I'm going to Zinder!

After over a month of anticipation, Peace Corps officials have finally revealed to us the villages in which we will be living for the next two years! I haven’t been there yet, so I don’t know too much about my particular village. But I do know that of the 5 regions in Niger with volunteers currently serving, my village is in the region that is the farthest east. Consequently, it’s the farthest away from the Peace Corps headquarters in Niamey (which is in the west, in case you didn’t figure that out.) I’ll be living in a six room hut, which is unheard of for a Peace Corps volunteer, within a walled concession that is apparently big enough to plant a millet field. That’s a whole lot of room that I won’t know what to do with. My fellow Peace Corps Trainees (because we aren’t actually sworn in Volunteers yet) have decided that I have so many rooms because I single handedly represent Peace Corps Nigeria, seeing as I am only 4K away from Nigeria. (Important side note: Niger and Nigeria are not the same country.) This of course isn’t true, mainly because Peace Corps doesn’t have any volunteers in Nigeria and we aren’t even allowed to travel there due to political unrest. My proximity to Nigeria doesn’t hinder my safety in country, but does provide for fun jokes. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to let you know more about what my village is really like. Until then…MY MAILING ADRESS WILL CHANGE REALLY SOON! I don’t know what will be yet, but if you were planning on sending a package don’t yet, because you should send it to Zinder. If not, I’ll get it later than planned. Letters should be fine for a while though, so feel free to write and send pictures and anything fun you think I may enjoy! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, I miss you all and wish you the best. And although I’m awful at remembering to take pictures, my friend Marissa is great at it, so check out www.flickr.com/photos/mwong64.

Babu nono? Babu yes yes.

Language is fun. There are so many ways to mess it up. My favorite story didn’t actually happen to me, but to my friend Ryan. Random side note; Ryan is from none other than Glendora California! While we don’t have a Starbucks or a Classic Coffee in Niger, we do have a shade hanger with a guy named Daude who makes instant coffee mixed with condensed milk. Ryan frequented this high class establishment daily, always asking for no milk in his coffee, “Babu nono.” Weeks later, we came to find out that “nono” doesn’t mean milk, but breast milk. Imagine our glee to discover that Ryan had been asking for coffee without breast milk all this time! Another linguistic problem is that the verb “son” means to want, to like, and to love. Therefore I couldn’t explain to my teacher that while I like and even love babies, I don’t actually want a baby right now because that would just not be practical. So now I don’t like babies. Awesome. My favorite language issues come from popular phrases that are not meant to be literally translated. The phrase “In sha Allah” means “If God wills it.” Nigeriens often say this in response to an inquisition about the future. It is an Arabic phrase, but literally translated from Hausa to English it means “If to drink God.” So of course, with the lack of entertainment available to us in Niger, we have oodles of fun answering questions about our future plans by saying, “If God drinks it.” Try that one on for size, APU. I’ve messed up more times than this, and I’ve said some pretty horrible things this past month in Hausa, but luckily for me Nigeriens are some of the most patient people in the world, and are always ready to laugh with us when we mess up. And I hope God drinks it that all of you have no breast milk in your coffee.

