well hello

hi! its been a long time...i had a cat last time i updated this. well thats done! my life got instantly better once she found a new home with a village boy!

everything is going pretty well. i feel pretty settled now that i have been at post for about 8 months. my villagers no longer think i am complete idiot, just a slight one! I still work at the health hut pretty much everyday. i got to see my first live birth. it was totally amazing. all of sudden there is this person, it was crazy!

so far i've had a couple hedge hogs and a snake in my hut. i got made fun of a lot for trying to kill the snake on my own, which looking back i looked absolutely ridiculous! i had the stick to my pounder in one hand and a knife in the other running towards my chief's concession. it was pretty funny.

so right now i am just starting to work on some projects: working with mal-nourished children, building a grain bank, getting a new well in my village, fixing up my health hut and hopefully starting a garden in October.

right now, i will be around to answer questions (meaning i have Internet service) so let me know if you have a question or say "holler" if you want.

ok bye

I got a cat

ok so the biggest news since i last wrote is that i got a cat to kill mice in order to protect me from snakes. her name is Mona. she's rather talkative (that's as nice as i can put it) and has so far proved to be more of a pain than pleasure. For example, she cried so much in the beginning that my villagers were absolutely convinced that i did not feed her and brought over millet for to her to eat (which was incredibly nice of them, one more reason i am so thankful for my awesome village). after dropping the food off to her, they would then explain to me that i needed to feed my cat and i would then bring out the food that i give her to show them that in fact i do feed her. they would look at the food and then look at the cat and decide that Mona really just wants to leave and go back to her mom. Mona has proved to be a complete embarrassment to the feline species as she has now run away from two baby mice (which i never had before i got her, but her food seems to attract them) and is also afraid of baby chickens. thus she is the complete opposite of what i had hoped. i think the chances of snakes coming into my concession have increased instead of decreased...great.

In other news: its actually super cold here in the desert, especially at night. I have even had to sleep inside my hut a couple times. According to my thermometer it can get to about 45-ish degrees during the coldest part of the night.

I continue to go to the health hut everyday. I help with prenatal exams, baby weighings, explaining the three food groups and lately i have been in charge of shaming the women who don't put hats and other warm clothing on their babies. It's been rather exciting this past month because we just got two nursing students at our health hut, so it's been fun to hang out with people my own age who do not have kids.

My villagers continue to be amazing people. they built me a garden where we have tomatoes, eggplants, carrots, lettuce and a whole bunch of other plants that i cant understand. they seem to (so far) be growing well, but i actually have no idea because i am not sure what any of those plants are supposed to look like, so i am guessing i have more weeds than anything. a woman brings water to the garden twice a day and i am in charge of watering the plants/weeds. i'll let you know what happens.

So things are going so well and i am really enjoying my work. i hope all of you are doing as well as i am! talk to you later!
love always e

it has been awhile

hi. so i know it has been almost forever since updating all of you, i apologize.

my village and my villagers are amazing. they are all so helpful and so sweet to me. obviously there have major language obstacles, but other than that i have been adjusting rather well.

i wake up every morning with the sun and make breakfast, which is usually oatmeal. After that, depending on the day of the week i usually go to my health hut in another town. There i help with baby weighings and pre natal exams. The nurse uses this tool that kind of looks like a trumpet to hear the baby's heartbeat during the exams. In the beginning he had me listen after he was done. I would just always shake my head and smile, but every time i heard absolutely nothing. one day he put the horn (for lack of a better word) up to this woman's belly and had me listen. I was said in my baby zarma "oh yes i can hear it". he said "no you don't because i have the horn placed on the front side of the baby not the back!" so i was caught, and now he doesn't offer me a listen. I still get to help though with the exams, so it's all good.

When i dont go to my health hut i hang out in the chief's concession with my village mom and the other women related to my chief. I still haven't made it to my school yet, but hopefully i will go once i get to my village.

Right now i am in the capital because my we had our in service training for two weeks. Afterwards, we weren't allowed to travel for awhile because of some security issues. However, that has all been taken care of so now i am running errands in Niamey and afterwards i will be heading back. I am really excited to get back to my village and see everyone.

