Goodbye Winditan

I took a bus Thursday morning to go back to my village, pack, and say goodbye. I had asked Sangare (my APCD) to call and warn my village about my leaving, but I knew they wouldn't really believe him until I was there telling them myself. It felt as though we had sped up the two years I was supposed to stay, and doing all the things we would have waited to do until next December. I sat with Fati (Alpha Wande) and her new baby Abdul Rashid in her house before I ever made it to my concession. All the women came there to greet me. After I explained what was happening, and a lot of sad, quiet conversation and avoiding eye contact, they told me to go home and rest and start packing. I said I would come back to see them and they said they would come over later.

I heard the radio playing from my shade hangar before I walked in, and all the men had already met in my concession to greet me. I put my bag down and sat with them while one of them went to town to buy ingredients to make tea.


We chatted for a while and then Haouate sent food over, and I ate with just the men for the first time, from the same bowl, since arriving in Niger. After we ate, and took pictures, and made plans for them to visit me in Kiota they told me I should start packing and getting my stuff ready. I agreed, walked them to the door. And turned around to face my two huts, shade hangar, bathroom and toolshed: all completely lived in, all completely un-ready to be packed. I started with the big things, it felt easier. I brought the chairs and stools to a pile. I unhooked one of the beds. Then I saw that all the women were walking over.

Haoua asked how her cooking had been when she fed the men and me. Delicious, I said. And we laughed that she had cooked for me like that. This gender role thing...it is impossible to label. I tell them I'm a woman but not a Nigerien woman. As I was leaving the next day the men told my boss in Zarma that I was a man. And then they said, actually, she's two things. She's a man and she's a woman. And that was that. I digress. So the woman and I sat and talked about everything, mostly avoiding the topic that I might never see them again. We kept saying it isn't far to Kiota, it isn't so far to get there. I took a picture of them too, which they set up themselves and went home to get their head scarves so they would look good enough for it. In Niger if a person is smiling in a picture they say, oh that picture didn't work, they were laughing. It can take a million tries to get the picture just right because of how much laughter is actually happening. But occasionally you can really nail the picture-perfect Nigerien photo where everyone looks certainly serious, and nearly miserable. It isn't easy.


The women left around seven, right before the sun went down. I packed a little more and went back to Mari's house at eight. She said she was sorry that noboday had any food tonight to feed me. It's okay, I told her, and my stomach rumbled right then. I was hungry, I didn't have any food either.

It was dark but the other women saw my flashlight and we spent the next few hours lying on a tangara laughing hysterically and taking pictures in the darkness. Once we had all started to fall asleep we finally decided to go home to bed. The only flashlight I had that worked was my cell phone, so I spent the next couple of hours with a cell phone in my mouth trying to see and pack in the dark, emotionally overwhelmed to say the least. I woke up early the next morning to pack with the sunrise.


I finally got sort of organized and went over to Haouate's house for more goodbyes. Mari and I walked into town to greet the Maigiri, say goodbye, and pass out letters of condolence from the Peace Corps to give to him and Adoum's family about Adoum's death. When we got back the men had come over again. Agri, the agriculture extension agent had come by. I brought cards out we began waiting for Sangare to come on the bus to pick me up. I taught them how to open combination locks. It was very confusing; we laughed a lot. After a few hours I called and he said he was going to be a couple hours later. Since it was Friday the men said they needed to go Juma, do the Friday prayer. Oumarou looked at my back pack still sitting in the corner of the shade hangar where I put it down the day before and laughed. "Did you ever even open that since you got here?" I hadn't really. They left and after eating the plain white rice someone brought over for me I took a brief and much needed nap.



When the bus pulled up, we loaded all my giant amount of stuff onto it. Sangare held an un-installation meeting telling the village, "Zeinabou doesn't want to leave, but we are making her leave. She wants to stay, but she cannot stay." And I tried not to cry. The men told me I had to have one last cup of sweet chai before getting on the bus, so I did. And then I walked away leaving them all in my concession. The women waved and walked home. And we were all saying, "kala hanfo, kala hanfo," see you sometime.