Farm fun

Today's been a long day. I did a lot of things:

My mom and I went to her friend's house, a guy who keeps a really nice little farm, even on our poor, sandy Grayling soil.



I got to pet his friendly chicken...


And we played with his nice little dog, Princess.


He cut us some collard greens...


Dug up red potatoes...


And gave us some corn. We had a great time!


Tonight my mom, our friend Cathy and I processed the collard greens. It took forever. We washed, sliced, blanched and packaged them into freezer bags.


Also today we visited my friends Patrick and Abbey's house to pick up some sourdough bread starter. Patrick made his own starter using the wild yeast found on blueberries. Right now we have some dough made and it's hanging out in the fridge until tomorrow morning, when we'll bake it.

I helped Cathy scrape paint off her garage today, as well. And we repaired the Boy Scout tent poles (replaced the worn-out elastic that holds the poles together).

So yeah, it was a great, busy day. I love long weekend days because that makes the weekend seem longer.

Exciting stuff

My life is kind of hard to describe. I can't decide if I'm happy or not. The day-to-day stuff is more boring than I'd prefer. I miss living in a city where I can walk/ride my bike everywhere and know lots of people to chat with. Sometimes I feel like there's nothing happening, no reasons to laugh uncontrollably or jump around with excitement.

But there are a few things that have really excited me lately. Now I will share those things with you.

I've joined the NLSC (National Language Service Corps) as a charter Hausa-speaking member. The NLSC is an organization that provides language assistance to government agencies. They have a database of members who speak languages from all over the world, and contact those members for assignments when needed.

So first it was really exciting that I was asked to join. My Hausa's okay, but not awesome, mostly conversational and not at all technical. But apparently it's good enough because I was surprised to see an invitation for membership into the NLSC. They are looking for other African-language speakers, so all you RPCVs should check them out.

Then I got an email from them saying some agencies are looking to hire African language-speaking people for temporary translation projects. I applied and got an interview, now we'll see what comes next.

Second, I've joined RAIN for the Sahara and Sahel, a NGO that helps the nomadic Wodaabe and Tuareg people of Niger. When I first came back from Niger I contacted RAIN asking if there's a way I could help my nomadic friends in Niger, and mentioned my friend Darey wanting to find help for his village, Teyiss. They told me they'd consider helping Teyiss when they had more money to work with, and I figured that might take a while.

The chief of Teyiss.


Well, I was really surprised when, a few weeks ago, RAIN contacted me and said they'd like to start helping the people of Teyiss. They told me to connect Darey with their local representative, a Nigerien man named Mahmoud, and they would see about starting some work there. Well, today I spoke with Darey, and he told me RAIN has sent money to Mahmoud to buy food for the children and animals of Teyiss! I was so excited!

The kids of Teyiss.


My third exciting piece of news is that I translated my resume into French using Google Translate and sent it to Darey to give to the teachers in Agadez so that I can find a job there teaching English. It's kind of a long shot, considering the Niger government went for months without paying school teachers their salary because they didn't have the money for salaries (or because of corruption?), but we'll see what happens. How cool would it be to live in Agadez, an ancient caravan town on the edge of the Sahara, as an English teacher?

Blueberry Pie

A couple backbreaking hours of blueberry-picking weren't without rewards. Two weeks ago we feasted on two delicious blueberry pies.

The berries...


... assembling the pies...


... the finished product.


Yum!

Happy belated July 4th!

Fourth of July weekend was a pretty eventful one. I didn't go anywhere special, just hung out with the fam, but we had a lot of fun.

Saturday:

Saturday was a hot day. My mom, Chico and I went to Traverse City to the Cherryland Festival to see the Blue Angels. We parked on the other side of town in the mall parking lot so we could take the bus downtown, thus avoiding traffic and parking issues. Once we showed up at the mall I went inside the grocery store to ask about the bus (it was supposed to show up there at :40 after, did we have the wrong place?) and this guy standing in line offered to give us a ride. So we got a ride in his nice Mercedes to the downtown area.

The Blue Angels were neat, but not uber-exciting. I spent most of my time try to avoid sitting in the sun. I actually was so un-enthused about the whole thing that I didn't find any photo-worthy moments. The bus-ride back was long and hot - we were in the very back seat and the air conditioning unit was directly over our heads and blowing cold air out in front of us so that none of it blew on us. And the windows didn't open. Plus this guy was standing in the aisle next to me and he smelled kinda funky, I'm not gonna lie. We were on that bus for like 40 minutes. When we finally got home we were all exhausted from the heat and sun.

After a few hours of rest we attended the Grayling fireworks show and it was great. I am so proud of our town for providing such a nice fireworks show for the community. We sat near the courthouse and it was like having front-row seats. Of course we saw people we knew, including Tom's doctor.

Sunday:

Sunday I had plans. I noticed in the paper that the local state park, Hartwick Pines, was having a
19th-century Independence Day celebration. So my dad, Chico and I attended that. It involved the park historian, Rob, reading the Declaration of Independence, then an old-fashioned baseball game.

