Some May photos...

Ann and my friend Mariama in the Abalak weekly market on our fun trip up North



Me and one of Mariama’s aunts in Tuareg garb at the family house in Konni (I realize these town names don’t mean much unless you are looking at a detailed map of Niger, but just in case you are)



Ann and me with our fav fried food, fermented rice pancakes (called massa) and squash sauce.



At my awesome friend Ruki’s thesis defense/presentation for her Master’s degree in Sociology at Université Abdou Moumouni in Niamey…here we were waiting for the jury of professors to make their decision after two hours of hammering her with questions. The verdict: she passed with flying colors! Allez Ruki!



I love this little dude Ibrahim (see previous blog posts) so much it hurts…he’s looking good here in his mini boubou and sitting with his mom Fatima and my friend Mariama.



Pretty Niamey sky from my backyard

Checking in before checking out...

Hi everyone,

It has been quite a while since I have written because a lot has been going on lately in the hopping town of Niamey ;) Actually I have just been busy wrapping up loose ends, saying goodbye to friends and people who have helped me with research, chilling at the university, finishing up articles and sending them to newspapers, etc…

a great non-work highlight of the past month was ANN SAGAN’s visit!!! Ann rocks as you might know, and she was the perfect person to come visit Niger, because she was so can-do and never complained that we kept a breakneck schedule (visiting all my friends, eating all the traditional and fried food we could find, traveling North with a friend) until she unfortunately kind of got heatstroke and we had to slow things down. Don’t worry, she recovered quickly and we went back to having a rocking time. Then Amy Van Buren, another Pomo peep, popped over from Ouagadougou, where she will be interning at the U.S. Embassy this summer, for a short visit, which nicely overlapped with Ann’s last few days in town.

Yesterday Amy left and then I went to a rap concert and a “boite”/nightclub with some friends to celebrate my last weekend in Niamey, but the point of the story is that today I was really tired and emotional about leaving Niger in six days and also trying to get a bunch of work done and say bye to my wonderful families and friends. So when I rolled up to Habsou’s (my Tuareg mom) house to hang out because I hadn’t seen her in a few days, I must have looked not so good.

Habsou’s older sister Zeynabou was braiding Habsou’s hair and after a few minutes she said, “You are not in your plate today,” which I guess means I was not acting like myself, which was true. I was kind of mopey and laying on the mattress in the tent outside (actually I always lay on the mattress but usually I am not mopey ;)) Habsou and Zeynabou talked to me and made me feel better and told me everything would work out with post-Niger life and work and such, and then Habsou yelled at me for having dirty cracked feet, which was fair, so I promised to wash them every day until I leave. Then Ghaicha, Habsou’s 13 year old daughter walked into the tent and gave me a head and feet massage and sang a Tuareg song to me until I fell asleep. I floated home later that afternoon feeling so much better and so grateful to have that family in my life. Seriously, they are just the greatest, and I can’t imagine this year without them. I know I will come back to visit them ASAP, and Habsou even said she would write another letter and try to help me to get another grant, which I thought was funny and unfortunately probably not going to work out anytime soon!

I’m leaving Niamey on May 31 and headed off on a bit of an adventure with limited internet access, so I may not post on my blog again for a while. I think I will wrap this blog up with some photos and one last post once I return stateside later this summer. Thanks for reading and I hope you are well! Drop me a line if you get a chance, I love hearing from you and hope these posts aren’t too boring.

Xoxox Mags

Ibrahim, little man of greatness

Ibrahim is a two year old whose family lives across the street from me. I have known his family for a few months because they are cousins of Habsou (my "mom" here), but since moving in with my friends (oh, le nomadisme of la vie à Niamey), I get to see the family pretty much every day. Sometimes they force me to eat meat at 11 am and that is isn't fun, but most of the times we dance or watch a Brazilian soap opera or lay on the outdoor bed when it's hot.

Ibrahim is defintely a highlight of every day for me. If he is outside playing in the dirt and I walk outside he comes running over and kisses me. He is so adorable and I somehow feel that he has something to teach the world that will eventually emerge from his sweet little head. Right now he just gurgles and mutters some Tamashek occasionally, because he's pretty big (huge by Nigerien standards), you might think he could talk, but he is too busy careening around. Everyone gets annoyed with him because he gets so excited that he knocks stuff over a lot, but he rarely cries even if he falls. He just looks mildly surprised.

I asked his mom Fatima if I could put these two photos on my website to show my friends and she said sure. So here is a little happy Saturday treat for you!



I don't know what I am doing, but don't you just love that little face?!



Ibrahim is enjoying his lunch with some cousins visiting from Agadez.

musings from the gutter

Hi all,

Last night I had a funny experience that I thought would be fun to relate. It started with dinner with some friends at a little bar overlooking the Niger river. After dinner I left my friends there and headed out by myself (I was in a hurry to go somewhere, you know, I'm often in a hurry, not a good thing).

It was 9pm and I walked out of the restaurant into a large unlit parking lot. I thought, hmm, this would make me nervous in the US, but it's Niger, so it's okay. Then I saw a man slightly ahead of me, but our paths were converging, so I sad "Fofo, Salaam Aleikum" to greet him. Well then he started teasing me/ harassing me so I picked up my step and emerged onto the main road. There was no one around except a guard of a small NGO across the street. I "fofo"-ed him and crossed the street, already launching into an explanation about how I needed him to help me find a taxi. He looked nice and we smiled at each other and then my next step put me knee-deep in an open sewer. I had completely forgot that I needed to jump over the open sewer, in my hurry to get the guardian. There was a splash and my cry of surprise and then the guard was pulling me out of the sewer. The pooface who was teasing me disappeared and so did my flipflops, lost to the guck of the sewer.

Luckily a taxi came and I poppped in, but then the girl next to me was trying to find her boyfriend at a hotel and she used a dollar of my phone minutes trying to track him down. In the end I went to meet my friend and her Nigerien friend helped me wash off and told me that he detests those type of guys that "see a woman and shike nan, it's over, they just won't leave her alone." He was approximately my grandfather's age and so nice, so he pretty much made my dad.

