Travelling

So, I just posted that last string of posts from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. In case I haven't been in touch with you, I'm travelling for a couple of weeks down to Ghana with some other Peace Corps Volunteers and meeting up with IAN!!!!! We're gonna check out a bunch of games for the African Cup of Nations (the African World Cup basically), see Ian's work in Accra, and head to his land out near Takaradi. Being in Ouagadougou has been pretty interesting. Crazy being in the capital of the world's second poorest country and feeling like it has so much more going for it than Niger... Not sure if that's for real or if the grass is just greener on the other side... But its interesting.

More updates and pictures later after the trip, but that might not be for a few weeks. So, hope everyone is well and I'll do my best to travel as safely as possible :)

YGSP Part 1: The Program

For the last month or so a couple friends and I have been organizing a conference. With the help of other Peace Corps Volunteers across Hausa speaking Niger, we found 11 girls to come to Zinder and participate in the conference. The girls were chosen based on two criteria. First, that had to be in good standing at their current high school. And second, that they are from a small rural village. The intention was to bring the girls to Zinder (a city all but two of them had only heard of and never visited) and participate in a range of activities. The theme of the program was to make the girls think about their futures and what they hope to achieve with their education. We also aimed to motivate them in their studies, give them some tools to improve their study methods, help them build their self-confidence, and also just to have fun.

I loved doing this project and it was probably the most fun 5 days I’ve had in country. That is not to say that I wasn’t stressed and exhausted for the entire duration of the program, but the girls were absolutely wonderful. I’ll come back to that later.

While the program spanned five days there were really just three full days of activities once travel was factored in. The first day was geared towards exploring post-high school opportunities if they get their diplomas. We started with a conversation discussing the different opportunities and then went to visit three different professional schools in Zinder, meeting with both administrators and students to get a feel for each of the different programs. We started with the Ecole Normale where students are trained to become teachers. We then went to the E.N.S.P. an acronym which I’m forgetting but is to train health workers (nurses, lab technicians, and midwives mostly). And finally, we went to a business skills type school where they do computer, secretarial, and accounting training. After the visits we held a brief self-defense class (where I got to “attack” the girls to help them practice getting away from assailants). The day ended with an evening discussion on women’s empowerment by a local Nigerien NGO worker who is fantastic.

The second day was professional women’s day. We started with a panel with a group of four professional women in Zinder. We had a midwife, an NGO worker, a government worker, and an education administrator come and discuss their personal paths to success, highlighting education in their lives, what obstacles they faced and how they overcame them, and how it is that they are able to balance being both professional women and also mothers/wives at the same time. After the panel and discussion we divided the girls among the women to accompany them to their places of work and then afterwards to their homes. It was great visiting the girls and seeing them put to work and getting a real taste of some different jobs (two girls got to sit in on an organization wide meeting with a guest from France).

The third and final day we spent the morning working with a small group of peer educators discussing study habits and study strategies. The intention was, having shown them what different opportunities education can open, to give them some tools to better manage their studies as well as some concrete techniques to be a more effective student. After the morning session we finished with what I considered the highlight of the program. We went to the city’s local radio station and recorded a radio show with the girls. The program discussed some of the obstacles to education for girls in Niger, but most importantly, we gave each girl an opportunity to talk about education in their lives, what they hoped to do with their futures should they successfully finish high school, and also just to greet their friends and those who had helped them with their studies. It was pretty awesome. The girls were super excited.

The evening was finally just fun time. I’ll come back to it later, but it was amazing…

The next morning at 4am it was time to get up, and take the girls from Maradi and Konni to the bus station. Of course, it being Niger, when we got to the bus station we were told that the bus was broken, so me and a friend took mad dashes in opposite directions praying that we could find another bus line that A) hadn’t already left and B) had space for our girls and the volunteers they had come with. Luckily it worked out, but it was nice getting a little unexpected 4:30am exercise.

I’m not really gonna conclude this cus I have more to say coming up, but as I said before, I loved this project. I think the girls got tons out of it and I was really really sad saying goodbye to them at the end.

YGSP Part 2: The Girls

So you know what we did, but let me say just a little more about these girls. They were amazing. Me and my friend were sitting down after the program and collectively realized that in this group of 11 13-17 year-old girls we couldn’t come up with a single negative thing to say about a single one of them. I didn’t see a single girl be mean or even snippy with any of the others, didn’t see anyone be snooty or bossy. Not only that but throughout the entire course of our busy program, not once did any of them complain. I was so grateful to them for their attitudes and just for them generally being such smart, sweet, and fun girls.

It was very fun also seeing the internal dynamics of the girls. While in some ways the difference in ages was a challenge for the program, it was also cool seeing the younger ones looking up to the older ones. And seeing the friendships that they were forming between each other was pretty heart-warming as well. They behaved like they had been best friends for years when they had really just been together for four or five days.