Dad and Chico watching the game. I'm not sure who the guy in the orange shirt is.


Picking teams for the baseball game. The guys in the red represent the 1890s-era baseball team. They also played by period rules, including pitching to make the batter hit (rather than strike him out) and no stealing or sliding. The game was really fun to watch.


Some of the players were small. They were so cute! I think in some plays they were "favored" so they could make it all the way around the bases.


We stayed for a few innings, then went blueberry picking. It was really freakin' hot out but with the breeze we felt okay. We picked enough blueberries so that, combined with the ones I picked a few days before with Shawn and Liz, we had enough to make two blueberry pies. The blueberry plants are about 10" high so it was backbreaking work, but it was worth it.

Blueberries


Stay tuned for pictures of the blueberry pies.

My mom and I went kayaking that night down our section of the river. It's a slow, easy river, but has lots of obstacles in it, like logs and sandbars (not that I have photos of any of them.)




This is from an old train bridge that crossed our span of the river. In some spots of the woods you can still see the trail from where the tracks used to be.


So that was our July 4th weekend! It was pretty great to rest and hang out with my family. Tomorrow I will post blueberry pie pics.

Boy Scout hike

My dad is a Boy Scout troop leader and organized a 5-mile hike on monday. I went with them to interact with the Scouts and took some photos.

Walking through the characteristic sandy soil of our area:


We saw a couple of monarch caterpillars (they make their cocoons on milk weed):


Having a little talk about safety:


This area behind me had been wiped out in a wildfire a couple years ago. It's already recovered quite a bit.


I would like to take this opportunity to announce my support in Ghana for the World Cup - go Black Stars!

Liz and Generations pics

I was at my friend Cathy's house, where we have our Grayling Peacekeepers meeting. She has an incredible hat collection, and I was particularly drawn to this hijab she got during her world travels. So I tried it on with my sweet Obama shirt that I made my buddy Issoufou give me.

Me, to Issoufou, in typical Nigerien fashion of shamelessly asking for things: "I like your shirt. Give it to me."
Issoufou: "okay, I will bring it to your house tomorrow."
Me: "I was just kidding!"
Issoufou: "I will still give it to you." The next day he brings it, sprayed down with a heavy layer of cologne rather than freshly washed.

Hadjia Crystal.


Okay, next is the dollar sign-shaped cupcake cake I made for work. We had an investment banking day and my boss recruited me to make a cake for it (she requested that it be in the shape of a dollar sign):


And then my friend Liz and I went to a bar in Roscommon. I know, not your first choice for excitement, but we had a blast anyway. Roscommon people can be pretty cool.

Here's Liz. I'm always telling people, "she can drink like a fish!"


Here we are together, trying to imitate one of those old-fashioned serious-people photos (Black Stockings used to live in her house, I believe they were the inspiration for this photo):


We were there to see the local band Generations and these creepy Canadian guys kept hitting on us. This guy was talking to Liz and asking her if she's a "local." And his buddy and I had a conversation where he insinuated that "all I have to do is wink at a guy and he'll know what I want." And he kept talking about his "very lucrative" business outside Toronto. Like that's what it takes to impress me. These guys were basically trolling and had no care whatsoever how ridiculous they looked. Here's Liz's guy, dancing with a different lucky gal:


The band was good, though. I met Logan and Al at Dharma Music while organizing Djam's Drum-building workshop in April.

Logan can talk to anybody and be charming. He's got great stage presence and is a natural performer.


Al is kind of quiet at times but is very charming and funny once you get to know him. He told us about the time he met Fred Bear and that was his introduction to life Up North.


I had just met Ron, he's the lead guitar of the group. He's actually really good and had me impressed with his ability to play Santana covers. Plus he and his wife raise horses and I like talking about animal husbandry with him (like I'm some kind of expert, lol).


Last but not least is Jake on drums. With his curls and charming smile he is like the Michael Jackson part of the Jackson 5 - the cute, young one for all the young ladies out there. But he's actually very talented and I loved hearing his solo act between sets.

Plan B

I've been doing some thinking.

As much as I love baking, and as wonderful as it is to flex my creative muscles doing it, I think I may put off pastry school yet again.

I've just been thinking about how much I love people and working with them. I've been told many times that I'm a natural teacher. I enjoy learning about other cultures and would like to see more of the world. And I just think there's something more out there for me than baking.

I think I will pursue becoming a TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) teacher. Not only would I be able to visit other countries and learn about other cultures, but I could make some money at it, too. Returning to Africa to teach people English would just be the icing on the cake.

There's a program in Madison, WI (my old stomping grounds) that's only 5 weeks long and you get the certificate for TESL. I'm thinking of enrolling. It would be so sweet to be back in Madison and learning something new.

Niger Journal Entry #2

This is a continuation of my prior entry on attending Geerwol. As a Peace Corps volunteer I was lucky to have a latrine at my house in the village. Most people don't have this luxury and depend on using the bathroom either in the bush or behind the nearest tree.

