The Fat Lady Has Sung

I feel like Liz Lemon. I’m currently in the Ouagadougou airport dropping my things all over, I’m pretending I remember how to wear layers relatively unsuccessfully (maybe I’m “power clashing,” like Jack Donaghy? Stripes on stripes because I can?) And to top it all off, my shirt was actually tucked into my underwear which was coming out of the top of my pants.

On the bright side, the entire Burkinabe soccer team is on my flight with me. I am not sure how that’s the bright side, especially since it makes me sad. Anyone who would care even a little bit is nowhere around and in fact the people that I want to tell most I will most likely never talk to again in my life. I can’t stop thinking about Rahim, a boy who participated in my summer camp. He is such a good kid, very sweet with a beautiful smile but the reason he is relevant to my thought process is because he really likes soccer. When we did sessions encouraging the students to think about their futures, he said he wanted to be a pro soccer player. So he would have thought it was so cool that I’m surrounded by professional soccer players.

I can’t believe it’s been two years and I’m leaving Burkina. As I stood in line to check my baggage, I suddenly felt like I was a sleepwalker snapping awake thinking “Wait, how did I get here? The last thing I remember doing was getting off a plane being welcomed to this country in what I imagined had to be the poorest excuse for an airport in the world. Now I’m in this relatively respective looking airport boarding a plane to leave?”

Of course I did not sleepwalk here and I remember getting here quite well. It started a couple of weeks ago. Most of my things were packed. I had a couple of goodbye dinners in my honor. I said goodbye to almost everyone I care about in my village. My friends kept telling me I shouldn’t leave (thanks for making this easier for me, guys). My kids hung all over me for a couple days saying with pouty faces “Lindsy, don’t leave. Please just stay. You’re not mean. What if the new person is mean? You should just stay here.” I assured them she would not be mean but they continued their pouting. The morning I left, the kids came to my house before school to help me clear the last few things out of my house, sweep, etc. Then we sat on my porch waiting for the taxi moto to come pick me up with all of my things. The taxi moto came and as it pulled away all the kids ran after us yelling “Bye! Lindsy! Bye!” and waving like crazy. And that’s as far as I get in my departure story until I get choked up.

But don’t worry – nothing too interesting happened after that. A long bus ride, medical appointments (no problems there), and running around making sure all my i’s were dotted and t’s crossed and suddenly boom! I’m no longer a PCV – I’m an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer).

It’s funny – some moments, like when I’m walking around doing errands and feel like the sun is literally baking me or when something that should be easy takes hours and a pile of frustration to complete, I can’t help thinking “Get me out of here NOW! I am ready. I’m so over this!” But I’m going to miss my friends here a lot. My relationships with numerous people who are very important to me are changing drastically. I’ll only talk to friends in my village on holidays. And it won’t be about anything at all, just “Hello, Merry Christmas, how’s the family? Good bye.” I’ll probably never talk to my kids again, a few of which were my best friends. My relationships with PCV’s are changing, too. Any time I was excited or frustrated or bored during the past two years, I had so many people I could call who knew exactly how I was feeling. I know we’ll still keep in touch but it won’t be the same. After all, what are we going to talk about once our bowel movements are normal and we aren’t comparing village horror stories? But I’m prepared for these relationships to change (by prepared, I mean I’m expecting it, NOT that I’m happy about it). Possibly the most rattling prospect is the change that will inevitably take place in my pre-Peace Corps relationships. I will physically be in the same places I was 2 years ago with the same people doing many of the same things but, to sound cliché, I won’t be the same. I don’t feel like I’ve changed that much but when I talk to my friends and family about my rapidly approaching homecoming, it’s clear that I have. I wish there was another way I could say this because it makes me sound like a moody high school student but people aren’t going to “get” me the way they used to. And I probably won’t “get” them either. Even if it’s a tiny change, we’ve just spent the last 2 years of our lives doing drastically different things. It would be silly to think we’ll all be the same people. While it flew by, 2 years is a lot of time. And I will leave it at that, before I ramble on too much and (more importantly) before I have a panic attack in the middle of the airport.

Peace out, see you soon, America!

Latrine Update

Well, it’s taken a while but we haven’t forgotten about all of your wonderful contributions to help our village vastly improve our sanitation through building latrines and hand washing stations. It took a while for things to get started because of rainy season. However, even once rainy season drew to a close, people still seemed to be taking their sweet time digging their holes, making their bricks, and building the latrines. As my depart from village drew near, I began to get more and more worried. Could they possibly build all of these latrines before I left? I was doubious.
Less than a week before I was scheduled to leave village, my counterparts took me on a tour to see the progress of all the latrines. It was very disheartening. “Guys!” I exclaimed. “I’m leaving in FIVE DAYS and you’ve barely started!” But leave it to my village to surprise me. A couple days later, we did another tour and I was blown away. The “most improved” award was a three-way tie between families who had not even started digging their hole at the first tour. Bricks had been made so all they had to show for months of supposed work was a pile of bricks. In a matter of only two days, they had dug a hole (2m x 1m x 1m, which is pretty big), lined it with bricks, set the platform, and were finishing the walls. Over half of the latrines were completely finished and the rest were very close. I was so proud.
We gathered at least one representative from each family to come to a hygiene lesson. We talked about how to maintain a clean latrine and then about hand washing. Each family, along with various “restaurant” owners (restaurant in this case mostly refers to a woman on the side of a path from whom you can buy rice for about 40 cents) received a hand washing station. These were made from plastic jugs that we put faucets on. The owner fills it with water then has easily flowing water with which to wash their hands. Otherwise, they usually dip their hands in a big bowl of dirty communal water. We explained that this method is essentially just everyone sharing germs with each other and emphasized the importance of using clean “running” water and soap. Everyone also received soap. We played a little game where we asked the group hygiene questions and those who could respond correctly won soap.
All in all, I am very satisfied with the project. It wouldn’t have been possible without all of your contributions and I can’t thank you enough. If you have any questions about the project, feel free to ask. Otherwise, I’ll leave it at “Thank you!”

A family with their latrine and hand washing station (the latrine is not quite finished - the walls will be a little higher)

I'm "helping" dig the latrine hole ;)

People with their hand washing stations sitting through a lesson on how to properly maintain latrines and wash their hands etc.

Let's Do Sports!

