Despite the time gap since my last entry, I actually didn't forget that I have a blog. So here is a recap of my activities since last reported:

As my last entry states, I finally found funding through USAID to repair the broken foot pump in my village. In May, a technician from the Department of Hydraulics came to the village with brand new pump parts and with everyone crowded around, he replaced the broken parts in one afternoon. Within three days, we could get strong streams of clean, clear water out of the pump. A week later, I sent two motivated "gear-head" village men to the regional capital to learn pump maintenance. They spent a week there and even went on a few field trips to take apart and put back together various pumps. They brought back with them a utility chest of saws and wrenches and happily demonstrated the uses to me. Six months later and the pump is still fully operational. A pump fund was created with the founding of the pump committee. The committee members have been holding meetings on their own without my initiative and have been reminding people about paying their dues for using the pump. The families in our community have been excellent about paying to the pump fund once a month. During the rainy season, when most families have very little money – let alone enough food – only eight people paid the pump fund dues. However, now that harvest has started, everyone has repaid their debts in full.

In addition to the successful pump project, I have worked on establishing a primary school in the village. My counterpart and I went to each family concession in the village and also the neighbor village to write down the names of each child whose parents wanted them to enter school. It was a difficult process but we successfully recorded the ages of each child (they had to be between 5 and 8 years old to be included on the list). Incredibly, the majority of students to be enrolled in school are girls. Once this list was complete, my Peace Corps Agriculture supervisor helped me to write a cover letter in French to the Gaya School Board Director. Then he met me in Gaya where I traveled with my village chief to meet with the Director in person. The school year officially started on October 4th. However, most teachers did not begin classes until the 18th, which is when our teacher arrived. At the time, I was at a training session seven hours away. I just finished yesterday and will be returning home today to finally meet our new teacher. The kids were all anxious to start school when I left and I hope they are enjoying this new opportunity. Only one man in my village has ever attended formal schooling and he was not able to continue beyond two years of primary school. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, the villagers are completely supportive and enthusiastic about having a school. For example, we needed to make an enclosed shade hangar for the temporary school and so all the men of the village took time out of harvesting their crops to build it in one day. Now I just hope we have a good teacher and the kids keep up their studies.

One side project I have been doing since August is tutoring my friend Dizey in French. She was chosen as the secretary for the pump committee because she is a motivated young mother and is the only semi-literate woman in the village. About five years ago, the village had an adult Zarma literacy program in place. It has since ended but Dizey was the one woman who attended every class until the end. Yet it has been years since she last practiced reading and writing. We have practiced writing the alphabet in uppercase and lowercase letters and quickly moved on to months and the days of the week in French. She has been so quick to learn French vocabulary and money that we have been able to move on the greetings and grammar. I hope that before I leave she will not only do the bookkeeping for the pump committee with total confidence but even be able to hold a small conversation in French!

Now on to Peace Corps updates: Two weeks ago I came to Niamey for my Close of Service Conference. My Ag/NRM (Agriculture/Natural Resource Management) stage of '08 has two months left in country so we were all required to come to the capital to do paperwork and to learn about how to get a job in the States (you know, among other important reintegration tips). But after this conference, the prospect of assimilating back into the US seems more daunting now than ever before. I have not left West Africa since 2008 and I feel completely left behind by America. I have not lived under the Obama Administration and have never seen an iPad. I have been having fantasies about buying apples at the grocery store and panic attacks about choosing breakfast cereal. I am impatient to see my family and friends and to get a decent job but already planning long and complicated road trips to escape a settled life. My Close of Service is like the fast approach of a public speech or a standardized test. It is looming closer every day, scaring me to death, but also making me anxious to get it over with. Thank goodness that most of my villagers now have cell phones. I tell myself every day that I will keep in touch with them and so this is not goodbye or "the end."

