Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005
From: Michael Redman
Subject: Michael in Niger 03/12/2005

Greetings to all

It’s been a while since I’ve sent one of these mass emails out, but, it being “that time of year,” I figure I should let you all know that I’m alive and well and enjoying my time here in Niger.  It’s crazy to think I’ve nearly been here for a year (and those 15 months ‘til I go home don’t seem that far off now).

So how are all of you doing these days?  Letters have been trickling in (thanks for them), and I’ve been trying to respond to them, though I’m a bit behind in my responses.  Thank you guys so much for any little thing you send; whatever I get from ... the post-office guy ... makes me homesick for friends and family back home.  Keep ‘em coming (or get ‘em started)!

I’ve been a little busy recently, which is good.  Last month, my teammate Alicia organized an environmental kids camp, where we all brought four kids from each of our villages, and they learned about the environment, and got a chance to be out of their home environment and meet their peers.  The ability to go wherever I want is something I take for granted; it’s crazy to think that none of the 16 kids had ever been even to Gothèye (between 7 and 30 km away from their homes) before this camp, let alone to Namaro, where the actual camp was held (on a site that was formerly the playground of the powerful during the uranium boom-era of the ‘70s and ‘80s).

This past week, right after Thanksgiving, while everyone in America was sleeping off their turkey, I started out a weeklong AIDS bike ride.  Everyday, we 30 or so PCVs biked between 20 and 35 km (12.5 to 22 miles), stopping three or four times and doing awareness-raising sessions on AIDS.  It was tiring work, but mostly a lot of fun being with PCV friends and surprising Nigeriens with the fact that we can, indeed, speak Zarma.  Most of the actual “work” of the sessions was done by the Nigerien animators who did the skits and can actually communicate well in Zarma (even so, I got involved in the skits a few times), though if you try to convince me that running quickly and trying to keep 100+ kids’ attention for over an hour is not work, I suggest you try it right after a 10-km bike ride in 100-degree heat :).  We arrived on December 1st, World AIDS Day, in Ayorou (a town along the Niger River not too far from the Malian border), six days and over 200-km (125 mi) later, pretty tired, but no worse for the wear.

It’s crazy how the calendar is filling itself up now - there’s not really any big gaps in my calendar for a few months.  This week, myself, Crystal & Windsong will be taking villagers to see some trees; after that, I’ll be sending one of my teammates (Georgette) off back to the promised land of America; then I will be taking a vacation to Senegal to meet up with Molly, Trevor & Maggie, three good friends from Whitman.  Then, in January, my mom & dad are coming for a visit, and after that I’ll be busy getting ready for our new kids that’ll be joining Team Gothèye in March.  And there’s the fact that some of my friends and I will be writing the PC-Niger quarterly newsletter beginning in February.  All this is really going to cut into my “bush” time, but such is the life of a PCV - part of being a good PCV (I like to tell myself) requires being a good liaison between the people you work with (i.e. [in my village]) and the people who can help them (government service agents, people in Niamey who can give you info, &c.)  

I realize I haven’t talked much about [my village] here, and that must be because I’ve been away for so long - I think I’ve only spent two nights there since 14 November because of the kids camp and the bike ride.  It will be a bit strange to go back - what I found out in those two days is that not only are some of my better young-male friends going to be headed to the coast for 20 months to earn money (i.e. I will never see them again), but my school director, one of the people I’m closest to and the only “villager” I eat with on a regular basis, passed the test for his correspondence course, and will now be attending the University in Niamey.  Congrats to him, but it will be hard to lose his aid and friendship.  But I’m glad that I’ll now be challenged to go out and make new friends.  Life goes on, and if this experience is teaching me anything, it’s that I need to adjust often to be content here.

Anyway, I’ve given you a little glimpse of what’s going on here. I hope you all are doing well, and I wish you happy holidays - I hope you all get to be with good friends and family sometime during the holiday season. (The fact that it consistently hovers around 100 degrees makes me a little incredulous when I look at my calendar and it tells me it’s really December). Take care of yourselves, and I hope to hear from you all soon.

- Michael

Corps de la Paix
Gotheye, Niger    www.redmanfamily.net/Peace_Corps
West Africa