When I went home I disinfected myself very throughly. In the end, perhaps I fell in the sewer because someone wanted to tell me that I needed to get throughouly clean; in fact, i did, considering i swam twice without showering and sweat profusely b/c of the heat (sorry, gross, will shower more promise Mom).

I hope I don't fall in the sewer again. But I am now cleaner than I have been in months, alhumdillilahi!

Cheers et bon week-end,
Maggie

more photos...

My friend Leigh and me on the beach at Ile de Goree, off the Senegal coast near Dakar.



My cutie next door neighbors, Laile and Ibrahim!



NigerIAN, aka from Nigeria, moolah, called Naira...they use this currency anywhere remotely near the Nigerian border in Eastern Niger.



Some nice little guys in Rigal Koel, a Hausa village in Eastern Niger, where my friend Paige is a Peace Corps volunteer.

I'm MELTING!

Hot damn, it is hot in Niger. I know, I know, this hot season isn't as bad as the last one, and yes, it was cloudy yesterday, so the sun wasn't as bad (but then there was humidity). Life is not bad at all, but seriously, the hot season is no joke. My computer may break b/c when I have it plugged in and the power shorts out for the fifth time in one afternoon, I don't think that is so good.

Anyway my brain is fried so here are some pictures instead of stories, hope you enjoy:



Kind of a not attractive photo of me, but voila moi et Alice the other Fulbrighter, with my sweet Chadian henna, taken right before I went to Dakar to see the Fick family



With Ashley, yawning like the hippos on the river...



Cool handmade pots in the Ayerou market NW of Niamey, we watched these pots be made by women on an island in the Niger river near Ayerou



Some fabric (from Mali/Guinea?)and towels (who knows where from) in the Ayerou market



Sunset on the Niger River, I will miss this view. The water level is super low right now b/c it's hot season

Parc W fun!

I was lucky and got to tag along on a 2-day trip to Parc W, an awesome wildlife reserve a few hours' drive from Niamey. My French friend Raphaelle who works for UNICEF had her boyfriend Gathian visiting from Paris, and another French pal Sophie came, too. We saw a TON of awesome animals that I had of course only ever seen in zoos, and I have to admit it was great to be in a pretty open area with not one single black plastic bag littering the landscape! (that's a big prob here, not only in cities, sadly in villages and all throughout the country...The Rwandan govt outlawed the use of black plastic bags, seems like a brilliant idea to me)



All of us, plus our great guides Alhmoud and Issafou, at the park's entrance



Splish splash they were takin a bath!



You gotta love this giraffe!



Finally, at a millet beer bar in Niamey, with Seydou the serenader...my Nigerien name Fatimata sounds really great when belted out by this dude

Alright, now it's back to work on some articles I'm finishing up from the Diffa trip...turns out I'm lucky enough to be getting several awesome visitors from the U.S. in May, so I'll be playing tour guide, wrapping up my work here, giving a presentation at the American Cultural Center, saying my goodbyes, tout au meme fois/ all at the same time!!!

Hope all is well, I hear there has been snow in the Seattle area lately...hard to imagine for me when it's 120 degrees F here!

Pictures from Diffa/ Eastern Niger

Me and the neighbor baby Mariama; the dude on the left on with his cell is the fiance of Iyayi's seventeen year old daughter



Iyayi at the Sunday meeting




Here's a photo of the women's group I spent time with in Diffa



Honestly, I don't actually like horses, but my peace corps friend Jamie and I are looking happy here because we got to take turns riding our friend Paige's horse instead of walking the whole three hours in the deep hot sand in the middle of the afternoon, in order to get to the town where we got a bush taxi back to Zinder, phew! We even brought portable iPod speakers for the journey!

Diffa rocks!

Sannu/ Barka jem tout le monde ! (Hausa/Fulfulde greetings to everyone !)

I am in Zinder, on my way back from a great trip way out East near the Chadian border. I was in a town called Diffa, a "regional capital" in Niger which is actually quite small compared to the other regional capital cities like Zinder, Maradi, and Tahoua. One might guess that the reason Diffa is small and has very little infrastructure is because it is over 1300 kilometers from Niamey, and of course the roads are not exactly great, so it's a 2-day bus ride any way you cut it.


It was totally worth the trip for me, because I went to Diffa to interview a woman named Hadizatou Issa, who has founded several different women's organizations to help the women of her remote, somewhat isolated community and who is just a rockstar of a person. Everyone in the region (aka hundreds of kms around Diffa) knows her by Iyaye, which means "mother of everyone" in Fulfulde, her mother tongue; this title is fitting considering she has six grown children, is currently raising few little grandkids, and she also has (it seems) scores of people in Diffa who call her their mom and who are always stopping my her hut to say hello.

I spent 4 days in Diffa with Iyaye and interviewed her about her life and work, and also just had fun cooking with her and walking around the town with her daughters and napping under a tree in the afternoon heat. I had the chance to attend a weekly women's meeting at her house, where about 30 women gathered to collect money for the "caisse" or communal banking account, which they use to finance small projects or help a sister out with starting a donut making business or sending a kid to a bigger city to go to school, etc. The relationship between these older women (by older I mean 40s and 50s because it's Niger and by my age women have a few kids, may be married and divorced, etc.), many of the widows, was just amazing to see. They work so closely together and help each other out and care for each other's kids and support each other, I don't know how else to describe it but amazing and inspiring. Not to sensationalize things, but I did find it interesting that in two different households I visited, 2 widows were living together with a bundle of kids; turns out they were co-wives and their husband died. Iyaye said that they get along just fine and work together to raise their kids.

When I left Diffa yesterday morning at 5am, I was sitting next to the high school director (Diffa only has 1 high school) who, surprise, knew Iyaye because her sons went to the high school and she was the leader of the parent-teacher association. He said, "I am certain that if she had gone to school, she would be very far from here today." Iyaye speaks 5 languages, including French, fluently despite being illiterate and never having attended school. I thought this was a pretty telling quote.

