So - it's been two weeks! Life in Africa is already very surreal. I am still in major "adjustment" phase, dealing with the heat and the food and the constant attention. Being American in Niger is tantamount to being a celebrity - yesterday my host sister told me she saw me in "that music video." Nope - not me. Haha.
To start, I applied to switch programs from a Forest and Agriculture Volunteer to a Community Health Volunteer, and was accepted. It's pretty unusual for trainees to switch, and so I was lucky that they even considered me. Initially, I was installed with a host family in a town called Barchawal, about eight miles from the Peace Corps training center. Twice a week we bike to the center for training in safety, culture, etc. The rest of the time we had language class with a trainer in our host village. After I became a health volunteer, I moved to a village called Fandoga (we call it Fandango) closer to the training site. (I had to move to be centered around the other health volunteers.) It was a bummer to have to readjust to a new host family, but it's been going well so far. In Barchawal my family had two wives and my new family has only one...way less interesting.
As a health volunteer, I'll be working on issues of women's health, maternal and child health, as well as vaccinations and nutrition. It's common for volunteers to be paired with local and global NGOs, assessing needs and trying to address the cultural barriers. I expect to be doing quite a bit of family planning as well as women's education, all of which is exciting to me.
The training is very intense. We have six hours of language class a day, on top of cultural and technical training. The heat is debilitating at best - yesterday was a record 121 degrees. I'm also struggling a bit to adjust to the food. Good news is - Niger has Coke! It's warm...but it's Coke. You all know how happy that makes me!
The poverty level in Niger is definitely something to get used to. I think it's hard to envision unless you are here, but there is so much trash, and such a high degree of obvious malnutrition that it can be hard to take. I'm adjusting as best I can and reminding myself why I am here...as if I need reminders! Every night we eat pounded millet for dinner (imagine rice with a consistency of dirt and with much less flavor). Bon appetit...
There are two main languages in Niger: Hausa and Zarma. Hausa is spoken by 60% of the population, but I am learning Zarma, a smaller regional dialect. Zarma is spoken in and around the capital, so when I am eventually posted it will be within a radius of 4-6 hours of Niamey. This is encouraging - more modern comforts may be available! Right now, I am in the Peace Corps Bureau in Niamey. (It's air conditioned...amazing.) All the trainees are going on a trip called "Demystification", where they send us into the bush to live with current volunteers for about five days. I'm waiting in the Bureau to be picked up by a bush taxi and taken to the regional capital of Dosso, to meet my host. First bush taxi ride awaits...wish me luck! We've already had extensive training on how to navigate the system.
Yesterday the U.S Ambassador paid us a visit and I was invited to sit at her table for lunch. She only arrived in Niger two and a half weeks ago to begin her three year tour, so she has some of the same concerns as the rest of us! She talked a bit about her background before becoming Ambassador to Niger and my favorite quotation from the speech was "I was married, it was the eighties."
Time to go catch my bush taxi - more to come perhaps next week on the way back from Dosso - miss and love you all. (Again...letters are gold! Or dried fruit. Dried fruit is probably worth more.)
Phoebe (or Aichatou - my Nigerien name. You decide!)
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