excited about grad school and going to DC.

Oh, and the last photo I added is a group of teachers from a teacher training on gender issues in the education system that I helped organize.

Oh, and in some non-Niger news… Looks like barring any 11th hour revelation that I’m headed to Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC this summer/next fall. I’ll be enrolling in their School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) for a Masters degree in International Economics and International Development (the IDEV program). I always sort of thought and expected that I’d be back in New York. But in the end, I couldn’t ignore that Johns Hopkins was far and away my favorite program, so while I’m sad to not be living in the same city as a controlling majority of my favorite people in the world (not counting of course those I’ve met over the last few years here in Niger), I’ll be just a short china town bus away and promise to visit as much as possible. A Rub appearance is anticipated some time late summer or early fall.

Alright, now I’m back off to Matameye for as long as possible.

For any who are interested, here's the link: http://www.sais-jhu.edu

Kind of a bootleg website to be honest, but a sweet program.

I think a few posts ago I wrote about my elaborate search for sixieme level girls at the high school for a support group. Well we had our first meeting and it was GREAT. I’m really really excited about it. The girls are wonderful (or at least were the first day) and were so appreciative and excited to be given attention for their studies. I had them do some exercises in class and then told them I’d correct it before their next session, then they literally BEGGED me to give them a homework assignment before the next class. Kids love learning. Its awesome to see and so exciting and inspiring. Its just conversely sad that they get so little encouragement and attention in their oversized classes with overworked and undermotivated teachers.

As I mentioned, all these girls were chosen because they’re in serious risk of either needing to redo the first year or failing out altogether. So wish me luck, I’m planning to do everything I possibly can to help them avoid those outcomes. I’ll try and keep everyone posted on how things go…

So, somehow and amazingly, Ian made his way to Zinder all the way from Ghana… I’m still shaking my head in partial disbelief. Think I mentioned it before but he took a 24 hour plus bus ride from Togo to Niamey, spent the night at the bus station and then climbed on another bus to get to Zinder. Amazing.

So, one of the first things we did was track down Nouria and Yilli (who also just recently moved to Zinder). I’m already thrilled about Nouria and Yilli hanging out. Sort of like a someone who sets up two of their best friends and then watches their relationship grow into something independent of yourself... Not sure if that makes sense, but its cool to see two girls get to be good friends and to feel responsible for it.

Then adding Ian to the mix obviously put it on a whole other surreal and wonderful level. Yilli came over to Nouria’s house and the four of us along with some neighbors played a big game of soccer. So fun.

Next we went off to Gafaty a small village about 17km from Zinder where my good friend Danel (Rachid) lives. Its always cool seeing other peoples’ posts… Wow his is different than mine. Its part of the difference between being a “bush” versus a “city” volunteer. There’s obviously a lot of benefits to being in a large post and I love Matameye, but it is NOT chill or relaxed. It wears me out and can be overwhelming. Gafaty was great. An NGO recently built a volleyball court there so we spent our two evenings hanging out chatting with villagers and playing some ball. We also visited the villages’ AMAZING gardens. It was really impressive how much effort the villagers have. Not to be taken for granted. Pictures are of us in the gardens and another of me at a blacksmith trying to use his crazy two-bag fire stoking contraption (with only limited success, but an A for effort).

So as promised (and if the internet gods agree) here are a few pictures from the wedding party I hosted at my house. Two of my neighbors preparing the meal, the tent they set up, a bunch of us hanging out on my porch, and the groom getting momentarily henna-ed by ladies from the bride’s family. It was lots of fun. A little crazy having about a hundred people in my house, but it was a good time. I can’t say enough times how grateful I am for my friends and how wonderful and awesome they are.

So, its been a month. Its the first time I’ve gotten to spend an uninterrupted month in Matameye since the first month I was dropped off there. And it was fantastic.

Things in Matameye are truly great. Friends are wonderful, work feels relatively productive, and language while not free of frustration feels respectable. And suddenly leaving seems right around the corner and I’m getting NERVOUS. Of course it’s a little premature, but hearing back from graduate schools and now needing to make a decision makes leaving suddenly very real and seemingly very soon. Too soon really. Anyway, I got into a couple schools in DC and another in NY. The jury’s still out for sure and it’s a tough choice so anyone hoping to do some recruitment better get to it as I’ve only got a couple weeks to decide.

Anyway, as I said, friends have been great. Yilli just moved to Zinder and so I got to arrange a reunion between her and Nouria for the first time in 8 months which was pretty exciting for everyone involved, namely the three of us. We basically just sat around and chatted (mostly about boys) while Yilli henna-ed Nouria’s feet and hands. Every once and a while I have to laugh at myself when I remember that my best friends here are disproportionately 16 year old girls. Oh well. They’re wonderful what can I say.

