Rainy Season - New Bug Life!

So ... rainy season has begun in Niger.  It actually seemed to come early as the rains started early May!  It seems to have tapered off, or rather - the third month of rains that come every 3-4 days has not yet started.  But with rainy season in Niger comes a plethora of little creepy crawlies.

By far, my favourite is what I call the "red velvet bug"

Though, the Fulani call it "child of the rain" ... these bugs live deep in the ground and come up during the rainy season - I started seeing these little guys around mid-May!  They are cute ... and they do feel like velvet to pet them!

However, when I was out another day - I saw this interesting guy ... who also, according to the Fulani,  is called "child of the rain"!  

Sensing a theme??  It appears that all bugs, no matter how many and nor variety of insect, which come during the rains are all classified as "children of the rain"!


And, I've seen a few other little crawlies lately:

These worms (?) interestingly - from my height and the speed of their movement, I thought was one worm with a black joint in the middle and whose body moved disjointedly from the front to the back on either side of the black joint!!!

It wasn't until I saw the photo and zoomed in that I saw it was two separate worms that must have been following each other precisely in a game of tag!!

Last, but not least, just before the rains began, I saw this spider.  I hate spiders!  But, I had to capture a photo of said big guy.  

okay ... okay ... that is with my zoom!  But really, his detail is stunning ... and honestly, any spider in my opinion is "big"!

Plus, he kinda blends in with his environment - again, honestly ... kinda scary in my opinion!  I wouldn't have seen him except that as I exited my truck he went scurrying away to find new shelter as my tires had disturbed his last hiding place!  And yes - I am standing as far back as I can - with my camera on zoom and my hand extended - just to get a picture "this close-up"!!

The Fulani of this courtyard came to see what was of interest to me on the ground ... and they were treated to my "spider squeal/dance" as the spider decided to high tail it back from whence it came - and unfortunately, I was between it and said location!

Side note ... but, speaking of fears: this day, my Fulani friends learned that I am also scared of heights!  When inspecting a well, I stood back to take pictures ... and then crawled to the edge to peek over!!  


Our conversation went something like this:

Village Rep:  You don't like "deep"?

Me:  No, I don't like what is deep.  (or perhaps, it is a fear of falling??)

Village Rep:  Really??!?!?  You are scared of "high"?

Me:  Yes.  Much much.

Village Rep:  But, you are not scared of your truck?

Me:  No.

Village Rep:  Really??!?  You are not scared at all to enter your truck and drive around?

Me:  Nope, not even a little.

Village Rep: Kay!!  (*expression of shock!)

He was duly impressed of my lack of fear to drive my truck - while also duly amused that I was scared of heights!   

To each their own!

Garden and Nutrition Training - Part 3

Previously, I wrote about the garden and nutrition training that Megan and I started in the village.  After all our research and planning, after many delays for various reasons .... we finally started the training in the villages in April! 

Normally, when I teach the men, I do so on the village chief's land - in the centre of the 120 square km radius of the village.  However, the women cannot walk 5-15 km for training - they are busy with the work of the day (food prep) ... so for the nutrition training, we are driving to each area to teach the women!

The first village we taught in is an area called Kossey.    They have a few nearby village markets - one on Sunday and one on Tuesday ... but neither of these sell vegetables beyond onions.  So, if they want to eat vegetables, they need to walk 20 km into the capital city!  On top of that - vegetables and fruit are among the most expensive sauce items.  They seem like a "small price" on the surface, when considering the cost of each individually priced item:

1 small cabbage                                200 francs                                   45 cents

1 medium squash                             400 francs                                    91 cents

bowl of tomatoes                             400 francs                                    91  cents 

small tin of tomato paste                  25 francs                                      5 cents

small bag of sesame seeds              25 francs                                      5 cents

1 small bag of peanut butter          100 francs                                     25 cents

1 kilo of carrots                               500 francs                                        $ 1.14

However, in our previous barrier analysis - we learned that the ladies are spending:

- rainy season:   2,500 francs/week (~ $5.61)

- post-harvest season: 750 - 1,500 francs/week (~ $1.68 - $3.37)

This means, if the ladies want to eat more vegetables and they have, say 750 francs, to spend for the week ... they can buy:

- 1 kilo of carrots, 1 small cabbage, and two tiny tins of tomato paste.   ... Or ... 

- 1 bowl of tomatoes, 1 medium squash, one small cabbage, a small bag of peanut butter, one small tin of tomatoes, and one small bag of sesame seeds 

For their entire family (5-8 people) ... for seven days!

Thus, the training the we are doing is a two-strategy approach.  Teaching about nutrition, diet diversity, and increased quantity; however, because of the increased cost of vegetables and fruit  .... we are also teaching the women how to build a small kitchen garden, so that they can grow the vegetables we are encouraging them to eat!

