Tuesday

4/28/09
I knew it wouldn’t last. I am writing this entry the morning of the 29th at the inspection, listening to theories of Kaddafi (the Libyan president) as a destabilizing factor for countries. Evidence: He passed through Mauritania, now there are problems there. Then he passed though Guinea, now problems there. Just a month ago he was here in Niger…. Problems to come?
Anyway, this is supposed to be about yesterday, Tuesday. Up and going through the normal morning routine, when my attention was drawn from the overly juicy mango I was eating to the knocking at my front gate.
Dripping juice from my chin and elbows I made my way to the tap to rinse and opened to door. It was Megan, she had biked up from Malanville to do our radio show that afternoon. I hadn’t been expecting her till later and here she was already at 8AM. No big problem. Welcoming Megan in, I told her I needed to run by the inspection quick. I had a meeting with Saidou to talk about a possible field trip with some student government kids.
Took a show and then my leave after a bit of catching up, being over a month since we had last seen each other.
At the inspection everyone was gone, all out in the bush doing a tour of schools. Even Saidou who I had just talked to the day before was MIA. So typical and so frustrating.
Deciding maybe I’d try again in the afternoon after the radio, I was taking my bike out onto the road when I saw something strange: Someone white. Well whiter at least than your average Nigerien. It was the new JICA volunteer in town, Hidenori. We had been texting back and forth a bit, but had yet to make a face to face meet.
Stopping by the road side, we exchanged pleasantries. He’s learning Haussa and not very strong yet in French so we had limited comprehension, but sill all good to talk to another foreigner. Was leading him back to my place to hang there for a bit when I saw Saidou flagging me down.
Stopping by the road side, again, (second time within 100 feet), I talked to him for a couple minutes. Introduced him to Hidenori and asked about the plans for our possible trip.
Here’s the run down on this work stuff –
Right now, Ibrahim, who works at one of our local NGOs that works with human rights is really into the student government concept. It fits well with teaching civic rights/responsibilities, children’s rights, etc. He has been instrumental in helping fund the elections (ballot paper, envelopes, etc.) and now wants to organize a training for the student leaders to help them better understand their roles. He asked me when I saw him last week if Saidou could be the one to lead it since he had been at my training in Niamey.
Saidou, who works at the inspection, wants to do a trip with a small group of students and teachers from each school to Kollo, where there are student governments which have been in place for a couple years, as a way of seeing SGs already up and running. A way for students to have an idea what they themselves should be doing their own SG work.
Similar ideas right? Help students understand their roles and responsibilities within the student government frame-work? I thought, hey let’s combine, work together. We can do a couple days of training and then a trip, or vice versa, trip then training. Either way they seem to work well together.
Saidou was pretty cold to the idea and after pressing him on it, he said he wants Ibrahim to ask him personally if he wants to be the trainer, not to go through me. It’s a Nigerien respect thing. Can make work hard when you have to worry about insulting someone all the time, I was just trying to be a communication between the two. Guess I better figure out a solution for that, I still want to do a combined project and the school year is running by, so we need to get on this quickly.
After telling Saidou I’d talk to Ibrahim about asking him personally, I left with Hidenori for my house. There we chatted along with Megan for a bit, then he was off to get oil for his motorcycle – Yeah, Peace Corps get bikes, JICA get motorcycles. Meh.
Megan and I finished up the radio script for that afternoon, which I had done most of the day before. Needed her to bring knowledge of Meningitis, since I know next to nothing about it except that we’ve had a outbreak recently in Niger and now Doctors Without Borders is doing a vaccination campaign that I wanted to promote on the show (“Meningitis is bad! Get your kids vaccinated!”).
-- They call Meningitis ‘jinde kobu’ here : twisted neck --
The show was also to be on Malaria since World Malaria Day was just a couple days before and the hospital and other locations were giving out mosquito nets. I wanted to make sure people understood their importance in malaria prevention (i.e. “don’t sell them, don’t use them as fishing nets”). Also talked about symptoms, treatments, and other prevention techniques, like cutting down all the weeds behind the house where mosquitoes are likely to hide during the day. Prepared lunch while we finished up, the napped under the kitchen fan for about an hour before getting stuff together and biking to the radio station.
After the sweaty ride in the 110degree heat up the hill, we got there, started to set everything up, and then…. Power outage. Typical. No power = no radio. We sat and waited, but our whole time passed and no power, so we started to get ready to go and, as if on cue, the power comes back on. Again, Typical. TIA – This is Africa. Oh well, next week then.
From radio station, biked to Malanville. Megan had just returned from Cotonou and had brought some SOUR CREAM with her, so we were going to make tacos.
Quick stop at the market for flour and peppers, and a delicious, semi-frozen bissap (hibiscus juice), then to her house. Everything was made from scratch except the beans (from a can) – tortias, bean and tofu filling, salsa, sour cream. Amazingly delicious.
After dinner we went out for a beer with Melanie, the German student is doing some research and work on fish and fish stock in Malanville.
Two beers, good conversation (in English!) and back to Megan’s for a well deserved bucket bath and bed.
Played a little harmonica. Megan said I should play her to sleep, so did just that, then put my own head down and slept well and deep.
One problem on that day – Didn’t memorize the day’s quota of ‘The Raven.’ Leaving that for the morrow.