Why Americans (and this American in particular) are very odd

This past month living in such a different culture has been quite a crazy experience. I know I’m awkward in the States, but wow guys, this is really a whole new level. I love it. Imagine if a 22 year old college educated woman came into your town and positively beamed with pride because she successfully constructed the sentence “I’m going to take your daughter back to America because I like her.” Such is everyday life for us volunteers in Peace Corps Niger. And don’t judge me, because you would all want to take this girl back with you too. She’s adorable. One experience that Nigeriens find odd is Disneyland. Whilst talking to my APCD (he teaches me about health) I learned that when he was in America he found Disneyland very strange. The roller coasters were fine, mostly because the public transportation here (bush taxis) is far more death-defying than any roller coaster America has to offer. The things he didn’t like were rides like Indiana Jones. Why would we want to stand in a crowded line for something that was created for the sole purpose of scaring us? Reason #1 why we’re an odd bunch, which provides a nice transition for reason #2. Why are we afraid of things like bugs and mice that we can obviously dominate at any given moment? I don’t have an answer for this, but I do have many great stories. For example, when I saw a mouse run into my hut and informed two of my host mothers, they replied with “Babu laihi!” which means, “No problem!” If one reads between the lines this could be interpreted as, “You big pansy!” So I turned to the children in the concession who chased the mouse out of my hut and just about died laughing at the fact that I jumped 20 feet in the air when the mouse ran by my feet. They now take whatever chance they can get to startle me/ scare the living daylights out of me. The preferred method is to sneak up behind me when I’m playing guitar and make a loud noise. Oh…good times… Reason #3 that we are weird is that we Americans have a whole lot of stuff. I came to Africa thinking about all the things I was leaving behind, and now look at all the things I have and wonder why I thought I couldn’t live without them. Such as my tuning fork. My kids (I claim them now) have endless fun with making the tin door to my hut sound an A440. They also enjoy that stopping the vibration of the tuning fork on their nose is kind of like being tickled. Anyway, the point is that things like a tuning fork are such a novelty here because really, it’s not necessary. I’ll end my ranting thusly, more to come later. Actually, I’m going to add another blog in about 10 seconds. So thanks for reading friends!

Hey- I'm here!

Well I made it here to Niger, and I only have about 10 minutes left online so I have to be really quick about writing this- it's going to be sporatic- stay with me friends.
First of all, I live in a mud hut, just like you would picture a mud hut. There is no electricity or plumbing of any kind, and it's really not as intense as it sounds. It is, however, very small. And it has a thatch roof. I live in the consession of a family. It's a wonderful family, and they are all very patient with me and my cultural faux pas. There are baby everythings around me all the time- humans, goats, sheep, dogs, chickens, and so on. They wake me up nice and early because I sleep outside under the most beautiful sky I've ever seen and a mesquito net.
The culture is a tad different than America. It's an almost entirely Muslim country, guided by tradition rather than study of the Koran because most people aren't educated enough to know how to read the Koran. Polygomy is very apparent, which I'm still trying to get used to. The biggest culture shock has been the transition into the gender roles here. The men do the work, control the financial affairs and all decisions of the family, and drink a lot of tea. The women are super moms. They carry their babies on their backs with pieces of cloth all day while cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the rest of the family. Men and women don't socialize in public at all, they never touch, not even a handshake. I think the biggest challenge when I get to post (I'm in training right now, by the way) will be to integrate into these new gender roles.
Another challenge is bugs. I know, it sounds silly, but they are invinsible here. They dont die! And they are everywhere- it's crazy! But on the upside, I'm winning the war on bugs in my hut.
They're going down...
The training I'm going through right now is 9 weeks and then I get send out into the bush somewhere. It's very intense and very hard. There's no internet acess, so sorry if you feel like I'm ignoring you, I'm really not. I'm learning Hausa, which is a verbal language, and therefore hard to learn visually. But we have some of the greatest language teachers in the world, and I'm learning quicker than I thought I could.
I love the people I'm here with, we're all bonding very quickly simply because we're so out of our element. We all do stupid things (like the time I accidentally told my teacher he was too old to dance rather than too scared to dance...oops!) and luckily the Nigeriens are wonderful people who laugh at us when we don't quite get it right. We also get a kick out of how quickly we've conformed to the dress code (no shoulders, tight fitting clothing, or anything above the knee.) Any flash of knee is scandalous at this point. It's quite funny.
It's crazy how much I miss Mexican food, air conditioning (it bloody hot here!) and easy and fast communication. And of course I miss my friends and family, so write me letters and send pictures! Or anything cultural (like news clippings or concert programs- yea we're that sad) because I feel so very far removed. But overall- I love it here! It's wonderful. I wish I could say hi to everyone personally, but I don't have time to get on facebook, and I'm not magic, so I can't. But know that I love you, please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks for reading, I MISS YOU!