We split the food groups into three categories to focus on, based on international health standards for developing countries:

- starch  

- protein

- fruits and vegetables

However, these words don't exist in Fulfulde ... well, fruits and vegetables do - but these are called, respectively, "children-of-the-tree" and "children-of-the-garden".  In our trainings past, we have called these groups:

- energy

- strength

- protection

However, as the Fulani often wear amulets to ward off curses ... protection ... from illness or curses coming via food - I didn't want to use the last word in a different sense to speak of food being protection.

Again, neither is the word "energy" available in Fulfulde - so it took a while to come up with a way to explain these food categories in a way that the women could understand - and it took the entire two days of the training to teach this, but when we left, the women had it down pat!

So, our food categories became, according to the usefulness that the food gives to our bodies:

- "un-tired" body

- strength

- health

And we also taught that in order to have "peace/health" in the whole body, one needs to eat all of these groups ... the groups eaten the most often are starch and vegetables (tree leaf sauce).  The Fulani get strength from all the milk they drink - but, we also spoke about needing a variety in the food groups.  Particularly the fruits and vegetables - as each food has a different usefulness for the body (heart health, averting colds (Vitamin C), eye health).

In order to reinforce, or visually connect for memory purposes, each of these food categories - we used common Fulani household items.

For starch ... energy ... "un-tired body" ... we used the mortar and pestle that the women use to pound their millet, sorghum, and corn into flour.  As most starches (aside from rice and potatoes) go through this kitchen utensil - we spoke of how they know that the food coming from the mortar and pestle has the usefulness of 'un-tired' body.  Eating this food is like putting gas in my truck ... without gas, my truck cannot drive.  Without starch, their bodies cannot work!

For protein ... strength ... we used a field hoe.  This shows how our muscles need protein to build strength in order to do the work in the field.

For fruits and vegetables ... protection ... health ... we had a packet of pills.  This was more of a contradictory signal - if we eat fruits and vegetables, we will be healthier and need medicine less.

I had a ton of fun with my newly constructed felt board ... and the ladies loved trying to guess all the food objects!

And the women had fun as well ... a few giving us sound effects of the animals on the board!!  

And if there was any doubt ... after they did the sounds for goat, chicken, and sheep - I asked for the fish sound.  They laughed and said: "fish don't cry"!!

Rolling Storm

Since I arrived in Niger in 2008 - I've been amazed at the dust storms that blow in at the beginning of each rainy season.  It reminds of scenes from a few movies - either Tom Cruise on the side of the building in Mission Impossible 3 as the storm blows in  .... or the scene in Hidalgo during the horse race in the desert as those in the race gallop towards an abandoned village for shelter from the storm.

The storms are not always as large as seen in these movies - but the effect is the same.  I understand the "anxiety" of the horse racers - as I have been on the highway and driven towards the storm as fast a possible to reach my destination before the storm reaches my vehicle!  The sky will always turn a dark orange, and sometimes black as midnight, in the space of about 5-15 minutes ... making it unsafe to drive for the duration of the storm!

It's been a dream to be out in the village one day with the panorama of the landscape to see one of these blowing in ... and this year, I finally got my dream!  I was out doing chicken vaccines one day when one of the storms blew in!!  We had just arrived in one group of huts and as we got down from the truck, I looked over to see the clouds rolling in!  We had only just left the previous grouping of huts about five minutes prior - to a clear sky and no hint in the sky of this approaching sand storm - and the panorama that I left my vehicle to see (the first photo below) had been behind us during the drive.

Often these sand storms precede a rain, but fortunately this day it did not.  Unfortunately for the fields and their crops ... but fortunate for me at least - as the roads between this village and town are rife with crevasses and water paths which flash flood during a heavy rain.  It would have made it impossible for me to get back to town for at least a few hours, perhaps even not until the next day!

The next series of photos are captured of the storm front - a few from different angles to see the billows grow and encompass the area:

And from a different angle - with the village "mountain" in the background:

All of this occurred in about 10 minutes - from when I left my truck and saw it coming to this point in time!  It was blowing in fast!!

If you are wondering why the guys are running around in all the photos .... we were there to do chicken vaccinations - so at least in the first photo, you can see the chicken chase was on!!  At this point, we decided to make for cover.  When I turned with the guys to walk to the hut for shelter - I could see that the storm had curled in behind us on the outer edge!  I spent the walk with my head down and trying to shelter my eyes - the sand was like a painful blast of a face scrub!

From inside the hut as the sand storm continued to roll over us.  Inside, we vaccinated chickens that had been caught - and watched the sky go orange around outside!  Poor donkey!

At some point, as the sand started to decrease, the village children headed out to another hut.  I could barely see them in the blowing sand!

A few minutes later, as the sand dissipated further, we too ventured forth and made our way to the next village area for more chickens.