The day before I came in to Zinder I hosted a friend’s wedding party which was pretty cool, though also kind of a zoo with my house opened wide to about 100 or so people. There was music, food and some limited dancing. We also had a friends of the bride v. friends of the groom soccer game. It was all a good time. I forgot my camera cord so you’ll have to wait on the pictures, though I’m not sure how great they came out.

Workwise I spent a lot of the last week or so sifting through high school report cards. They just handed out the first semester’s report cards. I think I wrote about this last year, but its crazy how they do it. They invite all the parents and administrators and teachers (obviously not all the parents come, but a decent group who are part of the Parent of Students organization come). Then they go class to class with all these people present. They read the names of the top three students in each class, then the name of the person who was last, and then if anyone had a behavior issue they announce it to all in attendance. I practically had a panic attack just watching it. Its moderately horrifying.

I’m getting a group started for first year high school girls at risk of repeating the year or failing out. So, with report cards and grades finally calculated I went through all the first year classes (a total of around 700 students) and found all the girls who had passing grades or something even remotely close. The cut off for passing to the next year is a 9 out of 20 while the cutoff for even being allowed to repeat is 7, I took girls who had an average as low as 5. Note: don’t equate this with the American system and think that girls are passing with a 45% mark, a 10 is probably like a B or B+ in the US. The school system here is just ridiculously hard on top of many students’ levels being low. Anyway, I came up with a list of maybe 90 girls. Then I went through each of these 90 girls’ files to search for girls who had come from the surrounding villages to school and give them priority. I found five.

I was pretty shocked. They probably started the year with about 100 or 150 girls from surrounding villages and I could only find five who had a semester average of 5 or higher… What I’d heard people say, but never truly appreciated until looking it in the face was that many girls come from the bush and stay for a week or even a month. But they’re not really here to study. They come hoping to get married. Or if they do come to study, the distance of commuting from their villages takes its toll and they abandon quickly. I’m kicking myself for not having started this at the beginning of the school year… Hindsight is whatever it is I suppose.

In the end I added another 7 girls to the 5 by choosing girls whose fathers weren’t professionals, ie. farmers, mechanics, or drivers. Even that was difficult to find. Basically all girls successful in school have parents who are professionals or “funcionaires”. Now that its done I’m pretty excited. I’m working with another lady who works on girls education issues at the primary school level and we’re going to arrange a number of programs for the girls ranging from women and girls’ health to empowerment, to study skills, to money management. I’m actually going to be directly tutoring them once or twice a week, which should be interesting as I teach French, English, and Math to a group of girls who effectively only speak Hausa. It’ll be a challenge but I’m really excited about it. I’m also planning to bring the group to Zinder for an overnight trip in a couple months to visit the professional schools here and also hopefully just to have some fun.

I’ve also been trying to get the high school’s computer set up so that its running smoothly. A lot harder than you’d think. I’ve had to repair this damn computer and its printer about 5 times already. I’m training a number of teachers on how to use it and we got a small lock box set up for contributions to cover future repairs and ink purchases. Its not my favorite activity but computer literacy is atrocious here and it is just so necessary. Of course its also cool (if not sometimes frustrating) getting to teach the 60 year old secretary/typist how to use a computer for the first time in her life (feel like I wrote about that before… oh well, I just have fear of repeating myself). I’ll just say that it requires patience though, we take for granted simple things like pointing and clicking… Don’t even get me started on the frustration that double-clicking brings to my life. But bit by bit it comes, and so… More often than not patience is rewarded.

In other news. Road-warrior Ian is on his way from Ghana. He’s in the middle of a 24 hour bus ride as I write this from Togo to Niamey, then about an 8 hour break before the 15 hour trip to Zinder. BADASS. Pumped though. Its gonna be great. Alright, I promise pictures next time.

That’s really it for the moment. My head is filled simultaneously with thoughts of grad school and with growing nostalgia about my time here. Again, there’s time left, four months, but its flown by so fast I’m afraid to blink for fear I’ll wake up back in the U.S. before saying my goodbyes.

My trip to Ghana was sweet. Ghana is amazingly beautiful and amazingly developed (at least compared to Niger). It was actually really good to sort of connect the dots between Niger and the U.S. by placing a country like Ghana in between, if that makes any sense.

Anyways, traveling with two other Peace Corps Volunteers we came down from Burkina Faso and spent a night in a town called Bolgatanga just on the Ghanaian side of the border. Noah and I went out for an evening stroll. We heard music playing and walked towards it. Suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of a massive wedding celebration and were quickly ushered to the center of a dance circle. It was pretty much just the two of us, dancing poorly for about ten minutes as 300 people crowded to the edge of the circle to watch. Felt like a celebrity. It was a lot of fun and pretty hilarious.

The next day we continued on to Tamale, a town near the north where we met up with Ian (booya!). We saw a couple of the African Cup games and then Ian and I split from the other two and continued south, spent a night in Kumasi a town more or less in the center of Ghana and then continued down to Ian’s land.