As I mentioned earlier, I attended a training this week. It started right after the Close of Service conference. Five of us Ag/NRMs '08 and one MCD (Municipal Community Development) from '09 were asked to become VATs (Volunteer Assistant Trainers) for the incoming FARM/CHA (Forest and Agriculture Resource Management/Community Health Agent) stage. We spent a week with the Nigerien language trainers and Peace Corps staff to prepare for this new group of trainees. They arrived yesterday, October 22, and we went to the airport, accompanied by warm bottled water and a welcome banner. Forty-three of them stepped off the plane, making our group of six look even more tiny. They were fresh faced and enthusiastic despite the 24-hour plane ride. Some of them were even happy with the Niger heat because Paris had been freezing and the airplane ride was just as cold. I will be their VAT in November and can't wait to get to know them. I'm glad I decided in the end to become a VAT. I had heavy reservations about taking on the job and sacrificing my precious time in village. But Peace Corps Niger needs all the support and enthusiasm that it can get right now. I feel proud to help and I think it will assist me to close my service without regret and as a more rounded volunteer.

Everyone loves good news. Especially in Africa!

My primary project has been funded! As most of you know, I have been working non-stop to find funding to repair a broken foot pump in my village. The project began the second I moved into my village in March 2009 and my new villagers said, “We have no water! We can’t do anything until we fix our pump!”

The village does in fact have water but it is difficult to get and dirty once you get it. We share the 50-meter-deep open well with nomadic herders who use our drinking, cooking, and bathing water for their cattle and goats. Everyone in the village but me must settle for unfiltered water that causes a plethora of gastro-intestinal and parasitic illnesses.

This well, in addition to being a health hazard, is a pain to use for the women. They are the ones responsible for pulling water from sunrise to sunset. Their hands are hard, bumpy and calloused from pulling hundreds of these waterlogged buckets every day. Thousands a month. Millions a year. The pump, when working, is operated by foot. The strength of the leg muscles ensures that retrieving water from the pump is a much easier task than pulling water with the arm and back muscles. I can’t wait to see the hands of these hard-working women become soft and beautiful again for the first time since childhood.

Without a functioning pump, the daughters from age 8-15 are often the ones in charge of pulling the water and carrying it home. When speaking to the village women about girls’ education, many are reluctant to let their school-age daughters go to school. Since March 2009, I have been explaining the value of education, especially for females, to every mother and father that will listen to me. The goal has been to gain support in bringing a primary school teacher to the village. The mothers all agree that with a pump, the domestic work load would significantly decrease and their daughters could go to school with full support of the entire family. The fathers have already compiled a list of 60 girls and 40 boys that they want to go to school.

I am also excited for the pump because it will lead to a cold season vegetable garden starting next November. The isolation of the village makes it hard to buy vegetables. The lack of water makes it impossible to grow vegetables. Currently the only source of vitamins in the village is bush weeds that are collected and dried in the rainy season. As an agriculture volunteer, I have been impatiently waiting for my project grant so that I can finally begin some gardening work in Niger.

I will post more updates once the repairs are actually made. Today, I’m headed back to the bush. I have already told the villagers the good news via cell phone. Now it is time to tell them in person. This will probably call for a fete, complete with roasted sheep!

It came as a shock to see that I haven't written on my blog since November. For anyone, three months is plenty of time for things to happen, lives to change. Out in the bush, my life stays fairly constant, interrupted only by small moments of excitement or bits of information from the outside world.

Since I last wrote, I spent a happy, carefree November in the village until receiving a text message from the Peace Corps office in Niamey that there was a failed attempt to kidnap American diplomats in the north of the country. We were told to immediately gather in our respective regional capitals and wait for further information. Upon reading the text, I had a flashback to the last time I was consolidated to the capital due to kidnappings. This was in January 2009. I left my village and was not allowed to go back, even to pack my things or say goodbye. This time, my hands were shaking as I packed my bag. I packed as if I would never return to my village. I only brought my solar charger, my Gosho (Buddhist writings of Nichiren Daishonin), a shirt that held sentimental value, and my bottle of perfume. If we were evacuated, I had all my valuables (I keep my violin in the regional capital hostel so it was also with me). However, by the next week, everyone in my region was allowed to go back to their villages with increased travel restrictions. One region was closed in the east of the country and many friends there decided to go back to America rather than uproot to another Nigerien village.