 

Garden and Nutrition Training - Part 2

I don't often post so closely together ... but, given my struggles with minimal internet for the last month - I've decided to take advantage of what may only be a brief window of functioning internet!  I'll post as many as I can until the internet crashes - or here is hoping it doesn't!

As a part of the research for the nutrition and garden training, Megan and I did what is called a Barrier Analysis in one village area.  The idea is to discover what the ladies think and know about nutrition and gardening ... and what might possibly become a barrier to their incorporating what we will teach them.  Be it expense, cultural hindrances, motivation, or superstitions.

The first thing to realize, is that in Fulani culture - there is not much of a concept towards "private conversations" ... or interviewing one person at a time.  So, essentially, we did two interviews group style - each group with 7-10 ladies (and one of the husbands).  They gathered together in their household groupings of family members. 

The husband is one of our committee representatives for the village group - and he was most vocal in the grouping of women at his family home, but he did remain quiet at the next group ... though, in both interviews, he was instrumental in breaching the cultural barrier of ensuring that the women spoke up and answered the questions!  

Some of the questions that we asked were factual, "closed" - while others were open-ended as we sought their opinions or thoughts on topics:

"Closed-Questions"

How much did you spend this week on sauce ingredients?

How much do you spend before harvest?  (ie: when your granary is empty and you 

     need to buy your starch)

How much do you spend after harvest?  (ie: when your granary is full)

What vegetables do you like to eat in sauce?

Do you grow a garden?

How many times a week do you put peanut butter in your sauce?

"Open-Questions"

What are the causes of stomach sickness or tiredness in people?

Do you believe that your family needs more variety of food?

How do you decide what to eat?

What actions in your life are most important to improve your family's health?

Is it difficult to obtain vegetables for sauce?

If you had a garden - would you sell or eat the vegetables?

What prevents you from eating more vegetables?

Is it the will of God for your family to be healthier?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of growing a vegetable garden?

Do you have any fears about food or eating?

There were some questions that the answer was close to what I was expecting, based on what I have heard or learned about Fulani culture to date .... and other answers that were completely unexpected!

We learned that on a whole, the vegetables used in sauce are not that varied, they like: tomatoes, squash, peppers, onions ... and a few ladies like also: cabbage and carrots.  There didn't seem to be much of a difference to a special sauce meal - aside from the addition of some tree leaves or spices (for which I have no translation!)

This area does not have a garden because the water is too far and difficult; however, if they had water, they would grow gardens - both to eat and to sell.  "No worries ... help is on the way!!  We will teach you small gardens that consume less water and we are also trying to get a forage dug in this village!"  

My hope/idea is that if the have larger gardens once they have water ....  they can sell vegetables in the nearest village market - have the corner on a market that only has onions available - and make money to better their lives in nutrition and other roads of income!

There were some answers that were completely unexpected ... in answer to our question on what causes tiredness?  "lack of work ... if there is not work, tiredness will never end.  work brings blessings and usefulness to life" .... "it suffers us if there is no work". 

While we had designed and thought through our questions on purely a "nutritional" plane .... what foods (or lack thereof - diversity, quantity, etc...) could contribute to being tired - we unexpectedly heard from both groups of people their work ethic to life!

We also learned that the one husband who has participated in previous teaching on diarrhea prevention and treatment - he has taught this area and his family all these concepts - and put prevention into practice!  This training, I did in 2010 - so it seems amazing to me that six years later, he can almost quote my training word for word!!

In answer to the questions: What causes stomach sickness and tiredness?  and  Do you have any fears about food or eating?

These were the answers from this village area:

causes of sickness: uncleanliness, not clean cooking utensils, bad food, wind (sand) entering uncovered food, leaving food overnight, eating what does not please the stomach

fear of food: not knowing the type of food or how it is prepared, food cooked with unwashed hands or utensils, uncooked meat, flies, unwashed food

Not only could these people discuss what I had taught years ago - but, they are putting it into practice as well.  This is the first area I have visited in which the people have built "kitchen enclosures"

in an attempt to keep their food prep, cooking, and dishes/utensils in a sanitary environment.  Though the animals still enter the area - not in vast quantity, they are easier to chase away ... and the animals have less access to poop around where the food prep is and lick the food containers.  

It unfortunately still happens

but less often than I see in other ares.  The women of this area also seem to be much more cognizant of the animals in the kitchen area and proactive in chasing them away!

Garden & Nutrition Training - Part 1

This year - Megan and I are tackling a huge project - nutrition and garden training!!  It is a huge project for a number of reasons:

1) Women are the instigators of change in terms of food to be eaten in a household - however, due to the vast restraints on their time just to prepare food for the family, they are unable to walk the 5-15 km into the centre of the village - where traditionally we hold teaching.  So, Megan and I are rotating through each of the village areas to teach the women directly!