For those who have heard Ian talk about his land, he hasn’t misled you. Its one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. He and a friend adventured out there on a whim and when they saw it, fell in love with it. They spoke to the local chief and arranged to buy it (see the picture of me and Ian with the chief). Luckily so because within a few months oil was found just offshore and another few months later it was all bought up… So, anyways, lots to be said about all that, but I’ll just show you the pictures for now. Basically jungle crashing down onto beautiful, quiet, sandy beaches with clear blue bath-water temperatured ocean… Amazing.

In Accra I met up with Kosi, a friend from Wesleyan. Wow, way to make me feel like I’m directionless. She’s amazing. She is working for a bank in Accra and has started her own micro-financing organization in the city which she plans on turning into a full fledged bank in the next few years. It was really inspiring to see her. Here she is at her office with one of her employees in the background and a borrower seated in front of her.

Ian helped to found a local youth center in a relatively poor area of Accra. The kids were wonderful and the program was really impressive. They do a lot of tutoring with the kids as well as basket weaving and drumming and dancing. Here they are dancing and drumming, and then another picture of me with some of the kids. There’s also a picture of me and him with his local “host grandma” of sorts named “Dada” who was one of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever met.

Here are some pictures of me, Kosi, and Ian at the final match between Egypt and Cameroon. It was a sweet. Actually, the best match we saw was a quarterfinal between Ghana and Nigeria who are arch rivals. It was an amazing game, capped by Ghana, despite playing with one less player, scoring with time winding down to win the game 2-1. Accra erupted into a city-wide party. So fun. Anyways, the final was a good time too, though Egypt won 1-0 (I was rooting for Cameroon). And the ceremony was capped by some really cool fireworks.

Anyways, I’m rushed so I’ll cut myself off writing any more, but overall it was a fantastic trip. If nothing else it was nice to get out of Peace Corps land and be refreshed for my final 7 or so months of service. And yet, playing with other kids and traveling around a lot made me miss Niger and all of MY kids. Its great finally being back in Niger and in Zinder (I’ve gotten to visit Rookaya and Nouria since getting here) and I can’t wait to head back to Matameye tomorrow morning. So, til next time…

So, I just posted that last string of posts from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. In case I haven't been in touch with you, I'm travelling for a couple of weeks down to Ghana with some other Peace Corps Volunteers and meeting up with IAN!!!!! We're gonna check out a bunch of games for the African Cup of Nations (the African World Cup basically), see Ian's work in Accra, and head to his land out near Takaradi. Being in Ouagadougou has been pretty interesting. Crazy being in the capital of the world's second poorest country and feeling like it has so much more going for it than Niger... Not sure if that's for real or if the grass is just greener on the other side... But its interesting.

More updates and pictures later after the trip, but that might not be for a few weeks. So, hope everyone is well and I'll do my best to travel as safely as possible :)

For the last month or so a couple friends and I have been organizing a conference. With the help of other Peace Corps Volunteers across Hausa speaking Niger, we found 11 girls to come to Zinder and participate in the conference. The girls were chosen based on two criteria. First, that had to be in good standing at their current high school. And second, that they are from a small rural village. The intention was to bring the girls to Zinder (a city all but two of them had only heard of and never visited) and participate in a range of activities. The theme of the program was to make the girls think about their futures and what they hope to achieve with their education. We also aimed to motivate them in their studies, give them some tools to improve their study methods, help them build their self-confidence, and also just to have fun.

I loved doing this project and it was probably the most fun 5 days I’ve had in country. That is not to say that I wasn’t stressed and exhausted for the entire duration of the program, but the girls were absolutely wonderful. I’ll come back to that later.

While the program spanned five days there were really just three full days of activities once travel was factored in. The first day was geared towards exploring post-high school opportunities if they get their diplomas. We started with a conversation discussing the different opportunities and then went to visit three different professional schools in Zinder, meeting with both administrators and students to get a feel for each of the different programs. We started with the Ecole Normale where students are trained to become teachers. We then went to the E.N.S.P. an acronym which I’m forgetting but is to train health workers (nurses, lab technicians, and midwives mostly). And finally, we went to a business skills type school where they do computer, secretarial, and accounting training. After the visits we held a brief self-defense class (where I got to “attack” the girls to help them practice getting away from assailants). The day ended with an evening discussion on women’s empowerment by a local Nigerien NGO worker who is fantastic.

The second day was professional women’s day. We started with a panel with a group of four professional women in Zinder. We had a midwife, an NGO worker, a government worker, and an education administrator come and discuss their personal paths to success, highlighting education in their lives, what obstacles they faced and how they overcame them, and how it is that they are able to balance being both professional women and also mothers/wives at the same time. After the panel and discussion we divided the girls among the women to accompany them to their places of work and then afterwards to their homes. It was great visiting the girls and seeing them put to work and getting a real taste of some different jobs (two girls got to sit in on an organization wide meeting with a guest from France).