As my time in Burkina draws to a close, I’m finding myself stressed, irritable, and tired more than usual. While this is never a desirable state to be in, it’s particularly undesirable to pass the last days I will probably ever spend in this village in such a mood. In efforts to boost my spirits, I took someone’s advice and decided to get some exercise. I changed into some running clothes and stepped outside, ready to work off some stress, release some endorphins, be at one with nature, and all that jazz. Unfortunately, any plans made in Burkina, no matter how small, usually don’t go the way you want them to. This run was no exception.

“Lindsy!” kids greeted me as soon as I walked out my door. “Lindsy! Hey, Lindsy, what are you doing? Where are you going?” They noticed I was wearing sneakers instead of my usual flip flops. “LINDSY! You’re going to do sports?! We want to come with you! We want to do sports too!”
“Guys, listen,” I said, knowing how my run would play out if I let them come. “I’m going to run. I’m not going to slow down for you, I’m not going to stop and walk for you, I’m not going to take breaks. I don’t even want to talk to you. You shouldn't come.”
“It’s okay, we won’t stop either! We want to come do sports!” was their enthusiastic reply.
“Actually, what I’m trying to say, guys, is don’t come. Stay here.”
“Oh, no, we’re going to come! We won’t stop, don’t worry. We know we’re going to just keep running.”
“But…I…it’s…*sigh* Okay, do whatever you want. I can’t stop you from running down this path but I am NOT waiting for you. You’re doing this on your own.” I know when I’m fighting a lost battle.

So off we went, me running followed by 4 giggling girls between the ages of 4 and 8. As I predicted, the girls were straggling after about a quarter of a km. From time to time, I looked back over my shoulder at these silly giggling girls running along arms and legs all over the place. For the first half of the run, I remained true to my word and didn’t wait for them. After a couple km, I turned around to follow the path back to my house. I caught up with the girls who had also turned around and the littlest cutest one looked up at me with her big eyes and just said “Lindsy.”
“What?!” I said, slightly exasperated with them. With that, she simply reached up with her little hand, grabbed my hand, and started walking. My tough, no-nonsense attitude melted immediately. I smiled ruefully and knew we’d be walking sweaty hand in sweaty the rest of the way.

So, I didn’t get in quite the workout I was hoping for. But somehow, meandering along looking at clouds and talking about trees and cows and anything else we happened to come across, yielded the results I was looking for in the first place.

Conversations with a Villageois

During my time here, I have had countless conversations with people trying to dispel myths about America and its infinite wonders. Don’t get me wrong, I think America has a lot of great things to offer. But I know that everyone there is not instantly rich and you can not just work hard sweeping streets and make a living and send your surplus money back to your family in Burkina (the first reason of MANY this doesn’t work is that we don’t have people who sweep streets.)
The other day, I had a fun conversation with someone about the States in which we got past how rich everyone is. Here are some interesting excerpts from this conversation.

Villager: So, you need to have a job before they even give you a work visa? How can you get a job if you aren’t there yet?
Lindsy: Well, have you heard of the internet? [villager nods hesitantly] People find jobs searching on the internet. Or they already work for an organization that also operates in America so they can get transferred or something.
V:[ pauses and seems to be thinking intently about something] So if I wanted to go over and get a job washing dishes in a restaurant, I could find one on the internet?
L: Um…I mean…not really. I think to get a work visa, you have to have a more…specialized skill. Like if someone already worked for an NGO in Ouaga, maybe they could get a job with the same NGO stateside. But I don’t think they give work visas for dishwashers. We have enough people who can wash dishes there already.
…

V: I hear people there can make over $2 a day.
L: [choking back a laugh] Yeah, there is actually a law saying that employers have to pay employees a minimum amount and while I don’t know exactly how much it is right now, I think it’s over $7.50. An hour.
V: WHAT?!? An HOUR?!
L: Yes, but even if someone works every day for that much, it’s really hard to afford a place to live and stuff. Things in America are really expensive.
…

V: So when you go back, you’re not going to live with your parents?
L: No, I want to move to a different city.
V: Are you going to build your own house? Or who’s going to build it for you?
L: Hm. In America, we have a lot of houses and places to live. None of them are built out of sand so they last a lot longer than houses here. Also, people move a lot. Most people don’t stay in the same place their whole life. So I’m just going to move into a place that’s already built. I don’t have to build my own house and will probably NEVER build my own house. Ever.
V: If you were staying in the same city, though, you’d live with your parents?
L: Uh…no. Probably not.
V: Why not? Wouldn’t they let you?
L: Of course if I really needed a place to live they would let me live with them but…I like being independent.
V: [blank stare]
L: Being able to do things myself…provide for myself…take care of myself…that’s important to me.
V: [blank stare]
L: Americans are like that. We like to be able to take care of our own needs and not depend on other people and…oh, nevermind.
…

V: America is the place where they have skyscrapers, right?
L: It’s one of the places, yeah.
V: And they can be, like, 20 stories tall, right?
L: They can be 100 stories tall.
V: What?!? What if you lived on the 54th floor? How would you get there?
L: There are these things and it’s like a box and you get inside and it takes you to the floor you want to go to.
V: Like a vehicle?
L: Yes, like a vehicle. A vehicle that takes you up to the floor you want to visit.
V: Can it go sideways too?
L: Nope, just up and down.
V: How does it know which floor you want? Does it just know?
L: No. There are buttons on the inside with the floor numbers. You push the button of the floor you want to go to.
V: And what about when you want to go back down? How does it know you’re waiting? Do you just have to wait until someone else comes to your floor?
L: No, there’s a button you push to signal you want to go down. Then the vehicle comes up and you can go down.
V: So this vehicle takes you right inside your house on the 54th floor?
L: Usually there are more than one house on the same floor and the vehicle lets you out in a hallway. Then you find the door of the house you want.
V: So if I wanted to go say hi to my friend on the 54th floor, I would just have to go up there and then be like “knock-knock! Hey!” and then if they weren’t home? I’d just wait there and when no one came out after a little while I’d go back down?
L: Actually, in America we don’t usually visit someone unannounced. We plan it in advance and then we know they’re home and not busy and stuff.
V: Oh. What about trash? Do you just throw your trash out of your 54th floor window?
L: No, that’s illegal. You have to take your trash to a big dumpster then a truck comes and gets it and brings it to the designated spot where we put all our trash.
V: But if you just threw your trash out the window and there are 54 floors, how would they know it was you?
L: Maybe the first time they wouldn’t know it was you. Or even the second or third but after a while, they’d figure it out. Someone would see it and people don’t like trash thrown on the street like that.
…

V: Say I got a visa and put your address as my contact in America. But then when I got there, went to the other side of the country and wanted to stay there. They wouldn’t know, would they? They couldn’t track me?
L: Not technically, no. But if you wanted to get a job or anything you’d have to show you were allowed to be in America. Either that you’re a citizen or that you had a visa. People don’t want to hire people who aren’t allowed to be there. It can get the employer in to trouble, too.