Here's something I wrote while I was at Geerwol. Pooping in open public places and pooping in the bush can both be stressful. First, you gotta make sure you don't step on other people's poop that's already there. Then you have to make sure you can squat without people seeing you - if there's anything more exciting than watching a white person, it's watching a white person take a crap. I had a lot of experience in this area, hanging out with Darey and friends for days at a time with no latrine in sight.

If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I hope this guide helps.

Crystal's Guide to Pooping in the Bush

1. Find a spot not in eyeview of people and cars (duh!)
2. Plant feet so that they are uphill from your ass (this prevents bodily fluids from getting near your shoes.)
3. Remove a shoe and use it to make a hole or just scrape away sand.
4. Poop. Wash/wipe yourself, being sure to move back a little so you don't accidentally touch it.
5. Use a stick or your foot to kick sand on top. If you didn't poo in a hole, cover it just enough to keep flies away. You don't want to disguise it too well because someone could step in it before it dries. If you poo'd in a hole, fill the hole back in with dirt.
6. Wash your hand as well as possible in the circumstances.
7. Discreetly pull up your drawers/skirt. Get the hell out of there before someone sees you and greets you while your pants are down. [this happened to me a few times. awkward!]

Niger Journal Entry

This is from when I attended Geerwol in 2009. I was the only white person around. Sometimes being in these situations is stressful, because you don't understand what the other people are saying, and when you see things that are unique/different but that they are used to, you have no one to share the experience with. This can actually lead to loneliness while being surrounded by people. However, my journal kept me company.

In true Niger form, it was hot (over 100 degrees) with lots of sun and no chance of clouds. We were in the scrubby Sahelian land, which has only short, thorny Acacia trees that provide very little shade. Water is scarce, as there are no wells, so we brought a big 5-gallon jug with us. Other people got water from the nearby lake (which animals take baths in).

November 6, 2009. Geerwol.
Took Sonitrav bus to Abalak. Leave in evening to Bagam [the location of Geerwol, out in the bush] and car kept falling apart. We get there late at night.

Hear singing in Bagam which is Geerwol and it goes on all night. Dancers wear bent metal plate chained to one foot and stomp to make it rattle. I try to go to sleep but the tea I drank is strong and I get up and watch the dancing instead.



November 7.
Everyone is up at or before sunrise. I try sleeping in but once I wake up I can't go back to sleep. A scared camel creates a scene by running all around the camp and we watch a horse and camel (plus a big herd of people) chase it.

Early morning dancing and singing.


The camp. Imported western tents are set up as people in traditional robes lounge on mats, pouring tea, eating food, and hanging out with friends.


Chasing the runaway camel.




I love the giant herd of people running after it! You could hear the shouting from far away.


Singing and dancing in the heat of the day.


Now losing my mind because camera shutter piece is missing. [I let Darey's little brother, Bugo, borrow it to take some photos. He dropped it in the sand while the shutter was open, and the shutter got stuck.]

[About an hour later] Ok, it's OK now. [Managed to get the sand out of the shutter mechanism and it began working again, to my tremendous relief.]

Camels continue to entertain me. Just now another camel got frisky and started running around, but people managed to subdue it pretty quickly. And then I saw a guy who opened his headwrap, tied the end to the camel's nose ring, and used it to lead him.

[I drew a picture so I could remember it correctly.]

Soon I will watch Darey help get Bugo ready to dance!

[I didn't actually see that because I was napping, but here's a photo Bugo took of his friends getting ready.]


Darey and I. He's cleaning his teeth with a stick in this photo.



November 8.
Went to bed at 8 so I could get up to see Geerwol in the middle of the night. I woke up at 11 - it hadn't started yet. 2am - I woke up and struggled to stay awake. We left at 4, I think. [This was in reference to the Geerwol, the final dance where the finalists are chosen. The contest goes on for a week before this. The challenge is for the men to dance and sing all night and all morning, without drinking or eating anything.]

I saw women's hair in their profiles lit by the rising sun. The dancers became slowly visible. The old people hooted "woo hoo" as they studied the beautiful men.

The women.


Old ladies admiring the young men.


Soon the voters arrived. It was two beautiful, thin young women who held one hand to the side of their face as if to avoid being distracted by anything in their peripheral vision. The old men who constantly fuss over the contestants selected 8-10 finalists, and attached a tuft of white cow fur to their head. The women somehow indicated the winner and his tuft of hair was removed. The the crowd followed him out and away; to his house, I guess.

Attaching cow fur to a finalist.


The beautiful judges, who picked the winner.


We are having our morning tea and will leave for Teyiss later. Hopefully I will finally see Darey's actual house and cattle.

[and later, apparently a few thoughts I wanted to remember...]
Conserving water by not bathing. Now I understand why in the old days people only bathed once a week.
Camels grazing a few steps from the tent.
Baby horse!

In the Sahel it's hot, sunny, windy and arid. Being at the real Geerwol, which is the most traditional, one can see the warrior resemblance with the feather headdress, red face paint, makeshift "axe," and stomp dance which rattles the foot plate. [the word "Geerwol" means "war" in the Wodaabe language, Fulfulde.]