Anyways, here are pictures of a few of them. The girl with the green head scarf looking intense, Haoua, is in the middle of playing a game with Zelifa in the background. Hannatou is crouching in white with a notebook in her hand. Mourja is in red. The picture with three girls is Rabi, Maimouna, and Haoua (there were two). Haoua was particularly amazing. She’s been first in her class since she left her small village and started going to high school. She was nicknamed La Presidente because early on she made it clear she wanted to become “la premiere presidente de la republique”. She restated this intention on the radio on the final day, which was pretty great.

The final picture is of Seylouba and Balkissa. Seylouba is a girl I’ve written about before who goes to school in Matameye. I loved watching her during the conference. She’s pretty timid, but it was really fun seeing her bust out of that shell a bit, undoubtedly inspired by the examples of some of the other girls (la Presidente in particular). A brief side note is that a couple days before (maybe I mentioned this before), I surprised her out in her village. She was shocked and her dad acted like it was Publisher’s Clearing House. Well, not exactly, but no matter how much I resisted, he wouldn’t stop giving me small gifts to bring back to Matameye, and trooped me all through the village meeting any and everyone.

YGSP Part 3: Games!

So as I mentioned, the last evening we had a game/field day. It was AWESOME! Finally, with all the difficult sessions done we were able to just relax and have fun. We played Twister, bobbed for apples, had a quiz show recapping the conference, and then had a bonfire with Smores and a big dance party. Honestly it was some of my happiest moments in country. It made it heart wrenching to say goodbye the next morning.

The rules for bobbing for apples were pretty hilarious. Basically two people went at the same time, and whoever finished first got to take a cup of water and dump it on whoever they wanted, innocent bystander or not. Pictures are of me explaining how to bob for apples. Another of me trying to stare down La Presidente (she would try for about 2 seconds every time, then sprint away as fast as she could in fear that who she was going against would dump the water on her, as we usually did). Some post bobbing pictures of Hannatou and Haoua, the game show being led by another PCV, and some Twister.

New Years Resolution

I’ll be better at updating my blog…

So, after the girls soccer finals, I went directly to Niamey to go meet my mom and sis who were coming in for the holidays.

Of course by holidays I don’t just mean Christmas or Hannukah. This year Tabaski one of the biggest Muslim holidays was falling on the 18th of December. If you remember from last year, Tabaski was the holiday where I posted the picture of me grinning with a big goat carcass in one hand and a big knife in the other. It’s the holiday where everyone buys a big goat, slaughters it on the holiday and then eats and shares with neighbors more meat than anyone knows what to do with.

I’ll admit I really struggled with this. I really agonized over it. When I told people my mom and sis were coming the first question almost everyone asked was, “so, you getting a goat?” To which I did my best to nervously laugh away the question. The bottom line for me was this: I’d been a vegetarian for something like thirteen years before coming to Niger. But I decided to put it on hold as I felt many of my reasons for not eating meat don’t apply as well to Africa as they do to America and also in order to have a richer experience. So, whereas I had been eating meat (not a lot but enough), and thus paying for someone else to do all my dirty work, I had no real reason to resist buying a goat of my own and participating in the holiday this year. So I did.

I didn’t actually kill it myself. That has to be done by a malam, or someone properly studied in Islam. Nor did I do all the initial butchering work since I had no idea how (removing the guts, skinning it etc.). Though I did force myself to bear witness to the process and will admit it was fascinating (to separate the skin from the body one cuts a hole in the back of the goats heal and then inflates the whole thing like a balloon… weird but amazing). Anyways, then there was a whole lot of anxiety that followed relating to how I was going to distribute the meat. Normally during Tabaski one gives away lots of meat to ones neighbors and to others who don’t have money for a goat of their own. With none of my mom, sister or I being particularly serious meat-eaters we were giving away almost all of it. Anyways, I was moderately stressed trying to decide who to give how much to and if I give to this person do I give to that one, etc…

Thankfully a young neighbor of mine came in to rescue. And the 11 year old girl wielding the knife, twirling it in the air while directing her little brothers where to bring the separate pieces, finished in half an hour what I had agonized over for about 2 days. And of course she topped of her performance by asking me directly (as Hausas love to do) “You can’t do anything can you?” Heh heh.

More to say on all of this visit. Bottom line is that it was awesome. But I’ll wait until the rest of my sister and mom’s pictures arrive. Or hassle my sister and have her send you the link to the ones she posted online with little commentary… Probably more fun like that anyways.

PS. Getting stuck in Niamey we went for a little boat ride to burn some time with some other stuck Peace Corps families on the Niger river and saw some hippos. Pretty cool...

My Ladies Back to Business

Alright, no good way to get it started so I’ll just start and try and make sense of it later. Anyways, its been a while. So if you’re my grandmother, or anyone else who has been hoping I’d hurry up and update my blog, I’m sorry. I think the big problem was just that I was in the throes of graduate school application madness, and so my attention for writing was consumed by essay writing and online box-checking/blank-filling anxiety. But that’s done! Yay! And assuming one of the schools I applied to lets me in, I’ll be back state side studying somewhere in the northeast next fall semester…. Crazy how time flies when I say it like that….

