Women's literacy in the village

The estimated literacy rate for women in Niger is just 9%. In my village it is even lower, less than 1%.

Women's Literacy: And by women, I mean Two Women. Mariama and Rasida, my two sister-like girlfriends, have been bugging me for a year to teach them to read. Rather, Mariama has been bugging me. She is hilarious and full of antics, and I cannot get enough of her or her son Oweli (another child of my heart).
Why did it take me so long to start this??? For the last week and a half we've met every night for an hour, from 8-9pm, to learn our letters. So far they know M, A, S, O, R, D, I, B, K, and N. Now we're working on recognizing syllables- MA, NA, DA, RA, etc.
It's a lot of fun, and as my Dad observed, possibly the most radical thing I'm doing here. True that.
Next: Young girls' education

A scene on the airplane

1/8/09
The flight from Casablanca to Niamey: while we loaded the plane I was sitting in my seat observing everybody come on board. There was a whole crowd of 20 or 30 people who were on their way back from Mecca--mostly men, but several women, and a few kids. Most of them were dressed in giant floating white robes, and shawls, and many were carrying golden tea kettles and urns. It was quite a scene, all of these pristine white-gold beings filling in the aisles. The magic of it all, however, was then compromised because the seat-assignment regime on airlines is not familiar to people who are accustomed to clawing their way into any available space in the back of a truck. I could tell this was becoming an issue because they each sat in the first empty seat, and no one was looking at their tickets...and then it seemed that many of them were not literate, so they had no way of knowing their seat number anyway.

Everyone handled the whole situation really well--those of us who can read and who know how seating works, helped get people into the right places. It was pretty awesome--and frankly very entertaining--to see this crowd adjust to a completely foreign situation. I especially loved how the women were balancing their suitcases on their heads and still navigating the narrow, crowded aisles. Seeing that gives me courage. It's a reminder that it's fine to do what you know, to not let being different get in the way of doing what you want to do.

Hadiza's success

Hadiza and family

The Young Girls' Scholarship Program is funded mostly by Friends of Niger, an organization of former PCVs/family/people who have lived or worked or care about Niger. Girls ages 13-to 18 who are enrolled in school are eligible for sponsorship through the YSGP, meaning they receive monetary support, books, uniform, and support of a PCV. This year I think there are around 20 girls being sponsored by the YSGP in Niger. Back in July I filled out a YSGP application with the headmaster in my village for a girl named Hadiza, who is 13 years old and was the first and only girl to pass the exam that all 6th graders must pass to be eligible for secondary school. It was a big deal that she passed; her teachers, the headmaster, and especially her parents are super proud!

The way it works here is students have a first chance to take this test; if they fail they can do 6th grade over and try again; if they fail a second time, that's the end of school for them. If they pass, they have the option of starting high school, which in most cases requires them to move to a larger village or city. Our village has no secondary school, so any students who pass and are able (ie allowed/encouraged/made) to continue their education must move to either Tajae or Illela. Even for students who pass, it's not a sure thing they'll move on to high school. For one, their labor at home is valuable, and it can be hard on a family to "lose" a child to school in another village; also moving requires parents to find a family willing to house and care for and feed their kid while he/she is living in the new village.

Because girls play an extremely important and constant role in household work--carrying water, caring for babies, cleaning, pounding millet, cooking--there are significantly more barriers to their ability to continue school than for boys. (In fact these barriers are usually enough to prevent girls from ever starting school--and from performing well or having time to study. However it is becoming more common and accepted for them to go to primary school.) So you can see why the event of (1) a girl passing the exam to begin high school and (2) being encouraged and supported by her community to actually GO to high school, is pretty cool.

Not a rabbit

9/2/08
Five boys, about age 7, are over to look at books. (I got these in care packages...there are otherwise no picture books in the village.) The boys' names are Turjani, Malaru, Halilu, Ousman, and Alhassan. Their banter is just terrific. I gave them each a book to look at and here's what they are saying:

"THIS DOG ONLY HAS 3 LEGS!"
"That's a lion! It has 4 legs, but we can't see one of them." (Darn 2-dimension.)
"YOU SURE?"
"Pretty sure, but even if he's just got 3 legs, he looks pretty happy."

"WHAT'S THIS, SAMSIYE? WHAT'S THIS?"
"That's a rat."
"SAMSIYE, WHAT'S THIS?"
"That's a rat."
"SAMSIYE, WHAT'S THIS?'
"That's also a rat."
[Can you tell what book he was looking at? (Your Friend the Rat)]

"HEY LOOK, A BIRD!! IT'S HUGE!!"
"That's not a bird, actually. It's kind of like a fish because it lives in the ocean! But it's also like a cow because it has breasts and feeds milk to its babies." (Glad I paid attention in science class...it was a photo of a seal...)
The response: silence. Awe? Or disbelief?

"HEY SAMSIYE, SAMSIYE, WHAT IS THIS?"
"That's a rabbit!"
"NO WAY, THAT IS NOT A RABBIT!"
"Yeah, it is! Why isn't it a rabbit?"
"Because it's STANDING UP, and everybody KNOWS rabbits run on the ground!"
"Well, yeah...but it's supposed to be a rabbit."
"But it's wearing PANTS! IT'S NOT A RABBIT!"
"OK, then what is it?"
"I dunno."
(This was a Richard Scarry book.)