And so, my return to ville was on February 18th, a day that turned out to be rather important as there was a military coup d’état that afternoon. Sounds like something to be a big deal to a country, no? At least, I would have thought so, until later that day when everyone had heard about it, I noticed that besides the talk about the subject, there has been no chance in the daily lives of the vast majority of my villagers. The only major change I’ve noticed was that there was to be a changeover at my Mairie (to see a photo of which, look several months back), in which the political persons have exhausted their term and will therefore be leaving. However, that has since changed slightly so that the Mayor is staying temporarily, but the vice-mayor and other councilmen are now gone. The hired staff will remain, keeping up with the day-to-day responsibilities of local government. But at least as of the time that I’m writing this, these things have yet to be fully realized, so I’m still not fully sure what’s going on or how things will run in actuality. Further news relative to the CSRD, there were recently some arrests in Niamey of some Ministers and others who are accused of having conspired against the CSRD/government.
So now, with this little coup event that transpired, my time in this country has officially been under three different governments. I came in under the 5th Republic. Last fall we had the referendum which pushed us into the 6th Republic (and extending then-President’s mandate for an additional three years). And now, we are under the Conseil Suprême pour la Restauration de la Démocratie (CSRD). The plan is that we will, in the as-yet undefined future, be having elections. And then there will be another issue, as to what government we will be under, will this be a return to the 5th, will be going forward to the 7th, or will we be in the 6th (considering CSRD doesn’t consider the 6th to have yet existed). Makes for an interesting situation and a fun mind-puzzler while at the same time making me thankful of the peaceful political situation we have back in the States. No matter what the arguments that have gone on for the last 200+ years, we have a stability I hadn’t thought to appreciate until coming here and seeing ‘African Democracy’.
Other news here revolves around the food issue and weather. I haven’t heard that it was officially declared, but Niger is facing a major food security crisis this year. They have already broke open the grain banks to sell the staple foods (mostly millet, but also rice and sorghum) at a reduced price (i.e.-people only pay 13000 CFA for a bag of rice, not the 23000 CFA one finds in market), something that I’m being told usually isn’t done for another month or so. People are saying that this will make things harder down the road when people are waiting for the crops to yield their fruit; hopefully the food situation (with the aid of foreign aid) will be kept manageable up till harvest time. As far as weather is concerned, we had a nasty dusty period a few weeks back, wind was whipping through blowing sand and dust into the air which covered the sun enough to be able to look at it (did keep things a bit cooler), but which also covered every square inch of my throat, making everyone complain of dry and sore throats. That has since died down, heralding the hot season, in which we have once clocked 112, several 108s, and a daily high consistently above 100. Nights fall to between low and upper 80s. Happy news on the horizon however, I have started seeing clouds crossing the sky. As yet, nothing serious, and nothing even considering rain, but it’s showing me a light at the end of the tunnel. There will be an end to this ungodly heat (good thing for my service as it is hard to do any real work in the hours that make up the heat of the day).
And now that I believe I have those things somewhat covered, on we go to a discovery I have made, of which I am extremely pleased. As it is, I’m the only Christian in my town. Such a thing tends to make Christian fellowship/community difficult to manage, as one might expect. Many thanks to my father who downloaded sermon podcasts and put them on an iPod and sent to me, such truly has been a blessing to keep me grounded in faith, but there is yet lacking a community to see and touch. However, to my great pleasure and joy, it turns out that there is a church in a city about 60km from me. I have now attended three services there, the last one being on Easter Sunday. I thought I should probably try to write about that, thinking that some (hopefully my church friends at the least) might appreciate knowing about the differences I’ve noticed.
