Some kids from my village

kids from my house

IST

Hello everyone!! I'm in Niamey right now getting ready for In Service Training. I am excited to see all of my stagemates and have fun doing more American type things like going out to restaurants and shopping!! I have a few things to talk about today that I haven't had a chance to comment on in the last month because I haven't had access to the internet.
A few weeks ago a couple of volunteers and I were just finished with a radio show and waiting for a bush taxi at the tasha. We were all 4 sitting on the edge of a prayer ring, which consists of a few cement bricks stacked about 3 high in a rectangle. The volunteers I was with were Allie, Will and Lachlan. We were just sitting and talking when a man walked up to us and addressed the guys in french/hausa and started telling them that he was sorry, but "the women" had to move, it was ok for the boys to sit where they were, but Allie and I would have to get up and sit somewhere else. I asked him if it was ok if we just sat in front of the bricks instead of on them, but he said no, and we all just awkwardly sat there not knowing what to do. Eventually Allie and I got up and so did Will and Lachlan and we walked across the street and sat against a building. That was the first time I felt discrimination at all for being a woman. For the most part, being a foreigner in Niger puts us in a different category and no one really treats us different than the guys. It was a crazy experience that I think I needed to realize what women here actually go through. I have never felt like I was less than anyone else, and I still don't, but I realize that women here are shown every day that they aren't able to do the things men are, and I guess it's shown me very blatantly what I need to work on here in my village. Thanks for listening!!

First weeks at Post

October 20, 2007





I finally got my mail, one card from August 2nd.


I've been in my town for 17 days and its still weird. I don't know >1/2 of what anyone is saying to me. I live in a fenced area the size of a normal yard in town. There are about 10 houses (including mine) and about 30 people. I have 3 "moms", Amina, Tini & Hawa and 1 dad, Mati and a ton of little kids and babies that I don't know who goes with whom. I also live with goats, sheep and a loud cow, a mom chicken with a limp and her 20+chicks and a rooster that goes from 5:30a-7. There are about a thousand lizards in my concession who love to eat the trees my "uncle" Ali keeps planting for me. Now I cover it with my wash bucket when I leave my concession.


For the most part my days follow this pattern:

• Wake up from prayer call 4am



• wake up from rooster & women pounding(millet into flour) 5:30a



• Get out of bed because people keep knocking and asking how I slept 6:30/7 make oatmeal (or eat granola bar now, thanks!)



• read some English books 7-8a



• Sit on mat in family's yard and talk to little kids or boy who's trying to learn English or go to doctor and sit and talk to the doctor and nurse who are trying to learn English 8:30-11/12



• Come home eat,read,relax 12-2p



• Go to my new Hausa tutor's house 2-?



• Come home talk to family a bit go wash and relax and in bed by 7:30p.

The people in Niger never sleep and the women pound from 5:30-11P. The sun goes down around 7P & I lay in bed a lot but don't sleep much.

I walked to my market town alone last week & it was very scary. 2 hours wandering in sand and millet, but I got there. Once harvest season ends & the millet is gone, it will be all sand and way harder.

I generally walk to market but get an amalanke (ox cart) back because it is very hard & far and hot!

I talked on the radio in Mayahi with Allie Lachlan & Will about diarrhea & how to make salt/sugar/water to help the kids and it was scary. Men told us we sounded like little kids talking, but since I hate people hearing me, I was proud of myself. I would have never even talked on the radio in English, before.

I've only cried twice so far. The 2nd day here & today because I miss you all & your letters and packages were so nice.

Swearing In and Celebrating

Katie, Elizabeth and Me before swear in
Swear in at the Ambassadors house

Training is done!

Hey everyone!! I am excited because training is finally over!! We have our swear in ceremony on Tuesday the 25th, and everyone is looking forward to the festivities. The following Saturday we're all being shipped off to our villages where we have to spend the whole first month alone! I am really nervous about it because when I went for live in the villagers all felt it was necessary to tell me that they loved the last volunteer and that I don't have Hausa. I am hoping I will be fine and meet some nice patient people to help tutor me in Hausa so I can function in the bush on my own. I took my first cow cart ride during live in 2 weeks ago, and it was pretty nice, I had to ride 1 1/2 hours through sand and millet fields to my market town and then catch a bus taxi for the 3 hour ride to my regional capital/hostel in maradi. Things are going well, I love to get mail and packages like every other PCV, and I hope to hear from you all soon!! Katie

