Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006
From: Michael Redman
Subject: Michael in Niger (Well Update #1) - 08/12/2006

Hey all -

(I apologize in advance for the length of this email.  It's entirely about building the well in my village, so if you're not interested in that, click the "next" button in your mail window; if you are interested, I've added more specific details than usual for my mass emails).

I'm kicking myself right about now.  I've been spending the last few days taking picture after picture with my camera, and coming up with clever little captions in my head with the expectation that I'd be uploading pictures right now for you all to enjoy.  Instead, with all the hustle-bustle when the car showed up in my village today, I ended up setting down my camera to pack my bag, and not picking it back up.  So you'll have to wait a few more days for new pictures

First off, work is under way.  Again, I reiterate my thanks to all of you back home who gave (or wanted to give) to the project proposal - without your help, none of this could be happening.

So last FRI was the day I brought the supplies to my village, and it was one of the most difficult days in my service.  It was probably stressful because I'm not used to having to deal with any sustained level of stress on a regular basis.  The funny thing was, the stress had little to do with the buying of the supplies or anything you'd probably expect, and almost everything to do with having to spend the day sitting right next to the worst human being I've ever come across in Niger.  He was arrogant, pushy, & a greedy mooch - the antithesis of most Nigeriens.  I could waste reams of paper (well, if this email were typed up, printed & distributed, I guess) on the man--and I really don't know why he got so deep under my skin; I guess it was unnecessary botherment on top of the expected stress--but I won't (I'll just summarize how perfectly he bookended my experience with him, in the footnote (1) at the end).

The seasonal river proved after we arrived to be as much of a nuisance to logistics in the cold season as in the rainy season: full of water during the rainy season, and deemed too sandy to cross in the truck now.  So I had the truck unloaded on the far side of the seasonal river, and was about to call it a day... before more than a few people pointed out the folly of leaving 90 sacks of cement and 40 bars of re-bar in the middle of the night (easy prey for a thief).  After volunteering to sleep next to the stuff until morning, when an army of cow-carts could be obtained to bring it into town, I was eventually convinced to pay a cow-cart owner to cart the supplies into town, and thus went well past nightfall, helping load 50kg bags of cement onto a cow-cart.  I ate & went to bed exhausted, and slept for 12 hours.

The good news I heard on Saturday afternoon, when I finally made it out & about in the village, was that, during my absence, one of the NGOs that intervenes in the village had held a meeting and proposed fixing the pumps.  I found myself kicking myself (again), for not thinking of going to them sooner.  It's in their interest that our village keep itself alive at the very least, and, as they focus on environmental restoration & tree-planting, having a surplus of water is essential for them to promote any work in the village.  On SUN, I piggy-backed on this pre-planned meeting, and we hashed out the details of digging the wells.

This meeting was an improvement on the one I held a week earlier, because at least this time there were women present.  And I suppose people were curious what was going to happen with the 10 huge stacks of cement piled in the village chief's family compound.  I've come to enjoy village meetings as my language skills have progressed.  They're surprisingly democratic in nature.  Certainly there are dominant personalities, but there are so in any group.  Everyone with enough courage to speak up will eventually have their opinion heard.  There was even a point when one of the religious leaders (there are more than a handful of people who qualify as loosely-defined "Koranic scholars" in Safatane) stood up and harangued the men for completely ignoring the women, off to the side, which led to an eruption of applause from the women (I joined in, though I didn't understand everything he said; and yes, I was the only male who did so; and it could also be noted that, out of habit of being ignored or indifference, most of the women were engrossed in their own, unrelated conversations up to this point, unengaged with the wider discussion).  After bandying about a few different ideas, they eventually decided to divide up the work between the three neighborhoods of the village, rotating between the three of them on a daily basis.

As for the pump-fixing, the news was tempered by the revelation that all they could promise was to try, and even this might take up to 18 months.

On TUE, we decided to break ground.  This involved choosing the site for the first of the two wells.  After gauging where the well would cause the least interference with existing paths (no discussion of water tables, no preliminary digs, no surveying of any kind), we measured out the circumference of the well, pivoting a tailor's measuring rape around a center millet stalk, and drawing the line with another millet stalk, and going over this line with a pick-ax. After that, it was time for the prayer, to give us blessings and success.  That was one of those moments where you think, "Wait, where am I?"  Imagine it: A group of 10 or so of us, bundled up against the cold, get down into a crouch around a recently-demarcated circle and hold our hands outstretched, with one person incantating in a language non-native to any of those present, while the rest of us interjected variations on the word, "Amin" ("Amen"), more or less at random.  After that, the work began, with my sprightly village chief grabbing the pick-ax, muttering, "Bismillahi," ("In the name of Allah"), and striking the first blow.  After that, the work didn't let up til mid-afternoon, with someone fresh hopping in to grab a shovel or pick-ax whenever anyone else's energy flagged.