The third and final day we spent the morning working with a small group of peer educators discussing study habits and study strategies. The intention was, having shown them what different opportunities education can open, to give them some tools to better manage their studies as well as some concrete techniques to be a more effective student. After the morning session we finished with what I considered the highlight of the program. We went to the city’s local radio station and recorded a radio show with the girls. The program discussed some of the obstacles to education for girls in Niger, but most importantly, we gave each girl an opportunity to talk about education in their lives, what they hoped to do with their futures should they successfully finish high school, and also just to greet their friends and those who had helped them with their studies. It was pretty awesome. The girls were super excited.

The evening was finally just fun time. I’ll come back to it later, but it was amazing…

The next morning at 4am it was time to get up, and take the girls from Maradi and Konni to the bus station. Of course, it being Niger, when we got to the bus station we were told that the bus was broken, so me and a friend took mad dashes in opposite directions praying that we could find another bus line that A) hadn’t already left and B) had space for our girls and the volunteers they had come with. Luckily it worked out, but it was nice getting a little unexpected 4:30am exercise.

I’m not really gonna conclude this cus I have more to say coming up, but as I said before, I loved this project. I think the girls got tons out of it and I was really really sad saying goodbye to them at the end.

So you know what we did, but let me say just a little more about these girls. They were amazing. Me and my friend were sitting down after the program and collectively realized that in this group of 11 13-17 year-old girls we couldn’t come up with a single negative thing to say about a single one of them. I didn’t see a single girl be mean or even snippy with any of the others, didn’t see anyone be snooty or bossy. Not only that but throughout the entire course of our busy program, not once did any of them complain. I was so grateful to them for their attitudes and just for them generally being such smart, sweet, and fun girls.

It was very fun also seeing the internal dynamics of the girls. While in some ways the difference in ages was a challenge for the program, it was also cool seeing the younger ones looking up to the older ones. And seeing the friendships that they were forming between each other was pretty heart-warming as well. They behaved like they had been best friends for years when they had really just been together for four or five days.

Anyways, here are pictures of a few of them. The girl with the green head scarf looking intense, Haoua, is in the middle of playing a game with Zelifa in the background. Hannatou is crouching in white with a notebook in her hand. Mourja is in red. The picture with three girls is Rabi, Maimouna, and Haoua (there were two). Haoua was particularly amazing. She’s been first in her class since she left her small village and started going to high school. She was nicknamed La Presidente because early on she made it clear she wanted to become “la premiere presidente de la republique”. She restated this intention on the radio on the final day, which was pretty great.

The final picture is of Seylouba and Balkissa. Seylouba is a girl I’ve written about before who goes to school in Matameye. I loved watching her during the conference. She’s pretty timid, but it was really fun seeing her bust out of that shell a bit, undoubtedly inspired by the examples of some of the other girls (la Presidente in particular). A brief side note is that a couple days before (maybe I mentioned this before), I surprised her out in her village. She was shocked and her dad acted like it was Publisher’s Clearing House. Well, not exactly, but no matter how much I resisted, he wouldn’t stop giving me small gifts to bring back to Matameye, and trooped me all through the village meeting any and everyone.

So as I mentioned, the last evening we had a game/field day. It was AWESOME! Finally, with all the difficult sessions done we were able to just relax and have fun. We played Twister, bobbed for apples, had a quiz show recapping the conference, and then had a bonfire with Smores and a big dance party. Honestly it was some of my happiest moments in country. It made it heart wrenching to say goodbye the next morning.

The rules for bobbing for apples were pretty hilarious. Basically two people went at the same time, and whoever finished first got to take a cup of water and dump it on whoever they wanted, innocent bystander or not. Pictures are of me explaining how to bob for apples. Another of me trying to stare down La Presidente (she would try for about 2 seconds every time, then sprint away as fast as she could in fear that who she was going against would dump the water on her, as we usually did). Some post bobbing pictures of Hannatou and Haoua, the game show being led by another PCV, and some Twister.

I’ll be better at updating my blog…

So, after the girls soccer finals, I went directly to Niamey to go meet my mom and sis who were coming in for the holidays.

Of course by holidays I don’t just mean Christmas or Hannukah. This year Tabaski one of the biggest Muslim holidays was falling on the 18th of December. If you remember from last year, Tabaski was the holiday where I posted the picture of me grinning with a big goat carcass in one hand and a big knife in the other. It’s the holiday where everyone buys a big goat, slaughters it on the holiday and then eats and shares with neighbors more meat than anyone knows what to do with.

