I decided I wanted a camel when I first came to Niger in January, 2008. I heard about other volunteers having camels and thought it would be cool to ride one. I remember a group of us traveling to a village to see a work project and being offered camel rides by one villager. When my turn finally came, the sun was going down, and I fulfilled the prototypical African desert experience by riding the camel into the sunset. Granted, the ride only lasted about 5 minutes and the owner was walking along leading it, but I loved it and started considering buying my own camel.
I always liked seeing the camels in Niger. They are used as work animals, hauling bundles and bales of various materials from field to village, village to city. I like seeing their long necks and knobby legs. And of course, there is some romanticism in seeing nomads in the desert, riding on camels, and the possibility that I, too, could do that.
Nomads riding a camel at a festival up north
Grazing on some thorny acacia trees
A herd of camels in the bush
A mama camel with her baby
I was emailing a former colleague from Madison, WI telling her I was saving my money to buy a camel. To my surprise, she wrote me back saying a group of my colleagues heard the news and wanted to help me. They called it "The Camel Club" and began pooling their money together. I told my mother about it and she spread the word to friends and relatives. The money was sent by wire totaling about $650, plenty of funds to get a camel and food.
Ready to go camel shopping, I excitedly told my villagers my plans. They suggested waiting three months until December, when the camels come back from Northern Niger (camel herders take animals north after the rainy season so they can graze on salt-infused grass. The salt helps rid their intestines of parasites and replenishes their electrolytes). I was eager to get the camel but kept myself busy stocking up on food - about $150 worth of dried bean leaves. To haul the bean leaf bales I had to hire people with donkey carts and camels to bring it in from the fields. To keep the food safe from stray grazing animals, the bales were stacked on the roof of my little mud house and two millet-stalk raised shade structures. I actually had to get the second shade structure specially built to accommodate all the food, and my friend Issoufou and I sprinkled some sort of insecticide on all the surfaces to prevent termites from attacking the precious fodder.
My house, stacked with animal fodder
Next I had to think about how I was going to select a camel and buy it for a good price. Being a foreigner was not in my favor when it came to buying things. People assume that since you're from America/France/Germany, you are loaded with money and can afford to pay the ridiculous prices they quote. But Peace Corps volunteers don't get a lot of money, and since I speak the local language and barter for my goods, I consider myself more of a native than some French tourist. As integrated as I may feel, the seller would still see me as a rich white person, and I didn't want to mess around with talking the seller down from the "white person price" to the "real price." Plus, I've never owned a large animal in my life and have no experience working with large animals, so I needed help selecting a good, healthy camel. On top of that, I was advised by a fellow volunteer that if I get someone to help me buy the camel, to make sure it's someone I trust and who isn't talking with the seller on the sly, prearranging a sale in order to get a cut of the money.
I asked my close friends in the village who could help me buy the camel. My best friend, Issoufou, whom I would trust with my life, doesn't know much about camels, but he wanted to come for the adventure. For camel expertise, I was advised to talk to a guy named Idi Buzu ("Buzu" in Hausa means "Tuareg person." Tuaregs are traditionally nomadic camel herders in the Sahara.) Apparently Idi Buzu, who is about 24 years old now, lived with Tuaregs for 13 years while he was a kid. He learned to speak their language and herded camels for months at a time. Recently, however, he gave up the nomadic lifestyle to get married and settle down in the village. I consulted with a few people (including my other best friend, my neighbor Rabi) to see if he seemed to be an honest guy, and they said he did. Plus, if a villager were to double cross me, word would get around and he would be subjected to public humiliation. Seriously, a white person comes to Niger to live in a village, help people learn skills and earn money, and someone has the gall to cheat them? That's just bad karma (or, as my villagers would say, that person is just
not afraid of Allah!)
My right-hand man, Issoufou
Idi Buzu
So it was determined that Idi Buzu and Issoufou would come camel shopping with me. I offered to pay all transportation and food costs, as well as give them
per diem for whatever expenses they incurred on the way. We would travel to Badagishiri, a large village about 70km away, on wednesday, where we would stay the night with my friend Nick, a fellow volunteer, then check out the market thursday morning. Assuming we found a camel worth buying, we would load it into a bush taxi (large pickup truck) and ride with it to Konni, the town 18km from my village.
Idi Buzu and Issoufou
Stay tuned for the next installment to hear about how we found Buddy, how much he cost, and the unexpected way we got him back to my village.
