Wow, thanks for your email! I'm so happy to hear that you and the Youth Group are interested in helping me with my camel project and learning about the work that I'm doing here in Niger.
I don't know what to say, there's just so much. So I guess I'll just start at the beginning. I've talked about joining the Peace Corps since I first learned about it in college. Before that I had always wanted to go to Africa but didn't know how to go about it. The application process was lengthy - I started applying in November of 2006 and finally received my assignment in September of 2007, then left for Niger in January of this year. I had to write essays, obtain letters of reference, hand in transcripts, and undergo two interviews, not to mention filling out the huge application online. Once I was accepted, I had to get medical and dental clearance and get boosters on my vaccines (yellow fever, measels, polio, diphtheria-tetanus). The medical people in Washington D.C. are very picky about the medical forms and sometimes I had to make multiple trips to the doctor's office to make sure everything was filled out correctly and all the signatures were there. After that I waited - and waited - for about 4 months before I was finally told where I'd be going and what sort of work I'd be doing. So let's just say the application process was long and required dedication.
>
January is part of "cold season" in Niger, so when I stepped off the plane (directly onto the tarmac) I wasn't shocked by the heat (not yet, anyway). I remember going into the airport and waiting in line to go through customs, and I had to go to the bathroom so I found a toilet nearby. However, there wasn't any toilet paper, or any paper towels of any kind, only a water bottle next to the toilet. I was like, "uh, how do I do this?" and just kind of splashed water on myself. Little did I know that I would get used to using my hand and water instead of toilet paper. Anyhow, there are no paper products here so whenever you wash your hands you let them air dry (which doesn't take long in this arid environment) and you blow your nose using the "snot rocket" method and your shirt. Good times!
From the airport in Niamey (the capital), we drove to Hamdallaye (pronounced "hum-da-lie," the Islamic/Arabic equivalent of "Hallelujah") the village where the Peace Corps training site is located. I remember looking out the window as we drove down the road, seeing clusters of people standing and sitting outside mud huts, naked children waving, and lots of trash - black and white plastic bags in huge piles, tangled in the trees and bushes, blowing across the road (now I know that that road goes through a "landfill" and most of the roads don't look that way - thank god!).
>
Training lasted about 10 weeks. We lived with a host family in the village and visited the training site monday-saturday, 8-5. The training was really intense. Our days were peppered with: Learning Hausa (or Zarma) Medical sessions where we were given vaccinations (rabies (x3), meningitis, hepatitis A and B (x3), typhoid) and learned about all the sorts of diseases and infections we can get here (malaria, schistomiasis, AIDS, amoebas/bacterial dysentary, skin infections, bites/stings, mental health and peer support, etc.)Nigerien and Islamic culture, Technical training (where I learned about working with trees and the natural environment to improve the quality of life for people)
> The training site overall was like a mini-America, compared to what came after it. We had three meals a day with meat, salad and fruit. There was running water, toilets, showers, electricity, and TV. The buildings were made with wood materials instead of the usual mud brick. People spoke english.
> We learned about what a Peace Corps Volunteer's job is. The Peace Corps has
> three basic goals:
> 1. To learn about other cultures
> 2. To teach people about our culture
> 3. To help people in some way or another through work
>
> My work as a Natural Resources Management volunteer is to show people how to
> use trees and other natural resources to improve their way of life. For
> example, we use agroforestry. If you have a field of millet, you can plant a
> nitrogen-fixing tree in your field and nitrogen (fertilizer) will permeate
> the soil and over time will improve the quality of the soil. Any tree of the
> Acacia species would be considered nitrogen-fixing. The trees are also good
> because grazing animals and birds will eat their leaves/seeds, and the
> animal's poop/pee further helps fertilize the soil. Niger is windy, and the
> wind can blow away the layer of top-soil in the fields, which is where the
> most nutrient-rich soil is. So a way to stop that from happening is to slow
> the wind down by planting a line of trees on the edge of the field to act as
> a windbreak. When people don't want animals grazing on their crops they can
> use thorny branches to make a fence to keep them out, or they can plant
> thorny trees along the edge of their fields. I help people by providing them
> with seeds and plastic pots to make a nursery, then they can plant the trees
> in their field. There's also a tree called Moringa that's a great source of
> nutrition - it only takes a few months to grow to its most beneficial size
> (breast height), and when you cut off the leaves and eat them, they taste
> like spinach. They are full of vitamin A and I think have protein, too. I
> try to educate people about these trees and with the women's group have
> planted about 160 for them to harvest and sell. The baobab tree is another
> tree whose leaves are really tasty and nutritious - people pound the dried
> leaves and use them to make a sauce, and it's my favorite sauce, it's so
> yummy. The government just built a school in my village, the first one ever
> (yay!), so I plan to work with the kids there to start a nursery and then
> sell the trees before planting season next year. This is a good way to
> educate the kids about planting trees and also teach them skills that could
> come in handy for making money when they are grown up. I was also trained in
> anti-erosion techniques and fixing erosion problems, but in my village that
> doesn't seem to be a problem. Also, I was trained to learn how to tap gum
> arabic, a very important tree. It's like maple trees where you tap the tree
> to get syrup, but with the gum arabic it produces a thick, gummy substance
> (hence its name). If people grow it and harvest the gum, it can be sold to
> an exporter, where it will then go on to the western world. Gum arabic is an
> important ingredient in Coca Cola, cosmetics, and candy, and the market for
> it is huge. If my villagers were able to sell it, they could make some good
> money. However, in order to get gum arabic you need a low water table, and
> my village area has a high water table, so we wouldn't be able to sell it.
> However, the tree is an Acacia with really nasty thorns so it would be good
> to plant anyway around their fields!
>
> Once training was over and I swore in as an official volunteer (March), I
> moved to my village east of Niamey near the town of Konni, right on the
> border of Nigeria. My village is called Korop, and it's a small,
> conservative bush village of about 400 people of the Hausa tribe and Fulani
> tribe. Hausa people are known for their trading, and even in my tiny village
> there are people selling wares such as carved tool handles, rope made with
> palm fronds, ladles and bowls made with dried out squash, beds made from
> millet stalks, and small foodstuffs like sugar, tea, salt, and sauce
> ingredients. Sometimes there are young girls selling cooked greens, fish and
> millet pate (or tuwo in Hausa) with sauce, depending on what's in season.
> The Fulani people as a whole are nomadic but in my village they stay pretty
> much year-round. They are known for their cattle, and herd cows during the
> day and trade milk with the Hausa people for millet to cook for themselves.
> There's a few butchers in my village, too, and about three times a week I
> see them selling delicious roasted meat - either cow, goat, or sheep.
>
> Beautification scarring and tattooing is abundant here. Women have scars
> that go out from the sides of their mouth in a triangular shape, or
> sometimes along the ridges of their cheekbones. It's often in intricate
> designs and is really very cool. Men often have a series of 5-6 lines going
from the corners of their mouth to their ears. Some people just have a
> couple of lines just beyond the corner of their eye. In the old days, people
> used scarring to distinguish what tribe they were in, but now it's just used
> for beautification purposes. The Fulani women in my village make the most
> beautiful, intricate beaded necklaces, chokers and earrings. Even the boys
> wear earrings, which is very uncommon here. Because of their Islam religion,
> women and teenage girls keep their heads covered with a brightly colored
> cloth. They make long wrap skirts with a big piece of fabric, and wear baggy
> tops that cover their shoulders and upper arms. I have been seeing women
> wearing long skirts for so long that if I read a magazine and see women in
> short skirts it's more noticeable than it was before. Of course the Peace
> Corps encourages volunteers to be culturally appropriate, so I wear long
> skirts and baggy t-shirts or tops. I usually wear a hat, though it's more
> because of the sun than to be culturally appropriate. Because I'm white and
> non-Muslim, it doesn't matter if I keep my head covered. The men wear normal
> clothes, though they're a little different from what we're used to in
> America. Many clothes here are from Goodwill or Japan/China, so you might
> see someone in a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt and really funky stonewashed
> bell-bottom jeans. I also see a lot of what looks like dress pants, and
> they're usually plaid. On friday, the big prayer day, if the men have a
> boubou they wear it. Basically it's a Muslim-style knee-length tunic worn
> over pants of the same material. There are also embroidered pillbox hats
> that are considered highly appropriate for prayer. The kids wear
> hand-me-downs. Sometimes just a pair of underwear, sometimes just a t-shirt.
> Once a kid is about 7 they start wearing pants/shorts/skirt. Often the
> clothes are rags, all torn up and faded. When my shirts get too worn out to
> wear I will give them to a kid, who I'm sure will get plenty of mileage out
> of them. Everyone wears cheap-o flip flops from China (the equivalent of
> 50-75 cents in US). My nice Chaco flipflops are often admired ("wow, these
> are strong! How much are they in America? That's a lot of money!")
> The people here are known for their sense of humor. I have so much fun
> chatting with my villagers - we talk and laugh and joke around. For example,
> my next door neighbor and I were wondering where my cat was, so she
> pretended she had a cell phone and held her hand up to her ear and pretended
> to call him. She was like, "Kitty Kitty, where are you? Crystal wants you to
> come home. Oh, you're in the bush with your girlfriend? Well, come home
> soon. Okay, see you later." If I go to the neighboring village (1 km away)
> and there are kids who've never seen a white person they often start crying
> and run and hide behind somebody. But people think it's funny to carry the
> kid over to where I'm standing just to make him cry more. I try not to take
> it personally that they're so scared of me. Despite being ridiculously poor
> and barely keeping themselves fed and clothed, the people of my village (and
> most likely the people of the whole country) are amazingly cool with how
> little they have. If I go to someone's house and they're eating food, they
> will offer me the largest portion and insist I eat it, even if the rest of
> them don't get as much. They can fix just about anything that we in America
> would throw away. At the beginning of rainy season, while this year's crops
> were still growing and everyone's granery was just about empty, all they ate
> (well, drank, rather) was fura, a millet drink of steamed millet dough
> stirred with sour milk and spices. That's it. They drank it because it uses
> very little millet and they can trade with the Fulanis for milk. Since they
> were also working in the fields, just about everyone lost weight. Now that
> the crops are grown, they are eating tome (millet roasted on the cob), tuwo
> (delicious millet pate) and lallame (a sweet, hot millet drink) and
> everyone's happy and hopefully regaining some weight.
>
> There are some definite differences between men and women here, culturally.
> I don't know if it's because of Islam or Nigerien culture or a combination
> thereof. The jobs of men and women are clearly divided - the women tend to
> the house, pound grains, cook food, raise children, and carry water from the
> well. The men are responsible for providing the family with food, retrieving
> the food from the granery, structural upkeep of the house and other
> structures, and providing their family with money. There is really no work
> here in Niger, so the majority of men in my village go to Nigeria or Ghana
> during the off-seasons to find work. I think they go for adventure as well
> as to find money. These men would probably never get a chance to live in a
> city, yet they get to spend a few months in Lagos or another large city in
> Nigeria and make their money selling firewood, meat, or doing street
> manicures/pedicures. They eat rich food (which to them is rice and pasta)
> and get to see something new for awhile, then bring back money for their
> family (including their parents), providing a cushion in case a child gets
> sick or they run out of food. On a personal level the differences can be
> more offensive to us Americans. As a woman some men refuse to shake my hand
> due to Muslim customs. When I did a demonstration the other day about making
> a compost pile, I was informed the men and women would have to come
> separately because they can not go to this sort of thing and stand together.