I’ll admit I really struggled with this. I really agonized over it. When I told people my mom and sis were coming the first question almost everyone asked was, “so, you getting a goat?” To which I did my best to nervously laugh away the question. The bottom line for me was this: I’d been a vegetarian for something like thirteen years before coming to Niger. But I decided to put it on hold as I felt many of my reasons for not eating meat don’t apply as well to Africa as they do to America and also in order to have a richer experience. So, whereas I had been eating meat (not a lot but enough), and thus paying for someone else to do all my dirty work, I had no real reason to resist buying a goat of my own and participating in the holiday this year. So I did.

I didn’t actually kill it myself. That has to be done by a malam, or someone properly studied in Islam. Nor did I do all the initial butchering work since I had no idea how (removing the guts, skinning it etc.). Though I did force myself to bear witness to the process and will admit it was fascinating (to separate the skin from the body one cuts a hole in the back of the goats heal and then inflates the whole thing like a balloon… weird but amazing). Anyways, then there was a whole lot of anxiety that followed relating to how I was going to distribute the meat. Normally during Tabaski one gives away lots of meat to ones neighbors and to others who don’t have money for a goat of their own. With none of my mom, sister or I being particularly serious meat-eaters we were giving away almost all of it. Anyways, I was moderately stressed trying to decide who to give how much to and if I give to this person do I give to that one, etc…

Thankfully a young neighbor of mine came in to rescue. And the 11 year old girl wielding the knife, twirling it in the air while directing her little brothers where to bring the separate pieces, finished in half an hour what I had agonized over for about 2 days. And of course she topped of her performance by asking me directly (as Hausas love to do) “You can’t do anything can you?” Heh heh.

More to say on all of this visit. Bottom line is that it was awesome. But I’ll wait until the rest of my sister and mom’s pictures arrive. Or hassle my sister and have her send you the link to the ones she posted online with little commentary… Probably more fun like that anyways. PS. Getting stuck in Niamey we went for a little boat ride to burn some time with some other stuck Peace Corps families on the Niger river and saw some hippos. Pretty cool...

Alright, no good way to get it started so I’ll just start and try and make sense of it later. Anyways, its been a while. So if you’re my grandmother, or anyone else who has been hoping I’d hurry up and update my blog, I’m sorry. I think the big problem was just that I was in the throes of graduate school application madness, and so my attention for writing was consumed by essay writing and online box-checking/blank-filling anxiety. But that’s done! Yay! And assuming one of the schools I applied to lets me in, I’ll be back state side studying somewhere in the northeast next fall semester…. Crazy how time flies when I say it like that….

So what HAS happened since I last wrote… A lot. And I won’t be able to get to all or even a reasonable chunk of it just yet. But I’ll give you a couple of highlights…

Girls Soccer: You probably got tired of hearing me rave about them last year. Well, they’re back. It was different though this year. I still love them. A number remain among my best friends in Matameye, and yet something was different. I think maybe the luster of playing soccer with the crazy white guy had worn off for some of them. I think my own enthusiasm wasn’t as emphatic as it had been last year. I think that things got rushed because the tournament was happening a bit earlier than last year and they never got into a rhythm. And, since it was largely the same team as last year (minus a couple important ones, including Yilli and Nouria) they were all a year older, almost all in the exam year, focused on their studies and probably also just thinking about boys and other such nonsense. I mean, the gist, is that it was REALLY tough getting them organized and motivated and I got FRUSTRATED with them. It’s a lesson I’ve learned a bunch of times since coming here, you can love someone one moment, and the very next feel like you could strangle them… And then you have to just step back and realize that there’s lots of stuff going on in their lives that has nothing to do with you and taking every time they stand you up for a practice as a personal offense is probably a bit excessive and unreasonable.

Anyways, so to the gritty details. The Zinder tournament was split up into East and West regions. Three teams were to play in each sub region with the winners to play in the final match at the beginning of December in Zinder. So, we hosted the Western Zinder tournament in Matameye. It was a round robin so we needed to play against Kantche and Zinder… The moral of the story is that the morning I asked the girls to come early to help me set up and prepare the field, one girl came. I was furious with them… The others showed up in time for the game, but I was fuming, left to do the bulk of the preparation which was all really for them. And yet, as the games started and I again saw how much they love the opportunity to play soccer, it was impossible not to get caught up in the excitement.

I suppose I should back up. Nouria (last year’s best player, and in my opinion, the best player in the Zinder region) had just left for Zinder. Her father was transferred to Zinder and although she started the year in Matameye (showing up to more of our practices than any of the other girls), about three days before the tournament she finally left. So we had to do without our best player.

We played the first game against Kantche. Kantche had beaten us last year and been in the finals the last three. But we played well. The details are all a bit distant at this point, but the gist is we whooped them. It ended up 2-0.

The second game was to be us versus Zinder. We figured they’d be good, and if we wanted to play in the finals we really had to beat them…

Zinder got held up on their way, and so our nervous anticipation of the match grew… I even tried calling Nouria to tell her we had beaten Kantche and redeemed our frustrating loss the year before but she wasn’t getting phone coverage wherever she was.