So what HAS happened since I last wrote… A lot. And I won’t be able to get to all or even a reasonable chunk of it just yet. But I’ll give you a couple of highlights…

Girls Soccer: You probably got tired of hearing me rave about them last year. Well, they’re back. It was different though this year. I still love them. A number remain among my best friends in Matameye, and yet something was different. I think maybe the luster of playing soccer with the crazy white guy had worn off for some of them. I think my own enthusiasm wasn’t as emphatic as it had been last year. I think that things got rushed because the tournament was happening a bit earlier than last year and they never got into a rhythm. And, since it was largely the same team as last year (minus a couple important ones, including Yilli and Nouria) they were all a year older, almost all in the exam year, focused on their studies and probably also just thinking about boys and other such nonsense. I mean, the gist, is that it was REALLY tough getting them organized and motivated and I got FRUSTRATED with them. It’s a lesson I’ve learned a bunch of times since coming here, you can love someone one moment, and the very next feel like you could strangle them… And then you have to just step back and realize that there’s lots of stuff going on in their lives that has nothing to do with you and taking every time they stand you up for a practice as a personal offense is probably a bit excessive and unreasonable.

Anyways, so to the gritty details. The Zinder tournament was split up into East and West regions. Three teams were to play in each sub region with the winners to play in the final match at the beginning of December in Zinder. So, we hosted the Western Zinder tournament in Matameye. It was a round robin so we needed to play against Kantche and Zinder… The moral of the story is that the morning I asked the girls to come early to help me set up and prepare the field, one girl came. I was furious with them… The others showed up in time for the game, but I was fuming, left to do the bulk of the preparation which was all really for them. And yet, as the games started and I again saw how much they love the opportunity to play soccer, it was impossible not to get caught up in the excitement.

I suppose I should back up. Nouria (last year’s best player, and in my opinion, the best player in the Zinder region) had just left for Zinder. Her father was transferred to Zinder and although she started the year in Matameye (showing up to more of our practices than any of the other girls), about three days before the tournament she finally left. So we had to do without our best player.

We played the first game against Kantche. Kantche had beaten us last year and been in the finals the last three. But we played well. The details are all a bit distant at this point, but the gist is we whooped them. It ended up 2-0.

The second game was to be us versus Zinder. We figured they’d be good, and if we wanted to play in the finals we really had to beat them…

Zinder got held up on their way, and so our nervous anticipation of the match grew… I even tried calling Nouria to tell her we had beaten Kantche and redeemed our frustrating loss the year before but she wasn’t getting phone coverage wherever she was.

Of course, I found out quickly why Nouria wasn’t getting service. In a couple minutes the Zinder car pulled into Matameye and out she climbed wearing the Zinder jersey! Ha! I could only laugh. I walked up to her unable to hold back my ear to ear grin, and then berated her for being a traitor. She explained to me that the day before had been her first day at the high school in Zinder. She had found her gym teacher and practiced with them that same day, and then after one day of school with them, she climbed in the car and came to Matameye… heh heh…. Anyways, I don’t know if its as good in recreation as it was at the moment it happened. But it was hilarious.

The game started. We started out playing well. We pressed really hard, and early on our striker broke past their defenders and beat their goalie to put us up 1-0. Thankfully the opposing coach didn’t know Nouria and had her playing defense where she wasn’t able to cause us as much trouble as she would have elsewhere. But the Matameye girls were tired having already played one game, and the tide started to shift. With about 10 minutes to go in the game, they managed to get one back and even it at 1-1… So we went to penalty kicks… Last year we lost in penalty kicks to Kantche. This year we made up for it. Our first four girls each buried their shots and with the fourth goal clinching a 4-1 victory in penalty kicks we burst into celebration… It was pretty awesome. I loved them again…

So fast-forward. Really, there’s not a very good narrative to accompany the match in Zinder. I guess I’ll just say that going into the match we knew we were playing Mirriah (winners of the last three years whereas Kantche had been the perennial runners-up). In their two games during their tournament they beat one team 5-0 and then called the second match off because it was getting dark and they were already winning 3-0 after 5 minutes… So, we knew it would be tough… And it was.

It was a well played game both teams playing hard. It ended 0-0 and was headed for penalty kicks. And my girls did what they did the last time. Having made our first four we led 4-3 with one kick left for Mirriah to try and tie it. It was a well taken penalty, but our goalie was up to it and as she caught the ball we finally got to celebrate… It was pretty awesome. I wish I had some better pictures of it but…. A small trophy now sits in the high school administration’s room with a picture of the team.

The pictures are of Nouria posing in Zinder's white jersey (she's in back) with all of us in yellow. And then of the Matameye and Mirriah teams posing (bad guys wearing black) before the final. Rrrrr... Internet problems I can't get pictures to load... Hopefully in a week when I'm back in town...