Then last week, there was a military coup d'etat in Niamey, Niger. The military stormed the presidential palace on Thursday, February 19 and forcibly took the president, Mamadou Tandja and some of his cabinet ministers into custody. Although it is standard for the international community to condemn a military coup, thousands of Nigeriens, West Africans, and others throughout the world rejoyced this rather smoothly carried out opporation. Why? Tandja was himself democratically elected in 1999 following a military coup. In the constitution drawn up in '99, the president is allowed two, five-year terms in office. Tandja served for two terms, after being re-elected in 2004, but in 2009, he decided that his job wasn't done. He claimed that it was the "people's wish" for him to serve for an additional three years to finish the job he started in office. I will not go into the details of the political events from August to February in which Tandja guarenteed himself a further three years in office. You can read all about this in the following BBC profile on him: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8181537.stm. The conclusion is, however, that the military stepped in on February 19 to oust Tandja and bring the country back towards democracy. A civilian prime minister has already been put in place temporarily and the country is now preparing for parliamentary and presidential elections in the coming months. I also assume a new constitution will be drafted to be voted upon as well.

These additional BBC Articles might be helpful to read:

A Coup for Democracy?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8537043.stm

Niger Junta Bars Itself from Future Elections

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8536497.stm

I was in Gaya when I first heard the news on the 19th. Not until I reached my post did I recieve the text message that all Peace Corps Niger volunteers were on "standfast," meaning we could not leave our villages until told. We also could not leave our homes from six at night until six in the morning. Being in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, this was no problem for me. The standfast and curfew were lifted only a few days later after it became apparent that the situation was calm and under control. The night of the coup, I did not know the severity of the situation or if violence was erupting in Niamey. I turned on the international news, which said that gunfire was reported in Niamey and the president was taken to some unknown military base. This didn't sound promising so I switched to FM radio to hear what the locals were saying. The only channel on was playing military marching band music. I decided to get a good night's sleep and listen to the news the next day. By that time, only one day later, it was apparent that the situation was under control and the military was as anxious as everyone else to return to civilian rule.

For now, I am moving along with a water project for my village. The political upheaval in Niamey and the terrorist problems in the north have only been mild obstacles for me in my work. On the whole, it is business as usual. I'm currently writing and revising a project proposal to turn in this week. I have no doubt that Peace Corps will be in Niger for many more years to come. This country deserves positive international attention through programs like the Peace Corps and I hope that politics and extremism will not stand in the way of grassroots development and cultural exchange.

Today I saw hippos! My friend’s parents recently came to Niger for a visit. Today they planned to do a boat ride and find hippos on the Niger River and invited some Peace Corps friends along. Hippos can be found along the Niger River as far south as Niamey. I’m not sure why they don’t hang out farther downstream. We didn’t have to travel far when one of the people on our boat spotted two hippos peaking their heads out of the water. When they saw the boat, they got suspicious and ducked under the water. Then, being very sneaky, one hippo at a time would poke his eyes and ears out of the water to check if we were still there. The men manning the boat had a few tricks to get the hippos to stick their heads out of the water. The hippos didn’t like when the boat engine was revved or when the men tapped the side of the boat. I snapped several pictures of the hippos from far away. But just when I let my guard down the bigger hippo swam about 10 feet from the boat and stuck his whole head out of the water. No picture but that was amazing. I don’t have my camera on me right now but soon I’ll add a hippo picture to the blog.

Hippo is “bana” (pronounced bong-a) in Zarma. They’re huge, violent, and are supposedly delicious. A volunteer living far north up the Niger River, where there are many, many hippos, once ate hippo meat that also fed the entire village.

This trip on the river to see hippos was a helpful reminder that I am in Africa! When I was on a boat in Niger's Park W, I saw six bathing elephants and a couple of baboons. Another time I was in a bus driving from the south towards Niamey and three giraffes ran across the road just like any old deer, or more Niger-appropriate, just like any old sheep. I wonder what the next animal will be!

During the first week of September, I visited my old village. From December 17, 2008 to January 26, 2009 I lived in a village called Faria Beri, located about 120 km north of Niamey. After a kidnapping in January of European tourists on the Mali-Niger border, all the new volunteers on the roads north of Niamey were required to relocate. The Peace Corps director of Niger promised to let me visit Faria Beri after six months if no new kidnappings or terrorist activities occurred in Niger. Things have been quiet here (in relation to Al-Qaeda at least) and so I was granted permission to visit.

