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CIKIN
DAJI
"Into the
Bush" |
by Brett McNaught
© copyright 2001 Brett McNaught |
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 Installation
So I get dropped
off in Koré Hausa, which is a small village (400-500 people?) located in
the Zinder region of Niger, about 17k from the nearest road or English speaker.
I put on my best game face smile and wave to
the Land Cruiser as it drives off into the sunset through the deep
sand.
 What on earth do I do
now? Am I still on Earth? Unpack, that should waste some time...
15 minutes
later:
What do I do now?
Do I dare go out of my
concession and talk with these strange people? Maybe I will just open my door
and wait for them to come to me.
They never come.
I sit. I sit for hours. They said this was the “toughest
job you’ll ever love.” Well this isn’t tough. It’s not a
job and love doesn’t describe it very well.
A visitor! With food!
Millet pot. Yes, I can handle that. And what’s in the other bowl? Hura,
not a favorite of mine, but what can I do? Just take it and fake a sip or two.
Done. Now that wasn’t so bad. But the level in the bowl has not dropped.
Eat more millet - maybe he won’t take it personal.
Boy, what time
is it? Must be getting late. Well even though I said I wouldn’t check my
watch in the Bush, I might as well go try and find it. It’s 7:45 - nice.
This can probably pass for bedtime.
3 Basic
Needs - Food, Water, Shelter... 1 out of 3 ain’t bad
My village
rocks.
Who am I kidding? What I really mean is that my village is
weird, people stare, they smell funny and I am in a fishbowl. They seem to
enjoy laughing at me. Hopefully someday they will laugh with me.
I just
dug a good size hole for trash/compost in the NW corner of my concession,
anything to get the blood pumping through my veins. My concession is huge, and
I am excited to start thinking of fun projects to keep me busy.
A
villager my age took the liberty of setting up a garden for me in my concession
while I was gone. So far I would have to say I am looking for some humor and
excitement, but not finding any. Maybe after a nap.
6 hours
later
I am getting apprehensive. I have no water left
and nothing to pull it with, and I am just two days in the Bush and I already
had to use one of my two packages of Ramen noodles that I bought at the El Haji
shop (sort of the 7-11 of the Sahel) because I didn’t have the language to
ask for lunch...
Mariama to the rescue. My neighbor, bless her
heart, has the patience to bear with me while I say
 and
pointed towards my container. Somehow by the grace of God/Allah she figures it
out, and she brings dinner, too. I’ll figure out the payment plan later.
Sannu Sannu ba ta hana zuwa (slowly but surely)....
All in all, I
logged 8 hours with the villagers today, and I will live to see another day,
Insha Allah (may God will it).
Today I ate some millet, drank some tea
and wrote. You may as well turn on Baywatch - it’s much more exciting than
my life right now.
I learned a couple of new Hausa words, and the guys
my age asked if I had ever had sex. I told them it wasn’t their water
(business), but if I did decide to have sex, I would use a condom because of
SIDA (AIDS). I’m sure it didn’t come out that well in Hausa, but I
was proud of my Kokari (effort) to nip that in the bud before I had to listen
to a roundtable discussion on the issue. I may as well go back to the frat
house if I want to engage myself in stories of sexual conquest.
 Anyhow,
I am figuring out my budget, and I figure that I can have all the food and
water I need for about 350F a day - a ton of tuwo (millet pot) and water for
about 50cents (American) a day. That comes out to 10,500F a month plus maybe
another 5,000F for misc.
 So for a month I might be able to get by on about $20
bucks (American), that is if I don’t go into Zinder and blow it all on
cheap beer and fast women. Then it would be about $23 bucks for the month.
Really, there is little to complain about. I enjoy the technology-free
way of life. I never realized the difference the light from the moon makes as
it goes through its cycle. The people are so patient it hurts, and they have
welcomed me with open arms. I just hope I can help them in the areas in which
they need it the most.
Of course I also hope the cabbage I just ate
doesn’t give me the shits in the morning.
Good night.
The Jolly Green Giant
Today our town is
hosting a traditional wrestling match in the morning. The Jolly Green Giant is
this kid, Moussatou, who has been showing me the ropes. He is my age, I think -
nobody really knows how old they are here (needless to say, it wouldn’t do
any good for me to hint around that my birthday is in 2 days.)
Moussatou steals the show and wins some money, as they bet on the wrestling
matches. That is my new goal. By the time I am done here, I will wrestle and I
will win at least one match. Too bad even in my best physical condition I
wouldn’t stand a chance. These guys have muscles I never know were humanly
possible. Hopefully 2 years in the Bush will toughen me up a bit.