> The women in my village seem pretty shy about approaching groups of men, and
> I noticed men eat and socialize with other men and women eat and socialize
> with other women (however because I'm different I'm considered kind of
> androgynous and get to socialize and eat with everyone). I wanted to bring
> some women to the nearby town, Konni, for some work with a microfinance
> center (basically a bank for poor people), but the men in my village were
> not comfortable with their wives going there. I think maybe they want to
> keep them isolated so that they can't see how things are better in other
> areas, and maybe they're afraid their wives will run off with another man.
> Male volunteers can't visit the homes of men unless the man himself is home,
> so it is often hard for them to find a way to socialize with the women.
>
> I thought since you're a youth group you may want to learn a little about
> other religions. So I will tell you what I know about Islam, and what it
> means to my villagers.
> Muslims pray five times a day; at sunrise (about 6:30), noon (2:00),
> afternoon (4:00), dusk (around 7:00), and night (8:15). At each of these
> times the Iman will do the prayer call, which is sung in Arabic. In my
> village, since there's no electricity or generator, he just belts it out as
> loudly as possible. It pretty much translates to:
>
> God is most great. God is most great.
> God is most great. God is most great.
> I testify that there is no god except God.
> I testify that there is no god except God.
> I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
> I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
> Come to prayer! Come to prayer!
> Come to success (in this life and hereafter)! Come to success!
> God is most great. God is most great.
> There is no god except God.
>
> We learned about the 5 pillars of Islam during training. They are basically
> what every good Muslim should do:
> 1. Believe that there is only one god (I believe this was more imporant back
> in the day when people had animist/pagan beliefs and believed there were
> multiple gods)
> 2. Prayer
> 3. Giving to the poor
> 4. Fasting during Ramadan (actually occurring right now)
> 5. The pilgrimage to Mecca (Saudi Arabic), only if they are
> financially/physically able to
> Why these things are important:
> It is said that Mohammad is a prophet. Back in the day (the 4th century)
> Mohammad was approached by the angel Gabriel, who brought him the message of
> god. These conversations occurred for a period of time, and they were
> written down and now make up the Koran (the Islamic bible, basically). He
> spread the word about Islam but eventually he and his followers were told by
> God to migrate to evade persecution. For this reason he went from his home
> in Mecca (the holy city) to the city of Medina. Ramadan is a celebration of
> the first month during Gabriel visited Mohammad and takes place the 9th
> month of the year by the lunar calendar. During Ramadan, while the sun is
> up, Muslims are to abstain from:
> 1. Food
> 2. Water
> 3. Intimate relations
> It's hard. I don't even do it, though I can see that the hot Niger sun and
> hard work in the fields makes it difficult for people to do. Of course, the
> elderly, ill, pregnant/nursing women, etc. aren't required to do it and
> those who can make it up later in the year are encouraged to do so. It is
> meant as a means for self purification and for people to gain spiritual
> insight. Also, they are more able to sympathize with those who are hungry
> and will have greater appreciation for what they have. I may try it for a
> week next year, when I hopefully am more used to the climate here.
>
> A few other things: People always pray facing the direction of Mecca (east),
> and the praying involves a lot of standing, kneeling, and sitting (sounds
> familiar, right? ha ha!). The few people who know how to read and write
> write out text from the Koran in Arabic on wooden boards, since paper is
> expensive and rare. They also have a way of making ink using wood ash and
> sap from gum arabic. Conversations are very much speckled with references to
> God and Arabic words have pretty much found their way into the Hausa
> langauge. For example, if someone says they want something to happen ("I'm
> going to the market monday to sell my goat"), you answer with "Allah make it
> happen," as a way of saying you hope it happens and goes well. Whenever you
> enter the yard of someone's house, a store, or a crowd of people, you
> announce your arrival with "assalamu alaikum," which means "peace be with > you" in Arabic, and they will answer with "alaikum salam" which means
> something like "and peace to you." If you tell them something amazing, the
> answer could be "Allah sarki!" which means "God is chief!" If you're eating
> food and you're full, you say "Alhamdallalahi," which like "praise be to
> God" in Arabic (it's perfectly acceptable to belch at this point).
>
> I never mentioned the climate. It's hot. The sun is really, really strong,
> but the good thing is because it's so dry here if you go in the shade
> there's like a 20 degree temperature difference. Also the good thing about
> the heat and sun is that things dry really quickly - if I spill water on the
> floor in my house, it will disappear in 5 minutes. If it's a sunny day, my
> laundry will dry outside in an hour or less. If I wash things like flour,
> rice, beans, etc. and need to dry them out before storing, I can lay them
> out in the sun. Also it's a good way to dry fruits and vegetables, and they
> make a delicious sun-dried jerky here called kilishi. There are basically
> four seasons here:
> Hot season (120 degree days), April-July
> Rainy season, July to September
> Mini hot season, September to November
> Cold season (gets down to 50 at night!), November to March (really strong
> winds and very dusty)
> The hottest month is May, the rainiest (and most mosquito and therefore
> malaria-infested) month is August, and I've yet to see what the coldest
> month will be. Some areas of the country are hotter than others, and
> fortunately my village is nice and cool (in comparison). For example, during
> hot season some people don't even sleep on a mattress because it's so hot at
> night, but I was able to use mine and still survive. We also have to drink a
> LOT of water and for this reason Ramadan would be very difficult for me.
> My daily life: I get up around 8:00 from my millet stalk bed covered with a
> mosquito net. I go to the bathroom in my latrine (where you squat over a
> hole), then wash my face and hands. I take down my bed (it's outside and the
> sun will eventually ruin my stuff if I leave it out), drink water, and eat
> breakfast, which is either oatmeal with sugar and powdered milk or bread
> with peanut butter, if I happen to have bread. I leave my house and see my
> neighbors, my best friend Rabi, who is an amazing woman (will describe why
> in a bit) and my neighbors Ige and Isa, the old couple who take care of
> their deceased son's two daughters and whose other son, his wife, and their
> three kids live in their compound (very normal to live with your parents
> here). Around 10 someone comes over, usually young men, and they play cards
> or we listen to American music on my mp3 player with speakers, and when it's
> not Ramadan we sometimes drink tea. We chat, I ask them questions about
> Hausa or work or just Niger in general, sometimes they help me fix things in
> my house (for example, if my mud roof leaks they will climb up on it and fix
> it by hammering the mud back into place). Lately since it's rainy season
> I've been pulling weeds in the area of my larger compound. You have to pull
> weeds because they are home to mosquitos, and you don't want mosquitos
> infiltrating your house. Wow, that's back-breaking work that really makes
> you appreciate lawn mowers. I do laundry, wash dishes, put things away,
> sweep (using pieces of long grass tied together as a broom), etc. At noon I
> go inside my house and rest until 2, then I make my other meal of the day (a
> huge portion of rice with oil and salt, macaroni with oil and spices, or
> spaghetti with tomato sauce if I'm feeling motivated). I pay my neighbor to
> bring me water (the well is pretty far away and I'm too much of a wimp to
> make repeated trips that far carrying a heavy bucket on my head), so she
> usually brings it over in the afternoon. I then fill up my water filter and
> fill my bathing bucket so the water can warm in the sun. If I don't have
> work to do I'll sit in my house and read or just chill, since the afternoons
> are hot. In the evening before the 7:00 prayer I try to go out and see
> people, but sometimes I get distracted and don't make it. Then after the
> 7:00 prayer I hang out with the men outside the mosque (which is this area
> where the village store is and where people sell food) until the 8:15
> prayer. Then I bathe (using a bucket and a cup to dump water over myself),
> set up my bed and mosquito net, close my windows and put things inside if it
> looks like it might rain, and go to bed.
>
> Speaking of going to bed, it's getting late and I realize this email is
> HUGE, so I'm going to wrap things up. It's very sweet that you guys want to
> help us. It's difficult to say what would help my villagers the most,
> because their main concerns are staying fed, having a little money for
> emergencies, and keeping themselves clothed and healthy. One thing that I
> think would help is condoms. The birth rate in Niger is something like 8
> kids per woman, and the population is growing fast (food shortages now and
> in the future are a huge concern). Also, with the huge number of men working
> in Nigeria, a country with the second-largest population of AIDS in the
> world (I think), if those men are less than faithful to their wives, which I
> hear they are, and aren't safe about it, they could easily contract
> something. Another need would be medicine, and though they sell tylenol in
> my village, not everyone can afford it. And maybe antacids, since people are
> always complaining about having indigestion. Just a few suggestions, though
> I know they would be grateful for any sort of help. Photos of America, such
as people, animals, houses, towns, etc. are also very exciting (I try to
explain that the sheep in America are raised for their fur rather than for their meat, and they get a huge kick out of that).
>
I am looking forward to hearing from the students in your youth group! Any sort of questions they have or certain things they want to hear about, I'd be happy to help with. Take care, and tell Father Nalley hi for me!
>
> Crystal
> (aka Zeina, my Nigerien name)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 08, 2008
New info on Camel Club
Meeeooowww!
Hi mom and dad!
Check out the message below from JoAnn at FPL. I was so happy to see that this message was in the bulletin, I almost cried. Looks like progress is underway! From asking three different people I'm getting the impression that a female camel old enough to make babies would be about 225,000 CFA ($750). I know that's a lot of money. I'm sure I can save $250, the FPLers raised $260 as of the last bulletin announcement, so maybe you, my friends in Madison who don't work at FPL, and fellow G-towners and members of the fam could come up with the rest. If not, don't worry; it will just take a little extra time for me to save the money myself. My former colleague JT came up with the name Amber, for Madison's Capitol Brewery's famous "Amber" beer.
Speaking of names, my villagers were really excited to hear that you guys are (hopefully) coming in March. Some name ideas for you:
Aicha, Adamma, Zara, Hadiza, Medina. I personally like Medina.
Back to the camel - if you could get ahold of people in our family, let them know that if they want to make a contribution to the "Camel Club," they can send a check to:
Forest Products Lab Credit Union
re: Camel Club
1 Gifford Pinchot Dr.
Madison, WI 53726
608-231-9200
Yesterday marked the first day of Ramadan. It's got to be tough - no eating or drinking from sunup to sundown for the entire month. People look tired and thirsty.
Okay, hungry so going to go eat something. Take care!
Love,
Crystal
Hi mom and dad!
Check out the message below from JoAnn at FPL. I was so happy to see that this message was in the bulletin, I almost cried. Looks like progress is underway! From asking three different people I'm getting the impression that a female camel old enough to make babies would be about 225,000 CFA ($750). I know that's a lot of money. I'm sure I can save $250, the FPLers raised $260 as of the last bulletin announcement, so maybe you, my friends in Madison who don't work at FPL, and fellow G-towners and members of the fam could come up with the rest. If not, don't worry; it will just take a little extra time for me to save the money myself. My former colleague JT came up with the name Amber, for Madison's Capitol Brewery's famous "Amber" beer.