I wasn't sure if I could actually spend the night in my village. Apparently my counterpart (the guy I worked with in the community garden) moved closer to the road and my old hut is now the exoders' bachelor pad. For the first day I stayed with another volunteer who lives 5 km from Faria. We walked over to my village for the day. My counterpart asked me to come back and spend the night. So I roomed with his second wife for the next two days and hung out with my old friends. Most of Niger is fasting for Ramadan but despite this my counterpart and I took a walk to his farm and went to say hi to some people in a neighboring village. The millet in this area is much smaller than in my new area at the very southern tip of Niger because of drought and pest problems. Much of the millet I saw here had been ruined completely by caterpillars that eat the seeds in spirals up the millet head. When we went to the neighboring village, we happened to see the Agriculture Agent for the area and spent a long time talking to him.

It was overall a great trip and I was extremely thankful to my Peace Corps director for allowing me to visit (the only slight obstacle during the trip was that my old latrine had half collapsed and at times I was nervous it would collapse). When I left on January 26 for a doctor's appointment in Niamey, I thought I would be coming back the next day. Instead I was missing for a month and then the Peace Corps director of Agriculture came to my village without me to pack all my things. It was a miserable and traumatic time for the villagers and for me both. We were all extremely happy to see each other again.

My plan is to visit again in February at the end of Cold Season to help out with the garden harvest. When I lived there I spent hours every day in the community garden with the women's group and my counterpart and learned all kinds of things about gardening. But I left before any of the vegetables were ready to harvest. If I go back at the harvest, not only can I observe the harvest for the first time, I can eat tons of salads!

I have quite a few updates to make since my last blog article...two months ago! I did go to Ghana and sipped cold beverages by the water. It would have been much more ideal if the water wasn't full of discarded black bags that lapped the shore. Two of us walked into the water in Cape Coast but did not go farther than ankle-deep because a pair of shorts tangled around my foot and a wooden board hit my friend in the shin. Ghana is a surreal place for someone who just spent six months in the poorest country in the world. There is a tropical divide somewhere in the north of Benin/Togo/Ghana that separates "developed West Africa" from the rest. In the bus to Cotonou, Benin, I was shocked to see the forests of palm trees. Mango trees were everywhere, ripe with huge pink mangos. People didn't seem to know what to do with all their fruit. In Ghana, the highways were lined with stands selling huge watermelons every few meters. Another thing, Nigeriens love to point out to me (as a white person) that I'm an "anasara." The Ghanaian word for white person is "obruni" but I don't remember being called that once. Instead, street vendors will rip you off mercilessly and Rasta bros offer drum lessons and treat you as objects that they can handle without asking. I loved the weather in Ghana, the marked infrastructure (electricity, garbage collection, running water, and, evidently, functioning schools), seeing the ocean—no matter how dirty—and eating all kinds of new food. However, I also felt relieved that I would go back to Niger where I can speak a local language, where people respect me, and where strange men can't touch me.

Little did I know that Niger was falling apart in my absence. When I turned on my phone upon crossing the border from Benin, I received all kinds of frantic texts about the president dissolving the Parliament and several that just said "The Grand Marche is on fire." That is the shopping area in the center of town where thousands of established and shanty stores sell goods. With all the insanity, we were asked to leave Niamey and return to our villages; ideally the very night we had finished our 31 hour trip. I opted to leave the next day, you know, to save my sanity and all. I then visited several friends' villages and participated in a radio show about the difference between love relationships in Niger and the US. Finally, I returned to my village and almost immediately got the field that I had worked almost two months to get. For a week, I uprooted bushes and painstakingly weeded the plot. Then with incredible timing, right after I bought peanut seeds, the heavy rains came and a villager offered to plow my field for me with an ox plow. The next morning two women came to my field to help me plant the peanuts, plus hibiscus and sorghum that my village friends gave me. For about four hours we planted by digging holes in the loose ground with our feet, dropping in a pinch of seeds (only one peanut per peanut hole though), and covering the hole with the same foot. My two friends did a fast and flawless job. I was all over the place, zigzagging my lines. I'm self conscious that when the plants start to significantly grow, my lines will be incredibly crooked. But that doesn't matter now. The point is that I'm a farmer! What an incredible new chapter in my Peace Corps service. The political instability in the cities makes me nervous. I just hope that, like any other political problem in the history of Niger, it will blow over soon.

