Niger Mon Beau Pays

Niger is a landlocked country located in western Africa: bounded on the northwest by Algeria, on the northeast by Libya, on the east by Chad, on the south by Nigeria, on the west by Burkina Faso and Mali.

The country takes its name from the Niger River, which flows through the southwestern part of its territory. 

The Niger River, the 3rd longest river in Africa, after the Nile and the Congo, contains 36 families of freshwater fish and nearly 250 fish species, 20 of these are found nowhere else on the planet.

The name Niger derives in turn from the phrase gher-n-gheren meaning river among rivers in the Tamashaq language.

Niger River, 2,600 miles, 4,200 km, the Niger basin is the largest river basin of western Africa. The Niger River which rises in the mountains of Guinea and enters the sea through its delta in southern Nigeria is about as I mentioned before 2,600 miles.

Niamey is the capital of Niger. It is located along the Niger River and it originated as an agricultural village of Maouri, Zarma, or Djerma and Fulani people.

Zarma speak a dialect of Songhai, a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family and are considered to be a branch of the Songhai people.

The vast Songhai Empire (also known as the Songhay Empire) which was the largest and among the greatest African empires and dominated trade and cultural life over a vast territory from Mali, to Niger, Burkina and parts of Nigeria and Cameroon. It was at its height from early 15^th to late 16^th century. 

The nomadic Songhai groups live in Mali, Niger, and southeastern Algeria.

I grew up speaking Zarma and Songhai and Arabic and French. 

Roughly 85% of the population (Hausa, Fulani, and Djerma) adheres to the Sunni branch of Islam. Christianity remains a religion of the towns, particularly of Niamey.

Niger was a French colony. Independence was proclaimed on August 3rd, 1960. I was born 6 years later. 

Hamani Diori set up a single party dictatorship and ruled until he was toppled in a coup in 1974: I was 8 years old.

Seyni Kountché was the next president, another military dictatorship until his death in 1987: I was 21 years old.

My father believed at that time that French schools were the best schools in the world. I attended the French school from Kindergarten up to Terminale (which is the last high school year and I got a Baccalaureat in Philosophy, Literature and 4 languages: French, English, Spanish, Arabic, German)

In Niamey, street food is delicious. On every street of Niger, we can buy farimasa, doundou, or lamb meat called mainama. Farimasa is made of a leavened fried dough, yeast, water, flour, salt, sugar, beaten eggs. Farimasa is like a doghnut, golden brown and crsipy on the outside, while the interior should remain spongy and chewy.

Niger is one of the poorest nations on the earth and one of the hottest countries in the world and is famously nicknamed as "frying Pan of the world." It can get enough to make raindrops evaporate before they hit the soil! Niger has a hot and generally dry desert climate with a short rainy season from June to September.

Harmattan is a dry and dusty season. The north easterly wind blows from the Sahara desert into the Gulf of Guinea, between the end of November and the middle of March. The temperature can be as low as 3°celsius. On its passage over the desert, the wind picks up fine dust particles, the sky is dusty, we can barely breathe outside or see in front of us.

In Niamey, we have a museum where you can learn about dinosaurs. A dinosaur named Nigersaurus has been discovered in Niger. It had a long neck and a mouth like a hammerhead shark with up to 600 teeth for grazing ferns. It lived during the middle Cretaceous period, about 115 to 105 millions years ago.

Ramadan is the 9th month of the Islamic calendar, observed by Nigeriens and Nigeriennes and by Muslims worldwide, as a month of fasting, prayer, and reflection. 

During Ramadan, you can meet Tobey Tobey in the streets. Children paint their faces and bodies with white face paint and they dance in the streets : almost like a Halloween festival during Ramadan. They go on a trick or treat looking like ghosts.

I had attended many weddings with my Mum. The main wedding attire in Niger is called bazin (sometimes referred to as boubou). This fabric is hand dyed polished cotton. There are two types of bazin /boubou: rich and basic, which are formal and informal.

During weddings, I was fascinated by the griots. These men and women are considered the masters of speech in the western Sahel. The griot is above all a bard (poet), a person who sings praises to the ancestors, to the life of the past. The griot is also the custodian of a society’s traditions, the one who maintains and reinforces the links between present and past; he or she is an artist, and music and oral art are his/her very definition, oral art is highly venerated in west Africa.

In the Republic of Niger, you can find giraffes; West Africa’s last surviving giraffe herd, just 45 minutes outside of Niamey, near Kouré.

Even though Uranium is Niger’s largest mineral export ranked 5th in Uranium production globally, it is still one of the poorest country in the world.

In every house, you are welcomed with a glass of tea. We drink green tea with fresh mint and sugar.