Maija Kroeger left a North Side Chicago apartment and a successful 10-year career as a copywriter at an advertising agency for the stifling heat and poverty of Niger in West Africa
Downers Grove native to speak of life in Niger
By John Koys, City editor
Former Downers Grove resident Maija Kroeger left a North Side Chicago apartment and a successful 10-year career as a copywriter at an advertising agency for the stifling heat and poverty of Niger in West Africa.
Kroeger just returned to Downers Grove for a period of rest and relaxation after a nine-month stay in a small village south of the Sahara Desert as a Peace Corps volunteer. She will return the Niger Sunday, May 9, and complete her two-year commitment.
Kroeger will speak about her experiences in Niger at 7:15 p.m. Thursday, April 29, in the Lisle library, 777 Front St.
``I just got to a point where I just wanted to do something really different with my life,'' Kroeger said.
She spoke with her pastor about not feeling completely satisfied. She sought out the Peace Corps as a way of finding something in herself and of ``giving something back'' to the world.
As a Peace Corps volunteer, Kroeger teaches English primarily to adult Nigeriens in a community of subsistence farmers living in small, mud-walled houses with no electricity, running water or other modern conveniences.
The illiteracy rate of the people in Niger is 80 percent, Kroeger said. Only 50 percent of children start primary school, and just one-third of them will graduate. Less than 1 percent will complete high school. There are few trained teachers in the population, and teachers only need a junior high school level education to teach.
The people speak Hausa, the second most common language in Africa, and they are eager to learn English, the language of world business, she said.
``One of the main goals (of the government) is to increase English in their country,'' Kroeger said.
They have welcomed Kroeger and taken her in as part of their community, particularly because she lives among them in her own mud house with its corrugated roof, concrete floor and latrine. She does have a water pump, which not all villagers have.
``We live with the people we're trying to help,'' she said.
``Most people live outside,'' she said. ``It's the hottest place on Earth where people live.''
She said ice is a ``real treat'' and people have no concept of snow.
In summer, daytime temperatures typically reach 120 degrees and nighttime highs only drop to the 90s. During winter, temperature are in the 90s during the day and drop only to the 60s at night.
People take a ``sarong,'' or rest, for two or three hours during the hottest time of the day.
The difficulty of life in Niger at first concerned Kroeger's mother, Susan Emmons-Kroeger, director of popular collections at the Lisle library.
``My initial reaction was, `Are you going to be safe?''' Emmons-Kroeger said. ```What if you hate it and you're that far from home?' Initially we were sort of stunned.''
When Emmons-Kroeger learned more about the Peace Corps and saw her daughter's commitment, her concerns were tempered and she began to feel proud of what she was doing.
``I was very proud of her in her career in Chicago,'' Emmons-Kroeger added. ``When I heard her say she wanted to give something back, that made me very proud.''
The population in Niger is almost exclusively Muslim, a religion whose customs and practices Kroeger respected. She participated in Ramadan, the Islamic holy month marked by daytime fasting.
``They have a real history of tolerance in West Africa,'' Kroeger said of the people's attitude toward other religions.
The relations between the sexes is quite different from that in the West.
Kroeger said the culture is polygamous. Husbands and wives do not interact socially, men eat separately from women and ``friendships between men and women are pretty exceptional,'' Kroeger said.
The population in Africa battles diseases that have been tamed or eradicated in other parts of the world. Malaria killed 20 million people last year on the continent. Polio still cripples, and AIDS, although not as widespread as in other African countries, is still a scourge in Niger with 5 percent of the population infected.
Kroeger found Nigeriens to be a friendly people.
``(They are) known in Africa to be the most hospitable people in the world,'' Kroeger said.
She spoke about how her first nine months in Niger have affected her.
``One of the great ironies of the Peace Corps is that we feel we are getting more than we are giving them,'' she said.
John Koys' e-mail address is:
koy@libertysuburban.com
