Cathy Day worked in Niger for three years as an agriculture volunteer and as a volunteer leader with the Peace Corps



"I miss Niger. I miss its wide-open landscapes. I understand now how the cowboys felt when the American West was fenced in. A landscape without fences has a wilder, freer feel. I miss knowing that I can walk from village to village and expect a welcome wherever I go. Most of all, I miss the people I know there. People are the center of life in Niger. While their level of poverty is inconceivable here, the deep connections within their communities are also foreign to most modern Americans. New relationships are built quickly, and everyone in my small village knew each other well. They also knew those passing through from nearby villages, villages with populations of as many as two or three thousand people. Everyone is greeted by name. Even a brief greeting involves asking after family, work and health."

Cathy Day worked in Niger for three years as an agriculture volunteer and as a volunteer leader with the Peace Corps

Volunteer misses Niger, especially its people

By CATHY DAY
For the Tribune

Caption: Liba, in blue scarf, in front of her new home after being married. With her are Hajo and the last of the unmarried girls from the group.

Earlier this spring I left Niger. Just in time, because the hot season already was starting. The season of sleeping wrapped in a wet sheet was always difficult for me, the 120-degree, humid afternoons most of all.

Highs were around 100 degrees when I left, and since I am back in Montana, enjoying gorgeous, sunny 70-degree days, you would think I would be nothing but content.

But I miss Niger. I miss its wide-open landscapes. I understand now how the cowboys felt when the American West was fenced in. A landscape without fences has a wilder, freer feel. I miss knowing that I can walk from village to village and expect a welcome wherever I go. Most of all, I miss the people I know there.

People are the center of life in Niger. While their level of poverty is inconceivable here, the deep connections within their communities are also foreign to most modern Americans. New relationships are built quickly, and everyone in my small village knew each other well. They also knew those passing through from nearby villages, villages with populations of as many as two or three thousand people. Everyone is greeted by name. Even a brief greeting involves asking after family, work and health.

People became the center of my life in Niger, too. I knew the faces of everyone in my village, even if I never quite mastered all of the children's names.

One group I worked with was the young, soon-to-be-married girls. Despite the gap in our ages, we were considered natural companions by some of the married women. I am not married, and, in Niger, that is almost unheard of for a woman older than 25. Those rare cases of "older," unmarried women are those who work in government and development organizations in the city — never women who are still living in villages. So, beginning from what I considered a rather funny assumption, I built a relationship with these 12- and 13-year-old girls.

The girls started out as members of an ever-changing group of children who came nightly to the compound I shared with my neighbors. I wanted to temporarily fill in for the village's lack of a school. The children would sit in a circle of 40 or more and I would read stories, teach them to draw letters in the sand and sing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" with them in the Hausa language. After weeks of this pattern, though, I was frustrated — too many children and too many ages for any of them to really learn.

So, soon, just the older girls began to come to my own tiny compound each night, carrying the notebooks and pencils I had bought for them. We worked slowly through the vowels and numbers one through 10.

Hajo, my closest almost-teenage neighbor and also one of my best friends, was most dedicated. She showed up every night, and her infectious laugh alternated with a serious determination to learn her letters. She somehow managed to crack all the other girls up while learning faster than any of them.

We worked by candlelight, sitting on my biggest plastic mat. Thirteen girls came, although rarely all on the same night. A Peace Corps friend gave me a blackboard, and I drew the letters on the painted wood, slowly and carefully showing the girls how to create the shapes.

Later we also met each week to talk about how to improve family health and environmental conditions around the village. The girls were so excited to meet every week and to continue their literacy training. I got the sense it was the first time any of them had felt as though someone had considered them capable of formal education or had cared to single them out from all of their many siblings.

I got to know each of the girls well. That meant that seeing them married when they were still very young girls was difficult, but I was glad that at least the time we had spent together meant that they knew a little more about keeping their children healthy, and they would be more likely to allow their daughters to go to school.

I became close to the girls and others in the village, but everyone became an important part of my community there. Community and interdependence are what make life in Niger livable, even joyful.

Nigeriens often depend on one another for help in times of crisis. More commonly, though, families, friends and communities are connected because they produce food, create entertainment and provide all kinds of labor for one another. In the U.S., where we buy our food without ever knowing who grew it, and where we watch TV, play video games and surf the Internet for entertainment, we seem sometimes to have forgotten the essential role of other people in our lives.

My time with the girls and other friends in the village powerfully reminded me — taught me — that nothing in life is so important as building connections and taking care of the people in your life.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Cathy Day worked in Niger for three years as an agriculture volunteer and as a volunteer leader with the U.S. Peace Corps. She returned to Great Falls in April.

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: June, 2007; Peace Corps Niger; Directory of Niger RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Niger RPCVs; Women's Issues; Peace Corps Library; Peace Corps Directory; Peace Corps Original Sources; Bulletin Board; Peace Corps Headlines

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