Video Post

Posted a link to our movie on the navigation bar to the right. We made it while stuck at our training site for a week following the land mine attacks which took place in the country in December. After a couple days we realized that we had very little to do up there and maybe four movies to chose from: XXX: State of the Union, Zoolander, Grease, and Love Actually... We became very familiar with each one as they continuously cycled through the DVD player.

If you haven't seen XXX: SU, here's a recap. Action, Action, Action, and some plot about killing the president during his state of the union address. It's bad... But it has some good Samuel L. Jackson bad-ass-ness in it. So being in a desperate state for entertainment and having a part-time film school student (JT Simms, director/actor/producer) at the helm we set to work to make our own. Originally we were going to try to mimic most of the movie, but as projects of this stature tend to, this film took on a life of its own.



Le Monde Update:
I convinced the office here to let me use one of their phones to call France and complain about how they haven't taken care of my subscription yet. Struggled through an entire phone call in French, which was tough, but the fact that I could do it is encouraging. By the end they told me they had changed the subscription and put through a transfer of the money back to my credit card, should be upwards of $700 coming back to me, which will be nice if I ever decide to go on vacation over here.

Speaking of vacations; Kelsey will be coming in July before she takes up her place as the new elementary music educator at the American School of Kuwait. I think we're going to have a month together, spend a couple weeks in Niger, Niamey, Gaya, see the giraffes, and then go to Ghana (?). A months not a whole lot of time, but it will be extremely nice just to see her after a year apart (nice would definitely be an understatement). My first real visit from the outside world. Still feels like this is a totally removed life over here. In many ways it is, but life over there goes on as well. Like Kyle, my cousin, getting married and unfortunately, unlike my lucky sister, no one here is going to buy me a plane ticket home for it.

That's it for the moment, check out the video!

Niamey... Again

So it seems like I've been spending a lot of time in Niamey as of late. I was here two weeks ago to set up our peer support network and now I'm here to finish a proposal for a student government conference and to attend another conference on monitoring and reporting. What monitoring and reporting means I have no real idea and it's going to be all in French so maybe I will never know. But really my French is getting better.

UPDATE TO BLOG:
Check out the links to my facebook photo albums off to the right. They're higher resolution pictures than the ones here and there are many of them. I'm going to try to keep those growing.


A story about a newspaper:


Le Monde is a French newspaper. The Peace Corps gives us 10000CFA (~$20) a month to pay for tutoring or language learning material. I had the great idea to order the weekly version of Le Monde to be shipped to me in Gaya. Would have worked out to 5300CFA (~$10) a month, leaving plenty left over to cover other tutoring expenses. Seeing as how in Gaya I really don't have internet access, I called my friend in Niamey and talked her through the process, gave her my credit card number and presto I was in. Then I checked my credit card account about two weeks later, after finding that the radio station has internet access.... there was a charge of $880 from Le Monde in France. Much more than the $130 I had been expecting. Turns out that she signed me up for the daily paper and not the weekly. I've spent the last three weeks exchanging e-mails trying to get this figured out. Up to this moment it has not worked out well. I have succeeded in having them change my subscription to the weekly selection, but for 307 issues. Don't think I'll need six years of papers sent to my address here in Niger. Still working on getting that straightened out; they're pretty bad about responding to e-mails.

So here’s a little philosophical meandering:

In my garden I only have one type of tomato, one type of green pepper, one type of lettuce, et cetera. I was working in the garden the other day thinking about this fact and how in general in the world, the number of different types of species is shrinking. Thinking about the large number of different types of seeds Grandma Joyce and Russ sent me I thought “really, I only need one type of tomato. It’s nice to have others, but not necessary.” At that moment I thought that species loss was maybe inevitable and could I really tell the difference between the different types of tomatoes I received anyway?
Well, pace of life being what it is here, yesterday I had a long conversation with my buddy Josh and the topic of species loss and the general flattening of the diversity of life came up. I told him of my garden observation and how I really don’t need a variety of plants to make life possible, while it may be a luxury to have and a major shame to lose diversity, we could make due. He responded that maybe we don’t understand the importance of diversity enough. For instance, what about in terms of disease or epidemics? There may be one tomato plant that could survive much better than others. That’s important. Extremely important. In my garden for instance, I have green peppers. I have one variety of green peppers. They didn’t do too well. Speaking with a friend in Gaya, a farmer, he told me that peppers all over hadn’t done too well. Maybe of the same variety since I had bought them at the local seed dispensary. It could be the fault of a single variety of green pepper that I won’t be eating any this year (and I love green peppers). Makes me wonder about the potato famine in Ireland of long ago and if they were all using the same potato. Here’s my point: In this day and age, it is really easy to see the loss of species. Yes, change is inevitable, but we need to hold onto our diversity of life, if not for its amazing breadth of scale, but for the hidden importance it has, even in my garden. I plan on planting the variety of seeds I have.