Today actually has flown by. It is now dark, and I am straining my eyes by the
lantern light. I can hear some Hausa now, but mainly I just answer back with
one word answers or state the question back to them to make sure I heard it
right. I am enjoying, though, when someone asks whoever I am with something
simple, like what’s my name, and I can answer back before they know what
hit them.
I
wake with the sun at 5:45 and decide to cook up some breakfast. I take some
rice and sauce from last night’s dinner, cut up some rogo (kind of like a
potato, though not really when you get up close), and chop up an onion from the
garden. I throw it all into a pot with some peanut oil and a little salt and a
pinch of hot pepper and Voila! Breakfast of Champions. Plus it would probably
clean the rust off an old Chevy.
After my Emeril-like display in the
kitchen, I do my morning rounds, greeting the village with my token phrases and
responses. I grab 2 guys and head into the bush to identify trees and their
uses. Virtually every tree can be eaten by animals or people, or used as a
medicine for you-name-it. For now, I think I will stick with Pepto before I go
wandering into the Bush picking leaves off trees to boil up some concoction.
This takes up about 3 hours, which is perfect timing for me to grab
some lunch and a quick nap before the kids show up.
Like clockwork, the kids come to the door at 2:00 shouting
“Sallam Allekum.” I answer “Amin Allekum Asallam,” and they
enter. Day 5 and I already have them trained (knock on wood). Well, I had just
started a new book today, Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods,”
and I don’t want to quit reading on account of the children. So I kill two
birds with one stone and read aloud. They are content with hearing their pet
white guy speak his native tongue, and I get to continue reading. It’s
fun. I read it like it is Shakespeare.
It’s been a good day. I
know I am still awake so anything can happen, but for the first time since I
got dropped off by the Land Cruiser and waved as they drove into the sunset,
today I laughed. Sure, I laughed when my village chief said I didn’t hear
Hausa, and I laughed when I ran out of water, and I even laughed when flies
successfully took over my latrine. But those weren’t joyous laughs. They
were roll with the punches, sanity saving laughs, needed to face adversity.
Today I laughed.
 Although I haven’t told them anything, the villagers
slaughter 2 goats today, and I like to think it is in honor of my birthday. It
is nice to see, though, because I’ve been wondering if I am going to be a
vegetarian by default. This is the first meat I’ve seen since I got here,
which seems like ages ago.
I ask to go to the garden again, because my
leach of a friend Kabira is lazy, and I know if I leave the city limits, he
won’t follow. I figure it will be a nice leisurely stroll and I’ll be
back in time for my noon lunch / siesta ritual, which I have already grown fond
of.
So I leave my water bottle in my concession and take off towards
the garden. Man, it’s too hot to live here. I walk to the gardens, and
then keep walking and walking and walking. I am sweating like a pig, and it
occurs to me that I already smell just like the villagers. In the end, I almost
get heat stroke.
Upon my return, I get a lemon from my friend
Moussatou. I have squeezed it, added some sugar, and now I am going to drink
it. Good night.
I have reached my first
milestone - a full week in the Bush. It feels good. I am trying to form some
sort of routine so the minutes quit passing like hours, and the so the days
don’t feel like weeks. Slowly but surely. I really enjoy going to the
gardens, not to mention that it takes about an hour both ways by way of ox
cart, so it takes a significant portion of my morning or afternoon just to
travel to and from. My Hausa is getting better, and I can understand the gist
of what people are saying to me even though I can’t really answer back
without using a lot of hand gestures. Good thing I have some Italian blood
running through these veins.
Tomorrow is market day
in the next town over, so I plan to take an ox cart there and do some window
shopping. I’m not sure I really need anything, unless they are selling
cold beers or ice cream, but I doubt it.
I ordered a new roof for my
hut the other day. Labor and everything runs about $7 American.
Right
now I am snacking on peanuts in the shell (unsalted) and dates, and they taste
like nectar of the gods. I am learning patience, and I promise I will never
again bitch while waiting 5 minutes in the McDonalds drive-through for my
Chicken McNuggets, super-size fries and chocolate milkshake (ooooh - chocolate.
My mouth is watering...)