Of course, I found out quickly why Nouria wasn’t getting service. In a couple minutes the Zinder car pulled into Matameye and out she climbed wearing the Zinder jersey! Ha! I could only laugh. I walked up to her unable to hold back my ear to ear grin, and then berated her for being a traitor. She explained to me that the day before had been her first day at the high school in Zinder. She had found her gym teacher and practiced with them that same day, and then after one day of school with them, she climbed in the car and came to Matameye… heh heh…. Anyways, I don’t know if its as good in recreation as it was at the moment it happened. But it was hilarious.

The game started. We started out playing well. We pressed really hard, and early on our striker broke past their defenders and beat their goalie to put us up 1-0. Thankfully the opposing coach didn’t know Nouria and had her playing defense where she wasn’t able to cause us as much trouble as she would have elsewhere. But the Matameye girls were tired having already played one game, and the tide started to shift. With about 10 minutes to go in the game, they managed to get one back and even it at 1-1… So we went to penalty kicks… Last year we lost in penalty kicks to Kantche. This year we made up for it. Our first four girls each buried their shots and with the fourth goal clinching a 4-1 victory in penalty kicks we burst into celebration… It was pretty awesome. I loved them again…

So fast-forward. Really, there’s not a very good narrative to accompany the match in Zinder. I guess I’ll just say that going into the match we knew we were playing Mirriah (winners of the last three years whereas Kantche had been the perennial runners-up). In their two games during their tournament they beat one team 5-0 and then called the second match off because it was getting dark and they were already winning 3-0 after 5 minutes… So, we knew it would be tough… And it was.

It was a well played game both teams playing hard. It ended 0-0 and was headed for penalty kicks. And my girls did what they did the last time. Having made our first four we led 4-3 with one kick left for Mirriah to try and tie it. It was a well taken penalty, but our goalie was up to it and as she caught the ball we finally got to celebrate… It was pretty awesome. I wish I had some better pictures of it but…. A small trophy now sits in the high school administration’s room with a picture of the team. The pictures are of Nouria posing in Zinder's white jersey (she's in back) with all of us in yellow. And then of the Matameye and Mirriah teams posing (bad guys wearing black) before the final. Rrrrr... Internet problems I can't get pictures to load... Hopefully in a week when I'm back in town...

Hey. I’m gonna make this quick cus though it’s been a while, I’m feeling kind of sick (nothing serious, don’t worry) and I’m anxious to get back out to Matameye. So here’s the blitz:

The last month has been great, finally getting back to Matameye for a significant chunk of time and getting back into a rhythm with everything. When I got back to Matameye, there were still ten days left of Ramadan, and so, loving self-abuse, I decided to do the last ten days of fasting. I did about 6 days last year, and wanted to do a bit more this year. Well, to remind you of what that means, it means you get up at 4:45am drink about two liters of water and eat as much as you can before the sun rises at around 5:30am. Then, you go back to bed and try to sleep away some of the day, but inevitably need to get up every 15 minutes as a result of having exceeded the capacity of your bladder by about a liter and a half. So trying to sleep tends to be pretty unfruitful, but you’re basically too tired to do anything else.

The early part of the day you can be somewhat productive, but as 1pm rolls around, you’re both hungry and getting dehydrated. Being hungry is the shockingly easy part of the fast. Once you get used to your stomache growling, you just stop thinking about it. But it’s the dehydration in this preposterously hot country (temperatures climbing up to 120 or so in the sun at this season) that’s the kicker. The second half of the day, ambition drops. You take a multi-hour nap, you grab a book, or you sit around and chat, but everyone moves slowly, is tired and feels week. You can see everyone’s eyes slightly sunken. The last couple hours before sunset at 6:30pm people are literally just sitting and waiting.

Normally, people will go drink water and break fast with their families. One of my favorite parts of doing the fast this year was getting to break the fast every evening with my neighbor and best friend Lawali, just the two of us. I can’t speak highly enough about this guy. I’ve described him before as “Nigerien Barton” for those who that means something to. Just the sincerest, most kind, good friend you could imagine. Anyways, it was just really cool getting to share that time each evening together. Oh, and there is honestly no feeling quite like that first sip of fluid (its usually a millet, water, and sugar mixture). Its amazing as you can tangibly feel your body getting stronger within moments of your first sip…

So, that was good times… Sort of… But definitely worth doing. Everyone, even a few weeks later asks me how many days of the fast I did, and when I answer ten they usually say, “No way. Are you serious! That’s great. Ka yi kokari.” The last sentence being one of my favorite complements in Hausa, when someone tells you that you gave something a good effort. So, that was a nice way to come back to Matameye after a lot of time away, to get close again with my friends, and with the rest of the town…

And now its suddenly the beginning of the school year. It’s a mix of exciting and sad. As I mentioned before a couple of my friends can’t go back, and a couple others have left town to go to school or to do programs elsewhere. Actually, in the last week I got served a double blow. First, my friend Roukaya left Matameye for Zinder because her dad decided she was going to enroll in the Ecole Normale, the teacher training school. Its good for her, because it will give her a somewhat secure job (nothing is truly secure here, but there is always a need for teachers), but she had really wanted to continue the lycee and isn’t excited about teaching… She’s a superstar, so in some ways for her going to Ecole Normale while awesome, in her case may perhaps be settling for something less than her potential.