Cultural Differences and One Expensive Camera

From a letter home to my parents and family:

Speaking of pictures, here’s an interesting story, a warning tail for Colin in his future photo journalism work:

Last week, on February 8^th actually, I came out of “work,” that morning being the Inspection for the middle schools and high school. As I was headed back toward home to type up a project proposal I began to hear chanting and yelling. Gathered around the Prefet’s office (Prefet = Mayor of a local region, more than a single town), basically surrounding the Secretary General and yelling at him, were maybe 60 middle school aged kids. As the SG was trying to calm them down I looked up and here come maybe 200-300 more kids marching up the street. Clearly many of the children for the middle school just down the street had walked out to march. Asking around I learned that it was the anniversary of the 1990 killing of four University students in Niamey by government troops and the students were marching to commemorate the event. However, the march I witnessed quickly lapsed into a mass of wild children brandishing sticks and throwing stones. They swamped the road (the main artery between Gaya and Benin, and thus a major transit point), stopping all traffic. I saw a number of semi trucks pummeled and a couple cracks started in windshields. Clearly the students were out to cause trouble and I don’t know what semi trucks had to do with the 1990 killings, but they drew the wrath of many a stone. Clearly, it seemed that the event was getting out of control.

So what do I do? Oh, I go back to my house to get my camera and my voice recorder (thanks dad!) to do some recording myself. I followed the group down to the bridge at the other side of town, letting them stay well ahead of myself and not wanting to be seen as being involved with what was going on. On the bridge, there was a blockade of a type. One semi was stopped in one lane and another truck was turned sideways in the other lane, its purpose being to dump rocks for the construction of new gardens. No idea (even to this day) whether the semi was stopped by students as part of this or just conveniently abandoned for the moment (broken down?). I snapped two pictures, one of the police in their pickup truck and one of the students massed near the bridge. Then I stood by and watched for a couple minutes. When the police began to move in to disrupt the march, I backed off to behind their lines and watched from maybe 50 yards away. The police made a hasty retreat due to a hail of rocks from students on the other side of the bridge and suddenly I was enveloped in police in riot gear. Wanting a picture of the barricade, if that’s what it was, I ventured forward and took another picture.

Turning around to head back behind the police line I was suddenly confronted with three or four officers asking me about what I wanted to take pictures of. Where was my press card? Why was I there? They tried to grab my camera but I refused and started to walk away. That’s when someone else stepped in front of me. I was really surrounded this time. They told me I had to come see the Commissarie who was sitting in the police truck. Not seeing much of a choice in the matter, and thinking that just explaining that I was a Peace Corps volunteer might clear up the situation, I went over. She asked who I was, why I was taking pictures, where was my press card, where was my passport. I told her I was a PCV, my passport was at home, a 5 minute walk away, and that I had no press card. She told me to give her the camera, I said no. She then told the man behind me to hold me. Suddenly not only was I surrounded, but I had to officers holding onto my arms. She then explained that if I didn’t give her the camera, she would arrest me for not having my passport on me. If I gave them the camera, then I could come back with my passport later and try to get it back. What choice did I really have? They took the camera. I stayed next to their car, followed it around as they moved from spot to spot (trying to be rid of me I’m pretty sure), called the Prefet who, being ex-military himself, told me I had no right to take pictures and that I would never get my camera back (so much for him being a help, he never even fixed my broken door and wall like he was supposed to…). So, to try to make a long story shorter, I left in anger, more precisely they almost ran me over leaving for their compound. That camera is like a baby to me, and as most of you know I’ve already lost one to the pacific ocean, and the prospect of this other one being forcefully taken was not pleasant.