Village Girl in the Big City

My best friend in village is my 15 year old neighbor. This may seem strange to non-PCV’s but I could probably write an entire separate blog entry on why kids/teenagers make the best friends in villages. For now, though, you’ll have to take my word for it – they make some of the best friends.

Anyways, my friend, Odile, has barely left village. The few times she has was to go to the small town 12 km up the road, which hardly counts as leaving village. So, since she’s been my friend for almost 2 years and I’m leaving soon, I wanted to do something special for her. I decided to take her to Bobo.

We started our voyage at 8 AM the Friday before school started. Or at least we were SUPPOSED to start at 8 AM. Of course for a Burkinabe (especially a villager) meeting times are really just suggestions. Having never left village, Odile didn’t seem to realize that when a bus is supposed to leave at a certain time, it’s generally a good idea to be at the bus station on time. Especially when you’re taking one of the 2 bus companies in the country that usually leave on time. Luckily, I had anticipated this when I planned to leave at 8.
So sometime after 8 AM, we’re on the road. I expected her to be giggly and excited as she had been all week leading up to the trip. However, she IS a 15 year old girl so the other option for 15 year old girls is to act very cool like she takes buses to the second largest city in the country all the time. Odile chose this option. (Though a 15 year old girl who takes buses all the time would probably have slept during the trip instead of staring incredulously out the window and asking “Is this Banfora? Is this Bobo?” every time we came to a village or town along the way).

We got to Bobo at lunch time and had some tasty kebobs and fries before going to relax at the PC office. The PC office is full of wonders for someone coming from a village. First of all, there is a toilet. I can confidently say this was Odile’s first time seeing indoor plumbing let alone a toilet. In addition to a toilet, there is a shower. When it came time to shower, she said “We should go get water, huh?” “Oh, no,” I smiled, “Follow me!” and showed her the marvels of the shower – just turn a knob and as much water as you want falls on your head! Genius!

There is also a refrigerator/freezer at the office. Odile wanted to fill every bottle she’d collected during our trip (every villager knows you can NOT throw away a plastic bottle – there are so many uses for them!) with water and leave them in the freezer. Hours later when she pulled one out that was entirely frozen, she cried out in amazement. “LINDSY! It is all solid! The whole thing! And so cold!” I can go out on a limb and say she has never seen ice before our trip.

So, the office was full of wonders, surely the rest of the city must be too. We went to the Grand Marche to look around. Odile was insistent about buying things despite my continuous warnings that the Bobo Grand Marche would not have much to offer her for $4. Certainly not the pair of pants and school bag she was hoping to buy for herself and the toy she wanted to buy for her little sister. As we walked around, I let her do the talking since I certainly didn’t want to try buying anything in that ridiculous market. She very quickly learned how far her money would go – the answer was not very far at all. After half an hour, she had spent almost all of her money on a pair of pants and much to my relief, she was ready to leave. I took us instead to the market I prefer – the western style super market. We bought a variety of things including sausage, cheese, a pineapple, and chocolate cake (none of which she’d ever tasted – a problem I eagerly sought to rectify.)

We took our goodies back to the office where we ate and watched a movie on my computer. Here is where I thought I would get more of a reaction from her. Until this point, she had not seen my computer. She had certainly never seen anything computers can do like go on the internet, talk to someone on another continent for free…but none of these things seemed to impress her. Eventually I concluded that this technology was so far beyond what she had ever seen before, she didn’t really grasp it. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself because I personally think the internet is amazing so everyone else should too.

After spending the night in a hostel (where she was too cold because I kept the fan on all night)we had a leisurely breakfast and got ready to go back to village. When we got back, I started wondering if the trip had been as special for her as I’d wanted it to be. I didn’t have to wonder for very long. The next day, Odile’s little sister came up to me and said, “Odile said you guys slept in a bed and had a fan. And that you didn’t have to go get water it just came out and you stood under it. And…” I smiled as she continued, satisfied that even if the trip wasn’t quite what either of us had imagined it would be, neither of us would forget it.

Bike Tour 2012

For the past few years, Peace Corps Volunteers in Burkina have organized a bike tour. The purpose of it is similar to that of a walk-a-thon. Volunteers advertise what we’re doing and try to raise money for gender and development projects. This year, I participated in the tour from Ouahigouya to Fada, totaling over 400 km. We biked different distances each day from 20 to 80 kilometers. Here’s a look at a typical day on the tour:

We woke up very early, between 4 and 5 AM. We hit the road early before the sun was up while it still wasn’t too hot. Each morning, I’d start out full of optimism ready to go. I wouldn’t even listen to my iPod the first 10 or so kilometers. I would bike in silence and enjoy the early morning with birds chirping and the sun rising and appreciate it all. But after a while, nature wasn’t enough to distract me from my sore butt or my aching back and I’d start jamming to my bike tour playlist. That was usually enough to keep me going until our snack break which generally came a little over half way through our day. My breaks were pretty short because I was close to last every day so by the time I got there people were ready to start back up. But the breaks were enough to give me some oomph to continue on. However, after the first few days, I would get tired pretty quickly after this break. I’d need to take frequent breaks just so I could be in a different position for a few minutes. I became quite the dawdler.
*Addition* I can't believe I forgot to mention my favorite part of the tour: When I would be biking and children on the side of the road would jump up and down pumping their fists in the air and cheering for me like I was Olympian or something and high-fiving me as I passed. Adorable, and nothing gives you an energy boost quite like being treated like a superstar.