Speaking of names, my villagers were really excited to hear that you guys are (hopefully) coming in March. Some name ideas for you:
Aicha, Adamma, Zara, Hadiza, Medina. I personally like Medina.
Back to the camel - if you could get ahold of people in our family, let them know that if they want to make a contribution to the "Camel Club," they can send a check to:
Forest Products Lab Credit Union
re: Camel Club
1 Gifford Pinchot Dr.
Madison, WI 53726
608-231-9200
Yesterday marked the first day of Ramadan. It's got to be tough - no eating or drinking from sunup to sundown for the entire month. People look tired and thirsty.
Okay, hungry so going to go eat something. Take care!
Love,
Crystal
09/04/2008
Hi mom and dad!
I came to the hostel a few days ago because I was feeling nauseated for a few days. Any time I ate something, I felt like I would vomit afterwards. However, the doctor told me to take Phenegren and while it made me sleep all day yesterday I am back to normal again (yay!) and ate a ton of food to make up for being hungry for a few days. The problem was probably the fura I drank along with a small amount (one handful) of cooked greens in my village. Normally that stuff doesn't cause a problem, but amoebas run rampid during rainy season so that's probably what did it. No more fura and no more village food for me! (well, at least until rainy season's over)
Today I took a bush taxi up to Tahoua to go to the bank. Yes, we have to travel 120 km to go to the bank, it's crazy. But I look forward to going to a "bigger town" because there are certain groceries there we don't have in Konni (cheese, canned meat/fish, vanilla extract). The trip was pretty uneventful, though on the way back what should have been a 2-hour trip ended up taking 4 hours due to a flat tire, plenty of stops on the way to pick up passengers, plus the driver stopping and talking with people he knew.
Oh my god, I had the best breakfast today! I found dried blueberries in the hostel refrigerator and made some blueberry pancakes with bacon! It was amazing. Thanks again for the awesome bacon! Oh, and saw the soy sauce recipe below. Hmm.. will think about that one. Well, life in the bush can be pretty uneventful, so it may be a good experiment someday anyway.
Regarding the camel... Uncle Ron is the best! I will definitely write him a thank you note. Wow, with his contribution the search for camel money is just about over. They started a special account for the camel at the FPL Credit Union, so if you guys were to send the money there they could wire it all at once through Western Union. Make the check out to FPL Credit Union, with the memo regarding "Camel Club." I'm getting her at a market in a town near Tahoua, the heart of Tuareg land (they're the people who are known for their camels), so the question is once I buy her, how will I get her to Konni? I've seen camels in the back of bush taxis, so I suppose we could do that, and there's always the chance of riding her back, though that could take a few days. I will ask some Tuareg people for advice.
Other than that.. yeah, going to visit the microfinance bank tomorrow to ask some questions for my villagers. I hate going there because the guy always hits on me and asks me to marry him. Ugh. What would be a total faux pas in America is perfectly acceptable here in Niger, so the best I can do is say I don't want him and am tired of hearing him ask me. Also going to the vet office (okay, vet for cattle) to see about some worm medication for KittyKitty. I saw him poop the other day and there were squiggly little worms coming out of it; it was disgusting and I can't stop seeing an instant replay of it in my mind, so yeah, gotta get some meds for my little beastie. Saturday will head back to Korap to hang with the people.
Okay, take care! Tell Dad and Tom and Blackie hi for me!
Love,
Crystal
I came to the hostel a few days ago because I was feeling nauseated for a few days. Any time I ate something, I felt like I would vomit afterwards. However, the doctor told me to take Phenegren and while it made me sleep all day yesterday I am back to normal again (yay!) and ate a ton of food to make up for being hungry for a few days. The problem was probably the fura I drank along with a small amount (one handful) of cooked greens in my village. Normally that stuff doesn't cause a problem, but amoebas run rampid during rainy season so that's probably what did it. No more fura and no more village food for me! (well, at least until rainy season's over)
Today I took a bush taxi up to Tahoua to go to the bank. Yes, we have to travel 120 km to go to the bank, it's crazy. But I look forward to going to a "bigger town" because there are certain groceries there we don't have in Konni (cheese, canned meat/fish, vanilla extract). The trip was pretty uneventful, though on the way back what should have been a 2-hour trip ended up taking 4 hours due to a flat tire, plenty of stops on the way to pick up passengers, plus the driver stopping and talking with people he knew.
Oh my god, I had the best breakfast today! I found dried blueberries in the hostel refrigerator and made some blueberry pancakes with bacon! It was amazing. Thanks again for the awesome bacon! Oh, and saw the soy sauce recipe below. Hmm.. will think about that one. Well, life in the bush can be pretty uneventful, so it may be a good experiment someday anyway.
Regarding the camel... Uncle Ron is the best! I will definitely write him a thank you note. Wow, with his contribution the search for camel money is just about over. They started a special account for the camel at the FPL Credit Union, so if you guys were to send the money there they could wire it all at once through Western Union. Make the check out to FPL Credit Union, with the memo regarding "Camel Club." I'm getting her at a market in a town near Tahoua, the heart of Tuareg land (they're the people who are known for their camels), so the question is once I buy her, how will I get her to Konni? I've seen camels in the back of bush taxis, so I suppose we could do that, and there's always the chance of riding her back, though that could take a few days. I will ask some Tuareg people for advice.
Other than that.. yeah, going to visit the microfinance bank tomorrow to ask some questions for my villagers. I hate going there because the guy always hits on me and asks me to marry him. Ugh. What would be a total faux pas in America is perfectly acceptable here in Niger, so the best I can do is say I don't want him and am tired of hearing him ask me. Also going to the vet office (okay, vet for cattle) to see about some worm medication for KittyKitty. I saw him poop the other day and there were squiggly little worms coming out of it; it was disgusting and I can't stop seeing an instant replay of it in my mind, so yeah, gotta get some meds for my little beastie. Saturday will head back to Korap to hang with the people.
Okay, take care! Tell Dad and Tom and Blackie hi for me!
Love,
Crystal
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Crystal's Camel
Ok, so it seems that Crystal is wanting to raise money to buy a camel for her village. She will use this camel to transport large/heavy items for her tree planting project, and if she is able to buy a female camel (they are more expensive) she will have it mate. Of course she will donate the camel to the village once she has finished her service with the PC.
My mom (Ruth) is collecting money for those that are interested in donating. She will send the money via Western Union. You can send a check or money to my mom:
Ruth Pilon
1175 AuSable Trail
Grayling, MI 49738
Thank you!
My mom (Ruth) is collecting money for those that are interested in donating. She will send the money via Western Union. You can send a check or money to my mom:
Ruth Pilon
1175 AuSable Trail
Grayling, MI 49738
Thank you!
Friday, August 08, 2008
letter from Crystal 8/6/08
Hi mom and dad! How's it going? I got your second and third packages, the ones with the Hausa book (awesome!!) and delightful baking items in it, a couple weeks ago but haven't had a chance to email you 'til now. I don't make it to Konni very often and even when I'm here there's usually other people using the computer and also the power sucks. There were protests in Niamey with Nigerlac, the power company, because of all the power outages we've been having. Now a nice company in China will be in charge of providing us with power so maybe it will be more reliable (?). A new package from you just came in today, along with one from Aunt Sue and Uncle Ron, but I haven't opened either of them because I am saving it for tomorrow. I like to prolong the excitement. I got a letter from Grandma and a package from Uncle Dave and Aunt Sue (lots of chocolate! yum!) and also one from my friend Liz in Madison, so I am feeling the love big-time. Also my former colleagues at the Lab want to collect money to help me buy my camel. It's something like $300 so if you know anyone willing to make a contribution I plan to send the Lab ppl a list of email addresses to contact. It's just too hard for me to email a lot of people from here. We can't do multiple-recipient emails because the computer gets all jacked up or something, so it's just easier to do it from America.
I want to start a chicken coop (bird flu? what bird flu?) so am asking Joe and Mary to research it for me. I want eggs. Also want to make cheese so am going to ask former colleagues from lab to visit dairy school at the UW there in madison and see if they can collect info for me, and even the correct enzymes to make something like cheddar. :) I've made a compost pile in my yard, planted some beans (black-eyed peas to you), planted the awesome flower seeds you sent me, though they haven't come up yet, and would like to plant some tomatoes. I love my village, but have to admit there are times where I don't feel like hanging out with people or speaking in Hausa, and on those days it is best to do my own little projects.
My health is great. No bacteria now for something like 2 months! Yeah, baby. And no colds to speak of. Just bug bites and heat rash. I take some kind of steriod at night because the bites are so itchy I can't sleep (Aerius, I think it's Allegra tho am not sure).
Found some nail polish at the Peace Corps hostel in Konni (that's where I am using this computer) and put it on some of the girls and young women in my village. My friend Lamirra is this spunky, 17-year-old married girl who makes the best fura and gives really decorative henna. One day I am going to bring some "American" clothes to the village (tight jeans and a tank top) and have her put it on (in her house, of course) and then she will probably dance around and we will laugh about it.
How was your trip to CA? How's little Angela and Christopher doing? How's Becky and Fonsi? Is Myra still there? I hope everyone is healthy and happy. I would love to see some pictures. I need to send them a letter to congratulate them on the arrival of their newest family member. :)
Below is a portion of an email I sent my colleagues. More stuff on village life.
Thanks again for the packages! You have been so awesome about it! Perhaps you could send an LED accompaniment to the mini mag-lite you sent me? The batteries only last 2 nights with the current bulb. :) Thanks so much!
Love always,
Crystal
The weather is nice now. Since it's rainy season it does get down to a nice, chilly 80 degrees! At night I use my sleeping bag, so it must be down to 70 at that time. The only problem with rainy season are all the darn bugs! There aren't many mosquitos, but when they come out you have to be careful not to get malaria. It breaks my heart to see kids so riddled with fever that they can't even talk, they just lay in their mother's arms and whimper. Fortunately people can usually scrape up enough money for medicine, so that's good, but it's still so sad.
Village life is good. Hausa is coming along and while progress seems slow I feel like I am more able to understand what people are saying and that makes me feel good, especially when they're talking about me and I can eavesdrop! The millet and sorghum plants are getting nice and tall so hopefully we'll have a good harvest next month. Oh, and next month marks the beginning of Ramadan, so my villagers will be fasting from both food and water for the entire cycle of the moon. I think I'll try it for one day as a "cultural experience" and see how it goes. The old people are already fasting, though I'm not really sure why. They still work in the fields, too. It's crazy.
People are hungry. Since their graineries are getting low, they only drink fura. Fura is a drink where first you add water to millet or sorghum flour to make a dough, then wad the dough up into a 8" ball. The dough is cooked in a pot with a couple inches of water to steam. Then it is pounded to separate it, then put in a big calabash bowl where sour milk and spices like cayenne pepper are added. Millet, sour milk and pepper... not my idea of a tasty lunch, but once you drink it a few times you get used to it and it's not so bad. So yeah, my villagers drink fura and go out into the bush and find leaves and cook them. Some of those cooked leaves taste bitter and nasty, but just add a little MSG and if you're hungry enough you'll eat it.
