Harlem City!

Some introductions are in order. This is Harlem City, the group of guys I spend lots of time hanging out with. And they are awesome. From left to right we’ve got Mustapha (Musto), Lawali, Laminou, Ahamed, me, Lawali (Rabo), Dauda, Rabe, and Haboubacar. They’re all great. Tragically, my closest neighbor and perhaps best friend of all of them, the Lawali in green that I’m sitting next to, told me a few days ago that he was leaving for Niamey the next day. For a week? Two weeks? A month? He doesn’t know. It could very well be permanently. Its common for people, especially young men, to leave and look for work. If he finds something he might not ever come back. It sucks for us back here. He’s sort of the glue of our crew of friends, and its at his house where we always spend time each night. But I wish him the best. He’s been an awesome friend. I’ll at least see him from time to time when I’m in Niamey.

PS. This isn’t a fantastic picture. I realize that. But here is a cultural tidbit that annoys me to no end. In this culture everyone is constantly laughing, chatting, and teasing one another (That’s not the part that annoys me. Keep reading.) Then you announce your gonna take a picture and everyone gets really excited. Then, the camera goes up and everyone strikes a pose. Which (here’s the part that annoys me) is inevitably a scowl. I don’t get it. I spend hours laughing uncontrollably with these guys and the camera comes out: glare time. It’s the same with everyone over the age of 6. I don’t get it.

Note on my outfit: Yup that’s my boubou. It’s a traditional Muslim outfit, basically a really long shirt that falls over pants of the same color. Yes, it’s awesome. Yes its baby blue. And yes I look like the man when I wear it. But no, I do not wear one every day. This picture was taken on Tabaski, a big Muslim holiday. I only bust it out for special occasions.

MEAT!!!

Remember back about 6 months ago when I was a vegetarian? Me neither.

December 30 this year was the Muslim holiday of Tabaski. That morning I went with everyone from the town to observe the killing of the first goat, done communaly, and the accompanying prayer. Due to somewhat of a miscommunication, I think much of my village now thinks I’m Muslim.

This is me with some of the men in Aichatou’s family (see below for more on them). It's tradition to slaughter a goat and share the meat with your friends and neighbors for the holiday. They gave me a super generous portion of this goats leg, which I spent the evening cooking with a bunch of my 12-14 year-old neighbors. It was actually, all told. a really awesome day.

Is my expression one of shocked self-reflecting horror at holding up the carcass of what, just hours earlier had been a living goat? Am I laughing because my recent (if quickly receding) past is one of a strictly observant vegetarian? Or am I laughing because I have glimpsed the future and can imagine my friends back home laughing at me when they see the picture? I think its a little bit of each. The knife and meat prop idea, was, needless to say, not mine. It was the family’s. All joking aside. They are wonderful.

UNO! KTP!

In-Service Training: A Time for UNO

I think I spent some time earlier venting my frustration about IST. But a big positive that came out of that frustration, was the 6th bicentennial UNO tournament. Tragically, I did not win. The world at times is simply not a just place. Losing an UNO tournament in Niger really drove that home for me. But it was a hell of a lot of fun. This is a picture of me, Alexis, and Suzannah doing a cheer in support of one of our friends during the final. It should be pretty obvious from our pose that her name is Katie P. or “KTP”. She came in third overall and I like to think that we played a critical role in helping her achieve that goal.

And yes, the shirt I'm wearing is awesome. I've taken a lot of crap for it, so I'm a little sensitive on the subject.

Damn, I don't think this picture is uploading... I'll try and come back tomorrow before heading out to Matameye... Rrrrrrrrr....

Aichatou? Hadiza? And other moderately related anecdotes

OK. So here’s a little personal/cultural anecdote. I’ve alluded to a bunch of projects I’ve been involved with, and started to describe one of them, got bogged down, and now am procrastinating to finish explaining my work. So for more of that, you’ll have to wait. But what you need to know for the moment is that there is a very cool young lady named Nana Fassouma who I’ve gotten to know through one of those projects, the journal Lantarki. As it turned out I also needed to get in touch with Matameye’s Parent Teacher Organization leader, Nana Fassouma’s father Yaheya, and for my girls soccer team I needed to find two other ladies who in the past have helped volunteers with AIDS/HIV education activities, and who happen to be Nana Fassouma’s sisters… So basically this family is a bunch of superstars, and I was chuckling to myself at how interconnected it all was…

So I stopped by Nana Fassouma’s because I heard she had been sick. We chat for a bit and then, as is very typical here in Niger, she busts out her photo album and shows me lots of pictures… Now, I think I mentioned a while ago that since I arrived in Matameye there was a huge family with a ridiculous number of wonderful kids. To summarize, on one of my first days in town, I was exploring Matameye and as I passed by one house a young lady jumps out at me and insists that I come chat with her. It was when I just arrived and so I was making an effort to talk to just about everyone who wanted to talk to me: aka, everyone. Furthermore, this lady spoke a good bit of French and for a Nigerien woman was hilariously outgoing and forward. She introduced herself as Aichatou. Her family was MASSIVE. I’ve since found out that there are over ten mothers living together, all related and I understand that there are over 50 kids. Upon entering their concession (a compound of small one room houses), or even walking down their street, the kids literally swarm. Swarm I tell you. Anyways, they were all great.