Once we’d arrive at our destination, we’d lie around, eat, and relax (and sometimes shower!) In each village, we’d do something “Peace Corps-y” like planting trees, malaria sensibilizations, reading with children, etc. Then the riders would hang out, play cards, eat more (I wanted to do nothing but eat all day on this tour!) Overall, I had a great time biking through north-eastern Burkina and hanging out with other volunteers in their villages.

A map of the tour:

For more information about the bike tour, visit : http://pcburkina.org/gad/bike-tour

Parents and COS Conferences and Reading Camp (Oh, my!)

Well, who knew a year ago when I wasn’t writing out of a lack of material to write about that in one short year I’d neglect writing because I was doing too much? I definitely did not see that one coming. In any case, let’s play catch-up, shall we?

In the beginning of August, after 22 long months of not seeing each other, my parents came to visit me! We spent a couple days in the capital to let them adjust a little bit to Burkina before heading out to Bobo/Banfora to hit some of the awesome tourist sites here. And while that was a little sarcastic because it's hard to imagine people who'd come here for purely touristic purposes, we did have a lot of fun. We biked out to the Domes of Fabedougou, which are rock formations that were made millions of years ago when BF was supposedly under water. From there, we biked to the waterfalls. My parents were great sports even when I maybe didn’t know the way exactly and when it started raining and we were biking through mud.

Then we went to my village! We did the usual village things – sat around, said hi to everyone, played with my neighbor kids…there isn’t really much else we could do. I should add that dad fixed my gate and my bike; I don’t think he can just sit and do nothing.
Overall, their trip was a LOT of fun and a LOT of work! I had to translate everything and do everything and fight off all the faux types (sketchy people) and basically be the parent. It was weird!

After my parents left, I was in Ouaga for my COS conference. COS stands for “Close of Service” which is the official way of saying I’m going back to America soon! The conference was three exhausting days of sessions about job hunting, resume building, grad school info, how to say good bye to our villages…by the end I just wanted to go back to village where everything is so simple and where I have finally reached the point of knowing what is going on (or not caring when I don’t). It was great to see everyone in my training group again (and for the last time all together) and much of the information we listened to was useful but I was glad when the conference was over.

After this, I spent a short week in my village before leaving again to FAVL Reading Camp. FAVL (Friends of African Village Libraries) is a really cool organization that makes books in local African languages and in an African context. They also build village libraries. At each of the libraries in Burkina (and perhaps other countries, though I don’t know) they hold a summer camp. There is a combination of reading practice and appreciation, health lessons, and games. As someone who loves ALL of those things, this camp was great. They even let me check out a Roald Dahl book in French to read in the evenings. What’s not to love?

Hello Mother, Hello Father…

Ah, summer camp. Days full of team building exercises, trust games, canoeing, exploring, playing capture the flag, ghost stories by the bon fire…

Okay, that’s not exactly what summer camp was like in my village. At the end of June, I did a day camp with a small group of kids who just finished elementary school. They ranged in age from 12 to 15 and were a mix of boys and girls. We started off every day with an ice-breaker. One great thing about working in Burkina is that EVERYTHING you do is new. These kids had never ever done a human knot or any of those other typical ice-breaker/team-building activities. It is a brand new experience for them. Following the ice-breaker was a game of soccer. Then it was time to get serious. The rest of the day was filled with sessions that followed a variety of themes. There were health lessons about malaria, HIV, nutrition, etc. There were life-skills sessions about decision making, being assertive, and making goals. We had basic English lessons and a study skills session. One hour was set aside for our “Panel of Professionals” which ended up being one self-made business man from town encouraging the students to work hard and not allow challenges to stop them from achieving their goals.

The camp ended at lunch time, except one day the girls came back after lunch to do a puberty/reproductive health talk and the boys came back the next day. The girls were very shy even without the boys but the boys were so much fun. They asked a LOT of good questions both during the session and using our anonymous questions box. There were so many great questions about all sorts of puberty/reproductive health/girl-boy things but my favorite? “How do I get a girl to fall in love with me?” Adorable.
A few other volunteers came down to help me with the camp and it was very fun having them in my village for a while. And they were VERY helpful with the camp (special shout out to Doug for doing an amazing job leading the boy’s reproductive health session as well as ice-breakers all week!).

------------------------------------------

This past week, I also helped out at our regional Camp G2LOW (Girls and Guys Leading Our World). 121 middle school students from all over the western part of Burkina came to Dedougou to participate. This camp was an all-day sleep over camp for 5 days. While we did many sessions similar to the ones in my village camp, it felt more camp-like for a variety of reasons. First of all, we all had our own teams of students. All the meals were together, when there weren’t sessions we could hang out, etc. We had a fire one night and started to make s’mores until it began pouring rain and forcing us to finish the s’mores inside. All in all, it was a very fun and exhausting week.

Parental Advisory Warning: May Contain Explicit Content

I’ve lived the past year and a half without electricity or running water. I’ve chopped the head off of a snake in my house, dealt with mice, bats, scorpions, spiders, and other creepy-crawlies in my home. I’ve had several infections, been dehydrated, had ring-worm twice, and gotten amoebas. I’ve been in a fight with a taxi driver, on a bus that caught fire, and had countless other transport failures. I’ve been sexually harassed, am openly mocked regularly in at least 4 languages, and deal with out of control children who have no supervision. I eat strange unidentifiable foods on a regular basis. And with all of these crazy experiences, do you want to know what reoccurring concern I have about my parent’s upcoming visit?

That I will drop the F-bomb in front of my mother.

Yes, somewhere during this past year and a half (probably partially due to many of the above-mentioned things) I have developed a very bad habit of saying words you’d never want your grandma to hear you say. I have found that this happens to many volunteers, not just me. I believe its cause to be two-fold. First of all, as volunteers in a new country, we have a variety of new stresses to deal with. With all of these stresses, I have found a surprising release in saying words I previously found distasteful. Second of all, no one for miles and miles can understand me when I speak English. Whatever I say in English has essentially no meaning to anyone except me. I can get stress out using foul language and I’m not offending anyone or corrupting impressionable young children. Now, thanks to these two factors, I have a new very un-ladylike habit.

Over the next few months, I plan on trying to break this habit so when I return to the States, I have other ways of expressing myself. But can I break this habit in the three weeks before my parents arrive? I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises, mom!