This morning my Peace Corps friend Jamie and I were supposed to catch a ride out to another friend's village. I wanted to go out there to chat with people about the "exode" phenomenon and hopefully write a little story about it; "exode"= men leave their village and go to Nigeria or other coastal countries like Ivory Coast in search of jobs and money, sometimes they don't come back for a few years, sometimes they come back with HIV/AIDS etc. It's an interesting issue and I'm excited to learn more. Anyway, my friend Paige is building a school in her village and her builder was supposed to drive out for a meeting this morning, so he was going to pick us up at 9 am. We felt lucky because usually it is an hour long bush taxi ride then a 2 hr walk through the sand in the blazing heat to her village. Turns out no luck today; at around 11 am the builder rolls up to the peace corps hostel on his motorcycle and says sorry, his 4x4 broke down yesterday so there is no car to take us . . . well now we are waiting out the heat and plan to do the 2hr sandy walk around 4 pm. C'est la vie, whatever, it will be nice if we ever get to the village. I am headed back to Niamey on Friday, which will bring the number of day-long bus rides to a whopping 4 in the last 10 days! As they say here, Wallai, KAI! All this bus time has given me the chance to muse about the wonders of Nigerien public transport, although you might not be interested, I need to vent, so I think I shall muse about this on my blog next time I write ;) I will also post pictures from beautiful Diffa!

Hope all is well and email me and tell me what you are up to!

Cheers,

Mags

p.s. Guess what? I am leaving Niger in a little over six weeks. Boo, that is crazy, I don't know if I will be ready to leave my home of the last 7 months, it's treated me pretty well!

More pics!

Greetings,

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks:

Street scene in St. Louis, that blue and yellow vehicle is a type of public transport called a car rapide



My tailor Sherif with his wife Alhousseina and his daughter Ghaicha on his 38th birthday, we watched the sunset and had dinner on the Niger river to celebrate:



Rocking Tuareg band at the wedding last weekend:



The family with our Senegalese friend Allasane, at the top of nice hill overlooking Dakar, we were visiting an awesome lighthouse:



Niamey's Petite Marché, center of lots of activity!



Family in pagne:



Cheers,

Maggie

Tuareg wedding of the century rocks Niamey

Oyiwen/Greetings,

I did just post a way-too-long blog entry, but I couldn't resist writing again. Yesterday (Saturday) I went to the most AMAZING wedding, no offense to other cool weddings I have attended, but this was the probably the most ridiculously awesome wedding that I have ever attended, I have never experienced anything like it!

The first cool thing about the wedding was that the "jeune marie" is someone I know well, one of Habsou's sisters who works a lot at Tin Hinan, Habsou's women's NGO in Niamey, which I hang out at a bit when I'm in town. Her name is Ramatou. This was the first Nigerien wedding where I knew the bride well; I have been to lots of weddings but usually with friends, so I didn't necessarily know the bride and groom well.

On Friday night, my friend Alice and I went to visit Ramatou at Habsou's parent's house. Ramatou had just had her hands and feet covered in beautiful, intricate henna, but she was mad b/c she thought the design had too many "lines" in it, and apparently Nigerien dudes don't like that kind of henna much; maybe she just had some wedding-eve jitters. Alice and I watched a crew of ten women peel and chop potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and other veggies for a couple of hours (seriously). The quantities of food they were preparing were absurd, and one of the marmites was large enough to fit an ENTIRE SACK OF RICE THAT IS 50 KILOS! And Habsou said they were using the meat (and everything else, brains, etc.) from an entire cow for the occasion. Anyway it was impressive. People get stressed about weddings in the U.S. but often people have food catered for a wedding with 200 people, instead of cooking it themselves . . . not Nigeriens! We left the house after midnight; the women were still chopping and I don't think any of them got much sleep, considering that the fatia (religious ceremony) started at 8 am.

I didn't make it back to the house where the wedding was happening until 11 am (I had to visit some neighbors and have 3 rounds of tea with them, which takes a while), but when I arrived, the party was popping. Men were milling around outside the house, incense was billowing out of the big salon, women were still cooking, others were eating, babies were crying and laughing, toddlers were running, and somewhere in the back, some women were doing the traditional Tuareg wailing. And there was a mini concert with sweet Tuareg instruments (violins, little mandolins) going on the porch. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely (minus the crying babies), and it was just a great party. There were two old women who were literally hopping up and down as they encouraged a young man who was using a gigantic stick to pound millet in the giant-sized pot over a smoky open fire. I stuck around long enough to eat 2 meals and greet everyone I knew at the wedding, plus make some new friends. Then I had to go home to regroup and change outfits, because the women said I was dirty. If there is anytime an unmarried woman is supposed to look saucy in Niger, it is at a wedding! If the marriage is not an arranged one, I think the most likely place to meet your husband is at a wedding. This isn't a huge concern of mine, so I actually just went and bought a wedding present (colorful plastic platter, large metal bowl) and didn't shower and came back.

When I got back there were over a hundred people in the street (not paved, more like the desert, overrun with too much damn sand), spilling out of a large tent, rocking out to a loud Tuareg guitar concert. Ghaicha (Habsou's daughter) found me and dragged me first to say hi to Ramatou, who was still hiding in the bedroom (the bride can't come out until 9 pm or so, when the husband's family comes to take her to the groom's new house), and then she led me back to the concert and pushed me into the tent. Suddenly I was in the middle of a rocking dance party, mostly women wearing beautiful clothes plus some random kids and then men poking the head in. There were three electric guitarists, a drummer with a nice drum set, a fancy guy in a boubou and turban, and a bunch of amps. The musicians don't usually play together but got together for the wedding and they were amazing. I tried to take capture the mood with photos but it wasn't really possible. After an hour or so of dancing, yelling, clapping, etc., I emerged from the tent super sweaty and got a ride with a friend on someone's moto, through the deep sand to the main road, so of course we fell off once but ca va. The party wasn't even close to over when I left at 6 pm, but I was tired and wanted to go swimming.