The men work hard in the fields, hoeing the soil around their plants for 8 hours a day, and it's back breaking work. I know this from experience because I did it for, like, 10 minutes. The women and children pick grass and other tasty greens for the animals at home. The animals can't go out in the fields because they'll eat the crops. Some kids go out and pick grass and sell it to people.
The women's group I work with is growing peanuts in the garden area. We also planted 160 moringa trees from seed (it's the amazing "you eat the leaves and they're full of nutrients" tree and it will grow to the perfect size in about 3 months), have our little pau plastique nursery going (80 dan tahoua trees, an Acacia, which is N-fixing and so is good in fields and you can also eat the seeds like millet, and 20 baobab trees), and hopefully the gum arabic we planted in their fields will come up. Also I am working with the Ministry of Environment to get some fish for our seasonal lake. It would most likely be a type of tilapia that would grow to full size in 2-3 months. The money for the fingerlings would come out of the women's group's caisse and then if they sell some fish they will make a profit. Fingerlings should be 5-10 CFA each and full-grown fish are sold for 100-150 CFA each. Also working on paperwork so that women's group can get an account at a microfinance bank so that in the future they can get a loan to buy their own piece of land. Right now they do their gardening on a piece of land "donated" by the chief of the village, and the last volunteer in the village applied for grants to get funding to build a fence around the land and dig a well in the center, and then the chief went ahead and planted mango seedlings everywhere. Way to take advantage of the fence and well. So the women won't be able to use the land for very long. The lesson learned is that whenever someone "donates" land make them sign a document and bring it to the mayor's attention (the mayor is in a larger village).
Now that I've been around for a while the kids aren't so scared of me. Whenever I go somewhere a group of kids will yell my name "Zena! Zena!" until I turn and greet them. And sometimes they come to my house. Any sort of empty box, bottle or bag makes a great toy for a kid, and I let some kids go through my trash and it was like Christmas for them. Empty pasta bags, soap boxes, a used razor (which I saw like 6 people using later on), anything with a label on it that had a picture, all of it was exciting to them. Sometimes kids come to my house and refuse to leave, and I've learned the best way to handle it is to pick up a stick or a millet stalk and wave it in a threatening way and they will scatter like flies. Works every time.
I want to start a chicken coop (bird flu? what bird flu?) so am asking Joe and Mary to research it for me. I want eggs. Also want to make cheese so am going to ask former colleagues from lab to visit dairy school at the UW there in madison and see if they can collect info for me, and even the correct enzymes to make something like cheddar. :) I've made a compost pile in my yard, planted some beans (black-eyed peas to you), planted the awesome flower seeds you sent me, though they haven't come up yet, and would like to plant some tomatoes. I love my village, but have to admit there are times where I don't feel like hanging out with people or speaking in Hausa, and on those days it is best to do my own little projects.
My health is great. No bacteria now for something like 2 months! Yeah, baby. And no colds to speak of. Just bug bites and heat rash. I take some kind of steriod at night because the bites are so itchy I can't sleep (Aerius, I think it's Allegra tho am not sure).
Found some nail polish at the Peace Corps hostel in Konni (that's where I am using this computer) and put it on some of the girls and young women in my village. My friend Lamirra is this spunky, 17-year-old married girl who makes the best fura and gives really decorative henna. One day I am going to bring some "American" clothes to the village (tight jeans and a tank top) and have her put it on (in her house, of course) and then she will probably dance around and we will laugh about it.
How was your trip to CA? How's little Angela and Christopher doing? How's Becky and Fonsi? Is Myra still there? I hope everyone is healthy and happy. I would love to see some pictures. I need to send them a letter to congratulate them on the arrival of their newest family member. :)
Below is a portion of an email I sent my colleagues. More stuff on village life.
Thanks again for the packages! You have been so awesome about it! Perhaps you could send an LED accompaniment to the mini mag-lite you sent me? The batteries only last 2 nights with the current bulb. :) Thanks so much!
Love always,
Crystal
The weather is nice now. Since it's rainy season it does get down to a nice, chilly 80 degrees! At night I use my sleeping bag, so it must be down to 70 at that time. The only problem with rainy season are all the darn bugs! There aren't many mosquitos, but when they come out you have to be careful not to get malaria. It breaks my heart to see kids so riddled with fever that they can't even talk, they just lay in their mother's arms and whimper. Fortunately people can usually scrape up enough money for medicine, so that's good, but it's still so sad.
Village life is good. Hausa is coming along and while progress seems slow I feel like I am more able to understand what people are saying and that makes me feel good, especially when they're talking about me and I can eavesdrop! The millet and sorghum plants are getting nice and tall so hopefully we'll have a good harvest next month. Oh, and next month marks the beginning of Ramadan, so my villagers will be fasting from both food and water for the entire cycle of the moon. I think I'll try it for one day as a "cultural experience" and see how it goes. The old people are already fasting, though I'm not really sure why. They still work in the fields, too. It's crazy.
People are hungry. Since their graineries are getting low, they only drink fura. Fura is a drink where first you add water to millet or sorghum flour to make a dough, then wad the dough up into a 8" ball. The dough is cooked in a pot with a couple inches of water to steam. Then it is pounded to separate it, then put in a big calabash bowl where sour milk and spices like cayenne pepper are added. Millet, sour milk and pepper... not my idea of a tasty lunch, but once you drink it a few times you get used to it and it's not so bad. So yeah, my villagers drink fura and go out into the bush and find leaves and cook them. Some of those cooked leaves taste bitter and nasty, but just add a little MSG and if you're hungry enough you'll eat it.
The men work hard in the fields, hoeing the soil around their plants for 8 hours a day, and it's back breaking work. I know this from experience because I did it for, like, 10 minutes. The women and children pick grass and other tasty greens for the animals at home. The animals can't go out in the fields because they'll eat the crops. Some kids go out and pick grass and sell it to people.
The women's group I work with is growing peanuts in the garden area. We also planted 160 moringa trees from seed (it's the amazing "you eat the leaves and they're full of nutrients" tree and it will grow to the perfect size in about 3 months), have our little pau plastique nursery going (80 dan tahoua trees, an Acacia, which is N-fixing and so is good in fields and you can also eat the seeds like millet, and 20 baobab trees), and hopefully the gum arabic we planted in their fields will come up. Also I am working with the Ministry of Environment to get some fish for our seasonal lake. It would most likely be a type of tilapia that would grow to full size in 2-3 months. The money for the fingerlings would come out of the women's group's caisse and then if they sell some fish they will make a profit. Fingerlings should be 5-10 CFA each and full-grown fish are sold for 100-150 CFA each. Also working on paperwork so that women's group can get an account at a microfinance bank so that in the future they can get a loan to buy their own piece of land. Right now they do their gardening on a piece of land "donated" by the chief of the village, and the last volunteer in the village applied for grants to get funding to build a fence around the land and dig a well in the center, and then the chief went ahead and planted mango seedlings everywhere. Way to take advantage of the fence and well. So the women won't be able to use the land for very long. The lesson learned is that whenever someone "donates" land make them sign a document and bring it to the mayor's attention (the mayor is in a larger village).
Now that I've been around for a while the kids aren't so scared of me. Whenever I go somewhere a group of kids will yell my name "Zena! Zena!" until I turn and greet them. And sometimes they come to my house. Any sort of empty box, bottle or bag makes a great toy for a kid, and I let some kids go through my trash and it was like Christmas for them. Empty pasta bags, soap boxes, a used razor (which I saw like 6 people using later on), anything with a label on it that had a picture, all of it was exciting to them. Sometimes kids come to my house and refuse to leave, and I've learned the best way to handle it is to pick up a stick or a millet stalk and wave it in a threatening way and they will scatter like flies. Works every time.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
letter from Crystal 5/01/08
Hi everyone! I am taking a few hours to catch up on my email-sending. I tried sending this a couple weeks ago but am not sure you received it. :)
Love,
Crystal
See canned letter below and update below-below:
Life in Niger is going well. I'm feeling pretty good about what I'm doing
here. I have been at my village for a month now and it's wonderful -
everything I hoped it would be. It's small, about 400 people live there, and
a lot of them are kids. I am so lucky the previous volunteer had a chance to
explain to everyone what it's like to come to their village not knowing
their language and living in a way very different from that in the States.
They are really understanding and patient with me, are always excited to see
me, and treat me with the utmost respect.
My typical day:
Get up at 7:00 to the sounds of a) women pounding millet or sorghum in their
big mortars and pestles, and b) sounds of animals (cows, donkeys, chickens,
guinea fowl who are really annoying). Yes, I sleep outside because my house
is just way too hot at the end of the day.
7:00-7:30: Wash face and hands, fold up bedding and put it inside
7:30-8:30: My neighbor comes with my water, which I pay her to bring from
the well. The well is kind of far away and there's no way my poor wimpy body
can handle carrying THAT much water on my head for such a long distance. I
pour it into my big clay pot and fill up my water filter (a 3-gallon bucket
sits atop a 5-gallon bucket with a spout on the bottom. The water is poured
into the little bucket and drips through the filter to the big bucket.) I
eat bread with peanut butter and raisins for breakfast, provided I have
bread. If I don't have bread, I cook oatmeal with raisins and peanut butter,
powdered milk, and sugar. If I put a lot of sugar in it it tastes like a
monster cookie! A little note about food - I eat rich people food. My
villagers mainly eat tuwo (pounded millet or sorghum, or corn if they have
the money) with sauce made from leaves and onions and seasonings. It's
pretty good and filling. They eat the leftovers for breakfast. During cold
season there's usually some garden vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, and
carrots that they can eat, too. They make this awesome salad - it's lettuce
or cabbage with kouli-kouli (if you have peanut butter and you extract out
all the oil, you are left with kouli-kouli- lowfat, delicious and a good
source of protein), cassava flour, a little tonka powder (ground hot
peppers), salt and ginger, tossed with oil. Mmmmmm... Okay, it's morning, I
just got up, and I'm a little hungry. Ha ha!
8:30-11:00: If I have chores, I do them now. Sweep my house and concession
(concession is the area surrounding my house. It's like a small, walled-in
yard, granted a yard without grass or anything. Most people do their daily
activities in their concession because it's hot and there's no wind inside
the house. The typical concession has a millet-stalk shade hangar, cooking
area, a walled off peeing/washing area, and an animal area where they tie up
their donkeys, goats, sheep, camel, whatever.) because if I don't sweep I
may get a (gasp) chariot spider - a fist-sized spider that scorpions ride
on, not kidding - or a snake or red ants.. scary! So yeah, I sweep under my
millet-stalk bed and around my latrine with a broom that is basically a
bunch of long grass tied together with a string. I wash my clothes if I need
to, refill my water bucket in my bathing area so it can get warmed by the
sun during the day, wash dishes, whatever.