Losing her is definitely a bummer, but it became devastating when Nouria called me the other day and told me her dad was affectated from Matameye to Zinder, meaning his job transferred him. I’ve raved and gone on plenty about Nouria, so I don’t really need to again at this point, but as most of you know, I count Nouria as one of my very best friends (outside of my fada, perhaps the best friend I have in Matameye).

Basically, in the span of just a couple days I lost perhaps my two closest female friends. The good news is that they’re both gonna be in Zinder, so it doesn’t mean I have to say my goodbyes to either of them. When I come into Zinder I’ll be sure to visit both of them (and with Roukaya who is already here, we hung out the other afternoon and had tons of fun trooping around the city and meeting some of her family who lives here). But it means that when I’m out in Matameye (which is most of the time), I won’t be able to just swing by and hang out like I’d done and valued so much before. I put up a picture of Roukaya in the black and white shirt, and there's a couple pictures of Nouria in the last post...

OK, and here’s the last noteworthy tidbit. I’m in Zinder today because another volunteer had his fiancee from home visiting him, and with her here, he had a big traditional marriage ceremony done for him out in his village in the bush. So we all went. It was awesome. This tiny village of about 500 got invaded by about 6 truck fulls of foreigners, and they were going crazy with excitement. It was really really cool, one of these pictures is of the amuriya (young bride) watching a kind of crazy lady dancing in front of her, and another just of some people watching the ceremony… Really it was awesome. Oh, and that’s just a fun picture of me messing around with my friend Zach.

And that’s it. I’m off to Matameye. Hope everyone’s well.You know what... These pictures just aren't gonna go through today... I'll try and put them up next time I'm in town. Rrrrrrr....

Here is Pelele in the brown dress. She’s a little sweetheart. I tell people she’s my girlfriend when I get asked if I’m looking for a wife and get tired of answering seriously. There was a baby naming ceremony at her house and here’s a picture of her new sister Sharifa getting her hair shaved off, as is the tradition when a baby reaches a week old.

Here’s me with my friend Rabe, and me with my neighbor Souyaba hiding from the camera. I look terrible. But I blame that on my having gotten only 2 hours of sleep the night before, staying up in celebration of Nadine’s wedding. And plus, the camera always puts on about ten extra pounds…

Also, check out Nouria being wonderful (I adore her) and another of my fada (actually in retrospect, the pic of my fada is with the other post, but you get the point).

Awesome seeing everybody. Awesome being back. Good times. PS Sorry. All the posting of these pictures got messed up, so they're mixed between this post and the next, and not necessarily with the post with the corresponding caption... You'll figure it out. You're smart.

Alright. It’s been a little while. Apologies. I don’t have any real excuse. Since finishing at Hamdallaye helping with the newbies, I made it back out to Zinder, and was reminded of how much I hate that trip and how hideous the roads are by an overturned truck. I heard no one was hurt, but it’s a nice little reminder of what a disaster much of this country’s infrastructure is.

Finally being back in Matameye was awesome, and maybe it’s only noteworthy in how normal and comfortable it seems to be back. It felt like home pulling into Zinder at the end of that heinous bus ride, and even more so the next day as I pulled into Matameye itself.

Many who saw me in the states probably thought I was crazy getting all anxious and worked up about finding gifts to bring back to people here in Niger. Well, take a look at the gifts I ended up with. And even all these were nowhere near enough. People came out of the woodwork when I got back. Here’s a brief representative dialogue I must have had fifty times over the past few weeks:

GIFT ASKER: Hey Ismael, where’s my gift that you brought back from America?

ME: The gift? Ummm… I don’t even know you’re name. As a matter of fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before in my life.

GIFT ASKER: So should I come by your house this afternoon or tomorrow morning to pick up my gift?

Yeah, they can be pretty insistent. It’s just something cultural where they want a little token, but it can be overwhelming when I brought back stuff for over a hundred people and there are literally hundreds more who seemed to have expected me to bring them back something… Whatever, not much can be done about that at this point.

As I said though, being back in Matameye was awesome. And as for seeing my good friends (my fada, my soccer players, neighbors, and others) it has been wonderful.

Also a good friend of mine, Nadine got married. Some of you heard about her on my trip back… A story for another time. But her wedding was a big deal. People were in town from all over. There’s a picture of three girls dancing in a line during the celebration. Maimouna, the farthest to the left, is a neighbor and good friend of mine. The picture of the kid with goggles is… ummm… Awesome. He was dressed up for the wedding, but as for why he’s wearing goggles… I’ve got nothing. He just has a natural instinct for style I guess.

