Women's literacy class

In addition to working on building a well for her village, Jeanel organized a women's literacy class. It is open to women of all ages, and was interesting to attend. This is my experience of one day of class.


Jeanel taking supplies to the school for literacy class. The women’s literacy class is in the building on the left side.


Waiting and waiting on the women to show up. They knew class was going on, but we waited more than 2 hours for them to show up. Evidently, the sense of time is a little different in Niger. Especailly with the women. The men have more of a sense of showing up on time, Jeanel said, because at the Mosquee, they have scheduled prayer time. They show up or they miss it. With the women, you have to wait on them to show up. In all fairness, the class begins near noon, so they had to be sure the chores and items around the house were in order before showing up. AND class began on a Saturday, so kids weren’t in school. Normally, when the kids stream from the building, they know it’s time for class. Without the kids’ school schedule and break from noon to 3 p.m. it is more difficult.


The class straggled in. These were two of the first women, and they had their babies with them (where else would the kids go?). I kept trying to do some interesting layering with the foreground and background with two babies….


Once enough women show up, class begins. The part I found most humorous was that the teacher wore his shades during the entire class. Oh well, the light in that school room was gorgeous!


This woman came for awhile, stood around and then left. Things were really come and go … which would be difficult for me if I were teaching, but it seems to be more common in Niger.


I really like the cloth I saw people wear in Niger. Some of it had the most beautiful embroidery on it. The women will often purchase cloth at market, then have it tailored into an outfit for them to wear.


Jeanel visiting with one of the women students. Our time before the class began wasn’t wasted. We spent most of one of the hours trying to sharpen pencils. She had a small hand sharpener and a bunch of pencils provided by the country. BUT the wood was really soft and made it nearly impossible to get a good, sharp pencil. If we did, it likely broke once someone started writing with it.

I am in the process of gathering pencils, pens and a decent manual sharpener to send to Jeanel for her class…


I grabbed a few close shots, which I really liked. I wanted to shoot more close, but Jeanel asked me to sit down. The women didn’t mind me photographing, but they minded my clothes. Huh? I was wearing light-colored pants and sat on a filthy rock. The seat of my pants was all dirty and the women kept commenting about it. “Rahila, tell her to sit on burlap when she sits on the rock. Tell her that her pants are dirty…” and on and on. It was so distracting to them that Jeanel just told me to hang out in the back of the room.

Not a big deal, but I only had my wide angle lens with me and I really wished I had another, longer lens. Oh well, that was the ONE time in my entire trip I had those thoughts, so that’s really good. It means I packed just the right amount of photography gear.


More of writing on the board. The babies go right along for everything, with school being no different.


Class is over, after about 2.5 hours. They are dedicated and have more patience to work on it than I do/did. But then we waited a few extra hours for them to show up, which is probably why I was antsy for class to be over.