Usually people swing by in the morning to say hi - my neighbor Rabi, my best
guy friends Issoufou and Issya, sometimes my friends want to play cards so
we play cards (this crazy Nigerien game that's kind of like euchre without
trumps; hard to explain) and listen to Nigerien and Nigerian music on my
shortwave radio (the best investment ever! Now I can listen to the BBC and
it is wonderful to have an inkling of what is going on in the world -
elections in zimbabwe, the olympics and tibet, the us housing market.. good
stuff).
11:00-2:00: This is "me" time. I take a nap in my house (by now the sun is
so hot that it's cooler inside), eat lunch (macaroni with vegetables or
tomato sauce or powdered milk sauce or a PB sandwich or rice with beans and
fried onions), read, write in my journal, whatever. Sometimes Issoufou's
wife has him bring me food, which is nice, or Rabi brings me some cooked
beans.
2:00-5:00: Sometimes I put off chores until now. Sometimes I walk around the
village greeting people and hanging out with them. My favorite are the old
guys who hang out in the middle of town, the "town square", if you will.
It's where the mosque is, the 2 "shops" (they're tiny and hardly have
anything), the chief's house is nearby; basically it's a 40ft x 40ft area
shaded by a couple of trees right in the middle of town. The old guys lounge
around on mats or just in the dirt and move around during the day to stay in
the shade. Whenever I walk by they shout greetings and sometimes if I'm not
going anywhere I sit with them and we talk and they help me with my Hausa,
which is sometimes hard because some of them don't have teeth. Or I go to
the well and talk to the women as they pull water, or I head over to the
Fulan encampment and work on my Fulfulde. The Fulans are another culture of
people here; in my village we have the Hausa people and the Fulans. The
Fulans speak both Fulfulde and Hausa and herd cattle. If you google Fulans
or Fulani or Hilanche maybe you will see photos of these beautiful people -
they wear beaded jewelry and have their hair in different braids than the
Hausa people. The men grow their hair long and fluff it out afro-style. The
kids' heads are shaved except for a little pouf in the front and one in the
back. And the men and boys wear these long purple tunics over pants and
these very traditional-looking, pointy straw hats. They often carry around a
big stick to use for herding cattle. The Hausa people and Fulani people both
have beautification scarring on their faces, which is also beautiful,
especially on the women.
5:00-7:00: Make dinner or eat stuff people bring me - tuwo, rice, whatever.
Hang out. I don't know. Stuff. Run around talking to people. More of the
same thing. My work here is basically learning Hausa and hanging out with my
villagers. Sounds easy, I know, but it's actually really challenging because
speaking Hausa can be exhausting, and when someone's trying to explain a
word to me and I'm not understanding.. it's tiring, really. The worst is
when I go to baby-naming ceremonies or weddings where there are women from
other villages. They don't understand that I've only been in the village for
a little while and that I'm still learning Hausa, and they speak to me
really fast and are impatient when I ask them to repeat themselves and then
they announce, "she doesn't know Hausa." Or, most recently, women from a
fellow volunteer Balkissa's village said, "Balkissa speaks Hausa but SHE
doesn't." Fortunately my neighbor Rabi always sticks up for me; she is
wonderful, but at first I took it personally and started feeling bad and
that these people are basically saying I suck and I don't try and then felt
crappy. But I came up with a better solution, and when I found myself in
this situation yesterday, I just told them, "hey, have patience. Hausa is
hard." And they seemed to accept that.
7:00 is prayer time, so I hear the Iman making the prayer call and I have to
go home. From 7-8 I get ready for bed, laying out my mattress and bedding,
and after the dusk prayer (usually 8:00 or 8:15) I bathe (out of a bucket),
brush my teeth, whatever, and if I'm feeling up for it I go out to the town
square and hang out. There's usually a lot of village men there buying
cooked meat from the butcher, hanging out talking, whatever. Then I go to
bed!
I got a kitten a couple days ago. His name is Kitty-Kitty, because my
villagers are just really proud of the fact that they know that word (from
the last volunteer). He's cute. He meows a lot. He's playful. He'll be a
good companion, I'm sure.
Yesterday I traveled from my village, Korap, to Konni, the "big town" where
I do my Peace Corps business. Sunday we have a regional meeting so I'll get
a feel for what's going on here, and saturday I'm going to Tahoua - the big
city! - to do some banking. I've never been to Tahoua so I'm pretty excited
and hoping to hit up an al hadji (rich person) shop and get some American
groceries. Korap is so small that you'll probably not see it on google maps,
but you may see my neighboring village, Fari. It's 1km from my village and
is a bit larger. Nearby also is Rafi and Gazurawa.
My trip from Korap to Konni was eventful. My friends Issoufou and Issya
walked with me the 3-4 miles to the main road, Issoufou insisting on
carrying my bag (gotta love Nigeriens!). We were on a bush road when this
big dump truck came zooming down the road toward us. It slipped in the sand
as it boomed around a curve and ran off the road maybe 40 feet right in
front of us. It was heading toward us sliding sideways.. pretty scary... but
please don't worry too much, I'm being careful as much as possible!
As for health, I've had bacteria twice in the last month and have had to
take Cipro. No problem.. I know I'm bringing it upon myself when I eat
village food like salad and leaves and stuff. It's not too bad but usually
involves a fever, which can be scary and kind of sucks. And I've had a few
colds, mostly because of the strong wind and dust that blows around here.
Okay, I'm going to wrap this up now.. I'm getting hungry and my computer
tolerance has certainly dropped since I've been here.
And now for an update:
I went to a possession dance. Although Islam is big here, animism is still present in many ways. A neighboring volunteer's village had a possession dance so my friend Issoufou and I went there to check it out. There was a fenced off area where the dance took place, and deep inside, beneath a tree, there were musicians playing the eeriest music on traditional instruments; a calabash drum with broom-like drumsticks and a reedy instrument playing a melody. It was dark and there was a strong wind. The people dance to the music, which attracts the spirits, and eventually they become possessed. You can't really tell when someone's possessed, at least I couldn't. They just danced. But people gather around them and ask lots of questions, fast spit-fire style. The spirits know everything, and when someone's possessed they can relay that knowledge. So people ask things like how the growing season will be, their family's health, etc. It was really interesting and exciting.
Mom, someone brought packages from Niamey last week and yours wasn't included. I'm starting to feel a little nervous that maybe it's not going to make it, but I will see when I get to Niamey in two weeks. Becky and Joe/Mary - I got your packages, almost at the same time! Joe/Mary, I already wrote you a letter about it but am too lazy to type it (this keyboard sucks), but I really loved the photos and your awesome letters and the LifeSavers and condiments. Mmm... real ketchup... :) Becky, I shared the People magazine with my homies at the hostel and it was definitely gobbled up by everyone. I really enjoyed it, especially reading about New Kids on the Block and the pregnant man. Totally weird. And then I ordered fries from the local restaurant and ate them with In 'n 'Out Heinz ketchup and it was great because ketchup here tastes like crap. And the trail mix and sesame yummies.. I'm just holding onto those until I get back to my post. :) If you guys feel like sending me more condiments, feel free. The local restaurant here sells hamburgers and fries (though not the same as in US of A) and I can get mustard and mayo at the store but not good ketchup and no relish, either. OMG, I miss relish. Now I'm thinking about brats. I really miss pig products. Could you please send me a brat with saurkraut, relish, chopped onions and mustard? Thanks, I appreciate it. I didn't think to include pig products on my blog survey about what food I'd miss the most. So far it's not meat, it's not chocolate, it's not fresh veggies (because we still have them), but I'm hurting for cheddar cheese and pizza (which I could make if I had something other than laughing cow cheese but I don't) and pork. I'm pretty sure a strong, aged cheese like Tommy's sharp cheddar would make it through the mail. (hint, hint) Becky's package made it here in 2 weeks. And crackers. Wasn't a huge fan in US, but want them here, maybe because of the salt. I eat so much salt it's insane. You have to when it's 120 outside every day and you're chugging liters of water. And while you're thinking of sending me stuff, mom.. maybe you can think about seeds. Just stuff some in an envelope, wouldn't be too hard. Whatever you think can handle strong sunlight and crappy soil (I know you're familiar with crappy soil!). Rainy season's coming and that's the time to grow things. I heard sunflowers grow.. it'd be cool to try blackberries if you think they can survive. Whatever you think would work. Or desert plants, like aloe or whatever Becky has there in Cali (cacti?). Hook it up, g-funks!
Okay, so maybe this is the time to mention visiting your daughter/sister. Mom and dad, if you can make it, I'd recommend coming at the end of hot season (the hottest time of the year, ha ha) or during the rainy season next year as that's the time where there's no strong wind and dust. Mom, I would really worry about your asthma with the crazy wind we get. So yeah, mid-April to August would be ideal. The scary thing about rainy season is that I've heard there are mosquitos, but hey, you guys are from the woods; I'm sure you can handle it! The storms are supposedly intense (not that wimpy Michigan drizzle) so we'd have to chill inside my tiny little house during them, but I know you guys are hard core and can handle it. And for the rest of you! Once you get here you'd need $100 tops per person to last 2 weeks. I know flights are expensive, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a developing country and you would never forget it. Christopher and the new baby could stay with the 'rents, you guys can take a romantic camel ride in the savannah through mesas and beneath the setting sun.. it would be a great way to celebrate your anniversary next year. ;)
All right, I'm going now. I love you and hope to hear from you all soon! Feel free to share this letter with whomever you like.
Love,
Crystal
Love,
Crystal
See canned letter below and update below-below:
Life in Niger is going well. I'm feeling pretty good about what I'm doing
here. I have been at my village for a month now and it's wonderful -
everything I hoped it would be. It's small, about 400 people live there, and
a lot of them are kids. I am so lucky the previous volunteer had a chance to
explain to everyone what it's like to come to their village not knowing
their language and living in a way very different from that in the States.
They are really understanding and patient with me, are always excited to see
me, and treat me with the utmost respect.
My typical day:
Get up at 7:00 to the sounds of a) women pounding millet or sorghum in their
big mortars and pestles, and b) sounds of animals (cows, donkeys, chickens,
guinea fowl who are really annoying). Yes, I sleep outside because my house
is just way too hot at the end of the day.
7:00-7:30: Wash face and hands, fold up bedding and put it inside
7:30-8:30: My neighbor comes with my water, which I pay her to bring from
the well. The well is kind of far away and there's no way my poor wimpy body
can handle carrying THAT much water on my head for such a long distance. I
pour it into my big clay pot and fill up my water filter (a 3-gallon bucket
sits atop a 5-gallon bucket with a spout on the bottom. The water is poured
into the little bucket and drips through the filter to the big bucket.) I
eat bread with peanut butter and raisins for breakfast, provided I have
bread. If I don't have bread, I cook oatmeal with raisins and peanut butter,
powdered milk, and sugar. If I put a lot of sugar in it it tastes like a
monster cookie! A little note about food - I eat rich people food. My
villagers mainly eat tuwo (pounded millet or sorghum, or corn if they have
the money) with sauce made from leaves and onions and seasonings. It's
pretty good and filling. They eat the leftovers for breakfast. During cold
season there's usually some garden vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, and
carrots that they can eat, too. They make this awesome salad - it's lettuce
or cabbage with kouli-kouli (if you have peanut butter and you extract out
all the oil, you are left with kouli-kouli- lowfat, delicious and a good
source of protein), cassava flour, a little tonka powder (ground hot
peppers), salt and ginger, tossed with oil. Mmmmmm... Okay, it's morning, I
just got up, and I'm a little hungry. Ha ha!