There’s no place like home, even when home is a hot semi-desert

The past couple of weeks, I went on vacation with a couple of other PCV’s. It was relaxing at some points, exhausting at some points, and filled with interesting characters, stories, and GREAT FOOD! We traveled to Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

Ghana – The 28 hours of straight transport to get to our beach destination were exhausting, but not as bad as it sounds. As soon as I took my shoes off and sunk my toes into the lovely soft sand and watched the waves crash onto the beach, it was worth it. We stayed at a secluded beach place for a few days and spent our time swimming in the ocean, exploring the surrounding “jungle” and beach area, and eating delicious sea food.


A view of the beach where we stayed


Fish dinner!

After we left towards Togo, we stopped to spend a day in Accra. Compared to Ouaga, Accra is overwhelmingly developed. We felt like small town girls in the big scary city. However, this scary city DID have wonderful food (you’ll notice that a large part a PCV’s vacations revolve around food). We had sushi for dinner and it was awesome. It was definitely the highlight of Accra.

Togo – We had a terrible time crossing the border, due to some border police who very clearly wanted some money to add to their pockets. After a very long fight over our visas, we gave up (quite reluctantly) and paid the extra money which we watched the man put directly into his pocket.

While in Togo, we only stayed a couple days in Lome (the capital). We went to the market in search of pretty pagnes. Then we went to eat at a beach bar (these coastal countries rock) and hung out the rest of the evening. Togo was mostly just a stop on the way to Benin.

Benin – Benin was great from the beginning. We had no trouble at the border and got to a village called Gambie by nightfall. The interesting thing about this village is that it is in the middle of a lake on stilts. We took the 8 km boat rate to the village and got to our hotel. The next day, we rented a canoe and paddled all around this amazing village. Their markets are on boats all grouped together in the middle, children paddle to school, it is ridiculously cool. Although all 3 of us had successfully maneuvered canoes or kayaks in our life, we had a difficult time with these boats. In the beginning, we were running into people’s houses and boats; it was a mess. But we got much better. It was a great lesson in teamwork.


The stilt village, Gambie


Paddling around the stilt village

After the stilt village, we headed to Ouidah, a town on the beach. We took a tour illustrating/commemorating the different steps in the slave trade. It started in the spot where the slave market was held. There were other stops including a mass grave, the Tree of Forgetting, the Tree of Coming Back, and ending at the Door of No Return. Slaves being sold had to walk around the Tree of Forgetting and it was supposed to make them forget their past, families, and country so they’d leave more submissively. The Tree of Coming Back (a phrase which sounds more elegant in French) was walked around so that even though the bodies were being taken away and they were mentally forgetting their home, their souls would return to Benin. The African king who sold the slaves was willing to sell bodies but not souls.


The Door of No Return monument

In Benin, the people are very into voodoo. We saw many voodoo spots where people sacrifice things (we did not see a sacrifice). We saw “revenants” which are spirits according to Beninese. For a lack of better description, I will describe them as looking like people wearing crazy (sort of scary) costumes. They ran around and tried to hit people. If they hit you, you were supposed to die (I can not verify this because I was careful NOT to be hit!). We also had a tour of different palaces and voodoo sites. Our guide told so many interesting stories which were far more interesting than the actual sites. One stop that was very cool was the voodoo market. If you want something from a voodoo priest, he tells you the ingredients he needs. For those things that aren’t found in every day markets, you can go to the voodoo market where you’ll find all sorts of dried animal parts – horse heads, snakes, gutted cats and monkeys, dogs, etc. There were also a few live snakes and chameleons which we were allowed to hold.


Holding Voodoo market merchandise


A voodoo hut

Over all, the vacation was amazing. It was relaxing in the beginning, intriguing in the end, and fun throughout the trip. But the three of us who travelled together agreed that getting back to Burkina feels great. Even though there are many similarities among francophone West African countries, we're in our own territory now. We know what's going on. It’s good to be home.

Things We Hate Until We Love Them

In Burkina, a lot of time things seem impossible to get done. Things are hard to find. People are hard to talk to or hard to understand. A lot of times, they see a white person (or other clearly non-Burkinabe) and assume they can take advantage of us because we don’t know anything (a lot of times true…). It doesn’t help that if someone is difficult or rude or blatantly not doing their job, there is little we can do about it. We can’t call their supervisor or someone nicer to help us. Basically, things can be difficult.

But sometimes, this works in the opposite direction. Someone recognizes you or knows someone who knows you or came from the village where you live and they help you out. And when I say “help you out” I don’t just mean they’ll point you to the stand that sells what you need to find. They will bring you to the place you need to go, tell people what you need and then bargain for you. Sometimes, they won’t bring you. They’ll sit you down in the shade and say, “Wait right here.” Ten minutes later, they come back with what you need.

An example of this occurred a couple of days ago. It wasn’t to the extent I just described, but I still really appreciated it. I headed to a place to get a Togo/Benin visa for an upcoming vacation. I had been warned that to be VERY prepared because the people are grouchy and not helpful. We walked in and stood around awkwardly trying to figure out where to go and who was supposed to help us. People who seemed to work there just glanced over at us and then went back to their work (or more often, talking to the person next to them). Great, it seemed like the rumors were true and the service would be awful. We bumbled around to a man in the corner who suddenly looked up at us and said to me, “You’re Peace Corps? What village are you in?” I told him the name of my village and he said “I used to be there! I was one of the police who worked at the border check!” He continued to talk about the village, the previous volunteer (of whom he had a picture of on his camera), found out I was neighbors with his friend, and that I (and the other people I was with) spoke Jula. Suddenly (in concurrence with one of the other volunteers giving him her pen), he was our best friend. He was smiley and friendly and VERY helpful. We had so much fun talking to this guy and left the visa place smiling and feeling like the experience was kind of fun and not at all frustrating.

It’s all about who you know and where you’re from. And sometimes what language you can speak. A pain in the butt until it’s really helpful.

You think WHAT, now?!

In a village that doesn’t see very much activity from the “outside world” I am regularly surprised by the things people believe. Some misconceptions, like the idea that white people enjoy the smell of farts and will give you money if you fart next to them, are just hilarious. Others, however, are anything but hilarious. Here are a couple stories of frustrating beliefs I’ve heard from my village recently.