The point is, I cannot believe how hardcore these Nigeriens were about partying it up at this wedding. It was a total blast for everyone but the hidden-away bride, who will hopefully get to watch the festivities on video later.

These kind of days are my favorite kind in Niger, the ones where I am doing something fun and ridiculous that I have never done before—shaking my tailfeather with Tuaregs of all ages while speaking Tamashek and holding a baby?—and then I think, what the heck am I doing? Is this actually happening? Then I feel really lucky to be here and get sad about the thought of leaving ;(

Hope all is well wherever you are, and that you have the chance to shake your booty ("bouge ta fes" en Francais) this weekend!

Here's a picture from the Tuareg wedding with my Tuareg moms, Habsou (left) and Fatima (right)...notice their matching wedding uniforms and the appliqued guinea fowl on the straps of my shirt:



And here's a cute pic of my real Mom and me at a bird reserve near St. Louis, Senegal:



Xoxo, Maggie

Fick Family Adventures in Senegal

Salut tout le monde,

I returned to Niamey on Monday after an AMAZING time in Senegal, and I intended to write about the trip on Tuesday, but then things got busy and now it is Friday…c'est la vie, this week I got some work done saw my Niamey pals and Tuareg family, who I had missed, and also go swimming in the Olympic-sized pool! The pool is actually 1 cm short of 50 meters, apparently someone made a petit mistake; oh well, I still enjoy doing a few laps, and it's officially the only way to exercise now that hot season is seriously under.

Now, details on the Vacation of Greatness, where to start…I guess with just how awesome it was to see my parents and my little brother Charlie after a darn long time apart! It was so nice to have all of us together, and especially to reunite in Senegal, because (1) I wanted my family to see why I liked living in Africa so much and (2) We actually spent more time together because there weren't distractions like Blackberries, iPods (well we did have those), work, etc. My mom did remark that at times it was a bit claustrophobic for the 3 non-Francophone Ficks, b/c they could only speak to each other, whereas I could speak to Senegalese people…I for one enjoyed being the mouthpiece for the family, you all know that I like to talk;) I realized how hard it is being a translator, but it was definitely good practice for me! I had to think of accurate translations of my favorite phrases, such as "incha'allah" and "wallAIHI!"

I arrived in Dakar a few days before the family arrived, so I was charged and ready to go when they arrived at 5:30 am on Monday morning. Good thing our hotel wasn't ready, it was a great excuse for me to drag my exhausted parents and brother all around Dakar, to the top of the minaret in the Grande Mosque, down the fancy new oceanfront boulevard ("La Corniche"), and into delicious patisseries .

We spent a few fun days in the capital, and a highlight was hanging out with Allasane, a nice Senegalese student who was a friend of an American professor who I met in Niamey (West Africa is really quite small once you get to know it un peu!). He took us to the top of a lighthouse called La Mamelle, where we could see the whole city and Westernmost point of Africa, and we also enjoyed some tasty yassa poisson, a traditional Senegalese dish of rice and fish or chicken topped with sauteed lemon and onion sauce, together at the West African Research Center.

We also visited Ile de Gorée, an island with old colonial buildings just off the coast of Dakar. Gorée was a former holding site for captured people on the way to the Americas to become slaves, and there is an though-provoking museum there. We met a saucy lady named Mariama who slapped me on the butt when I was bargaining with her for a necklace for my mom; I ended up getting a sweet purple complet/skirt-top set, and mom even got one necklace for free! Mom, Dad, and Char: Mariama says hello, I went back to greet her when I was back on Gorée the weekend after you left.

Here's a picture of my Mom and me and Mariama when we were haggling about the price of the things we wanted to buy from her:



And here's a picture of us after we had agreed on the price and were friends again:



After Dakar we headed North with our trusty taximan Badian, a delightful dude who has seatbelts in his cab -- never see that in Niger! We got stuck in a HUGE traffic jam on our way to St. Louis because we were traveling on Mouloud, aka the Prophet's Birthday, and there were thousands of people coming back from a pilgrimage to an important mosque…wallai it was fun to see so many people in so many types of transport!

I am getting longwinded, so I'm going to resort to bullet point highlights to round out the description of our vacay:

· St. Louis is another old colonial town with a kinda weird vibe, but Char got a rockin patchwork boubou called a "baillefal"…not spelling that right but I encourage you to look up the history of the different Muslim sects in Senegal, there is definitely something about the baillefal men, I believe they are part of the Touba sect. Also, Mom got a little sick but she kept a smile on her face and got well in time to go to an awesome bird reserve, where we rode in a pirogue and learned about the environmental history of the river and ocean and spit of land (sorry I'm not so biologically-oriented, it was really cool though). We got to chill in a Mauritanian tent and drink 3 rounds of Senegalese sugary-minty tea, also excellent.

· After a few days in St.Louis, we cruised down to the Petite Cote, South of Dakar, and landed at this "funky and rustic" seaside hotel covered in seashells. The views were nice, but not everyone was a fan of the well water system, which meant showers weren't so possible (no biggy though). There was also a ridiculous amount of blatant sex tourism, which was a bit of a turnoff. Not to make light of this, it's a big issue in Senegal and the Gambia, and it's mostly white European women who fund the industry. Gross.

· Next we went to another beach town called La Somone and stayed in a nice little house with a cute pool, steps from the ocean, running water, etc., much more our style. Dad ran a lot one day, Mom did too (natch), Char and I slept a lot, and all of us got a lot of sun. It was nice to be in a quiet, not-too-touristy town, but we did enjoy going into Saly-Portugal, which is a rather luxe resort town with some nice amenities.

· On the family's last day in Senegal, we got stuck in a 3-hour traffic jam on the way back from the beach (good thing Dad wasn't driving!) and then did an awesome job getting some more colorful clothes made for Charlie and Dad by our new tailor friend.

