Cheers to a successful first month!  It was up and down but mostly up and I’m happy with how it went.  We have all been in Maradi for a few days to celebrate the end of the first month.  After a month of no running water, I had the best shower of my life when I got back here!  And Maradi has a great pool that got a lot of my time this weekend.  I head back to my village tomorrow morning; we have national elections for the legislative assembly (the one that was dissolved earlier this year) on Tuesday so I want to be back in the village for that.

My house still needs some work but I am feeling more settled.  I have a bit of a crazy bug problem but I think it’s getting better.  I have ants, earwigs, crickets, spiders, locusts, and a termite infestation.  The spiders are certainly the creepiest I’ve seen… large, striped, fast things.  I thought I found a scorpion but when I showed a photo to an Agriculture friend here, he said that it’s a cousin of the chariot spider.  I’ll post a photo below; it was the weirdest bug I’ve ever seen.  Besides the wildlife, I’m enjoying my house and I really don’t mind living without electricity and running water.  Thank goodness for my solar charger, though!  It has been somewhat insanely hot here… we are experiencing “mini-hot season” right now for a month and it has been getting up into the 120’s and 130’s.  It’s hot but I’m feeling pretty used to it.

I spent most of the month exploring my village and getting to know folks around my town.  I spent time at the mayor’s office and at clinics around my village.  We have a lot of malaria in Tchadaoua right now… a lot of the families I visited had a child suffering from it.  The mosquitoes in my area last all year round, whereas in most of Niger, they are only around during rainy season.  I visited four houses in mourning during the month.  I did also attend a naming ceremony; in Nigerien culture the babies receive a name ten days after they are born and it is a big social event. 

I also spent a lot of time fumbling around Tchadaoua trying to figure out where everything is.  I have managed to identify where I can buy everything that I need and I have even narrowed those stores down to the ones that are owned by men who will shake my hand.  (Many Nigerien men will refuse to shake a woman’s hand.)  Kind of like the buy local idea, it’s the buy from the men who aren’t so overtly sexist idea.  I did get out of my village for a few days to visit a friend and on the way to Maradi I stopped in another village to help a volunteer with a hand-washing project for a few days.  We painted murals at the hospital (because of illiteracy here, any written messages need to be accompanied by a picture), did demonstrations at two schools, painted murals at the schools, and recorded the kids singing a Hausa song about hand-washing that we played on the regional radio this weekend.  It was great to help out and very insightful.  I was surprised at the basic health knowledge that is lacking here.  When we asked the kids for reasons why they should wash their hands the only response we received (even from teenagers) was that it prevents AIDS.  Problematic on many levels. 

I am lucky to live in Tchadaoua and to have a man name Hamza Blaze living in my town.  Hamza has been helping volunteers for many years and he has been my closest friend in town.  I spend a lot of time working on my Hausa with his friends at his gas stand.  I think my Hausa is getting better but it can be frustrating.  It provides many funny moments too, like when I told Salisu (the guy who gets my water and takes care of my yard) that he should diarrhea at my house every two days when I meant to say he should come to my house every two days.  Ah, the tragic similarities of zowa and zawo!  Salisu has also been a great help.  I have always been proud of my ability to build a decent fire but I can’t manage to successfully burn my garbage here (unfortunately it is the most environmentally friendly alternative in a country with no waste disposal system).  For some reason, that was probably the most frustrating thing about the month!  My family has a strong history of building/setting fires and my own father once burned down a neighbor’s garage while burning garbage as a kid.  With that kind of genetic predisposition, I’m finding my current deficiency in this very frustrating and I can’t figure out what Salisu is doing differently but either way my garbage is getting eliminated into our atmosphere.

The elections should be very interesting… we are not allowed to engage in politics here, which is kind of tricky since I am involved with the mayor’s office.  There are a lot of political parties here and we have had a lot of rallies and candidates visiting.  Again because of illiteracy here, parties are associated with a color or two so that people don’t need to read a party’s name to know it what it is.  People and stores frequently have a piece of material to show who their associated with.  It has been fascinating to see how another country manages elections.  It has nice to catch up with everyone in Maradi for a few days and I’ll be back here at the end of the month for Halloween.  Time is flying right now!