Matameye Young Women's Work/Health Fair

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...

Quick Quick Quick Blitz

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

Hanging out in Zinder with My Girls

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.

Matameye from on High

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.