The congregation has usually been around 20-25 adults, 10-12 youth, and the flock of young kids that follow their parents. The adults break down into a few more men than women. Small side note, as a response to a question I asked, I found out that all the women that attend are either wives of another churchgoer or widows, whereas there is at least one guy whose wife is a Moslem. Not great numbers to make a statistical analysis, but this makes sense relative to what I would expect in this culture, in that it would be much harder for a woman to break out into a new religion, whereas the man, as head of household, has the cultural freedom to do a lot more as he feels led to. As I said, side note. Also in attendance at the church are missionary families, currently one Australian and one American. I can’t possibly describe how awesome it was to find I could speak English the first time I visited.
The service starts with a prayer followed by songs. Most of the songs are simply translations of random hymns I’ve never heard of into Hausa, to which we are supposed to sing along to the original tune. There is occasionally music provided by a keyboard and drums, but it is mostly vocals. Through my missionary connections, I borrow a hymnal (they are all words only) and we then follow the melody provided mostly from one woman (though how she knows the melody, I don’t know. Heck she could simply be making it up.) Songs consist of several picked out prior to service as well as some that congregants ask for.
After the hymns, the ladies provide the music for two more songs, and following them is the youth’s turn. Their turn is broken into a trio of young girls who do a song as well as the full youth group doing some songs.
Sandwiched in near the end of all this singing is a time where the children are led to the front of the congregation where they each recite bible verses. After we applaud them (Sannu da Aiki! Yayi Kyau!), they are led out of the church to do whatever the lady who helps with them has them do (they have already had a Sunday school-ish time before the service started). We then pass around the offering sack (just one little guy for a little congregation), we finish up this portion by a another song or two.
The service then moves into sermon time. We start with a prayer and then launch into a mini-version of their greetings. The sermons are presented bilingually by pairs, with the leader speaking in Hausa and then pausing for the other to translate into French. As the entire bible has been translated into Hausa (I’m not sure when that happened, have been meaning to ask so as to satisfy my curiosity), the service can come from any book the pastor wants as he can easily be matched by the French translation of the bible. After the first sermon, the Hausa speaker sits down, the pastor who had done the French translation steps over to what I’m now nick-naming the Hausa podium while another steps up to the newly-dubbed French podium. Another sermon is then presented in the same manner, talking in Hausa followed by talking in French, bible verse in Hausa followed by bible verse in French, en suite en suite. I know that at least these last two have received biblical education, not sure about the first Hausa-speaker. At the end of the second sermon, we share in prayer and then, if it happens to be the first Sunday, we take communion. If not, we then move finish with the prayer and move around the building, shaking hands and greeting everyone. Somewhat strange to see at first, but I did note that all the guys greet all the women, something I found surprising at there is a significant population in the culture who don’t shake hands with women but do greetings from a short distance. After we finish the not-insignificant greetings time, everyone goes off in their separate way. In all, the service seems to be something around a 2-hour affair.
As a side note, I find it to be amazingly interesting just how similar people’s characters are between the US and Niger. Yes, there are the major social/cultural differences, but still some things just fall out in much the same way. For a wonderful example, the “children’s music” portion of the service is nothing but reminiscent of the same at my church stateside. There are kids standing with their arms crossed while others swing their arms and still others actually following the motions, kids not knowing any of the words while others know the words and then vary the degree to which they actually move their mouth, kids waving to their parents, kids pulling on the sleeves of others, etc. Just one example of just how similar I’m finding people to be regardless of where we come from.
And here are some pictures of the church. The first is obviously of the outside. It is done with the traditional mud bricks.
For this inside shot, you can see where the men sit on the left hand side on plastic chairs (which had already been stacked up and put away by the time i took this picture), the women on the right on the pews, and the youth to the side of the podium. The guy up front, yeah, not any official person in the church, simple a member who wanted to be in a picture.
And at this point, I believe I have everything I specifically wanted to talk about, though I have been rereading this post so much that I'm now forgetting what I have put on here and what I may have forgotten. Weird how that happens.
Hope all is well back home. Say hi to the rain for me (though I will hopefully be getting some soon enough, whenever that may be).
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