Something I noticed on day two (WED), was the sense of healthy competition between the various neighborhoods, with digging to a greater depth than those of the day before being a badge of honor.  Around noon, the "Zamey Windi" group started hitting some softer soil, and one of the older men boasted to me of their better preparations.  They saw how the first group ("Gawance Windi") hit hard soil, and so they decided to have a big prayer the night before, and, "Look, Genghis Khan, we're getting to softer soil" as a result.  By the end of the day, they had surpassed the first day's depth, with fewer helping hands (though really, only 6 or so can work at a time, max), they claimed, as a result of their prayers.  However, even when the boasts get big, at least one or two people will chime in with sentiment to the effect that, all that matters is that they hit water--to which everyone readily assents.

So that is the state of things as they stand.  They were over three meters down with softer soil beneath them when I last saw it a little after noon on THU, and were hoping to even hit water on FRI.  That is technically today (for me), so I'm excited to get back there and see if it actually happens.  At that point, the metal moulds could be dropped into place, and the cement could start to be mixed, and the moulds would get built up & up, day after day, til my village has functional wells, and the villagers can be done with the milky-cloudy water for food & drink.  That will be a happy day for all.

I know that was long, but I figure at least some people want to know a bit about how these things work here, so now you know.  I am headed out later today, then will be back in in the first half of next week as my boss begins to plan the technical trip to the Gotheye area for the upcoming training group.  Maybe then I won't be so bone-headed as to forget my camera in the village.  Check the following site for updates:

http://picasaweb.google.com/redmanma/WellProject

Take care, and I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks for all you well-wishes, and sorry I won't get to respond to most of the recent emails this time that I'm in town.

- Michael

--
Corps de la Paix
Gothèye, NIGER
West Africa
+227 96-53-88-30

___
(1) Less than five minutes from the office, before we even get to the market, he starts griping about how the driver's fee that he, I, his boss, and Sangare, the Peace Corps guy who arranged the transport through of connection in the agriculture ministry, had all agreed was sufficient - is no longer sufficient, when he realizes that a cut of it will have to go to his assistant, who was not a part of the original arrangement made two days before between Sangare and his contact.  He starts going into me about how an extra 1000 cfa would be no skin off my teeth, about how I ought to do this, implying that I'm flush with cash, and I ought to be the one giving a little extra--rather than have him cut into his own pocket along lines he had agreed to.

The last thing that happened, to cap a day full of frustration with this man--him blatantly telling the gas station to over-charge us for oil because I have the money, ordering us to get a free t-shirt commemorating World AIDS Day at the ferry, reaming us us out for not inviting him to eat lunch with us, even though he was a hundred yards away and out of sight, insisting I marry one of my friends (Alex or Alison) off to him--was that I finally delivered the aforementioned fee to him, of 5000 cfa, and he has the nerve to ask, in front of some of my villagers, "What? You're not going to give me anything so I can buy food on the road?" Keep in mind that this 5000 cfa is a favor I'm doing him, that his bosses have ordered him to carry these supplies to my village as part of his routine work, as if he were transporting something for the agriculture ministry itself.  Also keep in mind that 5000 cfa is the equivalent of $10, chump change to us, but about two weeks' worth of income (based on the GDP per capita of Niger of $274). I bug my eyes, and said, "What?!? You're saying- Can you- OK, ask one of my villagers if 5000 cfa is enough money to get food on the road!" (You can easy get yourself full on rice & sauce for about $0.20 here--100 cfa) I was fuming at him.  In fact, I waited about 15 minutes for him to leave, just so I could power-shag (2) his dust trail and utter a stream of profanities in his wake, but gave up as he was waiting to buy some wood from some of my villagers. (As it was later related to me, some of my villagers almost came to blows with him, as well, while negotiating the price of the wood)

(2) A "shag" is a vulgar Nigerien hand gesture similar in intent to the one-fingered salute in America--though it's mostly exchanged between two- and three-year-olds.