Konni - PCV week

This pic is from the tail end of our adventures in the village living.. Here we are in Koure, the last place in West Africa where you can see free-roaming giraffes. We were lucky enough to see 7! Our guide had no remorse - we walked within 40 feet of them! For other numbers, I would say it was 120 degrees (gray was not the wisest color choice for a day of photos) Despite the sweat and the bumpy ride, seeing these creatures was a magical experience.

As for our actual time in the bush, I am pleased to say I truly enjoyed myself. I can't really remember what I was expecting, but the time I spent living villager style -sans electricity, sans running water- was probably one of the best weeks of my life. The peace corps volunteer I stayed with was an awesome 27 year old with 2 bachelors and 2 masters, a (white) hawaiin by the name of Serette. She was evidently very well integrated in her village - I loved the way her neighbors and friends addressed her.. "Sahara" is her Nigerien name. Saibon Gida was the village we were in.. all mud-brick structures, no electricity or running water anywhere, 22 km from nigeria, decent sized market on Tuesdays, big onion producer, a 3-4 hour bush taxi ride away from the peace corps hostile.. Oh yeah, it was my first experience on a bush taxi. I sat on the gas tank in our first taxi. My head and knees didn't really fit, my hips were squished, and I was inhaling fumes for 2 and a half hours -it was an old, beaten stationwagon stuffed with 10 people and a trunk full of bags. The second taxi was even better: A open bed truck with 40+ people crammed in the back.. babies and goats included. Definitely the most crowded bush taxi I have ever seen. I am glad we didn't tip, and that I can now say I was a bush taxi passenger.

As for the village, it was beautiful. Women work all day preparing food and taking care of their babies - which are many. Food preparation is not fun - pounding millet takes much more strength than I think the finished product is worth.. It's not a very nutritional food staple, and it definitely isn't bursting with flavor. I know this picture is sideways, but it uploaded so it stays: its an ancient woman preparing tuwo over a hot fire. This is after all the laborious pounding and close to the finished product. I tried to pound a little, and gave the women a good laugh. A kwai muwa = That's difficult in Hausa.

We also worked on a mural on the mayor's office wall.. The only cement looking and roofed building in the village. It was a food sensibilisation, and the process of creating it drew a huge crowd. It was satisfying to see how many people were interested, how much one very juvenile looking mural could stimulate an entire village:



Was happy to help with that, and glad that our PCV had an actual project for us to do. Most of the day we had to just hang out in the shade because it was so hot.. Food preparation is really time consuming, even when you're not pounding grains. Serette fed us well the entire time. Even washed our dishes - I told her she was doing too much and is as hospitable as any local Nigerien would be to new guests.

Before dusk I'd take a bucket bath, and set up my mosquito net and cot before night fall. The week we were there the moon was full, so it provided a little extra light. I won't lie, I was a little afraid of using the latrine in the dark with a flash light - there were scorpions and cockroaches! I survived the bugs though.. and the animals. I realized after this past week that roosters don't just cockadoodledoo at sunrise, they go all night long. For that reason alone I didn't get very good sleep.. Nonetheless, night was my favorite time of day. It got cool enough to wrap myself up in my pagne/s, the moon and stars shined clear because there were no other sources of light in the sky, and I was just feeling totally relaxed. It made me realize that a lot of clutter comes with material and monetary wealth.. It also made me realize how many people there are in this world, and how little you understand about them until you habituate yourself in situations like theirs.

Even though I say I roughed it, my experience was cushy..
We had a latrine. The other villagers wake up early enough to go out to the bush to take care of business. We had water filters and bleach.
The well from which we pulled our water was in close proximity to Serette's hut; it was probably no more than 15 feet down, which means it was dirty.. Approx 30 people a year die as a result of water related issues in Saibon Gida. A water chateau is supposed to be functioning by rainy season, but there was little evidence of progress on that.
We could afford the $2 per meal it takes to eat rice or pasta and sauce.. which are the better alternatives to millet or sorghum stuff. Serette told me that the villagers have to pay a tax of 500 CFA per year, and that is apparently too much to ask. 500 CFA = $1.
During our stay, Serette's neighbors thatched roof burned down.. leaving 2 side-by-side families homeless. We showed up to give our greetings.. the ground was black and muddy, and the air was fresh of smoke.. In that same day we saw an extremely malnourished 2 month old, who can hardly breathe properly he is currently so ill.. His mother died during child birth, so he was getting goats milk (unpasteurized or anything of course) which made him sick. His grandmother ate a magical plant that now makes her lactate, so that is how he's getting his nutrients now. He probably won't make it, though.


On the bright side, we met a healthy baby who was only a few days old. The village kids put on a little show of dance and song for us, the ladies brought us traditional tuwo (not a personal favorite), a man gave me a welcome gift - a huge batch of onions, and I was able to use some of my Hausa. I love this pic of the kids, right in the middle of their performance (they LOVE the camera)


I was completely for the beautiful simplicity of village life. In comparison to Niamey, I think I'd take the bush over a pretty poor city. On the same token, I'm thrilled to have a toilet.. and access to the rest of the world here! The week made me want to do more, travel further, learn and live new things. It was my favorite part of this abroad experience, and I think I'll cherish the things I saw and felt for the rest of my life.