Then last week, I took a quick trip to the Konni region, the closest Hausa-phone area. One volunteer was hosting a possession ceremony in his dominantly animist village just outside of Konni ville. I was incredibly impressed by the start of the festivities. Two men played a calabash drum with claw-like drum sticks (drum claws?) and a fiddle made out of a gourd. The violin (called a "gourge") had a thick bow, like a bass bow, and the man played it in the crook of his arm. I hope to go to another one of the ceremonies soon and next time, I will try to buy one of these fiddles to take home. The musicians played for hours and only stopped once, ironically, to pray. Then the animist hosts brought out a big bag of clothes and asked three of the Peace Corps volunteers to dress up. There were cowry-shell vests and crowns and all kinds of beautiful skirts made of cloth and leather. During the actual possession, the possessed ones wore fabric that they held over their heads that I recognized as traditional Nigerien weaved cloth. In the Balleyara market, a fabric seller showed me this hand-woven fabric and explained that most households in the olden days only had one stretch of fabric. Everyone was naked until they needed to go out somewhere and would actually take the clothes from the current owners back. I asked the price of this fabric and the vendor just laughed and said there was no way that I could afford it. Imagine my surprise seeing the animists with several pieces of this fabric. I wonder how long they had owned this fabric. The actual possessions disappointed me. It felt staged for the benefit of the white tourists. In my own region and in smaller villages of Konni, there are daily animist events. I want to show up at a whim to one of these and see what the people do when no one's watching. It is still intriguing. But as of yet I'm not impressed.

Soon I'll head back to the bush to work on my small farm. Expect some tamed blog entries in the future. I plan to keep a low profile for a while.

In two days I have my first West African vacation! We’re towards the end of hot season in Niger. Instead of starting my field of peanuts and sorghum and the subsequent backbreaking labor that marks the beginning of rainy season, I felt it more appropriate to reward myself with a vacation. For two weeks I don’t have to crawl up a mango tree or sprawl out on a plastic mat to make the 130 degree weather feel like 110 degree weather. I will instead be in Ghana, intermittently sipping icy beverages on the beach and jumping into the ocean. Refreshed with the ocean air, sea salts, and delicious Ghanaian street food, I will return to my little haven at the southern tip of Niger to start my backbreaking labor of four months.

Sometimes a broken down bus means that you get to see giraffes crossing the highway. Today I was on the way to Niamey from a friend’s house and the bus broke down about 20 km from my starting location. Another friend and I waited on the side of the road for about an hour and a half. It had been the most annoying stranded-on-the-side-of-the-highway experience so far because busses kept stopping for us, about five people would pile into two seats and there would be no more room for the two of us. This happened three times. Finally we scrambled onto one and headed to Niamey. I was drifting off to sleep about five minutes later when the bus began to slow down again. I thought, WHY MEEEE? and then I opened my eyes and saw that four full-grown giraffes had bounded across the highway in front of the bus. They began making their way into the bush on the other side of the road as we drove closer. They are huge! Well I guess most Americans have seen giraffes in zoos or maybe even in Calistoga. It was still cool to see them running around free. Free as a bush camel.

Easter Sunday: The day before the giraffe run-in I spent Easter with five friends from my new region. We wanted to dye eggs and hide them around my friend’s huge yard but couldn’t find any eggs. Or dye. Or places in the barren yard to hide the eggs. So instead we hung out all day singing along to Disney songs and then cooking chili (with macaroni! And Slim Jims!). After we were full and content we built a big bonfire in the middle of the yard and started to do a fire dance around it. The noise and screams of “ayayayayayay!” attracted the attention of the local boys who started climbing over the 8-foot walls to take a look. At one point a little girl walked into the yard and closed the corrugated iron door behind her. Little did she know that the door gets stuck and you have to push it open from the top. She got a little freaked out by the fire dance of six sparsely dressed white people and tried to open the door quietly to get out. The door wouldn’t open. She got more and more scared and banged on the door while looking at us with embarrassment and fright. The volunteer who owns the house went over to open the door for the girl, who was extremely grateful to zumbu (get out of there) as fast as she could. We ended the night with a freeze-dried pack of chocolate cheesecake and balloons.