HIV – While preparing to do HIV lessons with students, I gave a pre-test to see what they already knew or thought about HIV and AIDS. For the question “Can you be friends with someone who is HIV positive?” the class unanimously answered “no.” If that weren’t bad enough, one question asked how to prevent the spread of HIV. I got answers saying you couldn’t say hello or make eye contact with someone with HIV and even a couple kids who said that everyone with HIV should be sent out of the village to live in the bush so no one with HIV would be in the village. When it came to give the lesson, I put a LOT of focus on how HIV is transmitted and how that means that you can be friends with an HIV positive person and do the same things they do with their other friends. I tried to point out that someone who finds out they are HIV positive need friends and support even MORE. I could tell afterward that not everyone was convinced but they at least learned the “right” answer to the question. Everyone said that you could be friends with an HIV positive individual and I hope most of them actually believed it. Hopefully that sinks in for the rest of them at some point, too.

Excision – While talking with a male neighbor, the topic of excision came up. “Yeah,” he said, “If a woman is not excised, she can’t do ANYTHING! She can’t walk more than a couple of kilometers at a time, she can’t work in the fields, nothing.”
“Uh…” I responded, “That is absolutely NOT true!”
“Well, here it is. For our women, it’s true.”
“Every single woman in this village is excised. How can you know what a non-excised woman can do or not do if you don’t even know one?!”
“I just know. Our old people told us.” Because the old people know everything, of course.
“I’m not excised and I can do things. I can bike and walk and run far.” I countered.
“Well, yeah, but that’s Americans. African women are different.”
After a few more minutes of this type of arguing and telling him all the dangers and reasons it shouldn’t be done, I realized it was not going anywhere. I left frustrated and also sadly contemplating the fate of his beautiful little daughter.
When I told a fellow PCV about this encounter later, she said encouragingly, “Maybe at least now you’ve put those ideas in his head. He’ll be thinking about it and questioning it now.” I hope she’s right!

Adopt-A-Latrine!

In my village, hygiene-related illnesses are a huge problem. Next to malaria, they represent the highest number of visits the CSPS receives. One huge contributor to this problem is the village’s lack of latrines. I see people of all ages doing their business on the side of the road in the bushes on a regular basis (and let me tell you, it’s a little disturbing to see a grown man squatting to defecate in some bushes where anyone can see him). But there are worse consequences than grossing out the local Peace Corps Volunteer when people go to the bathroom in the open air next to their courtyards. Flies land on the poop and then go to land on people’s food or hands or dishware and eating utensils. When it rains, the rainwater washes the poop into the local wells where people get the water that they drink. People around my village are literally ingesting little bits of their own feces and it obviously causes them to come down with various fecal-to-oral illnesses. So when the Peace Corps announced the opportunity to attend a workshop on hygiene and latrine building, I jumped at the chance.

Two masons and I went to the workshop a couple of months ago and the entire week was spent discussing good hygiene practices such as hand-washing and using latrines. Of course, we also learned to build latrines. At the end of the workshop, we created an action plan describing how we were going to bring the things we learned back to our village. We planned lessons to present to the community about the importance of proper hand-washing (one of these presentations is pictured in my previous blog post about the 8 Mars celebration). We are also doing a project distributing hand-washing stations throughout the village, particularly in places where people usually eat or use the bathroom. Finally, we are planning to build 15 new latrines around the village so that people will have more access to latrines.

While my village members are very eager and willing to donate time and labor and smaller miscellaneous purchases to this project, cement is expensive! Each latrine needs about $135 worth of cement and so I wrote a grant proposal asking for money to buy cement and iron bars while community members take care of the labor. The kind of grant I applied for is a specific kind that allows people back home (meaning you!) to be involved in the project by donating to it. Every little bit counts and 100% of what you donate goes directly to buying supplies for latrine building (and it is tax-deductible). Please visit the website for more details and to help make this project a reality!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=686-216

If you still have questions, feel free to ask me!
Finally, if you want to support this project in another way, share this blog entry with your friends!

Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday!

That is sort of like the theme of this year’s Malaria Month. Children under 5 years of age are far more likely to contract malaria because they have not yet developed any resistance to the illness. And, at least according to what I’ve seen, people have to be pretty sick to actually go to the CSPS to get checked out. If you are a small child who can’t adequately express how sick you’re feeling, there’s a good chance you won’t be taken to the CSPS until your condition gets serious.

So what kinds of life saving activities have I been doing in village to ensure these kids make it to their 5th birthday? Let me tell you. I’ve been doing a lot of work in local schools, and not just because schools are a convenient place to find a large group of people who HAVE to sit and listen to me :) I really enjoy working with students and I believe if they get the information while they are relatively young (while still being old enough to understand it) it will stick with them more. They’ll be more likely to adopt good health practices because they haven’t had much time to develop and be engrained with poor health practices. The fact that you can do fun, goofy activities and you are adored for shaking up their boring school day doesn’t hurt either.

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve worked in different classrooms doing activities to explain what malaria is and how you get it (from mosquito bites, not from eating green mangoes or from doing too much work). We talk about the symptoms associated with malaria and what to do when you have them (go to the CSPS ASAP, not boil leaves from a tree you found in the bush and drink the concoction). And finally, we talk about the many ways they can decrease their chances of getting malaria. Many of them know they should sleep under a well-maintained mosquito net (whether they actually DO or not is another question entirely!) Some of them also know they should get rid of standing water in or near their courtyard so that mosquitos can’t lay their eggs there. But no one thinks about wearing pants and a shirt (i.e. proper clothing and not just their underwear!) when they’re out and about at night so they expose less skin as a mosquito target. They also have no idea of the mosquito-repelling power of neem leaves, a tree that grows in abundance all over village. In the one small class, we actually made a pot of neem cream together.

Tomorrow, I’ll be making neem cream with a group of women. To make a pot full (about the size of a stock pot/soup pot) it cost the equivalent of 35 cents and I estimate it would last one person at least half a month. Hopefully I am getting across the point that there are many inexpensive ways to reduce people’s risk of malaria.