There was a sad and frustrating element of being back as well. The end of school exams were basically a disaster. Only 13 of about 160 students passed their end of college exams and 0 out of 30 candidates passed their end of lycee exam… On top of that, a couple of my friends, as anticipated, won’t be allowed to go back, while some others tensely wait to see what there fate for next year holds… The situation is what it is. I’ve discussed it already elsewhere so I’ll move on. (The girl with the scar down her nose is Shu Shu one of those badass 13 who did pass her college exam).

So those are the pictures. I actually had go back to Niamey for our mid-service training. It just ended and it was good to see other people from my training group. But I’m really looking forward to getting back to Matameye and getting things rolling there for this coming school year. Ramadan started a couple of days ago and when I get back to Matameye I think I’ll try and take another try at doing the fast… I’m working with a couple other volunteers trying to organize a small girls conference for college girls in the eastern part of Niger, and also trying to organize a work and health program for girls in the villages surrounding Matameye. I’m also working with the local library trying to start a computer literacy program, and of course there always seem to be an overwhelming amount of social obligations in town, but for the most part, things will remain slow for a little while until school comes back into session. Time flew here this past year I can’t imagine that this next one won’t do the same.

Not fully recovered from the madness that was America, I got off the plane in Niamey, and went directly to the Peace Corps training site up in Hamdallaye. Two weeks of hanging and helping out with the newbies was a really good time. The new kids are a really good group. Of course, that leaves us playing the "who's coming to Team Zinder" game for another month, but its entertaining if nothing else.

And of course it was great getting to spend some more time with my old host family, who remain wonderfully, amazingly, awesome. They now have their house fully built, though they no longer have electricity. But regardless, it's a huge relief to see them together after being afraid they might need to split up. All the kids are still in school and the oldest was on the brink of passing the end of College exam (though I should be careful not to speak too soon, because its still not a done deal).

The pics are of me with the family and some friends who are always coming through. In one you can see the front of their new house in back of us. Of course there's an obligatory picture of me with that gorgeous little budding super model, Rookaya, the one who stole my heart back when I first arrived. In another picture I'm thinking about biting Nafissa's face (OK not really, but it was a fun picture anyways. I call her the Big Mosquito because she's always teasing me. Super smart girl.) There's me with the twins, and another with me the twins and their friends as they head off to another friends' marriage. And that about catches us up. I've been in Niamey for a couple days trying to get this heinously old computer fixed for the local newsletter/journal project with only moderate success, but that's just the way life goes. At 4am tomorrow morning I board that 14 hour joy ride we call the commute out east (although with detours and washed out parts of the road due to rainy season it'll probably be longer). And within another day I should finally be back home in Matameye... Wow, its been a while. Can't wait to get back.

It’s been a while. And it’s been a crazy frantic madness of a blitz back to that land called America and back. Whew. The break. Well, it was awesome. At times and in some ways perhaps a little too awesome.

I apologize if I was a bit stressed. I feel really badly about having missed a few important people, and even those who I did get to see, I wish I’d had more time. But in the end, it reminded me that America is a pretty amazing place, that I have a wonderful family, and some amazing friends. So, while I wish I could’ve had just a bit more time, in the end leaving it as a tease is perhaps how it should be, and I’ll be eager for more when I finish my service.

Of course coming home came with a small cost too. It gave me a glimpse of how difficult it will be when my time here in Niger comes to an end. I’d have to say that leaving America to come to Niger has been the most difficult challenge I’ve faced in this whole endeavor, but I’ve always known that I’d come back to the U.S. and see my friends again. But leaving Matameye just for a short vacation gave me an idea of how difficult it will be to say real goodbyes to my Nigerien friends after another year, when I’ll be much less sure of when I’ll get to come back.

I don’t think that my fears of coming home were totally unfounded. When I left I had a lot of momentum and was feeling settled. Going home undid some of that, but not totally. Although I’m not yet back in Matameye, it’s good to be back in Niger. I’m actually now up at the training site and its fun and rejuvenating getting to help out with the new group of trainees that came in. Thinking back to my own first few weeks, how horrified I was of the heat and how sick I got its nice to be able to encourage others going through the same freaked out adjustments.

So, for now that’s it. Nothing too interesting to report. Just wanting to say hello to everyone, announce that the visit home was wonderful, that the trip back to Niger went safely, and that while it was sad saying another round of goodbyes, I’m really happy and excited to be back in Niger for another year. I feel like I still have a lot left that I want to do I worry whether or not I’ll have enough time. While a year seems like a long time, if this next one blasts by any thing close to as quickly as the last one did, then I’ll be back before you even realize I’d left.

You’re all in my thoughts. Thanks to everyone for their support and just generally for being fantastic.