· It was definitely sad to say goodbye to my parents and Charlie, but we had a wonderful trip and I am already looking forward to seeing them in August at home on Bainbrdige, incha'allah.

After the family left, I stayed with my cool friend Leigh, who is on an awesome yearlong grant called the Watson fellowship (watsonfellowship.org). She studying reproductive rights in four countries: Peru, South America, Senegal, and Turkey. She's almost done with her time in Dakar so she was a great tour guide for me; we took the crazy crowded car rapides (hard to explain, bus-like, painted blue and yellow, you jump in the back like you would get in a paddy wagon, you trip over people, you bang on the metal wall to get out…) and also ate the best Lebanese sandwich of my life (if you have ever been to West Africa, you know how omnipresent Lebanese cuisine is). I also had fun chilling with the Senegalese Fulbrighters, who showed me a bit of the Dakar nightlife, wallai, those Dakarois are stylish, daring fashionistas if I do say so myself! I could have done without the blasting techno music but it was a blast nonetheless.

It is great to be home in Niger, it really does feel like home here now. Next week I am "voyage-ing" out to Diffa, a stone's throw from the Chadian border, thus VERY FAR AWAY from Niamey and it will be a painful journey. More on why I am doing this next time!

Hugs to all and thanks for reading!

Maggie

Wallai! Ca fait TROP longtemps!/ it's been a while

Howdy everyone,

Well, a couple people have emailed me lately asking if I have fallen off of the face of the earth, or settled permanently in the desert among the nomads, so I decided it was time to stop being lazy and update my blog! In fact, I am still in Niamey and doing quite well. Sorry for being out of touch for quite a while; my main excuse is that I have been doing a lot of writing and using my laptop a lot, so when I have free time I prefer not to spend it staring at the computer screen. But again, sorry for not writing for so long and I hope you will find your way back to my blog and say hi!

Since it's been so long since I've written, I don't quite know where to start. I guess I'll start with what is most fresh in my memory—the Advanced English class I visited tonight at the American Cultural Center. The nice guy who directs the English language program at the ACC asked me to come speak to one of the English classes, and so I showed up at 7pm like he said and found a very nice Nigerien woman as the teacher, who spoke English quite well. At first I thought the class was incredibly small (there were only 5 students), but 15 more showed up after the sunset prayer. There were 5 women in the class and about 15 men, and they looked to me to be mostly in their late 20s or 30s, some older. This makes sense because the English classes at the ACC are not free, and of course not everyone can afford to pay for them, especially not young students, and also this was the advanced class. We had a lively discussion about the U.S. elections, and at one point one of the students came to the board and explained to the class the issue with the superdelegates in the Obama-Clinton race. Someone had asked about the primary election, and I avoided going into the details of the superdelegates because I didn't want to confuse everyone and was already concerned that it might be difficult for them to understand me. I was wrong, because the student got up and spoke English twice as fast as I was speaking (still slower than my normal speed ;)) and explained the delegate process perfectly. It is incredibly impressive to see how much people here know about the U.S. elections; if Americans knew even a fraction as much as other world ctiizens about different political systems, the world would be a different/better place in my opinion.

I was also using my notorious "Franglais," a combination of French and English plus a few local expressions in Hausa and Zarma, until the teacher said, "Maggie, please, we speak English here"; oops. Another funny incident occurred when we were talking about Barack and Hillary and I said, "Do you think the American people would really elect a woman as their president?" I said this because I have had many discussions with Nigeriens about the elections, and sometimes (not always), men will say something like, "but seriously, the U.S. is too powerful, there is no way that a woman could handle that position." I just wanted to see what these English students thought, and to my delight, they laughed and said, "Are you crazy? Of course a woman could be President!" and "Come on, why not?" I am personally rooting for Obama, but it did make me happy to hear that these people were okay with the idea of a female president. The English students also enjoyed the pictures of my family and friends and couldn't believe that Charlie is my "little brother."
Since last I wrote, I have been trying pretty hard to research and write newspaper articles to send to international papers. I have written about street food, African fabric (called pagne), the taxicab scene in Niamey, a camel ride in the desert, and I am currently working on a story about "les anciens combatants," Nigerien soldiers who fought for France in World War II. I'm very excited because in April I'm going to a town called Diffa, in the far East of the country and practically on the Chadian border. I am traveling there to interview (and write kind of a profile/portrait story about) a cool woman who started an NGO to help widows of armed conflict in Niger; she is illiterate but speaks French and Hausa and a few other languages, and is quite well known in Niger. It will take me two solid days on the bus to reach Diffa, and in April it will be around 120 degrees F in the shade, but it should be worth it to get to hang out with this lady for a few days. To be honest, it's quite possible that none of these stories I have mentioned will be published, but this is a good learning experience for me and I want to give this journalism idea a try before doing something drastic like moving to a random city and doing an unpaid internship with a newspaper! I'll let you know if anything comes of this silly plan…

I think I've had amoebas/stomach bacteria/giardia/whatever you want to call it twice since I wrote last. That's okay though, people here are so ridiculously nice that when you tell them you're sick they come over and visit you and bring you food, although the last thing you want is food. They also give you advice about how to kill the parasites; I think the craziest advice I received was from a Peace Corps volunteer, who told me to fast for 24 hours to starve the bacteria and swallow whole cloves of garlic (I didn't eat for a while but I couldn't make myself do the garlic thing). I'm making a Niger scrapbook and I put the Fasigyne pill box in it. Fasigyne is a serious parasite-killing drug that makes you want to lie under your ceiling fan all day long. To my credit I only laid under my fan for a few hours yesterday and then forced myself to go get some things done, but only because I am going to Senegal on Friday and need to tie things up before then…oh yes, on Friday I am going to Dakar, Senegal, where I will see my parents and my brother Charlie and it will be a delightful wonderful vacation! It will be the Fick Family's first "sejour en Afrique"/ visit to Africa, so I am trying very hard to make it a great one, in hopes that they will return to visit me again if I end up staying here a bit longer! ;)