Days of run around later and saying “Oh, it’s my fault, I didn’t know you had to have a permit to take pictures” I was finally able to get the camera back. Taken Friday, returned Wednessday night. Hours of waiting at the commassarie for their boss to get back: easily 6+. Not fun. Makes me not want to help these people. But really, if anything it makes me want to pursue even more my student government programs to try and advance the rights of people here, or at least their perception of what rights should be because I think that rights are truly infringed upon here. Thank your lucky stars you live in a country where you can take pictures without the risk of being arrested.

As I recall from my law classes, anything in the public view is fair game for picture taking. And, here, they tried to tell me that the same restrictions they imposed on me were in place in the US, in fact everywhere. Well sorry, that’s not true. They were adamant about it and didn’t believe me when I said otherwise. I tried to explain that once you start down the path of telling people what they can and can't take pictures of, it can be a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? For me, it's best to keep things free and clear.

Ok, it’s getting me worked up more just to think about it. Let's just put it down as another lesson about the life of people living elsewhere. Also a lesson in the risks and troubles that journalists face all the time. That is one hard job!

Random Pictures and Peer Support

Been in Niamey for the last week doing some work. Came in because we started a Peer Support Network, which is basically a group of volunteers who have agreed to listen to other volunteer's problems in a confidential manner. Spent a couple days hammering out the organization of it and how it would actually work. Wrote up bylaws and all that good starting a thing stuff.

Also been doing a lot of work. It's crazy to have work to do now. I spent the last six months "working" on language skills and integration into my community, but didn't really have much to do in terms of papers to write or money to spend. Now that part of my experience here is starting and I find that my thoughts of two years where I had too much time on my hands is not the experience I'm going to have at all.

If I haven't explained it yet, Peace Corps has many different types of volunteers. Some live in the bush, without electricity, running water and lots of free time. Some live in the capital (very few of them) and have EVERYTHING available, though on a PC budget that means only as much as your money lasts. I live somewhere in between. I have electricity and running water (from my tap outside) and my time is definately not like bush time. I am BUSY. There are not enough hours in the day. Mostly I have packed my life with activities. Maybe to make sure I don't miss Kelsey to much and dwell on why I'm here? If I do a lot for this community it'll be worth it, right?

At the moment I have talked to a bunch of people in Gaya about starting a bunch of different projects and have spent a little time on many to figure out which will be worth pursuing. Now I am starting to focus in on a couple. I still have an idea to construct a girls dormitory, but that will be very dependant on the NGO I will work with and for the moment I'm happy to let them set the pace (a slow one) so I can focus on some other stuff.

I'm recording radio shows in Zarma. One or two thirty minute episodes a month.



I'm working on starting an English club and library at our community center. PLEASE, IF YOU HAVE GOOD CHILDREN'S/EARLIER to MID LEVEL ENGLISH BOOKS I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THEM. I'm trying to get my mom and dad to collect them for me while I figure out a way to get them shipped. Please e-mail me if you can help with this one.


I'm in the process of organizing student governments for my schools. Funny, but when I was in highschool I thought student government was a joke and just a popularity contest. Here, I can see a real use. To have an organized and motivated student body can really heklp me to do many smaller projects very easily. And with the organization, students can do their own projects and really, that's the idea, to increase the capacity of the local agents, not to do everything for them. My hope is to start four this year (two primary, two secondary) and involve good counterparts so that it can spread and grow from there. To leave behind a network of student organizations which can be self motivating would be a great accomplishment, so this has shifted into the number one goal position for the moment.




So being here for a week, with internet access, what did I do? Added a bunch of new pictures to my facebook photo albums (old ones, as I'm freeing up hard drive space at the moment). What didn't I do: write on my blog. Bad Jeremy, Bad. I'm thinking I need to do more journal and blog writting. My work with student govs should bring me into Niamey every couple of weeks for a while. And, Inshallah (God Willing), I will have some ways people in the states can help me and will post those as the time comes nearer.