8:30-11:00: If I have chores, I do them now. Sweep my house and concession
(concession is the area surrounding my house. It's like a small, walled-in
yard, granted a yard without grass or anything. Most people do their daily
activities in their concession because it's hot and there's no wind inside
the house. The typical concession has a millet-stalk shade hangar, cooking
area, a walled off peeing/washing area, and an animal area where they tie up
their donkeys, goats, sheep, camel, whatever.) because if I don't sweep I
may get a (gasp) chariot spider - a fist-sized spider that scorpions ride
on, not kidding - or a snake or red ants.. scary! So yeah, I sweep under my
millet-stalk bed and around my latrine with a broom that is basically a
bunch of long grass tied together with a string. I wash my clothes if I need
to, refill my water bucket in my bathing area so it can get warmed by the
sun during the day, wash dishes, whatever.
Usually people swing by in the morning to say hi - my neighbor Rabi, my best
guy friends Issoufou and Issya, sometimes my friends want to play cards so
we play cards (this crazy Nigerien game that's kind of like euchre without
trumps; hard to explain) and listen to Nigerien and Nigerian music on my
shortwave radio (the best investment ever! Now I can listen to the BBC and
it is wonderful to have an inkling of what is going on in the world -
elections in zimbabwe, the olympics and tibet, the us housing market.. good
stuff).
11:00-2:00: This is "me" time. I take a nap in my house (by now the sun is
so hot that it's cooler inside), eat lunch (macaroni with vegetables or
tomato sauce or powdered milk sauce or a PB sandwich or rice with beans and
fried onions), read, write in my journal, whatever. Sometimes Issoufou's
wife has him bring me food, which is nice, or Rabi brings me some cooked
beans.
2:00-5:00: Sometimes I put off chores until now. Sometimes I walk around the
village greeting people and hanging out with them. My favorite are the old
guys who hang out in the middle of town, the "town square", if you will.
It's where the mosque is, the 2 "shops" (they're tiny and hardly have
anything), the chief's house is nearby; basically it's a 40ft x 40ft area
shaded by a couple of trees right in the middle of town. The old guys lounge
around on mats or just in the dirt and move around during the day to stay in
the shade. Whenever I walk by they shout greetings and sometimes if I'm not
going anywhere I sit with them and we talk and they help me with my Hausa,
which is sometimes hard because some of them don't have teeth. Or I go to
the well and talk to the women as they pull water, or I head over to the
Fulan encampment and work on my Fulfulde. The Fulans are another culture of
people here; in my village we have the Hausa people and the Fulans. The
Fulans speak both Fulfulde and Hausa and herd cattle. If you google Fulans
or Fulani or Hilanche maybe you will see photos of these beautiful people -
they wear beaded jewelry and have their hair in different braids than the
Hausa people. The men grow their hair long and fluff it out afro-style. The
kids' heads are shaved except for a little pouf in the front and one in the
back. And the men and boys wear these long purple tunics over pants and
these very traditional-looking, pointy straw hats. They often carry around a
big stick to use for herding cattle. The Hausa people and Fulani people both
have beautification scarring on their faces, which is also beautiful,
especially on the women.
5:00-7:00: Make dinner or eat stuff people bring me - tuwo, rice, whatever.
Hang out. I don't know. Stuff. Run around talking to people. More of the
same thing. My work here is basically learning Hausa and hanging out with my
villagers. Sounds easy, I know, but it's actually really challenging because
speaking Hausa can be exhausting, and when someone's trying to explain a
word to me and I'm not understanding.. it's tiring, really. The worst is
when I go to baby-naming ceremonies or weddings where there are women from
other villages. They don't understand that I've only been in the village for
a little while and that I'm still learning Hausa, and they speak to me
really fast and are impatient when I ask them to repeat themselves and then
they announce, "she doesn't know Hausa." Or, most recently, women from a
fellow volunteer Balkissa's village said, "Balkissa speaks Hausa but SHE
doesn't." Fortunately my neighbor Rabi always sticks up for me; she is
wonderful, but at first I took it personally and started feeling bad and
that these people are basically saying I suck and I don't try and then felt
crappy. But I came up with a better solution, and when I found myself in
this situation yesterday, I just told them, "hey, have patience. Hausa is
hard." And they seemed to accept that.
7:00 is prayer time, so I hear the Iman making the prayer call and I have to
go home. From 7-8 I get ready for bed, laying out my mattress and bedding,
and after the dusk prayer (usually 8:00 or 8:15) I bathe (out of a bucket),
brush my teeth, whatever, and if I'm feeling up for it I go out to the town
square and hang out. There's usually a lot of village men there buying
cooked meat from the butcher, hanging out talking, whatever. Then I go to
bed!
I got a kitten a couple days ago. His name is Kitty-Kitty, because my
villagers are just really proud of the fact that they know that word (from
the last volunteer). He's cute. He meows a lot. He's playful. He'll be a
good companion, I'm sure.
Yesterday I traveled from my village, Korap, to Konni, the "big town" where
I do my Peace Corps business. Sunday we have a regional meeting so I'll get
a feel for what's going on here, and saturday I'm going to Tahoua - the big
city! - to do some banking. I've never been to Tahoua so I'm pretty excited
and hoping to hit up an al hadji (rich person) shop and get some American
groceries. Korap is so small that you'll probably not see it on google maps,
but you may see my neighboring village, Fari. It's 1km from my village and
is a bit larger. Nearby also is Rafi and Gazurawa.
My trip from Korap to Konni was eventful. My friends Issoufou and Issya
walked with me the 3-4 miles to the main road, Issoufou insisting on
carrying my bag (gotta love Nigeriens!). We were on a bush road when this
big dump truck came zooming down the road toward us. It slipped in the sand
as it boomed around a curve and ran off the road maybe 40 feet right in
front of us. It was heading toward us sliding sideways.. pretty scary... but
please don't worry too much, I'm being careful as much as possible!
As for health, I've had bacteria twice in the last month and have had to
take Cipro. No problem.. I know I'm bringing it upon myself when I eat
village food like salad and leaves and stuff. It's not too bad but usually
involves a fever, which can be scary and kind of sucks. And I've had a few
colds, mostly because of the strong wind and dust that blows around here.
Okay, I'm going to wrap this up now.. I'm getting hungry and my computer
tolerance has certainly dropped since I've been here.
And now for an update:
I went to a possession dance. Although Islam is big here, animism is still present in many ways. A neighboring volunteer's village had a possession dance so my friend Issoufou and I went there to check it out. There was a fenced off area where the dance took place, and deep inside, beneath a tree, there were musicians playing the eeriest music on traditional instruments; a calabash drum with broom-like drumsticks and a reedy instrument playing a melody. It was dark and there was a strong wind. The people dance to the music, which attracts the spirits, and eventually they become possessed. You can't really tell when someone's possessed, at least I couldn't. They just danced. But people gather around them and ask lots of questions, fast spit-fire style. The spirits know everything, and when someone's possessed they can relay that knowledge. So people ask things like how the growing season will be, their family's health, etc. It was really interesting and exciting.
Mom, someone brought packages from Niamey last week and yours wasn't included. I'm starting to feel a little nervous that maybe it's not going to make it, but I will see when I get to Niamey in two weeks. Becky and Joe/Mary - I got your packages, almost at the same time! Joe/Mary, I already wrote you a letter about it but am too lazy to type it (this keyboard sucks), but I really loved the photos and your awesome letters and the LifeSavers and condiments. Mmm... real ketchup... :) Becky, I shared the People magazine with my homies at the hostel and it was definitely gobbled up by everyone. I really enjoyed it, especially reading about New Kids on the Block and the pregnant man. Totally weird. And then I ordered fries from the local restaurant and ate them with In 'n 'Out Heinz ketchup and it was great because ketchup here tastes like crap. And the trail mix and sesame yummies.. I'm just holding onto those until I get back to my post. :) If you guys feel like sending me more condiments, feel free. The local restaurant here sells hamburgers and fries (though not the same as in US of A) and I can get mustard and mayo at the store but not good ketchup and no relish, either. OMG, I miss relish. Now I'm thinking about brats. I really miss pig products. Could you please send me a brat with saurkraut, relish, chopped onions and mustard? Thanks, I appreciate it. I didn't think to include pig products on my blog survey about what food I'd miss the most. So far it's not meat, it's not chocolate, it's not fresh veggies (because we still have them), but I'm hurting for cheddar cheese and pizza (which I could make if I had something other than laughing cow cheese but I don't) and pork. I'm pretty sure a strong, aged cheese like Tommy's sharp cheddar would make it through the mail. (hint, hint) Becky's package made it here in 2 weeks. And crackers. Wasn't a huge fan in US, but want them here, maybe because of the salt. I eat so much salt it's insane. You have to when it's 120 outside every day and you're chugging liters of water. And while you're thinking of sending me stuff, mom.. maybe you can think about seeds. Just stuff some in an envelope, wouldn't be too hard. Whatever you think can handle strong sunlight and crappy soil (I know you're familiar with crappy soil!). Rainy season's coming and that's the time to grow things. I heard sunflowers grow.. it'd be cool to try blackberries if you think they can survive. Whatever you think would work. Or desert plants, like aloe or whatever Becky has there in Cali (cacti?). Hook it up, g-funks!
Okay, so maybe this is the time to mention visiting your daughter/sister. Mom and dad, if you can make it, I'd recommend coming at the end of hot season (the hottest time of the year, ha ha) or during the rainy season next year as that's the time where there's no strong wind and dust. Mom, I would really worry about your asthma with the crazy wind we get. So yeah, mid-April to August would be ideal. The scary thing about rainy season is that I've heard there are mosquitos, but hey, you guys are from the woods; I'm sure you can handle it! The storms are supposedly intense (not that wimpy Michigan drizzle) so we'd have to chill inside my tiny little house during them, but I know you guys are hard core and can handle it. And for the rest of you! Once you get here you'd need $100 tops per person to last 2 weeks. I know flights are expensive, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a developing country and you would never forget it. Christopher and the new baby could stay with the 'rents, you guys can take a romantic camel ride in the savannah through mesas and beneath the setting sun.. it would be a great way to celebrate your anniversary next year. ;)
All right, I'm going now. I love you and hope to hear from you all soon! Feel free to share this letter with whomever you like.
Love,
Crystal
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Crystal's letter 3/13/08
Hi everyone!
I'm alive... and finally can access the internet!
I won't have internet access within 400 km of my post, so don't count on me sending you too many emails from this address. However, my Peace Corps email address is konnipcv@intnet.ne just make sure to put my name in the subject line so it will go to me. I can check mail from the peace corps address in Konni, which is 12 km from my village, it's just that it's a dial-up situation and the computer doesn't always have electricity and I can't accept huge videos or photos. But I'll be able to check that email pretty often; it's just that I can't surf the net.
