“The magic of travel is that you leave your home secure in your own knowledge and identity, but as you travel, the world in all its richness intervenes. You meet people you could not invent; you see scenes you could not imagine. Your own world, which was so large as to consume your whole life, becomes smaller and smaller until it is only one tiny dot in space and time. You return a different person. Many people don’t want to be travelers. They would rather be tourists, flitting over the surface of other people’s lives while never really leaving their own. They try to bring the world with them wherever they go, or try to recreate the world they left. They do not want to risk the security of their own understanding and see how small and limited their experiences really are. If we don’t offer ourselves to the world, our sense dull. Out world becomes small, and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don’t lift to the horizon; we don’t hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days. Travel, no matter how humble, will etch new elements into your character. You will know the cutting moments of life where fear meets adventure and loneliness meets exhilaration. You will know what it means to push forward when you want to turn back. And when you have tragedies or great changes in your life, you will understand that there are a thousand, a million ways to live, and that your life will go on to something new and different and every bit as worthy as the life you are leaving behind.” –Unknown
I hate to start with a cliché, but it is impossible to express in words what these six weeks in Niger have meant to me. After having been in country for just a few days, we were assigned to host families in local villages, and sent off to learn both a language – either Zarma or Hausa – and the Nigerien culture. I was able to spend two and a half weeks living with my Zarma family, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for people who have learned second languages through practical experiences. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to express yourself, especially when you’re all on your own. My host family was great – I had four younger siblings, one of which I’m convinced was my guardian angel, as he appeared out of thin air whenever I was lost.
In our third week, I had the brilliant plan to ride bikes into the main village where about 25 other trainees were living and see how they were doing. My five Zarma cohorts and I rode over, had breakfast and lunch and read in the Peace Corps garden while waiting for the weather to cool enough to bike the 11km home. When we went to leave, however, we found that due to a “situation” we had to go up to the training site and stay the night. As news trickled in, we learned that there was an attempted kidnapping of American Embassy workers in the Tahoua region, and that we would all have to stay on site while the situation was assessed. Eventually, as intelligence was gathered and PC Washington weighed in, the decision was made to remove our entire training group and relocate us to Madagascar in December. It was not an easy decision for our country director to make, and she has shed many tears over the PCVs and trainees that have to leave.
For our part, we were 37 people stuck in a small training compound for three weeks – reality TV show, anyone? Luckily, the fact that we all chose to say “yes, I would like to serve in the poorest country in the world, where you bathe from a bucket, use a hole in the ground as a toilet, and sleep under the stars for two years” means that we all have at least something in common, and being here has made us ridiculously close and strong – we will not need team building exercises in Madagascar! Sadly, being on site with our amazing training staff has given us more time to learn about Niger, and grow close to a people and a culture that we will have to leave behind. I’m not trying to sugarcoat the country – of course there are bad people, and lazy people, and all of the things that you find all over the world that exist in Niger. It’s the amazingly motivated people; the farmers who work sunup to sundown to grow food in nutrient-deprived soil, the women who pound the grain, draw the water from wells 30 meters deep, care for their multitudes of children and still have time to ask you questions so you can learn the language that stay with you.
New address:
Chantel Welch
Corps de la Paix
BP 12091
Post Zoom Ankorondrano
101 Antananrivo
Madagascar
xoxo chan
I hate to start with a cliché, but it is impossible to express in words what these six weeks in Niger have meant to me. After having been in country for just a few days, we were assigned to host families in local villages, and sent off to learn both a language – either Zarma or Hausa – and the Nigerien culture. I was able to spend two and a half weeks living with my Zarma family, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for people who have learned second languages through practical experiences. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to express yourself, especially when you’re all on your own. My host family was great – I had four younger siblings, one of which I’m convinced was my guardian angel, as he appeared out of thin air whenever I was lost.
In our third week, I had the brilliant plan to ride bikes into the main village where about 25 other trainees were living and see how they were doing. My five Zarma cohorts and I rode over, had breakfast and lunch and read in the Peace Corps garden while waiting for the weather to cool enough to bike the 11km home. When we went to leave, however, we found that due to a “situation” we had to go up to the training site and stay the night. As news trickled in, we learned that there was an attempted kidnapping of American Embassy workers in the Tahoua region, and that we would all have to stay on site while the situation was assessed. Eventually, as intelligence was gathered and PC Washington weighed in, the decision was made to remove our entire training group and relocate us to Madagascar in December. It was not an easy decision for our country director to make, and she has shed many tears over the PCVs and trainees that have to leave.
For our part, we were 37 people stuck in a small training compound for three weeks – reality TV show, anyone? Luckily, the fact that we all chose to say “yes, I would like to serve in the poorest country in the world, where you bathe from a bucket, use a hole in the ground as a toilet, and sleep under the stars for two years” means that we all have at least something in common, and being here has made us ridiculously close and strong – we will not need team building exercises in Madagascar! Sadly, being on site with our amazing training staff has given us more time to learn about Niger, and grow close to a people and a culture that we will have to leave behind. I’m not trying to sugarcoat the country – of course there are bad people, and lazy people, and all of the things that you find all over the world that exist in Niger. It’s the amazingly motivated people; the farmers who work sunup to sundown to grow food in nutrient-deprived soil, the women who pound the grain, draw the water from wells 30 meters deep, care for their multitudes of children and still have time to ask you questions so you can learn the language that stay with you.
New address:
Chantel Welch
Corps de la Paix
BP 12091
Post Zoom Ankorondrano
101 Antananrivo
Madagascar
xoxo chan
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