Oh, one fun thing is that I was able to watch the Super Bowl last night. Kick off was 12:20 here and we stayed up to watch a, surprisingly, good football game. I thought the Patriots would wipe the field with New York. Way to go Giants defense. Fonda Kokari. Watched it at the Marine house next to the embassy. The Marines who are in charge of guarding the embassy (the five or so who coordinate with local security personel) live in a house right next door to the embassy. A really nice house. Big TV. Pool table. Bar. Awesome.... guess I chose the wrong service if I wanted ammenities. But not a one of them could speak a real lick of Zarma. French was even lacking so in that regard.... Different strokes I guess, eh? Ended up walking home afterward at 4:00AM because no taxis were out and about. Got to the Hostel at 5:15. Slept till 10. Then did errands and work around Niamey till now.

Back to Gaya tomorrow morning. Leaving for the bus station at 5AM.

Christmas Eve (Part 1 of 3)

Been since Halloween since I’ve written in this thing. Sorry about that, but it’s been a pretty hectic last month and a half for me. I haven’t been back to Gaya since before Thanksgiving (Aside from a short stay over right before the bike ride, characterized by being sick, see below). One week of Thanksgiving, one week of bike ride, three weeks of in service training (originally scheduled as two, again, see below) and now about a week for Christmas. All told SIX weeks away from home. I miss it and my friends a lot, but it has been nice to see all my American friends, especially for our holidays.Below I have posts for Thanksgiving and the bike ride, but the reason our training was ‘extended’ deserves its own post, and it’s news not being reported anywhere else in the media world (I’ve looked).



On December 10, a landmine exploded under a bush taxi in the city of Maradi, killing the driver. Later that night, another landmine exploded under a car at the traditional wrestling arena in Tahaoua, again killing the driver. Both cities are in the center of the country, not very close to my home town, but I do know PCVs out that way. The government was quick to blame the MNJ rebels from the North of the country, while the MNJ would deny involvement. The MNJ, consisting of mostly, but not exclusively, ethnic Tuaregs has been plaguing the government for the last six months or so, demanding that resources be equally shared with the Northern regions, not necessarily financially, but with more influential political and military positions for those from the area (One would imagine that the MNJ wants their own in these positions).The hightened tensions started the day before when military aircraft spotted a convoy of vehicles in the desert steps around Agadez. It fired on the convoy, killing six. Turns out later, that they were regular old Tuaregs from Agadez. Actually, not any old regular Tuaregs, but the richest man in Agadez, owner of a big bottled water company and his entourage. Needless to say that accusations were quick to start flying about.



The scariest part about all this was that it happened right before Niger’s independence day and the start of Tabaski, a major Muslim celebration. And of all places, this year’s Independence celebration was to be held in Tahaoua, the site of one of the bombings… coincidence? No one really knows. However, on the MNJ website (http://m-n-j.blogspot.com/), they warned all Nigeriens to stay away from the celebration or be considered human shields for the president and his cronies. This right after denying, in the same paragraph, the landmine attacks and stating that they don’t target civilians (which has been true up till now).


So, who’s to blame? No answers. But the heightened tensions from the last couple weeks have begun to cool down. After the initial explosions, the Peace Corps went on to Stand Fast alert and volunteers were told to stay where they were, avoid crowds, etc. Since we were up at the training site in Hamdalye, we were stuck there. Not a very exciting time, but gave us a chance to make a movie, which will hopefully be posted on YouTube soon, I’ll let y’all now. Now, the stand fast is removed, but we were told to remain “vigilante” and be aware of our surroundings. To me, that’s just good advice to do always.I don’t feel threatened and I don’t think that this is going to escalate into any more widespread violence. But it is a little disconcerting that the problems which had been localized in the North have reared their ugly heads closer to home.


As for joyous events: Today is Christmas eve and I’m spending it and Christmas Day here in Niamey with friends. I did some Christmas shopping for the family yesterday, but they’ll be late arriving in the states. Sorry, but the heightened security tensions kind of threw off everyone’s plans. My current plans are to head to one of our program director's houses tomorrow for some food, caroling, hopefully watch a Christmas Story. I want to wish all my friends and family a merry Christmas, hope it is cold and white, very much the opposite of ours here.