One more thing, my bug situation has pretty much resolved itself (of course with my contributions and the help of the village women and chickens). The horrible ant situation from before my in-service training has cleared up almost entirely. There have also been no more spider problems. In all, my area is virtually bug free and I don’t even have mosquitoes like some other volunteers. However, in my region the rainy season is supposed to start at the end of this month. Then there is an “explosion.” Explosion of life. Explosion of green. Explosion of bugs. I’ll let you know if it’s all just hype. Boy I hope so.

I looked at my blog today and thought, what’s new to write? As if there was nothing to say! The last time I wrote, I hadn’t even moved into my new village. At the beginning of March the Assistant Program Country Director (APCD) of Agriculture took a bus up to my old village, packed up all my belongings, and moved them down to my regional capital, Dosso. I had to sort through my life and figure out from there what to bring to my new village. Wodin banda, after that, I took a break by eating lots of salad and watching the Departed and episodes of Dexter. The next day I was moved onto my mountain. The villagers gave me a happy welcome and looked on curiously as they saw how much stuff one white girl needs to survive.

For a few days I entertained myself by unpacking and making my house a home before running off to IST. In Niamey I bought a Tuareg leather-framed mirror and some pretty fabric. I nailed the mirror to my adobe brick walls and I sewed curtains for my two windows (not one but two!!!) and my door (which is the perfect height).

Bug story: It was either my first or second night in the village that the women crowded into my hut to see how I set everything up. All of a sudden a huge bug sprinted across the floor, over my friend Helima’s foot and under the bed. I freaked out, thinking that it was a scorpion, and tried to run out of the house. There were too many people at the doorway so I settled for cowering in the corner. The bug turned out to be a chariot spider. They are so big that scorpions hitch rides on their backs. It’s gross. Just nasty. Anyway, Helima smashed him and picked him up with her bare hands to convince me that they aren’t poisonous, just big. That taught me that bugs really do exist in Niger so I might want to be more careful. The next morning, a friend came to pay me a visit and I was talking to her with my back turned to my house. All of a sudden she looked past me and said in Zarma, “hmm, I believe there are many ants coming out of your walls.” I turned around and as if it was a nightmare, I saw a literal river of ants, huge red ants, pouring out of my hut walls. For the next three hours, I commissioned women, children and chickens to help me kill the ants. And for hours, rivers of these things just kept coming. I’m gone for three weeks for IST and my biggest fear is that the ants have conquered my hut as an above-ground annex to their colony.

My supervisor approached me today with a file of the previous volunteer who lived in my new village. She was a health volunteer from 2003 to 2005 and luckily for me she was extremely thorough. Is thorough the right way to describe her? Looking through the fat file of incredibly detailed quarterly reports and project proposals, I came across a folded map written on poster-size butcher paper. My jaw dropped when I saw that this was no ordinary map of the village. The girl had written down every man, woman and child’s first and last name, the location of their houses, walking paths and motor paths to other villages in the area with their distances in kilometers, and even the placement of mango trees and cows. I had this urge to hug the map and dance around. It was better than finding a treasure map. Armed with this map, I had just skipped months of memorizing names and places. On the second day of my visit to the village, I had taken an extensive tour with some of the women and a parade of little kids, but my own scribbled and frantic map was completely amateur next to this beautiful work of art. So for the past two hours I have been copying the map onto a regular-sized piece of paper to bring to village with me.

I will move to my new village this weekend. Then I will have one week to soak up as much info about the village that I can in time for “in-service training” next week. IST is a month-long training in Niamey to improve language skills and agricultural knowledge. I am expected to bring information about my new village to IST with ideas for potential projects and a list of activities I have already started. For the past two months, the other volunteers have been integrating into their communities, making friends, learning the language, and investigating the needs of their respective villages. For me, I have a week. This is not to say that I have it so much harder than the rest, it just means that I have to work fast during this next week to understand the needs of the village before I go to Niamey.

