Chicken Training

Last month, I held a  “chicken training” in the village …. four days -  two days of the same training in two different village sites.

Now, some people have joked around:

“What did you train the chickens to do? … cross the road?”

Honestly??!?

I think someone already has.  I mean, chickens run all over the roads here … well, kinda like "chickens with their heads cut off" …. and I’ve yet to run over a chicken.  Someone obviously beat me to the chicken training thing!  They are crossing … all the dirt roads!

Well, granted – “chicken training” sounds weird … it’s just the best I could come up with!   But the training was about chickens, not for them.  During the training, the villagers were taught on the subjects of health, care, and purchase of chickens.  

The survey that I completed in May showed that about 70% of the villagers make money by selling eggs and/or selling chickens.   As part of the development program in the village, the survey was to help me understand the roads on which the villagers make money.  Then, my goal is to both increase their knowledge on the roads they travel and to teach new roads of making money so that they can move the lives of their families forward.  

Anticipated Goal of "Roads of Income": So that in a year of famine when they have harvested insufficient millet to feed their families for the year, they have other options of income so they do not starve nor are not dependent upon an aid organization to feed them.

During the two days of chicken training, a local vet taught the villagers:

1.  How to buy a healthy chicken – what are the signs of illness and which chickens not to buy.

2.  Chicken care & chicken coops – what are the advantages and disadvantages to having a chicken coop and how to care and feed your chickens.

3.  Chicken diseases – how to recognize diseases that chickens carry.

4.  Disease treatment – various medications for disease and how to purchase medication and treat their chickens themselves.

5.  Disease prevention – the villagers learned about vaccinations for their chickens and were taught how to vaccinate their chickens themselves.

Even though the training was taught in Djarma (local trade language) – I still learned way more about chickens than I ever thought to know!!  And the villagers really appreciated the training and were grateful to learn about how to care for the chickens.  

Some of my favourite pics of the four days:

And ... the Multi-Tasker …. weaving a rope cord  with which to tie animals to a stick, or to draw a bucket of water from a well, out of a grain sack!

Since the training, I’ve already heard a report that one of the guys who previously did not have chickens, has started his own little chicken enterprise now!   I’m excited to follow-up on this in about half a year and see where the villagers have taken what they have learned!

Home Town Fixin's

These last few weeks, many of my friends from home have been posting Calgary Stampede pictures ... including quite a few of the food.   Most interesting food photo I've seen - scorpion pizza.  I've heard of deep fried chocolate bars.

It seems that the food at the Calgary Stampede is getting more exotic and weird!  I admit to indulging in a few food pig-outs at the Stampede the few times I've been: honey-BBQ-beef-on-a-bun, cotton candy, chilli nachos with cheese, ice cream cones.  

By far one of my favourite Stampede items is the mini-donuts!!!  This special treat holds memories from a few places - it always seems to be an exciting event when one finds the mini-donut machine.  I remember as a child we found the mini-donut machine in the shopping mall in Swift Current while driving through.  Last year, while home, I found a burger joint in a shopping mall in Edmonton which had mini-donuts always on the menu!

A few weeks ago, I found mini-donuts African style!!

My favourite street food breakfast item is called: fari maasa.  It is deep fried flour dough - just like above, but usually larger.  I pay about 25 francs (~ five cents) per donut.  As I was driving through Bani Fandu to the village, I stopped to order some breakfast and was told that the fari maasa was 10 francs per piece.  I was thinking that was a huge price difference!

Imagine my surprise when I received a bag full of mini-donuts!  I was very excited!!!  It was like being at the Calgary Stampede!

While I explained my excitement to my national friend in the car.  His only comment was "Wow - you Canadians really like your donuts don't you?!??" .... Well, yes, I guess we do!  Tim Horton's and all not with-standing!

My Portion: African Style

During a recent training program in the village, I had lunch provided for those attending the sessions as the training was 9am-3pm.  Since the villagers walked 5-10 km to the training site, it is not possible, or timely, for them to return home at lunch time and then walk back again for the afternoon.

As my last post was about receiving a portion of food … I thought I’d show you what my portion looked like one of these days.

Normally, the Fulani eat together  from a large platter …. men together and women together.  The men are served first and then the women and children eat together in a separate location.  Sometimes small children and toddlers are served the meal in their own small separate bowl. 

They eat from a large platter as culturally, it is shameful for someone to know how much they eat …. from a platter, it is less obvious than filling a plate for everyone to see the amount you intend to eat.   A group of 4-6 people will sit around one of these large platters and scoop out the rice and sauce with their hands to eat.