Oh and this little guy says Merry Christmas also... He's not nearly as mean as his big brother who harrased me a couple weeks ago...

Bike Ride (Part 2 of 3)

As I was getting ready to leave Niamey the day after Thanksgiving I got a phone call from one of our program directors asking if I could fill in on the AIDS awareness bike ride they were planning from Gaya to Dosso; they had a volunteer drop out at the last minute. So onto the bike ride I went, though I hadn’t ridden a bike in, oh, six years or so.
Too bad the day before we were to start I came down with a bad case of something. Bacteria, Amoebas, Flu, not sure, but I took some meds slept all day and was ready to go by the next morning.

The bike ride is one of the biggest events the Peace Corps here puts on each year. This year we traveled from Gaya to Dosso, 150km, on bike over the course of a week. It really wasn’t very grueling, the most we traveled each day was around 30km and only 15km in the longest single stretch. We stopped at almost every village along the way to put on a show and educate the people about AIDS. It was a great time and I was lucky to even go since first year volunteers aren’t usually invited. Since my language skills weren't quite up to par to act in the skit or conduct meetings I was usually relegated to kid duty, which proved to be quite a handfull. I also became somewhat of the photographer for the ride, taking 500 pictures in a little over a week.

The bike ride was my first real chance to experience “the bush.” Gaya is definitely not what one imagines a Peace Corps experience. Electricity and running water (at least from a pump in the yard) are luxuries here more than the standard living. Part of my journal entry from the time (I’m about as good with my journal as I am with this blog):

“They have a thatch wall/roof school, one room, almost tall enough to stand up in. Not quite. It’s flat here. Much flatter than Gaya and from what I’ve heard this is like the rest of Niger. The village is spread out in clusters of huts here and there. Two wells. Ok, let me talk about the wells for a moment. They’re deep, very deep. Around 75-100 meters deep. Very rocky ground apparently is to blame (or so the villagers say). To draw, a black rubber bucket thing is dropped down on many ropes tied together. The other end, through a pulley, is hooked a couple of tired looking donkeys who seem to pull these buckets all day long. A bushless track runs out in a fan from the well, showing where the ground has been worn bare by the constant tread of hoofs. Women take turns tunning this system. One at the lip of the well, one with the donkey, one to move around buckets of water. Takes a good four minutes to draw a single bucket of 4-5 gallons. Seems like a process that goes on constantly. There’s a pump here, but it’s been broken for years. Same as in the last two villages we passed. Seems up keep here is lacking. No surprise. Like everything in this place, it’s a factor of money. NGOs come in and pay for a pump to be installed, but the long term idea of upkeep, repairs…. That’s lost in the feeling of accomplishment the first buckets cause. Then the NGO is gone, thinking everything is solved. Sustainability is a buzz word around PC and NGOs but the actual sustainability of projects involves more infrastructure and economic building than a single pump, or even a thousand pumps, can provide.”

Think that about sums up the problems we see here; self-sustainable progress is the key. It requires an educated population, if not university smarts, at least educated on what the government needs to do to get them there. And it requires money and investment from outside sources, or a new source of income for Niger. (Pray for an increase in the price of Uranium) Our work here isn't going to change the country, but it can start to help educate the people on what they can do to start that process.

Thanksgiving (Part 3 of 3)

Arrived in Dosso the Monday before Thanksgiving. Spent the week hanging out and buying the things necessary to make our feast that Thursday. And boy what a feast we had. Definitely not lacking on any of the traditional dishes one would get in the states. Pumpkin pie, corn bread, cranberries…. No chutney though…. We even bought a Turkey a couple months ago and left it with the neighbors to keep and fatten. It’s interesting to watch the whole process of cooking the

turkey, from killing to gutting to cooking. I think it even made it taste better. Who knew turkeys didn’t come from the freezer in Safeway?

The only thing I missed was falling asleep watching football after the meal. Well, actually we watched game four of the last world series that night. Hard to get into the game when you know that the Red Socks are going to win.