If all else fails, I can simply brandish my treasure map and blow everybodys' minds.

Maybe you’ve noticed that I have a change of address on the right side of the blog. So much has happened since I last wrote. At that time everything was up in the air and I didn’t know what to say. Now I have a better idea of my future in Niger so I can actually reflect and write it down. Some of you may have heard, though it is unlikely, that there were two incidences of kidnappings in Niger in the past couple months. Two Canadians were abducted near Niamey in December and last month four European tourists were taken at the border of Mali and Niger. The road where the latter disappeared leads directly to my market town. This caused great concern for my Peace Corps superiors who were worried that a white girl crossing the highway every day with a watering can might be an easy target for a passing kidnapper. It turns out that a faction of Al Quaeda based in Northern Africa has taken responsibility for both kidnappings. It may be useful to read this short BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7897484.stm. There is another article about terrorism in general in the Sahara that might be useful: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4749357.stm. So with this threat looming in the north of the country, the Peace Corps administration decided to move me to the top of a mesa 300 km south of my old village. The most devastating thing about the situation is that I can’t even go back to my old village to say goodbye or pack. My boss is driving up to my village to tell them what’s up and then throwing all my stuff in the car to have me pick and sort through in my new home. I just can’t wait for it all to settle. For the past month I have lived with a backpack’s worth of clothes and supplies hoping each day that I would be allowed back. Today I had a meeting with the top boss of Peace Corps Niger who assured me that if the situation stabilizes, I will be allowed to go back in a few months and visit my old village. In all honesty, I do love my new village and the people and even all the little children who are deathly afraid of me (Seriously all the little boys run screaming from me with terror in their eyes and tears and snot running down their faces). I guess the overarching lesson from this situation has been that my external environment is a reflection of my inner state of life. It doesn’t matter which village I’m in or what region I’m in, I can still be happy. I just replaced camels for palm trees and gardens for rocky mesa paths. Several other volunteers are in my same position of moving and seem to have similar tumultuous but positive experiences. In a way I’m glad this happened. Anything to help me grow.

Hello everyone! I'm in Niamey, the capital after spending a full, uninterupted month in my village (not counting the times I went to nearby villages on market days). So what is it like "en brusse" as in out-in-the-middle-of-no-where Africa? Surprisingly comfortable. For anyone planning a visit to see me (and I'm expecting at least ONE of you to come see me! haha) I would say you need to spend at least one month in Niger to have an enjoyable experience. The first two weeks you will be sweating uncontrollably and will be in shock at the rough, dry terrain, loud domesticated livestock, and the truly inconvenient living conditions (i.e. having a hole as your toilet, a plastic bucket as your shower, flashlights as your electricity, and rickity bush taxis as your transportation). But these are the first two weeks. When this life style becomes the norm, you begin to notice the beauty of the people, their colorful culture and fashion, the Lion King-esque landscape, the big orange sun, the clear Milky Way, and soon the prayer call at the mosque at 5 am each morning will be music to your ears.

For people living with all the conveniences of "modern life" in America, it may seem to be impossible to live in a country like Niger. However, having lived here for almost exactly four months, I can say that people here are incredibly happy and bright. I myself can't stop smiling in my village. When little kids eyes light up when they see me walking back from the garden and say to one another "Fatiya ka!" (Fatiya came home!), I feel satisfied. When the women at the community garden teach me Zarma greetings and insist that I "hear" Zarma perfectly even through my protests, I'm satisfied. When my neighbor and work counterpart returns from the market with a bag of fried wheat dough, Fari Masa, or a stick of sugar cane, Arece, for me, I'm satisfied. There are some days after three hours in the garden and drawing my 100th bucket of water from the well that I think, "today is the day I'm going to pass out, isn't it?" But then those are also the days that I come back home and a friend has bought some Cincenas (friend bean balls, sooooooo good) for us to share. There are other days that I feel completely unproductive and upset with myself that I hadn't done more. Then I step out of my house and have an hour long, uninterupted conversation, albeit broken, in Zarma.