Besides writing articles and thinking about new topics and emailing away in hopes of something working out, I have been enjoying weekend yoga with some friends, little trips to Sunday markets, pirogue rides on the Niger river (including hippo sightings!), and especially entertaining guests at my house. Well, it's not my house, I share it with two lovely roommates, and it couldn't be more fun. We have outfitted the place with plenty of plastic mats for optimal lounging potential, and we have great speakers which lead to interesting dance parties; a recent memorable one involved my 45+year old Tuareg friend Fatimata shaking her booty to some Coupe Decalé (look up the music videos on youtube) while her teenage daughter Leila and my homestay sister Ghaicha whipped their braids around at a frightening speed…here's an okay photo of the scene:



I also had an unexpected visitor (who I shall not reveal in the blog), which was fantastic because I got to play the role of Niamey tour guide. Because I've spent the past two months in Niamey, I feel more at home here now than in the beginning of my project when I was traveling around the country a lot. It was great to show my friend my favorite places (a Cameroonian restaurant, the Grand Marché) and introduce the visitor to my friends. Highlights were going to the Grand Mosque, going on a tour of a fabric factory (truly a dream come true), a full moon picnic on the sand dunes outside of Niamey, and tutoring my Tuareg family's kiddos in English.

Today I was reading my friend Becky's awesome blog (she is in Indonesia on a Fulbright), and she was commenting on how generous people are in Indonesia, and the idea of communal/collective vs. individualist societies. It is also true in Niger that people are willing to do almost anything to help other people, and this is not an exaggeration. For example, it is considered rude not to offer what you are eating to other people in the room who are not eating. If you compliment someone on her earrings, she will probably reach up and take them off and try to give them to you. I think it is doing me a lot of good living in this communally oriented society, because (I hope) it is making me more cognizant of the needs of others, even if just in small ways. People here set such a good example of generosity and consideration for others, so it is a blessing just to be around this culture. I try to think of nice "cadeaux"/gifts to bring to my friends' houses, whether it's a bottle of ginger juice or a kid's coloring book, and now I don't even think twice about showing up at someone's house unannounced; I think the rule here is, as long as you say "salaam aleikum" before you enter, you are always welcome. I hope that I will come back to the U.S. and continue these practices, even if my friends and family find them bizarre! I really like having visitors and being a visitor and making people feel welcome, so I hope that I will remember how much fun I had doing these things in Niger and not let myself get stressed out or forget how easy and fun it is to just hang out on the floor on a plastic mat (although I don't know yet how I will transport my beloved plastic mats back home!)

Ok, this entry has gone on for quite long enough, so I will wrap it up now. Thanks for the emails and letters, I love being in touch and promise to send you a postcard with cool stamps (of President Tandja, of camels) if you send me your address! One more thing: I'm going to SE Asia and China from mid-June to mid-August, then I'll fly home to Seattle. Then after a few wks I will probably move to 1 of 2 places, both start with Ds and one is in the U.S. and one is in West Africa, but who knows we'll see. In the event that you are my friend or family member and have the intention to be in any of those places I mentioned—Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong, Seattle…--DO let me know so we can get in touch! And (if my money is not all gone, incha'allah I won't spend it all in Asia) I may need to make trips to other U.S. cities (San Fran, DC, NYC) to find friends that I miss a whole lot, so if you want, email me if you wouldn't mind a visitor in mid-late August.

I will try to post more frequent updates, and I will definitely post some pics after the Fick family reunion au Senegal! Unfortunately I lost my camera in a taxi recently, so I don't have too many fun pics to share, but I'll leave you with one I took in February in a small island village in the middle of the Niger river up near the Malian border, where someone expressed their love to someone else with a creative wall painting. Don't ask me why it's in English, but it's pretty cool:



And just one more, taken by my friend Alice of her friend's little son, how can you not love this little fellow?



Sai an jima/ see you soon (in Hausa),

Mags

p.s. it's only March so I'm not going to start any serious complaining about hot season just yet, but if you are bored, check out the high temps in Niamey. At least mangos are abundant and cheap now.

New pics!

Habsou giving a speech at her NGO's (Tin Hinan) Graduation ceremony for the first group of women who have made it through the training, skills building, and literacy classes that Tin Hinan offers. They began their training in Feb. 2006, so they have worked hard for this day.






Class photo!






My good friend Ruki and me in the Petit Marche, this was while I was shadowing an awesome streetfood vendor while she made her weekly purchases

just checkin in

Hello everybody,

Happy late Groundhog’s Day and Super Bowl Sunday weekend! Okay that was a weird beginning to a blog post, but those were two things I thought about this past weekend so I thought I would mention them…in fact, these American cultural landmarks made me realize just how far I am from home, but not at all in a bad way, in an exciting way! I’ll explain.

On Sunday, after spending most of the day in fragrant (that’s a nice way to put it), bustling markets with some awesome Nigerien women, I went swimming in my friends’ UNHEATED pool and It felt great. As I paddled around, I thought, it is the beginning of February, and I am swimming in an unheated pool.

If there was a groundhog in Niger, it would say that the windy “harmattan” season is almost over and it’s about to get ridiculously hot. I’m actually scared for the hot season, but I am trying to approach it positively by thinking about mangoes and swimming and how some people say saunas and sweating are good for your health.

On Sunday night, at 12:30 am to be precise, the Super Bowl game started and some American friends and I watched the game at the U.S. Marine’s house. That was a surreal experience in itself, but the funniest part was that after Tom Petty’s performance (I did not like his hair), I decided to head back to my friends’ house, where I was spending the night. It was 3 am and I made the 15-minute walk back home by myself…don’t worry, it was completely safe! The one person I crossed paths with said “salaam aleikum,” which means “peace be with you,” or “I come in peace.” I wouldn’t walk just anywhere in Niamey, but still, how cool is it to be able to walk around in the middle of the night in some parts of the capital city?? Plus there are stars b/c this is a small city!

