Doggo: Peace Corps Trip

shoutout to sasyed, who's doing peace corps next year!!!!!

So this happened a while ago. in october the program arranged for us to visit villages out in the bush where peace corps volunteers were working.

we all drove east to konni, a town where the peace corps hostel is. the peace corps volunteers (pcv-s) use it as a local base to get a shower or a beer or electricity. we drove to konni in this large, air conditioned bus, thinking it would be better than going in the small bush taxi sized busses we ususally used. bad idea the piece of crap got THREE FLAT TIRES, making a trip that usually is 6-8 hours 11 hours. thats niger for you. if you look at a road map of the country you'll see that theres one route connecting the major towns. there are potholes all over it, and the bus was constantly swerving to avoid them.

on one of our stops to change a tire, we had used all the spare tires we had, so we had to wait for someone to bring more from niamey. we were there for probably an hour and a half, stopped across the street from a small village. there were kids there that congregated around us... i guess its not everyday that a bus filled with white ppl stop by your village, who knew. so we made friends. i had my ipod and my ipod speakers (best $2 i ever spent). we danced and sang. highlight: baby boy (beyonce) is an easy song to sing along to, because she just repeats "baby boy" over and over again. the kids loved it. some pics are on facebook.

in konni we got street food... chinkafadawockey and sweet potato fries (so good). we met our pcvs there.

my pcvs name is natasha. shes a healthcare volunteer in a village named doggo. the day me and leihana, another student, left for her village, we went to the market in konni for food. we were dropped off in a market town on the way to konni, where we got onto a flatbed truck and headed to doggo. there were literally 37 ppl and 2 goats on the flatbed. a little crowded.

in doggo, we walked around the village, and basically got to talk to a lot of ppl and hang out with them. natasha has a healthcare subject she focuses on each week, but that week she did not since she was showing us around. we would go around the village and greet ppl. they speak hausa there, and you never just say hi, you always ask about their health, fatigue, family, heat, etc. so it takes a while. im not learning hausa so i didnt't really understand much. when they asked me and leihana if we spoke hausa, we replied with kadunkadunk. which is really fun to say, because it sounds like badunkadunk.

we met a lot of ppl with cool stories. lots, so ask about them when i come back.

doggo. it has more than 1000 ppl living there. its in the boonies of niger. its not completely cut off from the rest of the world. the men of the village cant sell their inefficient crops, so they go to another country for part of the year to make money to bring back. maybe not the best way to do it, we met a man who worked for 6 months in nigeria and brought back 40 bucks selling bananas. ppl are really poor there. there was a lot of poverty there. lots of times the families don't ahve enough food to feed their families, and theres visible malnutrition. theres no knowledge of dinosaurs, planets, whales, and things like that.

a little about millet. i hate millet. its a plant that is the staple here in niger. they feed it to birds in the us. its not really all that nutritious, and its not really tasty. annnd it takes so much work to make anything out of it. you pound it, mix it with water, pound it, bake it, pound it, and then probably pound it some more. it grows in rocky soil. it just sucks because i feel like its so hard to live in niger. theres drought, and the soil isnt good for growing anything. on top of it ppl are poor and can't buy a lot. :(

on a happy note, when i came back i found out that 2 of my friends are getting engaged (not to eachother) ! shout out to you lovebirds.

after konni i jumped right back into city life. the day after we got back was really hot (someone said 110 F), and i was in a fashion show. the theme was freed birds, i think. it was interesting, i got to wear a lot of glitter.

love naye/ayesha

for the record...

I did vote. emergency ballot at the embassy. it was pretty last minute, but im glad i did it!

love ayesha

awale plage

website

http://www.hotel-benin-awaleplage.com/fr/hotel-benin-awale-plage-page-libre.php?id_page=1

love nayeayesha

internet cafes

So when I was in Cotonou, Benin, I went to an internet cafe. First internet cafe experience of my life, I hope it's also the last. I literally just sat in front of a blank screen for an hour, because the internet was poopy.

Also it was located on the top floor of this building that had a chapel in it.

love ayesha

I'm bbaaaaaaackkkk....

Back from vacation, SO FUN.

Hey, did you hear, Obama just got elected president!

It was unreal being in Benin and hearing the news. We were in Grand Popo (seriously, that's the name of the town), Benin, at the time. It's a beautiful town on the coast. We were staying in this resort type of place called awale plage. Here's the website, check out the beach, it was so nice. Pictures to come, i hope.

Awale Plage

Anywho, so I was asleep in my BUNGALO (sp?) and I woke up to cries of joy. I opened my door and saw some students standing around a radio. I asked if Obama won, found out he did, I did a fist pump in the air, then went to the beach.

also ppl here are SO EXCITED that Obama is president. Instead of just yelling anasara, they also yell obama. there was a lot of coverage of the election, and we were able to watch cnn in the city to get updates.

so yayyyyyyyy

love naye/ayesha