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In addition to malaria activities, I’ve started working with a class of elementary school students to study for the Certificat d’Education Primaire (or CEP which is their elementary school degree). To pass obtain their CEP and continue to middle school or get a job, they must pass an extensive cumulative test. To help them study, I’ve been going in and playing CEP Jeopardy with them (shout out to the volunteer who created the manual/compiled all the questions!) It is a BLAST and according to their teacher, it seems to be motivating them to study. “Before you started playing this game with them, I’d give them time to study in groups and everyone just goofed off. Now all of the groups are actually studying. They want to win points for their team!” Well, if they can’t think ahead enough to study for a test that could determine their future, at least I can get them to study by promising them the glory of winning points for their team by answering a Jeopardy question correctly.

I am also half way through a nutrition program with a handful of mothers and their malnourished kids. Every morning for 12 days, we get together and make enriched porridge out of local ingredients for their children. My counterpart also gives a sensibilization on various health topics (nutrition, malaria, going to the CSPS when they’re sick, HIV/AIDS, etc.) while the porridge is cooking. At the end of the 12 days, the idea is that the mothers will a) see the benefits of making sure their children eat enough food as well as food with actual nutrients in it through their children’s weight gain, b) will have learned healthy, nutrient-filled recipes that are also inexpensive and easily accessible, and c) will learn about a variety of other health topics. More about that once the program is finished!

Well, that about sums up my last few weeks. TTFN, ta-ta for now!

April = Malaria Month!

Here in Burkina Faso, Peace Corps has named April Malaria Month and is dedicating the month to combating the disease with even more vim and vigor than usual.

Malaria is a disease that effects everyone in Burkina. In my village, 48% of the CSPS visits were to treat malaria. As I put an extra effort into malaria education this month, it astounds me how much people just accept malaria as a fact of life. Even when ways exist to prevent/decrease their chance of getting the disease, I find that people feel like they are going to get it no matter what they do so they don't put the effort into prevention.
So this month, my goal is to instill in my village a sense of power over this illness. I hope I can at least convince a few people that their prevention efforts DO make a difference.

I'll write more about my activities at the end of the month.
If you want more info, visit stompoutmalaria.org.

Where does Shea butter come from?

Last month, I got a chance to visit a village near mine that makes high quality Shea butter (no, I can't tell the difference in Shea butter quality, I am going off of what people tell me). A friend of mine started helping the women transport the butter to cities from their village because there is not a big enough market for the butter in their village and they don't have transportation aside from walking. My friend asked if I could go with him to see the group and then use my mad PCV skills to help them, finding other markets and ways to transport the product there.
I showed up to the village and was greeted by a large group of women, all in various stages of making Shea butter. They greeted me and, in the usual Burkina style, offered me water and food. After the initial pleasantries, they proceeded to show me how one actually makes the Shea butter:

Step One - start with Shea butter seeds.

Step Two - soak the seeds in hot water, then dry them in the sun.

Step Three - pound the seeds

Step Four - roast the seeds

Step Five - Grind the pieces into a thick liquid state (or use a mill if you have one)

Step Six - mix the Shea goop

Step Seven - stir over heat to separate oil from the semi-solid parts

Step Eight - Let it cool into a butter consistency


And there you have it! All you need now is your own Shea tree, right? :)

*If some reader out there happens to be an expert in Shea butter making or interested in becoming such, I admit that there could be errors/something left out of my process. I'm going off pictures I took and my memory, I am not claiming to be an expert on it.

8 Mars - International Women's Day

March 8th is International Women’s Day and a recognized holiday in Burkina Faso. My village throws a big party to celebrate. Mostly I think they just want to throw a party but I still appreciate the effort they put into it. This year’s 8 Mars was essentially the same as last year and this gave me a great opportunity to see just how far I’ve come in the past year.

To start off, there was a women’s bike race. Last year, I knew there was a bike race in the morning but crazily enough, I didn't get the program informing me what time everything started and I missed it. This year, I asked around and of course there was not an actual time it was to start so I wandered over to the road and chilled out there chatting with some friends while we waited for it to start.

Then while we had a crowd gathered after the race, my counterpart put together a presentation to talk about the hygiene things we learned about at a latrine workshop we attended together. He essentially planned the thing himself and it might sound cheesy but I was so proud. It really is a PCV's dream to become unnecessary in a good way. I watched my counterparts do everything themselves while I stood on the sidelines.

Later in the afternoon, there was a men's soccer game and then a women's soccer game. I almost played in it - if they had asked me again I would have said yes but since they didn't, I was content to watch women run around ridiculously in their nice clothes and absolutely NOT follow the rules of soccer.

Me wearing the pattern my villagers picked out for the holiday holding a baby wearing Burkina Faso's national pattern for the holiday

After the game, there was a little dancing. It was a taste of what was to come later that night. Then we ate massive amounts of rice. After dinner, everyone grabbed a piece of ground to set up camp. People actually were setting up camp and taking naps before a night of all night dancing. And once the dancing did start, my crazy villagers really did dance all night long. I got different reports ranging from 3 to 6 in the morning but in either case, they went crazy. (I went home by midnight, being the old lady I am). The dancing was done to balafones which is like a wooden xylophone and drums. The popular dance move in my village is to walk around in a circle and our circle got HUGE! Every time I looked around there were more people dancing. It took up at least half of the soccer field! All in all, it was a very fun day - one of my best in village to date. It made it even better to see how different it was from last year. The activities were identical to those of last year but this year instead of being overwhelmed all day long I enjoyed it all.

An Analysis of 5 Common Jobs in Burkina Requiring No Education (in order from worst to best according to the humble opinion of the author)

Brick maker – These men wait until it is dry season and then chop and carve mud/dirt bricks out of the ground. They work all day long in the hot sun (and dry season also happens to be hot season!) chopping away at rocks with machetes. To top it all off, I don’t think bricks cost that much so all they get from this torturous work is back problems and heat stroke. *And most of them also cultivate during rainy season!
Summary: Loads of manual labor in the sun, little payoff

Farmer – Most people are farmers, even if they have another side job. As soon as rainy season begins, they set out to their field to plant their crops of corn, sorghum, millet, cotton, peanuts, or rice (usually some combination of these). In my village, some people have to walk to fields as far as 13 km away and sleep there during the height of things instead of trekking back and forth every day. However, in many other villages, the fields are planted all around the houses and village. In villages like this, one has to know where things are because you can not see houses or stores amidst the tall stalks of millet. Anyways, farmers work in their fields continuously through rainy season. My village was deserted from June until October (with some people working in fields as late as December). All of these crops are cultivated by hand so it is a very tedious and time consuming process.
Most crops like corn, millet, and sorghum, and rice are stored in storehouses and eaten throughout the year. Some might be sold but a large portion is eaten by the people who grow them. Other crops like cotton are sold, I assume to the Burkina Faso cotton company, Sofitex.
Summary: Lots of manual labor in the sun but you get food and a little money, so that’s a plus

Boutique/small shop owner – These people sit in their small, usually claustrophobically packed shack of a store selling random things all day long. Many people, especially if it’s mainly the woman of the family who holds down the fort, even cook meals next to their boutique.
Summary: Minimal manual labor, spending all day in the shade. The downfall of this job (according to the opinion of yours truly) is that you are in the same spot all day every day.

