Monday, December 7, 2009

week one summary in niger

Joanna’s Blog Posts!
Soooo…A summary of week one!
I met a lovely bunch of 38 people in Philadelphia after a last visit with my dad’s side of the family in the Haverford area. What a bunch we are! People from all over the United States, mostly recent college graduates, though there are some people starting or changing careers. I’m the only masters international student!
After two long flights we landed in Niamey and were welcomed by current volunteers bearing large bottles of warm water. Then we were driven in crammed buses to Hamdallaye, about 35 Km from Niamey, where the Peace Corps training site was located. It was kind of shocking, realizing that I would be sleeping outside under a mosquito net from day 1! But since then, I’m completely used to it…and used to the fact that my feet will never be clean again! It was great meeting the Peace Corps team in Hamdallaye: Tondi, the training director, is an absolute sweetheart, has made us feel right at home, as well as the VATs (currently volunteer trainers) who started telling us about their stories from their posts. It’s been pretty interesting!
Then two days after arriving, we placed in our homestay families and were assigned the local languages that we would be learning for the next 9 weeks. I was placed in a village about 1 mile away from the training site, and I was placed in Zarma language classes. Zarma speakers are placed closer to capital, Niamey, in the Dosso or Tillaberi region. I’m hoping for a location that is small village-sized with mildly easy access to the main road to Niamey or another regional capital (and I’m thinking this could be a likely situation!).
Family life in my little village, A.B.K. (Auturo Baba Kwara, Auturo’s father’s village) is great, and my family has been wonderful! Upon arrival, they started practicing Zarma with me, and then I taught them the card game “memory” with my limited Zarma…now the whole village is obsessed! I have young boys from all different families hanging out in my concession (family’s house area), waiting to play every night!
Then the rest of the first week was spent getting to know each other, getting to know what was coming up in the PST training program, and getting to know our host families and host villages/towns. There was a little bureaucracy, but it’s been fun getting through it with everyone. Plus I’m learning a crazy African language that is only spoken in western Niger and Mali! It’s awesome! I’m also lining up tutors for French and for Hausa (the other native language that is spoken more widely in North Africa) in the upcoming months! So yeah, that was basically the first week, and it was pretty great! I also got a phone number so you should all call me (use “Call Africa” or something like that, which costs like 6 or 7 cents a minute!).


some pics.... our outdoor beds, me and some trainers, women by the village well, learning how to poop in a hole, the group smooshed in the back of the peace corps vehicle.





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