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