One of my favourite “culture shock” moments of my first term was more a reversal of cultures.  My friend Abdoulaye and I had gone to visit his aunts as they wanted to prepare a special meal for me.  At the meal time, I sat on the floor with his aunts around a large platter of food and eating with my hands.  While my friend sat apart from us - with his own plate of food and fork (as the only male, he received a plate), sitting on the couch while watching the tv show “24” on the tv in French.  Yup - complete reversal of culture norms!!

Well … back to my portion!

As the group of trainees were male, I was served my meal in a separate hut.  Oddly enough, not with the women  - likely as I was the guest, I needed to be served before them …. and also oddly, the trainer was served in the hut with me. Though a male and we should not normally  be eating together, but as we were both guests to this family home, and probably as he was accepted as a member of my team, this was likely why culture was broken to serve us together.

Each of us was given our own pot of food:

This pot was mine!!!  

Way more food than I can eat.  And this after I asked them to reduce the rice they put in the pot for me!
 
In this pot of food, there is approximately:

• 4-5 cups of rice
• 4 pieces of meat

Side Note:

Receiving any amount of meat at a national home is another gift which humbles me.  The Fulani rarely eat meat (chicken, sheep, goat … never beef, they love their cows!) of any source … and usually only at special events: baby naming ceremonies, weddings.  As I sit around any platter with friends, the chunks of meat are invariably shuffled around the platter to rest in front of me.  As their guest, I am offered their best.  Even in this meal above – I mentioned they should put some of the meat on other platters …but I am their guest and receiving as much meat in my bowl as one platter to feed six was their honour to give – even though I had bought it all, especially the meat, for them!  

• 2 cups of sauce with veggies (cabbage, squash, carrots, onions, tomatoes)
• 2 potatoes

I’ve noticed that the Fulani can eat 2-3 times the amount of food in one sitting than I can – though this would likely be more than one of them would eat, I suspect that most of them could probably eat half of this on their own!

In the discussion regarding reducing my portion of food – for they had started with double the amount of rice, from which I talked them down to half the pot instead of the full - I learned that it was more culturally appropriate for them to give me more than I could eat - and they would finish off what I could not eat – than for them to give me less than maybe would fill me and risk my shaming them to ask for more.

For the Fulani, hospitality is a deeply ingrained lifestyle that I am learning to graciously accept even when my heart protests receiving from their scant ... a lifestyle I hope to more and more emulate in my own life.

My Portion

In Fulfulde, there is a word I have come to love …. and a word which has humbled me recently: “bakka” … portion.  This word is used in reference to eating – each person eats their “portion” of a meal or a portion can be given to someone.

Quite often, as we go to visit her family, my friend Aissa will have me stop at a village on the road to buy street meat for us to eat.  Though I have usually recently eaten, she insists that she needs to buy food – ever conscious of what she considers the necessity of white people to eat by the clock.  (Despite my explaining to her that I eat noon meal whenever I am home and it varies from 12-3pm.)  It is her duty and honour to feed me.

It humbles me.

My friend does not have much to live on.  She lives in a straw hut, squatting on land on the outskirts of Niamey.  A few years ago, when her husband divorced her, she moved back to the village with her family.  She has two girls that live with her – a younger sister and maybe a cousin. 

This year, she moved back into Niamey so that the older girl had the opportunity to attend school – she is at a higher level of education now which is not available in the village.  Aissa makes money each day by selling street food – it is not a large income, likely enough only for her to buy food each day and a small portion left-over for other needs.

Yet, she insists to spend 500 francs on meat to feed me.  It seems like not much, approximately $1.25 – yet that could buy a multitude of things for her … some onions, tomato paste, and oil for her sauce for the supper meal; five bars of soap; 1/5 the cost to have an outfit made; one kilo of rice and change. 

But for the need to show hospitality – meat for me on the trip. 

Humbling.

A few weeks ago – the story slightly changed.  This time, I drove my friend out to the village so she could buy rice.  Her family owns rice fields and my friend Aissa headed out to buy some sacks of rice at a reduced price, so she had food to eat in the city.

When we arrived back to her hut in the city … Aissa packed up three sacks of rice to give to me – declaring this “bakka ma” : “Your portion”.

My portion??!? 

Out of food that my friend needs to feed her small family – I have a portion.  It humbles me and reminds me of how my friend has accepted me into her family.  I am not the white lady interloper, but a part of her.  I am beyond “friend”, for I deserve a portion of the family food.

It would be so easy to insist that she keep the food for her family … I can certainly afford to buy my own rice.  But my only choice is to humbly accept her gift with great gratitude.  To turn it down would insult her and bring her shame.

“Bakka” – what a beautiful word and sentiment!