Back in Business
 I just got done helping build my first hut. It’s nice being
back on a construction site, breaking a sweat and getting a little dirt under
the fingernails. Hut-building is relatively simple here, since all you have is
dirt, water and your hands, so I have picked it up quickly and for once feel
like I am part of the village. Amazing what a little manual labor can do to a
Midwestern boy’s soul. I will take a nap now, and then head off to the
market once the sun decides to chill out a bit.
Watering Hole Chatter Takes a Turn for the
Worst
I’ve tried to integrate myself into the community without
making myself look like a donkey’s backside, but alas, this morning is
another lesson in humility. Quite a humbling experience, really.
I had
the bright idea a few days ago that I would pick a new project/chore of the
village and go out and learn how to do it. I watered gardens, made bricks,
built a hut , but today I hit the jackpot.
 First, let me give some background. Women in my village pull water
from the wells. I figured, what better atmosphere to get to know the women than
at the local watering hole?
I’ll give you three reasons, in
hindsight, why this was a terrible idea.
First, the reason the men
don’t pull water is that it’s hard - damned hard!
Second,
women are ruthless in any culture, but decidedly so in this one.
And
third, I have spent the last 23 years just turning the handle at the kitchen
faucet to get water. I am about to learn how little that has prepared me for
pulling water from the ground.
These women make it look easy as they
throw their rope and rubber container 30 feet into the well, pull up a full
container, dump it into their clay pot, repeat a time or two, pop the thing on
their head and off they go without spilling a drop.
So the tall, lanky white kid from America steps up to the
plate with his brand new rope and rubber thingy and clay pot, and gives it the
old college try. Geronimo! The rubber container goes into the deep abyss. 5
feet. 10 feet. 20 feet. 27 feet. 3 feet short of paydirt.
Yup. I
bought a rope that was 3 measly feet short.
Now your average Joe
Volunteer may be a bit red in the face by this point, but not me. I’ve
been doing this kind of shit for years. So I get another piece of rope, tie it
to the end, and let ‘er rip. 5 feet. 10 feet. 20 feet. Splash! Booyah! I
make it!
Now it’s time to pull it up. I begin pulling. Wow, this
is a piece of cake! It’s so light - almost to the top. I see it, and shit
- a goldfish couldn’t live in this much water! Good thing there’s
only 25 women and a handful of children around, or this could be embarrassing.
I walk to my clay pot with my ounce of water, and go to dump it in. It has
almost evaporated by this point, because it really is too hot to live here.
This goes on for what feels like 10 days, but is probably 10
minutes. I finally get my clay pot filled, but I guess I just assumed the easy
part must be carrying the clay pot full of water, with no lid, the 100 yards or
so to my house. I lift the pot onto my shoulder and quickly spill a liter or
two. It feels so good going down my back, but the heckling from the now quite
large and overwhelming crowd overshadows this unexpected shower.
As I
do the walk of shame through the village, leaving a trail of water with every
step, I come to the distinct realization that this, in fact, is my work. I am
here to do anything I can to improve the quality of life of this village, my
village, Kore Hausa. If making them laugh at their awkward, funny looking new
addition to the village does the trick, then I’m just the man for the job.
This will be my first entry into my quarterly report to the Peace
Corps. This will not be the last time I will experience humbling and
pride-swallowing times, and I will look forward to feeding the fire with more
trips to the well and other no doubt humiliating chores around the village.
This is what I will hang my hat on.
Getting back in the saddle after
being bucked off this horse, I’m
 back at the watering hole. I got a longer
rope and have set off to try to hang with the old women at the well, pulling
water. Keep in mind that even if I were the sleekest, quickest, most efficient
water puller this side of Mecca, this would still be a humiliating experience,
because water pulling is, after all, women’s work. The men have far too
much tea to drink in the shade to do this kind of work.
But alas, I am
not the sleekest, quickest or most efficient water puller this side of Mecca.
And I once again get a good laugh at my own misfortunes, along with the rest of
the village. Have you ever dreamt that you were in school, and you looked down
and realized you forgot to get dressed that morning? Welcome to my life.
But it’s great! I feel free, really - I can make mistake after
mistake. I really could walk around naked and greet people, and they would
probably just say, “The boy is weird, but he’s making an
effort.”
So what if my first pull of water brings up just an
ounce of water, and who cares if on the third go
at it, the rope will snap and the women will have to go grab a hook that looks
like one of those claws in arcades where you can, in theory, snag a stuffed
animal. I am proud of the toss in between - my second toss into the well - when
I pull out a 3/4 full container with relative ease. For that moment, I am a
legend.
The village gets a kick out of me. And I am really starting to
love this place.
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Brett was a
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