Trip to Zinder

The first work-related thing I did after IST was help with a young girls’ conference held in Zinder, the regional capital for the region directly east of Maradi (about 3 hours away by bus). Three volunteers from the Zinder region organized the conference, which was intended to encourage middle school-age girls (all of whom are promising students) to continue to work hard in school, as well as to break some gender stereotypes about what type of work women can and can’t do. The organizers asked volunteers from different regions to bring a girl from their collège (roughly equivalent to a middle school in the U.S.) to the conference so I brought a girl from my town whose name was Maimouna. She was wonderful- very, very intelligent and very serious about her school work, very down-to-earth and kind as well. The girls attended sessions about study skills, peer pressure and HIV/AIDS, shadowed professional women working in Zinder, and got to talk on the radio answering questions about who had helped them in their educational journey and what they would like to do in the future. The three volunteers did an amazing job choosing sessions and finding Nigeriens to help…overall it was really well-organized and from what I observed, really positive for the girls involved.
This was my first time in Zinder and I loved it. It was really beautiful and had this ancient, sort of Middle-Eastern feel I couldn’t put my finger on. Years ago it was the capital of Niger and the entire time we walked around the city I really felt like I was in an ancient, historical, almost sacred place, a place that had lived through African empires, colonialism, and independence. I don’t get that feeling in Maradi… The last night of the conference, the night before the girls would all leave to go back to their towns, we threw a party with lots of food and Hausa and American dance music. My friend Jenn and I helped with getting the food ready, and that afternoon we walked across town to buy some cookies that Zinder is famous for. I don’t remember their name but they are only made in the city of Zinder, and only in one neighborhood at that. They are sold at the big market in town, but it was closer for us to go straight to the house where they are made so we set out late that morning. She said she didn’t know exactly where they were made, that what other volunteers do is go to the general area and then ask a person on the street where they are, walk a little ways and ask someone else the same question. So that’s exactly what we did…and a few minutes later a house was pointed at and so she and I entered this mud entryway with high ceilings that was dark and cool (though some rays of sun were coming in from the street) that twisted and went on for maybe 50 or 60 feet. A little boy about 9 or 10 was walking the opposite way that we were- he was kind of hopping, carefree, looking down at the ground but stopped when he saw us and looked so surprised, and I guess I can’t blame him. If I were a 9 year old boy in Zinder on a sunny, late Sunday morning, two white women coming into my house would be, I suppose, one of the last things I would be expect. Then I noticed the clothes he was wearing- he had a blue sweatshirt on that said “UW- Oshkosh.” It was so surprising for me to be halfway across the world, in this city I had never been to that made me feel like I was in an Indiana Jones movie, and to see something that reminded me so much and so suddenly of being home…So I smiled and pointed at his shirt and told him that what was written on his shirt was my home, that my home was on his shirt…and I don’t think he quite understood what I was saying (a combination of my Hausa and his perhaps not knowing that the writing on his shirt was even a place) but another boy was there and seemed to understand what I was saying and explain it to him. Jenn and I got to the end of the entryway and into the concession area where lots of women were mixing the ingredients, putting the cookies into hot oil or packaging them in small bags. We greeted the women, who were really friendly, got our cookies and were on our way.