Moving on toward service

Hey mom/emily, my new email account is marpcvs@intnet.ne and just put my name in the subject line and I can get it once a month at least. I just had my live in and I saw my new house and met my villagers. I tested intermediate low on my last LPI which is where we have to be to move in to our villages, but I definitely don't have Hausa yet! I am hoping it will come soon because my one day and night alone in the village were hard and lonely cause all the people were saying I didn't have Hausa and it was hard because they all talk so fast and at the same time, they understand that I have only been here for a little while and my dad's brother was walking me around and introducing me to everyone and telling them that I had hause kadan kadan, and if they made fun he was like "well do you speak english" so that made me feel better. I looked at the school and the likita where I'll probably be working at least a few days a week. I'm really close to 3 ag volunteers who have been in country for 7 months and they all have a lot of effort and want to set up a stand in our shared market village and teach the people different lessons each week. They also want to have a tourny to all of our different villages where we could teach our villagers all the different lessons on health and growing things and taking care of animals and different things like that. I'm excited because they all want to help us out in the beginning of our service and I think it will be nice to work with other volunteers on projects. Tell Emily that I want to do a project with her students and the kids in my school where we draw pictures in any medium (here it will most likely be crayon/colored pencil drawings) of "what women do" like what they do everyday that matters to them and write a little description, and I'll have my kids do the same and I'll have a contest here for the best ones to possibly create a mural about what women do in Niger to raise awareness that women do a lot here, and I can send some to emily's class and she can send hers here for a cross culture/art lesson. This is one thing I KNOW i'm going to do, so I really want her to take it seriously and help me out because this is one of my secondary projects and so it's kind of a big deal to me and I think the kids would really love it. I would also like her to send me a picture of her class who is drawing the pictures like a kids picture with the picture they drew and i'll take a picture of my class. I don't know what age group I'll do, so she can just do all her classes because I Have all age ranges in my school and none of them are artists because they don't have anything to draw on or with or have the time to really do it, so just be aware that all my drawings will look like really little kids drew them. Tell her to start that now and send it so I can get it by the time I learn Hausa enough to do it and before school starts to I can talk to my inspector about me coming to the school and talking about it. Also, if the church or anyone want to sponsor some of my projects I have a bunch in mind that will only need a little bit of money to happen, but i'll have to write up a proposal if it happens. i will write up a proposal and email it to you and you can give it out to people and see if anyone is interested. We have a radio show in Mayahi which is a couple hours from my town but I'll probably go there once a week to do that we are going to do skits and do sensibilisations on health and different things for the surrounding area. Also there is a food distribution NGO about an hour from me that 2 of the Ag volunteers want to visit and see what they're doing and I am going to go too to see if there is anything I can do to help. We aren't supposed to do any work in our first 3 months at site, but I don't know if i can handle doing nothing but chatting and learning hausa for 3 months, so I am going to go help the older volunteers and see what's out there and help how i can before I have the language down. Ok, so I rode an amalanken sa today for an hour and a half, and what it is is a bull pulling a little cart and me sitting on the cart. my village is very bush and is that far from my market town through millet fields during rainy season and through sand the rest of the year. I can't take pictures of it yet because if my villagers knew I had a camera they would bug me even more than they do now, so I have to wait til i have the language to tell them to leave me alone before I can break that out. My house is cute, and Beth left some Iowa flags so I decorated with that and I bought some sheets for my door and window curtains. Today we rode back to Maradi on a bush taxi which was a pickup truck with like 30 of us in the back of it and some on the roof and some hanging off the back, I met up with William who is a volunteer in my market town and Ali who is from Mayahi where the radio station is and we rode together. Today is Will's birthday so we're going out to eat at this outdoor restaurant where you can buy skewers of meat and french fries so that's pretty exciting. Tomorrow we have to catch the bus back to Niamey which was about 12 hours to get here, so probably about the same to get back. We have swear in on the 25th and then we're installed on the 30th of this month. I'm excited to be on team Maradi, everyone seems really nice, and I am glad to have so many people with so much effort so close to me and they are all excited to include me in their projects which is really nice. I love you all and miss you, and email me as often as you'd like at this new address and I'll be able to talk to you more often and for free!! get international texting!!! Bye for now, sorry it's so long and probably boring....Emily do the project!!!!!!