The people in my village often muse of how "sweet" America must be. And it is. I miss the US a lot and in a way I'm sorry to miss these historic times. However, America will be there for me in two years, most likely stronger and more satisfactory than when I left it, and Niger is where I want to be and where I need to be right now. I tell the people who want to go to the US that actually, it is Niger that's sweet for me.

Yesterday, as the best possible Christmas present, I talked on the phone to Mom, Michael, Katie and Kelly. Earlier that evening, I went to the amazing American-looking home of the assistant bossman of Peace Corps Niger for Christmas dinner. Although I have seen billboards for Orange that wish us a "Joyeux Noel" it has been difficult to remember that it is December and Christmas time. So with all the family and holiday cheer yesterday, I was finally convinced. In December in Niger, you are likely to hear prayer calls five times a day from the local mosque, trudge through the sand and pot-holed streets to get to "alhadji" stores and haggle prices for sugar and flour, and see camels rather than deer running across the street. You are not likely to see Christmas decorations, snow, or Salvation Army santas in front of grocery stores. You're also not likely to find a grocery store. Tomorrow I head back out to my village for my first full month of Peace Corps service. I apologize for not writing more but the first two and a half months in country has been such a blur. I will need this first month to reflect on all my experiences so I can start writing a consistantly good and meaningful blog. Happy holidays! Have a great New Year!

Fofo means "hello" in Zarma, the language I'm learning in Niger. I like to add To at the beginning, which means "ok" or something like that. So, to fofo! I've been in Niger for almost two full months. Not being able to write about any experiences up untill now on this blog makes it a little overwhelming to know what to say. I think I'll just write in chapters about random experiences that I have because that is pretty much what life is like here, a series of random (sometimes fun, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes intimidating) events. Well, I started this entry with a Zarma greeting, so I'll just talk a little about the language here.

There are several languages spoken in Niger. French, of course, is the national language which is spoken by city folk and many of the older men who went to school under the French colonial rule. Zarma and Hausa are the two other official languages, Hausa being the majority language. Zarma is a more simple language spoken in the Tillabery and Dosso regions, which are located in the far south of Niger. Tamacheq is also spoken by the Tauregs and Bellas. Fufule is the language of the Fulani people. I think I completely mispelled some of these names, but at the same time these are all oral languages and so did I really mispell anything? I think not.

In Zarma--and also in Hausa and the others from what I understand--most daily conversations consist of a string of greetings. People love spitting out a string of greetings as fast as they can without listening to the responses they get. That is understandable because they already know what the answers will be. Let's make an example dialogue:

Bobokar: Fofo Fatiya! Mate ni kani? Mate ni go? Mate gaham? Mate fu? Mate goyo? Mate habo hinka? Mate habu? Mate zankey? Mate dungay?

Fatiya: (simultaneously) Bani samay walla. Tali kulu si. Al hamdalilaye. Tali si. Samay samay. Al hamdalilaye. Bani samay. Al hamdalilaye. Tali si.

Then you just reverse the names (Bobokar and Fatiya, or Mamadou and Omarou, or Taibatu and Laala) and mix the order of greetings and repeat some of the same greeetings just for good measure. A translation may be:

B: Hi Fatiya! How did you sleep? How are you? How is your body? How is your family? How is work? How were the last few days? How was the market? How are your children? How is the heat?

Anyways I have to go now to the tailor's. I hope you enjoyed a small glimpse into Nigerien language. Love, Emily

Here is the website for the Nigerien Embassy in Washington D.C.

http://www.nigerembassyusa.org/index.html

This is an excellent resource for familiarizing yourself with all things Niger. And I mean all things. It has information ranging from current political news to national holidays to the kind of clothes to bring on a Nigerien vacation.

Happy discovering!

This is my very first post on my Peace Corps blog! I'm really excited about this.

I now have my mailing address in Niger.

Emily Haghighi, PCV

Corps de la Paix

B. P. 10537

Niamey, Niger

Of course, Niamey is the capital and my post will be miles away, but for now this is the best address I have. When I am placed in my permanent location, I can get a post office box closer to my area. Stay tuned for the address change (that will only apply after my preliminary three-month training period in Hamdallaye) . Also, if you would like more detailed information about how you can communicate with me during my Peace Corps service, let me know and I have a disclaimer from the Peace Corps with more information.