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!