I have a cell phone. I've tried texting all of you but haven't received a response, and that could be caused by a myriad of things - the shady cell provider here that doesn't always work, or you may have to check with your cell provider to see if you're able to receive international text messages. My cell # is 011.227.95824898 It's free for me to receive calls and messages, so contact away! Mom and dad, could you give my # to Djam if you talk to him soon?
Mom, I got Aunt Sue's package yesterday and it was AWESOME! It was a rough day because we had our final language proficiency exam (LPI) and I'm also suffering from a cold (stupid wind kicking up dust everywhere) so I did a lot of sleeping and then struggled through my exam. But Aunt Sue's package made me smile and I loved the candy and my host family was really impressed with the bracelet she gave me. Today we got the results of our LPI and I passed! I'm surprised because 8 people out of 33 didn't pass, and I thought they would just go easy on everyone and let us all pass no matter what, but they didn't. So I'm lucky to have passed my exam. :) Now I speak Hausa at an intermediate-mid level. Ya yi kyau!
Okay, so I'm wondering if you could grant me a huge favor. When I send you letters or emails, could you copy/paste or type them into my blog? I'm going to give you all access to it. I want to keep my friends and family updated but it's really hard when I never have access to the internet.
As for life here... it's great! We're almost done with training and I'll be swearing in tomorrow, friday, night. I love Niger. The people are wonderful and the food is somewhat good depending on who's cooking it and you definitely get used to a different way of life. I wish I could give you tons of details but I really need to update my blog now! Mom, I'm hoping my camera is on its way here. :) My new address is:
Crystal Pilon, PCV
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 89
Konni, Niger
West Africa
Love,
Crystal
I'm alive... and finally can access the internet!
I won't have internet access within 400 km of my post, so don't count on me sending you too many emails from this address. However, my Peace Corps email address is konnipcv@intnet.ne just make sure to put my name in the subject line so it will go to me. I can check mail from the peace corps address in Konni, which is 12 km from my village, it's just that it's a dial-up situation and the computer doesn't always have electricity and I can't accept huge videos or photos. But I'll be able to check that email pretty often; it's just that I can't surf the net.
I have a cell phone. I've tried texting all of you but haven't received a response, and that could be caused by a myriad of things - the shady cell provider here that doesn't always work, or you may have to check with your cell provider to see if you're able to receive international text messages. My cell # is 011.227.95824898 It's free for me to receive calls and messages, so contact away! Mom and dad, could you give my # to Djam if you talk to him soon?
Mom, I got Aunt Sue's package yesterday and it was AWESOME! It was a rough day because we had our final language proficiency exam (LPI) and I'm also suffering from a cold (stupid wind kicking up dust everywhere) so I did a lot of sleeping and then struggled through my exam. But Aunt Sue's package made me smile and I loved the candy and my host family was really impressed with the bracelet she gave me. Today we got the results of our LPI and I passed! I'm surprised because 8 people out of 33 didn't pass, and I thought they would just go easy on everyone and let us all pass no matter what, but they didn't. So I'm lucky to have passed my exam. :) Now I speak Hausa at an intermediate-mid level. Ya yi kyau!
Okay, so I'm wondering if you could grant me a huge favor. When I send you letters or emails, could you copy/paste or type them into my blog? I'm going to give you all access to it. I want to keep my friends and family updated but it's really hard when I never have access to the internet.
As for life here... it's great! We're almost done with training and I'll be swearing in tomorrow, friday, night. I love Niger. The people are wonderful and the food is somewhat good depending on who's cooking it and you definitely get used to a different way of life. I wish I could give you tons of details but I really need to update my blog now! Mom, I'm hoping my camera is on its way here. :) My new address is:
Crystal Pilon, PCV
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 89
Konni, Niger
West Africa
Love,
Crystal
Alive and kicking!
Hi everyone, I'm back. For a few minutes. I had to wait three hours to use a computer with internet access, so here I am! Hopefully I can finagle a way to keep in contact more often, but it's not easy.
Niger is great. It's hot, it's sunny, and I've had some good adventures so far - riding a camel, seeing giraffes in the bush, riding a bush taxi (imagine 30 people crammed in the back of a small-size pickup truck), eating Nigerien food (rice and sauce, gristly meat, tuwo), learning Hausa, climbing mesas... it's been fun. Tomorrow I'm getting sworn in as a PC volunteer (yay!) so training will finally be over. Then I'm moving to my village, which has about 600 people in it and is 12 km from the nearest market. Good times!
I can't stay long, but I thought I'd drop a line. Hope everyone's doing well! I would love to get some mail from you all!
Niger is great. It's hot, it's sunny, and I've had some good adventures so far - riding a camel, seeing giraffes in the bush, riding a bush taxi (imagine 30 people crammed in the back of a small-size pickup truck), eating Nigerien food (rice and sauce, gristly meat, tuwo), learning Hausa, climbing mesas... it's been fun. Tomorrow I'm getting sworn in as a PC volunteer (yay!) so training will finally be over. Then I'm moving to my village, which has about 600 people in it and is 12 km from the nearest market. Good times!
I can't stay long, but I thought I'd drop a line. Hope everyone's doing well! I would love to get some mail from you all!
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
It's gonna be a while
I'm here at staging in Philadelphia, and I learned that while we are training in Hamdallaye (pronounced "Hum-da-lye".. and while we're talking about pronunciation, I should mention that the capital of Niger, Niamey, is pronounced "Knee-emm-ay") we won't have access to computers or telephones for the first six weeks. So this is the last you'll hear from me in a while.
I've learned the answers to some popular questions that I didn't know before.
The Peace Corps has done a really nice job with the staging, too. We cover a lot of boring topics (Risk Management, Policies, etc.) but they make it fun by including a lot of games and activities. My favorite was when we split up into four groups (music, writing, art, and dance) and each gave a performance about a Peace Corps experience. Since I suck at dancing and wouldn't consider myself a writer or artist, I chose the music group. We grouped with the dancers and played a song using random materials from around the room (water glasses, ice bucket, Nalgene bottle) while they did this KICK-ASS dance. We only had about 20 minutes to get our performance together and I can't believe they came up with such a great, choreographed dance in such a short amount of time. Everyone was really impressed.
Tonight we are leaving for Niger. I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm happy to be around such wonderful people. It's going to be a blast! Hope to talk again soon.
I've learned the answers to some popular questions that I didn't know before.
- Vaccinations - Hepatitis A and B, rabies, yellow fever, along with MMR, tdap, and Polio
- Will I be alone? - yes, I will be alone in my village. However, a fellow volunteer may be in a nearby village.
- Languages? - I don't know what language I'll have to learn, but it will be either Hausa or Zarma. If I get to my site and realize people are speaking a language different from Hausa or Zarma, I'll get some training in that, too.
- Training - so we'll get to Hamdallaye and spend 10 weeks there learning about the language and local culture. Then we'll go to our individual posts, spend some time there (a month or so?) then come back to Hamdallaye (I think?) for more technical training.
The Peace Corps has done a really nice job with the staging, too. We cover a lot of boring topics (Risk Management, Policies, etc.) but they make it fun by including a lot of games and activities. My favorite was when we split up into four groups (music, writing, art, and dance) and each gave a performance about a Peace Corps experience. Since I suck at dancing and wouldn't consider myself a writer or artist, I chose the music group. We grouped with the dancers and played a song using random materials from around the room (water glasses, ice bucket, Nalgene bottle) while they did this KICK-ASS dance. We only had about 20 minutes to get our performance together and I can't believe they came up with such a great, choreographed dance in such a short amount of time. Everyone was really impressed.
Tonight we are leaving for Niger. I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm happy to be around such wonderful people. It's going to be a blast! Hope to talk again soon.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Peace Corps Girl
Me with my Peace Corps haircut...
Wearing my Peace Corps clothes...
With (part of) my wonderful family...
Au revoir!
Wearing my Peace Corps clothes...
With (part of) my wonderful family...
Au revoir!
Packing List
Luggage
- Camp Trails Blackjack backpack
- Duluth Trading Co satchel
- Tote bag for carry-on
- Some kind of duffel bag
- Windbreaker
- 3 pairs underwear (black)
- 3 pairs black socks
- 3 sports bras (not white)
- My three favorite t-shirts - my yellow "Hair" t-shirt, my green "So-Co Music Fest" tee, and my red "United Way Day of Caring" t-shirt
- Two beautiful collared Duluth Trading Co. nylon-poly shirts, given to me by Kolby (light blue and light green)
- One pair of lightweight khaki convertible pants/shorts
- Two long skirts (khaki and navy blue)
- One fleece sweatshirt
- One pair of jeans
- One Sunday Afternoons adventure hat and a Peace Corps baseball cap
- Bathing suit
- One pair Chaco sandals
- One pair Merrill tennis shoes w/ Superfeet insoles
- Hand towel
- Small camping towel
- Three-month supply of medication
- Soap container with Aveeno oatmeal soap
- Pantene travel-size shampoo and conditioner
- Various Burt's Bees travel-size lotions and creams
- Earplugs
- Q-tips
- Toothbrush, travel toothpaste, Glide floss
- Hair ties
- Tweezers and nail clippers
- Facial lotion with SPF 45
- 2 disposable razors
- Compact mirror
- Tampons and maxi pads
- Pocket knife
- Can opener
- Two 1-qt Nalgene water bottles
- Zip-loc bags of various sizes
- Twist ties
- Length of rope
- 6 clothespins
- Scissors
- Lithium AA batteries for digital camera (12) (would bring less but not sure if lithium batteries can be found in Niger)
- AAA batteries (12) (don't take up much room)
- LED light keychain
- Whistle
- Watch
- Mini maglite flashlight with LED bulb
- Sewing kit with extra safety pins
- Bandana
- Cooling neck wrap (you soak it in water and it stays cool)
- Sleeping bag
- Two full-size flat sheets, in maroon
- One pillowcase
- 35 mm camera with film
- Extra 35 mm camera battery
- Digital camera (broken right now but parents will send it when it's fixed)
- 2 memory cards for camera
- USB digital camera-card reader
- Cards and stationary
- Stamps
- Calendar of Michigan scenes
- Manila envelopes (6)
- Padded small manila envelopes (3)
- Books - romantic poetry, book on Niger, random paperbacks from the garage
- Playing cards
- One cross-stitch pattern with thread
- Small photo album filled with photos of family and friends
- Harmonica
- Travel journal
- 2 composition books with gel pens
- mp3 player (contains 2 folders - one with reggae, the other with Bob Dylan, Elvis, Grateful Dead, R.E.M., and Elvis Costello)
- Mini speakers for mp3 player
- Gnome Away From Home
- Peppad (my long, yellow pillow thingy that I sleep with)
- Color-by-numbers kit of animal pictures (using colored pencils)
- Pajama pants
- Dalai Lama book (hardcover)
- MRE (ready-to-eat military meal)
- Food
- First Aid kit
- Bug dope
- Sunscreen
- Mosquito net
- Screens for windows
- Gas stove
- Money
Saturday, January 05, 2008
To my AGD girls...