These days, I’m just plugging away on some stories about various aspects of Niamey life, taking Hausa lessons, tutoring my Tuareg family in English, and watching the African Nations cup. I also have been buying African fabric in preparation for getting some clothes made for my American parents and my bro Charlie, who are going to meet me in Dakar, Senegal, in March! Yipeeee…I’m also looking forward to hosting a friend who is coming to visit me next week.

I hope you folks in the U.S. enjoy watching Super Tuesday results come in, I will be excited to check online tomorrow!
Much love,
Maggie

More desert photos

My friend Tambara and I rolling down sand dunes. We did this a bunch at the Festival




Tuareg dudes watching the sunset at the Festival:

Back in Niamey!

As I said in my Mali entry below, it's good to be back in Niamey, even with things the way they are here right now (that is deliberately vague, if you want to know more you can email me or check the news). As it turns out, I am getting the chance to do more writing, which is great, and to spend time with my old homestay family.

I have started tutoring the three kids and my "mom" in English. Tonight my "dad" was giving me a ride home and we had a great conversation. At the house, he and mom Habsou and I were discussing where their eldest child and the only girl, Ghaicha, should go to high school; although she is only 12, this is already a hot topic of conversation for Ghaicha's parents. Luckily this family has the means to send her to one of the best private schools in Niamey, which will definitely increase her chances of being able to attend a good university (most likely out of Niger, because the only university in Niger is often on strike and is notoriously difficult to wrestle a degree from). In the car, he said that all of the hard work that he does in his job is for Ghaicha, because he knows that being a girl or a woman in Niger is not easy, and that Ghaicha needs all of the advantages she can get. He said he wasn't too worried about his two young sons; they will be okay even if they don't do that well in school, he said, and I agree with him. Ghaicha, however, will have to work doubly hard to get a job in Niger, even with an excellent education. It seems like her father wants his daughter's education to be like protective but malleable armor, to give her the ability to choose whatever career she wants and to have courage and wisdom not to be discouraged by setbacks she might face.

I have really learned a lot from the Wouros, and I respect their commitment to education and to their family. I also admire their commitment to their cultural traditions as well as their tolerance and openness to cultures and people other than their own. From day one, they welcomed me, a stranger, into their home, so wholeheartedly and easily that all of a sudden, without even realizing it, I began to feel like part of the family.

I think this is one of those West African "nothing ever works but everything always works out" moments. Even though I was stressed and semi-annoyed about not being able to leave Niamey at the moment for research due to some unforeseeable circumstances, things are turning out better than I expected here so I can't complain. (P.S.--I hope no one takes offense at that comment, I am not trying to generalize about all of West Africa, but I learned that saying in Cameroon and what I take it to mean is, for example, even if the bush taxi breaks down for 10 hours on the road in the blistering sun, you will probably meet some nice old lady who will take you to her house and make you food and the day will turn out fine).

On a closing note, I checked my mail today at the American Cultural Center and found a nice stack of amazing letters and cards from amazing people—thank you SO much for writing! It really made my day to see a crazily stamped envelope from Indonesia and Katie Beaton's stories about working for Heifer in Arkansas (Heifer is here too, Katie! And sorry but I DID eat too much sheepmeat on Tabaski;)) and also some super cute photos of my adorable cousin Diego with my dad. If you think I don't have your address, drop me an email and I'll send you a postcard. I'm really digging snail mail these days so I promise to write ya if you let me know where to reach you.

Thanks for reading and I hope all is well wherever you are.

Cheers,

Maggie

Mali 2008: Tinariwen and Public Transport Experiences from Hell

Oyiwen/ Greetings tout le monde,

Well it has been a long time since I have updated this blog, I'm sorry if you are a regular blog watcher, but honestly there is a lot going on in the world and on the internet so I'm sure you have had plenty of other sites/blogs to surf besides mine! ;)

Last Friday, I took my first inter-African flight on Air Senegal from Bamako, Mali back home to Niamey. This flight was truly a treat after spending two and a half days traveling by bus through Burkina Faso to get to Mali in the first place, and then darting all over Mali, even North of Timbuktu, by foot, taxi, bus, 4x4, idiotic minibus, ferry, and my favorite, in the back of a pickup truck through the sand, for over two weeks.

The stewardess made flight announcements in French and Wolof (big Senegalese language), we flew into the sunset, and the French teacher I was sitting next to ended up giving me a ride home from the airport. Niamey is more of a small town than a big city, and it felt great to get home and have friends and my homestay family to visit. One of my favorite things about Niamey is honestly the public transport sitch. After seeing (I think) 5 different West African capital cities, I can say with confidence that Niamey's shared taxi system, which costs 200 CFA per customer (now about 50 cents instead of 40 cents b/c or the crappy exchange rate, booo wonder how that happened ahem mr. bush and recession) to go almost anywhere in the city, stands out among its peers (scary motocycle taxis in Cotonou, beatup wornout cars from the 60s with kinda mean drivers in Ouaga…).

All this is to say that there is no place like home and even as landmines pepper Niger and tensions rise (I know this kind of stuff doesn't make international news, if you are curious go to newsnow.co.uk but don't be alarmed everything is fine here, -ish), I still enjoy living here.

Backing up a bit, to before my flight of greatness, my trip to Mali itself was amazing! I traveled with my friend Elyse/ Tambara (her Nigerien name), who is a Boston University student spending the whole year studying in Niamey, and my friend Dillon/ Bouba (his Malian name), who is doing a Fulbright grant on the cultural and economic effects of tourism in Timbuktu and the Dogon country. Dillon was a great tour guide, heck he is studying tourism so he already knows the ropes, so we did some awesome stuff.