I don't have any really amusing stories for you right now, mostly because i still have no idea what is going on when people are talking to me. I am sure that will change soon enough and i will update you!

all right happy holidays!

love always E

One day before the rest of my life begins (for the next two years anyway)

Hey everyone ! tomorrow i am going to be installed in my village! I am really excited and of course a bit nervous. Right now I am in dosso city waiting with some other newbies to be installed. There is not much to update you about since the last time I wrote because we have been doing administration stuff that I doubt you will find too interesting. The team of people here in dosso is awesome, I am so happy to be here with them.

The most important thing you need to know is that I have another email account that I will be able to access emails from (probably more frequently). The email address is dossopcv(at)intent.ne obviously the (at) in the address is that sign but the French suck at making keyboards and its too hot to figure it out, if you have any doubts just send it to my gmail account, which I will be able to check once in a while. REALLY IMPORTANT: this email is for all PCVs in dosso, therefore in the subject of the email you must put my last name so that it filters in my box. This is especially important because the RR and I share the same first name so it will get incredibly confusing if you don’t do this.

Once we get installed we have to stay at our post for one month without leaving (unless of course I experience a medical emergency). Speaking of that, my rash according to the doctor is a non specific rash for which I have two creams for. They seem to be taking care of the job. Ok back to what I was saying…after a month, we are required to stay in our region until IST, which is: in service training. Therefore I will not be able to check everything too often. So, I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween! I will have a wonderful time at post and hopefully write you all very soon! Take care, I miss you all and always thinking

I'm a real peace corps volunteer!

hi!

we had our swear-in ceremony on Tuesday and now i am a real peace corps volunteer! i am going back to my village within the next week and i am so excited! however today i have to go see a dermatologist because i have some funky skin rash that the Peace Corps doctor has never seen before. i'll let you know how that goes. other than that life after live-in was pretty relaxing. we had our final language classes and now we are just filling out paper work and getting ready for the next two years. thanks for all your support! i miss you all!

oh i have a new address:

Elizabeth Hunt, PCV

Corps da la Paix

BP 144

Dosso Niger

West Africa

also this is a picture of Katie and

I in our swear-in outfits. yes i am wearing giant chickens on my outfit because when else can i wear chickens all over my body at a very serious event? hopefully more pictures will come

not probably lost...i did get lost

hey
ok so the french apparently do not get excited because i cannot find the exclaimation mark...but please read this in your the most excited way that you can

i just got back from liove which is when we go to our village for about a week and live in our huts ect. so the health hut that i am working at is on the main road and my village is 2.5 k into the bush. so i went to the health hut one day during liv in with the PCV who did my live in. however, i had to find my way back alone. it is really just a straight shot but i got totally turned around. luckily one of my moms was walking through and saw me and pointed me in the right direction. it was also good because it gave all of us something to laugh about for the rest of live in.

my village is beautiful and the villagers are awesome. i am really excited to live there. i am also really excited to learn more zarma as the only thing i understood was my villagers tellling everyone that i dont understand. i really live in a hut with a shower area and a latrine. i have a moderate size concession which is nice. i have no trees in my concession which is good because then i will not have bats. other than not much to say about it. for safety reasons i am supposed to give too much detail about where it is. but i assure you its pretty cool;

we swear in in like ten days which is crazy and after that in two weeks or so i move in to my village after which i cant travel for about a month. but i will try to update you all after swear in and before i leave.

i miss you all and hope you are all in health. i am always thinking about you
elizabeth

hello finally

hi everyone
ok so i am on a french keyboard which is super confusing so please excuse my typing.

ok so i really love it here i like the training village and site but i am ready to leave and get to post. i am going to be in the dosso region, which was my first choice of regions, so i am super excited about that

my village is 600 people and i will be living in a traditional zarma hut

i like getting letters and packages so if you have sent me a letter THANK YOU

my host fam is super paitient with me. especially when i say i am going to donkey with them instead of chat or when i say i am going to buy their last volunteer instead of seeing them. but lang is coming along, so i think by swear-in, i should be ok

no elizabeth-like incidents have happened so far...i will keep you posted

i really loe it here and i miss you alll so much there is so much to tell that i am getting stressed just thinking about what to to say BUT i have health and am having a great time i will hopefully be able to add more in a couple weeks but this should suffice for now for your elizabeth craving

love you all and always thinking of you