I must be in a sentimental mood tonight. I've finished my work for the day (writing a million letters to banks, HR people, etc. and starting the packing process) and now I'm having a beer, listening to Law and Order, and reading my friends' blogs. A lot of big events have occurred in my girls' lives, and I'm so happy to have been a part of them.
I am going to miss all my friends so much. I know that when I'm in Niger and not having good internet opportunities I'll be wondering what you all are up to...
Love,
Crystal
I am going to miss all my friends so much. I know that when I'm in Niger and not having good internet opportunities I'll be wondering what you all are up to...
- AJ, I will miss seeing pictures of Ava and Noah! I've always appreciated your sense of humor and will miss your funny posts. I will also miss seeing Ava and Noah get older.
- I can't wait to see what Peanut (Alanna and Jocko's baby) looks like! I am so glad Alanna will finally have a chance to be a mommy. I will also miss Alanna's awesome sense of humor and funny posts and pictures of Zippy.
- I will miss hearing about Skrubby's adventures, whether they be at wildfires across the country or working on her house in MN. I will also miss seeing your great pictures (especially of the cute guys)!
- I'm going to miss hearing about Cat's life in Houghton with Brenty and Bradley and baby #2. I regret that I won't be able to see pictures of baby #2 while I'm in Niger.
- And then there's the newlyweds, Dana and Josh. I hope to see more from you two in the future! :) I like hearing about your adventures in Seattle. You guys would be "the" couple to hang out with because you are so much fun!
- I think Danielle is living what sounds like a great life in Colorado. I wish I could come out there and visit and you could teach me how to ride. :) If you come to Niger, I bet you could ride a camel!
- Diana and Jason, congratulations on the birth of your new son, Bret! He is adorable and I love hearing your mommyhood stories, Diana. You will do a great job being a mom!
- Erika, I wish I could write like you. You are so clear, so concise, and so witty. Being an independent, smart woman, I know you will be successful in this world, both as a working woman and as a mother to Alex. I know things will go well for you and I will miss your bus-riding stories and pictures of your cute little one. And good luck with those vegan cakes.
- Erin, your kids are absolutely beautiful and I will miss reading stories about your life. I am totally impressed with your dedication to philanthropic activities. There should be more people like you in this world.
- FB, even though you don't post often, when I read your posts I can imagine you telling the story on the AGD couch. I always get a kick reading about your latest experience and like the pictures of Cali.
- Heather A., I have always appreciated your funny stories and your perspective on life, and I love the pictures of Carter all decked out in stylish clothes (and Lulu, too!). I also like hearing your travel stories, like how the American food in Spain is all wrong. Congratulations to you and Kus and best wishes to you both.
- Heather S., I like hearing about your life. I barely knew you in college but over these last couple of years I feel like I've had a chance to get to know you through your blog. You are a strong, independent woman and you deserve only the best. I also love owning a house vicariously through you.
- Yay for Jackie, the future Mrs. Joel! Congratulations to you! I am so amazed that both of my freshmen year roomies are settling down already. :) You are a brilliant woman and I know you'll make it far in the world.
- Jericho, I'm so sorry I won't be able to make it to your wedding next year. Congratulations to you and Kevin! It's about freakin' time! I will always remember your crazy sense of humor, your cat Ringo (and the time I stepped on him) and hanging out in Chicago. You guys should honeymoon in Niger. You know it's your dream to hang out in a mud hut.
- Jenni, I love your witty sense of humor and your fun-loving spirit. I also think you are very smart and totally dig your quirkiness (i.e. the potato chip experiment). Have lots of fun in lower MI and good luck with Brad.
- Hi Jori, I doubt you're reading this, but I just wanted to let you know that I love you and Souva and am happy you tied the knot (though I'm sorry I missed the wedding). I can't wait to hear about Baby Souva.. hopefully there will be one by the time I get back in 2010. So get to work on that, you two!
- And to Kara and Josh.. wow, the parents of two beautiful and much-loved baby girls are having another! Let's just hope it's not going to be twins again.. that could be quite a handful (and a lot of bedrest for you, Kara). Congratulations to you both and I'm sorry I won't be able to see a picture of your little one when he/she is born.
- Karen, you are a seriously talented, motivated, and driven person. I love the fact that you took the extra time to go to college after MTU to become an architect, and on top of that you have a business! Someday when you are a famous designer I hope you remember all the little people...
- Katie and Josh - I love hearing about your lives and love the pictures of your house. I'm so sorry I had to miss your wedding last summer. Katie, when you finish your book I would love to read it. I'm going to miss your great blog entries.
- Laura S., I am sorry I will have to miss out on a chunk of your and your family's life. Your children are beautiful and it sounds like you and Case are doing really well down there on the farm. I love the piglet pictures in the spring! You are an awesome, down-to-earth woman with a great sense of humor and always a good piece of advice.
- Lesley? Lesley, are you there? I know we haven't heard from you lately, so hopefully moving to Wisconsin was okay for you (you know, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein are from there and who knows how many other crazy people, ha ha). Anyway, I think you are an awesome person for taking care of foster animals and yeah, keep reading.
- Maria, your life sounds like so much fun that I'm sure I will wish I could be living vicariously through you while I'm in Niger. And I'm sure I could.. if I only had a computer with an internet connection! So in the meantime, I will have to daydream about what kind of jetsetting adventures you are on (Hawaii? Colorado?) and wish I could be there with you.
- Mel, you have always been my mom in my mind, though you now have some little ones of your own. I remember with fondness the good times we had in college (watching bet sigs play hockey, hanging out at phi kaps, french onion soup at the Library) and you will always be a part of those memories. Your boys are beautiful and you make an awesome mommy!
- Melissa, what am I going to do without my daily fix of Justin pictures? He is such an adorable little boy and I will miss seeing him grow. I love the witty captions you come up with, too. You and Rob are awesome and I'm sad that if you give Justin a brother or sister I won't be around to know!
- Randi! You are one of the sweetest, most caring people I know. You would drop anything to help a friend in need, and that is a rare quality in a person. You are deeply loyal to your homies and I respect that. Thank you for all your support. I'm sorry we didn't get together more often when I still lived in Wisconsin. I hope that by the time I get back you and Mark will be engaged! :)
- Laura Sk! It's so cool that you are blogging about your life in Washington. It's so amazing that you went on to get your PhD before the age of 27 (or 26?). You were always serious about school in college but had time to have fun, too, and I respect that. Don't let the jerks get you down - remember that you are not worth the bullshit and by the time I get back maybe you will be with a good one.
- Sonya, you are a beautiful person and I've always admired your love for animals. I'm glad you guys adopted Olive and maybe someday you and Ben can tie the knot and make some babies of your own. ;)
- Stephie, your job sounds like so much fun! I can just see you out there partying with the parents of your kids and all the old guys trying to hit on you.. Anyway, congratulations on finding a great guy and having a great job. It sounds like your life is going really well. You have always been optimistic and that's something I admire in you.
- Yeimy, you and Scott are like the story-book couple. He's sweet and romantic, you are beautiful and successful... I'm happy I've had the chance to get to know you by reading your blog. I think your next trip should be to Africa!
Love,
Crystal
If you want to send me stuff...
This will be my Niger address:
Crystal Pilon
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 10537
Niamey, Niger
However, it will change in March. I will keep you posted.
I don't know what you should send me, because right now I have no idea what I'll want or need. I'm trying to take care of that right now as I'm packing! However, by reading other Peace Corps blogs (like this one), these items are popular:
Another thing - I also heard if you write on the box "Sister Crystal of the Church of Grayling" (or whatever) and write things like "God bless you" and "we missed you in church last week" and other religious things, people will assume I'm a boring missionary and there won't be juicy goodies in the box worth stealing. :)
No guarantees on updating my blog while I'm there, but if I can, I will!
P.S. Note to all you Google Reader users.. you should check out my real blog page for updated info and a cool poll!
Crystal Pilon
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 10537
Niamey, Niger
However, it will change in March. I will keep you posted.
I don't know what you should send me, because right now I have no idea what I'll want or need. I'm trying to take care of that right now as I'm packing! However, by reading other Peace Corps blogs (like this one), these items are popular:
- Cheese
- Meat
- Drink mixes and packaged spice mixes (like mac & cheese powder, lipton soup powders, etc.)
- Any kind of pictures
- Padded manila envelopes
- Nice toiletries
- Trashy magazines (my favorite magazine, though it's not trashy, is Vanity Fair)
- Dried fruit and veggies
- Fast food sauce packets, any kind
- Peanut M&Ms and Rolos (the only chocolate that can withstand the heat!)
Another thing - I also heard if you write on the box "Sister Crystal of the Church of Grayling" (or whatever) and write things like "God bless you" and "we missed you in church last week" and other religious things, people will assume I'm a boring missionary and there won't be juicy goodies in the box worth stealing. :)
No guarantees on updating my blog while I'm there, but if I can, I will!
P.S. Note to all you Google Reader users.. you should check out my real blog page for updated info and a cool poll!
Wrapping things up
You wouldn't believe how much work it is leaving your life in America for over two years. Can you imagine paying all your bills, working with your health insurance company to get a 3-month supply of medication, stopping automatic payments from your checking account, selling your car and canceling your insurance policy, giving someone Power of Attorney, filling out a living will, and canceling anything else that you tend to on a regular basis? It's been crazy. And on top of that, people want to hang out with me, call me, and perhaps expect me to write them letters before I go. Unfortunately I don't have time for that.
A lot of crises have come up, too. A week ago I didn't think I was going because the USDA didn't do their job of sending my official government passport to the Department of State so that I could get a new passport for the Peace Corps. It finally went through monday, but I'm still not a guaranteed "go" yet. Yesterday I didn't think I was going because Forest Service Human Capital Management didn't do THEIR job and I wasn't going to have the required 3-month supply of medication for my trip. Fortunately my parents were willing to fork over $500+ to buy my medication at full cost. Today I'm ticked because the guy that was supposed to buy my truck fell through, and now my truck's in Ohio and I still owe $5000 on it. And the heating element in our dryer died, so it takes 4 hours to dry a load of laundry.
I guess my parents have their work cut out for them, dealing with the guy in Ohio. But I think I'll have a whole new set of things to worry about next week! And a lot of excitement, too.
Tonight's Dinner:
Homemade pizza cooked on my new Pampered Chef pizza stone
A lot of crises have come up, too. A week ago I didn't think I was going because the USDA didn't do their job of sending my official government passport to the Department of State so that I could get a new passport for the Peace Corps. It finally went through monday, but I'm still not a guaranteed "go" yet. Yesterday I didn't think I was going because Forest Service Human Capital Management didn't do THEIR job and I wasn't going to have the required 3-month supply of medication for my trip. Fortunately my parents were willing to fork over $500+ to buy my medication at full cost. Today I'm ticked because the guy that was supposed to buy my truck fell through, and now my truck's in Ohio and I still owe $5000 on it. And the heating element in our dryer died, so it takes 4 hours to dry a load of laundry.
I guess my parents have their work cut out for them, dealing with the guy in Ohio. But I think I'll have a whole new set of things to worry about next week! And a lot of excitement, too.
Tonight's Dinner:
Homemade pizza cooked on my new Pampered Chef pizza stone
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