Some of you know that ever since I found out I was going to Niger, I decided to attend the Festival au Desert, held annually on some sand dunes near the desert oasis in Essakane, which is 70 km Northwest of Timbuktu. I figured, I was going to be in the neighborhood, so why miss out on this chance of a lifetime? The Festival began in 2001 (I think) and was created by prominent Malian artists such as Tinariwen, to celebrate Malian music and culture, in particular Tuareg culture. The Festival has steadily gained popularity, and besides being host to most major West African music groups, from Amadou and Miriam to Tiken Jah Fakoly to Ali Farka Touré, has also attracted members of Led Zeppelin and Manu Chao to play in the desert.

The Festival was 3 nights long, and for the second two nights, the music went until after 4 am, which was cool, because then we would lay around in the sand and eat watermelon or look at camels for the most of the day until the sun started going down and the music started again. My Tuareg tea set was a big hit, and we busted it out throughout the Festival, although I still mess up a lot and make the tea too bitter or too sugary or too weak, I have a ways to go. We met lots of cool folks, including some lively Australians (actually we met them during the minibus ride from hell without shocks through the desert piste in the middle of the night, another story), an elderly French National Geographic journalist couple, and some young Americans who we rode camels with. It was weird to see these beautiful sand dunes littered with a few thousand people, mostly dorky looking anassaras/ toubabs/ white tourists sporting turbans (I did this too and thus am not exempt from being made fun of) and the trappings of an American/Euro music festival. Luckily there were a fair number of locals, who got free admission, although the transport all the way to Essakane probably made the trip prohibitively expensive for most Malians who didn't come to sell stuff except for nearby Tuaregs with camels. My favorite moment by far was a surprise performance by Tinariwen, the Malian ex-rebels who play beautiful bluesy electric guitar and sing about the desert and being Tuareg and their camels; it was special because most of the Tuaregs in the audience started freaking out when Tinariwen came on stage, and they sung along in Tamashek to the songs. It was a brilliant combination of beautiful music and Tuareg pride and I will never forget it.

After the Festival, Dillon and I had to bid adieu to our friend Tambara b/c she had to catch a flight to the U.S., so we put her on a 24 hr bus to Bamako, said incha'allah and parted ways. Unfortunately, our good wishes did not make the bus arrive in 24 hrs, and Tambara missed her flight by 2 hrs- major bummero, but things ended up working out, as they always do here. We headed to Dogon country to go hiking for 3 days, which was gorgeous and relaxing and I could go there every year for the rest of my life and be happy. The Dogon country looks a bit like the SW of the U.S., which of course reminded me of fun trips with Pomona friends in college, but the icing on the cake so to speak is the super interesting history of the region; it was first populated by the Tellem people, who lived entirely in the cliffs, but eventually they peaced out to Central Africa and the Dogons came around. The Dogons are a mix of Muslim and Christian but 100 percent Animist either way. Their society is full of unique traditions and codes of conduct, which we were lucky enough to learn about from our cool Dogon guide Ibrahima.

After another daylong bus ride (on which we met some saucy Englishmen who sold their 4x4 in Timbuktu after motoring across the Sahara), we arrived back in Bamako where I did some more damage to my bank account by buying more fabric. Besides getting to stay with Dillon's awesome homestay family, a highlight In Bamako was the National Museum. It had a great pan-African photo exhibit and a cool permanent exhibit on traditional Malian fabric, called "bogolan," which is woven cotton fabric dyed and tie dyed with vibrant indigo or deep muddy brown colors. There was also a sweet coffeeshop/diner that served banana pancakes; it's hard to describe what a big deal this is if you don't live in west Africa, but maybe some of my friends living in Asia can get my drift, anyway it was a rapturous experience and there was also real syrup and decent coffee to round things out. Dillon and I were lucky enough to get the chance to meet Carleton College professor Cherif Keita, a French professor who takes Carleton students to his home country every other year to study Bambara (the local language spoken in Bamako), as well as Malian art and culture. He is a delightful person and gave an inspiring lecture after a play abou the first Malian empire performed by a Malian theater troupe.

I'm very glad to have had the chance to see Mali, because before going there, I tended to lump Mali and Niger together and to think of them as kind of similar in terms of being large Sahelian nations with some overlapping ethnic groups and so on; of course I was mostly wrong, the countries are remarkably different and have way different political and social histories shaping their future, not to mention rather distinct issues at stake in the simultaneous (but not necessarily coordinated)Tuareg rebellions underway right now in each country. I hope you enjoy the photos I have posted here, unfortunately it takes too long to post another Picasa web album, so this will have to be it for now.

Xooxxo and "In i che" (all purpose hi-bye type greeting in Bambara), Mags



Me with Dillon's homestay mom, Mama Coulibaly, in Bamako:




Bush taxi rush at the Djenne market!




Watermelons, anyone?




The Djenné mosque on market day, saweet!




This dude tied my turban for me...we had plenty of time to hang out, because on that day, we waited for 8 HOURS for a 4x4 from a town called Mopti to Timbuktu (the 4x4 jeep never came, and we ended up taking a minibus, grr):




Good times on the bus from Bamako to a town called Segou (on the Niger river, very pretty) with a mango distributor and a mother of 8:




On the ferry crossing the Niger river near Timbuktu… wallai, I did not get into the story about the absurdly painful yet kinda fun minbus ride to Timbuktu, but long story short this picture was taken after a sleepless night spent in a minibus with 22other people…I have never been that close to having a panic attack than I was at 4 in the morning in an overheated bus with a billion peoples' limbs jabbing me every which way.




The Festival stage from a nearby dune:




Camels blocking the view of a traditional camel dance/ Tuareg drum circle called the tende…it was cool to watch once I edged in, trust me:




Me chilling on a sand dune at the Festival:




My friend Dillon and I in Dogon country:




This is a traditional courthouse in Dogon country. The roof is low to prevent people from standing up quickly in anger and storming out ... a good way to remind people to have patience and not blow their lids!




Oh, the irony! A "Tuareg" siting in Bamako!




Fun Fulani hats and scarves for sale:




Enough said!