How I Became a Risk Champion

Ok thats a lie. I've never even played Risk. But it is a nice lead in to what I really want to talk about, which are the maps that I painted in the primary school in my village. I painted a map of the world, (which is where the Risk comes in, I'm all about world geography now) a map of Africa and a map of Niger on three walls in one of the classrooms. I may be a bit biased, but they are quite lovely. When I began this project (in February) I thought it would be a small "filler" type project to get me started on bigger and better things. I forgot to take into account that Niger runs on Africa time (probably because it's on the continent of Africa...) and things don't go as planned. I began by writing a propasal for funding from a source in Peace Corps which took about a month to get into the right hands. When it found its way there I was informed that it would be much easier to simply buy all the supplies and I could get reimbursed for money spent. One month down. It took another month-ish to get all the supplies from various stores and men selling things under shade hangars, and then I decided to wait for a Peace Corps car to bring the supplies to my village because travel in Niger is difficult without lugging around gallons of paint. When I finally got everything I needed to where I needed it to be, including "borrowing" paint from other volunteers, it was about mid April. My goal was to finish the maps by the time I left for vacation in mid May. I figured it would take about a week. That was dumb. Most buildings in Niger aren't made as well as in the states, so just drawing the rectangles on which I would paint the maps was a nightmare because none of the windows, doors or ceilings are properly aligned. I managed to get decently even rectangles that fit my size specifications and, with the help of a neighboring volunteer, painted the squares ocean or desert color (for the backgrounds) and drew grid lines to make drawing the countries more accurate and loads easier. We tried to let some of the village kids help with the painting and that was much more chaotic than I anticipated, and it set a low standard of respect that unfortunately haunted me for the rest of the project. Amidst rude shouting from kids who would periodically run in to steal our candy or chalk, we managed to draw the world, Africa, and Niger in one weekend. When my friend left, I assumed I could finish the rest of the work within the week. Yet again I was oh so wrong. In Niger, students have a 3 hour lunch break from 12:00 to 3:00 and end school at 5:30, and they don't have school on Wednesday afternoons. I thought that by painting the countries during that break, the hour and a half after school before dark, and Wednesday afternoons I could finish quickly. Like I said, oh so wrong. I think I forgot that I'm not a super hero or an artist, so painting tiny countries or borders like nothern Russia and eastern Canada and Greenland is rather time consuming. When I got sick during my map project, I actually had feverish nightmares about the Russian border and how hard it was to paint! Another unexpected problem was mixing paints. My purple is less than desirable, and I spent many painful hours just trying to get there. As the headmaster of the school told me when he came to check up on my progress, "Blue and Red make purple!" He repeated this about 400 times while throwing my important papers around in his excitment. "Yes I know that... I've tried multiple times... the consistencies aren't mixing properly... OK thanks I'll do that! You're so helpful!" Painting took the better part of 3 weeks. I was working so often that I was neglecting visiting my friends and spending time talking to people, which is a major part of this culture. So I decided to work only on Wednesday afternoons and weekends and spend my other afternoons with my friends in village. My stress level went way down and productivity way up after that brilliant epiphany. After what seemed like speeding through painting my countries, my closest volunteer neighbor came to label the countries for me (as my handwriting is awful) and help me paint the national anthem above two of the maps. So I finished my goal despite the village kids' best efforts. My maps were done by the time I went to vacation in mid May. I've been gone since then and I'll be going back to my village the day after tomorrow so I haven't done any sort of education with the maps yet. I plan on using them mainly to teach about HIV and AIDS, where it is more prevelent and how to prevent it from traveling to Niger. My favorite part about this project was seeing my friends stop by to watch me work. It felt amazing to know that people cared about what I was doing enough to come by and see it and learn more about geography in the process. Everyone seemed very interested in where America is, where California is, and how it really is quite far from Niger. And of course, as I said in my last blog, dancing with Muhammadu.

Muhammadu

I loved kids in the states. I had a blast playing with them and I think I was pretty darn good at it. Apparently I lost all those abilities sometime during the flight here because I’m awful with the kids in my village. I like to blame the fact that I’m not as fluent as I’d like to be in Hausa, but let just face the facts, shall we? Really, I don’t have the patience anymore. It’s much different in a village; kids aren’t restricted in any way. So as the neighborhood kids are whiling away their lazy afternoons, why shouldn’t they bang on the door to the white girl’s concession and yell mean things at her? Unfortunately, I’d probably do the same thing if I were in their shoes, when they wear shoes. I’ve become much more selective about which kids I’ll play with for the sake of my sanity. The terrorizers aren’t on the list of my favorite parts of Nigerien life. Except one. I don’t know what it is about little Muhammadu, but man o man he cracks me up. Picture your most eccentric friend (most likely someone involved in theatre) and multiply that personality by 10 and cram it into the body of a 3 year old kid and you’ve got Muhammadu. A favorite past time of his is to follow me around during my journeys about the village to greet people. It’s very rare to see adults interacting with kids in this culture, unless the child is too young to take care of itself and is tied permanently to the back of the mother. Usually it ends in the child getting threatened or hit for being a disrespectful nuisance. So for a kid to be following an adult around by himself is very bold. Muhammadu will march along with me rambling on in Hausa that I can barely understand about his dad’s motorcycle. Villagers often think I stole a child from one of the bigger cities. I tell them that no, this is in fact my son. His father is in the house cooking. (That always gets a great response; “Oh Baraka, you’re so silly! Men don’t cook!”) I’ve stopped letting kids into my concession (again for the sake of sanity) but Muhammadu seems to think this rule shouldn’t apply to him. He tromps on in and sits down next to me until I carry him outside and lock my door, where he sits and shouts rude obscenities about my mother, sorry mom! And still he’s my favorite. When I was painting a map in my school, I had problems with village kids shouting at me and coming into the classroom to steal chalk while I was working. As usual, Muhammadu followed me to work one day and sat down in the desks. I figured I’d put him to work as my personal guard, thinking that no self-respecting 10 year old child would be shooed away by a 3 year old. To my surprise it worked! In between spontaneous dance parties and A+ attempts at breaking my ipod, Muhammadu successfully scared away packs of kids 3 times his age. I did have to turn away from my work every 4 seconds to stop him from going through my purse, but I was thankful for his help. Plus, every time I’d turn around to tell him, “No Muhammadu, that’s not ok!” he looked up at me with the most innocent face imaginable and responded, “No, not ok!” before going right back to what he was doing as soon as I turned back to work. That’s just funny. It’s one of those situations where the thing that bothers you most turns out to be the best part of your day. Or at least gives you a good laugh.