I came back after a few days to visit Aichatou and the family again and she was equally hilarious, inviting me to a baby naming ceremony they were having that weekend, which she couched in the threat of “you’d better come, or else me and you… shikenan” (Hausa for “its over”, which she emphasized by making the gesture of snapping a stick in two). So I came back that weekend. It’s tangential, but as it turned out, they were naming a baby son. His name? Ismael. Apparently, I visited them for the first time on the day he was born and as is the tradition in Niger, they announced his name at the baby naming ceremony one week later, my third visit. The long and short is that I adore this family, and have visited them at least once a week for the past 3 months or so.

Anyways, back to Nana Fassouma. So I’m at Nana Fassouma’s and she shows me her photo book. Among the photos one jumps out at me… A photo of her and Aichatou! Matameye as I’ve said is pretty big perhaps 30-40 thousand people, so its not exactly to be expected that Aichatou and Nana Fassouma would know each other. So, I ask Nana, “hey who is that?” Even though I knew exactly who it was. “Oh, its my friend Hadiza. We went to middle school together.” she replies. Ummm… what? I look again at the picture. No way, it’s definitely Aichatou. So Nana tells me that she is certain its Hadiza, that Hadiza has only one sister who is just 16 years old (Aicha is 25), and that her mother just so happens to be a lady who works at the alphabetization (literacy project) named Zara and who I happen to know really well. So, I leave Nana’s totally confused.

Next day I go to the alphabetization on my way to the school (Aicha’s is a small treck from my house so I didn’t talk to her just yet). Zara insists she has only two daughters, as Nana had said, and that the older one is named Hadiza, not Aicha. But furthermore, we establish that this Hadiza is married to Salisou Ibrahim, the family of construction workers, Aicha’s family. We are definitely talking about the same person. What? So now I’m totally confused. Why did this lady tell me her name was Aichatou? Why do all the kids when I run into them in the street or at the school introduce themselves as being from “Gidan Aichatou” (Aichatou’s home/family).

So I head for Aicha’s house looking forward to chastising her for what must be a joke of some sort… I certainly wouldn’t put it past her. Outside the door, I greet the grand parents and ask, “Is Aichatou here?” Yup, they tell me she is inside. And now I’m led to where Aicha’s part of the concession is and come face to face with whom before, I’d figured was her sister. Now, Aicha speaks French, but most of her family doesn’t and no one there does, so this is all going by in Hausa, which, while coming along, is still a ways from being anything more than basically functional. “Ummm…. Where’s Aichatou?” I ask. “I’m Aichatou.” the lady responds. “Uh, who is Hadiza?” “My name is Hadiza.” “Wait, but you just told me you were Aichatou?” “I am Aichatou”. “OK, I don’t get it. She told me her name was Aichatou, but you are Aichatou? Or are you Hadiza?” This went on for a few minutes and the other ladies in the family gathered around to laugh at my confusion.

Here is the fallout of the conversation: Aichatou is really named Hadiza. And the lady I spoke with at the house is named Aichatou. In Niger, polygamy is a common practice. Aichatou and Hadiza share a husband, and I’m not sure if this is common or just in this special case, but within their family, Hadiza and Aichatou’s names are used interchangeably, even by themselves. As far as I can tell the two of them are good friends, they help with each others kids, and work together. I was just shocked to find out that these two ladies have gone so far in their sharing of identity as to share their names as well.

So, looking back, I’m realizing that was excessively confusing with lots of names that probably all meant very little to you. If you were skimming, let me give you a quick summary: “Niger: It isn’t America.” That’s the take home point.

About the Picture: I took this picture one day when I stopped by the house. It’s only of the wives and kids, and only those wives and kids who happened to be around at that moment. There are a whole bunch of others. Take note in particular of the beautiful and hilarious daughter of Hadiza (my good friend, the one I thought was Aichatou) named Safaraou. She’s right in the middle wearing the red shirt with three buttons. They are trying to convince me to bring her back with me to the US when I leave. To be honest, I’m tempted. Not really. And yet… Hadiza is in the back row, three from the right, wearing a green cloth over her head and the real Aichatou is on the left holding Hadiza’s baby boy Moctar and wearing the red head wrap…

OK, I’m finished. Let me try and post a couple more pictures….