2) Due to the survey that I did among my villagers in 2014 -  there is a need not only to increase their food consumption score - but also a strong need for a more diverse diet!

We have been doing research since the Fall - looking at nutritional food that they can add to their diet - readily available food that they are not yet consuming.  We discovered (shout out to team leader Brenda!) that manioc leaves if cooked are highly nutritional.  We also found documents on West African plants through which we discovered that squash leaves are very high in Vitamin A ... which is a target vitamin to increase according to the FAO documents.

We also started research on how to build key-hole gardens ... a type of garden construction that uses minimal water - and an effective use of "grey" water.  Knowing that vegetables and fruits are very expensive here ... and that many of our villagers have to travel up to 20 kilometres just to buy vegetables ... a kitchen garden that they can sustain will be key (ha - pun intended!) to their successive application of new nutrition ideas.

Part of our journey was to find the vegetable seeds that they will be able to plant.  In Niger - this is difficult to say the least.  There is no RONA or garden centre ... no yellow pages or google to find stores that sell seeds.  A lot of our purchasing needs - we find by word of mouth!  My night guard plants a garden - so I asked him where to buy seeds.

That was mistake #1!

From his directions, I thought I understood the rough vicinity of the the seeds.  I even explained a few bigger stores downtown close to where I thought he was giving directions ... to which, I received a resounding "Voila!"  ... "YES!"

No.

Lesson #1: Ask for directions from someone who drives!

I drove around a few streets ....  we asked a few guys on the street if they knew where to find seeds.  They didn't speak French.  But, we knew that we were close.  So, I parked at a store parking lot and we decided to venture forth on foot!

That was mistake #2!!

We gained a few followers who tried to be so very helpful.  We asked directions of a few people who could speak French.  We got, I am sure, with in a 50 foot radius of the store and there it broke down.  None of the store signs - neither pictures nor words - seemed to indicate a store with vegetable seeds.

We resorted again to asking people if they knew where this store was - believing we were close and maybe now could get help.  To no avail!!  At least they understood we were looking for vegetables - they brought us to a cart of tomatoes, a cart of carrots, a cart of green peppers.

No one seemed to know the word "semence" - the French word for "seed".

I crouched down on the ground, dug in the dirt and explained that we were looking for what we put in the ground which grows into vegetables.

"Voila madame!!  You are looking for potatoes!"

sigh.

Yes. Yes I am.  We walked towards the potato cart and then left the market!

Lesson #2: Learn the national market language (Djarma) word for "seed"!

I then followed Lesson #1 - and found a friend whose husband had built a garden, her directions were much more explicit.

Megan and I headed out another day and finally found a vegetable seed store!!  Not the original one that we were trying to find, but this store also gave directions to the first store for a type of seed they didn't have - and I can tell that we had been close!

At any rate - this vegetable seed store was very easy to find and identify!  Even from about a block away, we could see the pictures of vegetables on its awning.

We were quite impressed with the selection of seed!

This young guy was very friendly and helpful!  He explained the different varieties of each vegetable - which ones were better suited for heat - thus, for year round planting - and which ones do better only in the cold/dry season.  (yes, we have a cold season!)

We bought a packet of each one that we wanted to plant in order to do research on the quantity of seeds per gram - some packages were 5 or 10 grams - but others 25 or 100!

When we were finished ... he gifted us with almost more seed packets than we bought!!  We gained flowers that day too - which I plan to plant in my village home yard to bring a bit of colour out there!

A month after we started - we had a successful day!  

And for me, it was a bit of a double success:  

I can parallel park ... but not without difficulty.  Especially now as I live in Niger and rarely have the chance to practice this skill.  However, the street on which we found this store was a small side downtown street.  The right hand side was packed with vendors and the left side seems to be the location of departure for all the bush taxis (think 70's style van).  There was barely enough room for two vehicles to pass, most times only one to drive!  

I managed to find a spot - but, it was on the left hand side of the street ... between two bush taxis.  One of whom had the back trunk door propped open (it swings up).  The opposing line of traffic was stopped - likely by the bush taxi who wanted to pull into the spot once the taxi with its door open was full and vacated the road.  

So - what did I do??  

I parallel parked backwards (not my best gear, by any stretch of the imagination!) to my left into the spot ... pulling my truck bed in beneath the open trunk door of the taxi!

I was so proud of myself ... and slightly surprised that no one protested!  When we got back to the truck - the bush taxi was still not full.  The other bush taxi was still waiting patiently for the spot - and as we drove away, I noticed at least another 5-6 vehicles parked in behind waiting just as patiently!  Double parking at its best in downtown Niamey!

Confused Mosquito

So this was my view after finishing my breakfast:

It spent quite a bit of time with the yogurt ... not sure if it was trying to feed or lay eggs??!?  But in either case, it struck out - and I was happy it was preoccupied with my yogurt instead of me just 1/2 foot away!