Marché lady – These women spend their days in the marché selling produce. Usually, all the ladies clumped together are selling basically the same products – tomatoes, onions, eggplants, etc. How do you pick who to buy from? I don’t know how Burkinabe do it, I just walk around awkwardly inspecting the produce of everyone in search of the prettiest looking veggies.
Summary: Similar to a boutique owner, these people have very minimal manual labor involved in their job and spend the day in the shade. The upside, though, is that even though they stay in the same spot all day, they are surrounded by their friends and get to chatter and gossip all day long.

Bush Taxi driver/loader/money taker – These people drive and ride back and forth between two destinations, picking up and dropping off passengers along the way. The loader (who is also sometimes the money taker) throws any baggage or bicycles or anything else you can imagine travelling with (goats and chickens, for example) on top of the old creaky van and ties it there. Sometimes if the van is full, they ride on top with the bags et al. I think driver and money taker are pretty self-explanatory.
Summary: you get to drive around on the open road all day, constantly meeting and talking with new people, and feeling the wind on your face. Overall, I’d say a pretty sweet gig. I wouldn’t mind doing it, that’s for sure.

Misunderstandings and Renewed Hope

A few times throughout our service, someone from the Peace Corps office in Ouaga comes to visit our humble sites. Last week, one of the staff came to visit my site. He inspected my house, finding lots of mouse holes and places where scorpions apparently like hiding (I have only seen one scorpion in my time here but he said they were the perfect scorpion hiding places). I didn’t have a gate; there is no shade-providing hangar in my yard.
Then we went to the CSPS where we had a meeting with my two counterparts. I expected it to be more of a formality than anything because here, people always like to be “informed” of things and greeted especially when someone comes from out of town. I also expected them to be given a little grief into helping me bully the carpenter into getting my gate and hangar made (did I mention I ordered them over 6 months ago, stop by at least once a week to ask about their progress, and they STILL hadn’t been made?). However, it turned into an awkward situation where my counterparts were yelled at for not working enough with me. Being an American, I do NOT like yelling but here yelling is how you get things done. While the yelling was uncomfortable, ultimately I think it was a good thing. Misunderstandings between my counterparts and I were brought to light and now I can work to fix them.
Another thing I realized after this visit was that I had been feeling a little defeated by Burkina and development work in general. I didn’t know I was feeling this way until suddenly, with some misunderstandings cleared and a spark in the form of chastisement was lit under my counterparts, I didn’t feel that way anymore. Suddenly, I’m feeling very enthusiastic and optimistic about my last 10 months here and the work I hope to accomplish.
And I’ll try to keep you posted on these endeavors as they happen
Peace out!

So how does one spend their time in the BF?

It has recently been brought to my attention that after over a year here, I haven’t done a very good job of shedding light on my day to day life. So I will begin my post by trying to better illuminate village life.
By the time I wake up around 7 AM (a little later the few weeks a year it’s below 80˚) everyone in village is awake. The women are busy, finding wood to cook with or pounding something (rice, millet, corn, etc) and sweeping their courtyard. I drink some instant coffee while eating oatmeal or the previous night’s leftovers if it’s not hot season. After a couple of hours to myself, I head out to the CSPS. While I’m there, I generally hang out in the pharmacy or the maternity. I help with little things as needed until lunch time. While I’m doing this, village women are still pounding things and preparing lunch/dinner (usually one meal is prepared a day and the family just eats throughout the evening until it’s gone). If it’s rainy season, people are in the fields planting and weeding and whatever else goes into growing crops.
At lunch time I bike back home, stopping at my village’s mini-marché on the way. At its best, there are tomatoes, onions, cabbage, garlic, aubergines, hot peppers, yams, and very occasionally, green peppers and lettuce. At its worst, it has onions, some very sketchy looking tomatoes, and dried hot peppers.
I buy whatever veggies I need and continue home to cook them with rice or pasta. After lunch, it’s the beautiful time called repose. Sometimes I nap, sometimes I read, but it’s almost always a time to not move during the hottest part of the day. The rest of the village tends to be lounging around under trees.
When the sun starts to lose the worst of its intensity, I visit neighbors or hang out with people who have come to visit me (mostly this consists of children, though lately I’ve had a few more adult visitors than usual!). Visiting someone usually means being offered a stool to sit on and a bowl of tô to eat. The women almost always keep doing whatever they were doing when you I arrived and very little talking takes place (unless there’s a group of women and then they talk too much and too fast for me to understand anything).
Once the sun goes down, I take a bucket bath and settle in to read or write letters by candle light. Sometimes a couple of my neighbors come over and they use my battery-powered light to do their homework. The past couple weeks they’ve brought over some leaves that we boil in water until the water turns red. We take out the leaves, add sugar, and enjoy (Okay, I’ll be honest – I’m mostly enjoying the company and drinking the beverage to be polite). Then eventually it’s time to go to sleep, and my exciting day is done!
A few notes on life in general:
Amenities – There is no electricity in my village. For water, there are wells and a few community faucets of water where people get water by the giant bowl full (or, for those of us who can’t carry 25 L on our heads, by the 30 L yellow gasoline jug strapped to the back of my bike!)
Language – Some people speak “village” French and essentially everyone speaks Jula and Gouin. I can get around in Jula and greet people in Gouin, but I rely heavily on gestures especially when talking with women. Days can pass when the only person I speak English to is myself.
Getting Around – I ride my bike everywhere, and there are many families that have bikes. Some people have motorcycles/mopeds and there are two cars in my village. Getting around village, most people walk.