Becca Faso

Kirsi

2009-06-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

This is my student Kirsi. His name means "first son born after twins." No joke, that's what his name means. He is the nicest kid. To come to school he bikes 3km and once his bike chain broke so he was having to walk all that way (My principle likes to use information like this "oh! The children walk so far! look how hard their lives are!! They suffer! We are poor!" to make me feel guilty but I know these kids that walk all that way to school and it's true they walk far and school is expensive and they DONT STUDY or pay attention in class and therefore they might as well stay home for all the good it does them). Kirsi however works his butt off. He was first in his class this year (6th grade). Anyway, that time that he broke his bike chain our Secretary bought him a new one because he was a nice kid who worked hard. Well, Kirsi was so touched that he has been pumping three buckets of water for her everyday since (this was months ago) to show his thanks. I was looking for a source of regular water so I told Kirsi if he would pump two buckets for me everyday for 6 weeks I would buy him a soccer ball. A soccer ball is a big deal - they are highly coveted and very expensive. You can't even buy them in my village. Kirsi said he would be so so so happy to get water for me but he didnt want a soccer ball, if I could just buy him a pair of pants that would be payment enough. Oh Kirsi. So, when the six weeks were up I told Kirsi that we would go shopping together the next market day. I told him he was to pick out a pair of pants, a shirt, and a pair of shoes. He tried to refuse the shirt and shoes and I had to use my teacher authority to make him accept the offer. We shopped around for the items and the picture above is of Kirsi in his new outfit. What a sweet kid. He went around for a day showing everyone his new clothes and wasn't madame rebecca so nice to buy him a gift. He is also his class representative and during our end-of-the-year meeting he stood up and said "I would like to thank all the professors for teaching us. Mme Rebecca bought me pants." I was a bit embarrassed. Anyway, the point of this blog is how sweet Krisi is not how nice rebecca is for buying him clothes. I will tell him that I worte a story about him on the internet (this necessitates explaining the internet . . . hmm . . . that might be impossible) and it will make his day.

Banfora or Bust

2009-06-08T03:38:00.000-07:00

All of us volunteers up in the north of Burkina experience a very different climate (thus totally different scenery) than those in the south. In the North it is MUCH hotter and drier. The rains end in October and return in June. In the south it is much cooler (like 20 degrees cooler) but more humid and the rains return in february. The north is BROWN and the south is GREEN. So another volunteer and I took a short 3 day trip down to Banfora to bask in its verdant richness. The area boasts a waterfall (what?? water?? I havent seen water in 6 months! jokes.) and a geographical phenomenon found in Burkina and Australia but nowhere else. The latter are rock domes formed by water and wind erosion. Here are the puictures:

Thats me at the domes.

More domes.

The upper portion of the waterfall. Is that grass?? I havent seen grass in MONTHS.

Lower part of the upper part of the falls. Thats not cunfusing.

Same thing.

The bottom of the falls. Thats our guide who requested he have his picture taken. We said ok and he immediately without provocation struck that pose you see there. Why? I dont know. They love karate movies here and thats the best guess i have. I decided to join the theme.

TREES!!!! The name of that tree in french is Fromager. It is only found in southern Burkina and makes buttress roots everywhere - Ive not noticed any other species of tree with buttress roots in this country. It's seed pods are a lot like milkweed - they POP open with a burst of wind dispersed cotton-y fluff. Trees! Trees!! I miss trees! All i have are scrubby acacias with no leaves. Yuk. Even I cant muster the enthusiasm for acacia.

Goodbye Party

2009-06-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

The high school threw me a party to say goodbye and thanks. I forced everyone to take a picture with me:

Me and the Principle and his wife (left) and her sister (back)

Mariame the secretary. She is one of my neighbors and she loves to agitate and aggrivate me.

Salmad, Mariames baby and frequent guest on the blog and indoor pooper

Diallo and little Saidou are my favorites. Saidou smiles all the time and Diallo explains everything to me when I dont understand which is often

Giatin, one of the english teachers. he loves to make me mad by telling me women have rights in Burkina and then I get all huffy and start lecturing him on the plight of the african woman

They're presenting me with my gift. They gave me a "tradtitional" Burkinabe outfit. The one I have on in this picture is typical of contemporary african clothes.

Im at the big kids table. Burkinabe are really into protocol so the most important people are always seated front and center and by themselves. So, Im with the Mayor, Prefect, and the Principal.

Sodray, the other english teacher. he moved into my old Jesus dirt house. He's a bit drunk already . . .

Yelkouni is also a bit drunk already and he really likes to dance Dance DANCE!

Ok. Pierre is like the school gopher, he does odd jobs and he and I are making sad faces because . . . well . . . its a long story that would take more cultural explanation than i feel like getting into. I will spare you.

Bazie, chem/physics teacher and i like talking to him because he is very smart and makes interesting observations about development in Burkina

Bado, history/geography teacher. He is very short like me and he talks in a really low voice but then makes these really high pitch squel noises that make me laugh . And he's a snappy dancer

Bonane, philosophy teacher. He has a really big vocabulary and talking to him is like talking to Robert my brother-in-law but in French so i understand even less. And yes, philosophy is part of the educative program for the higher grades but really its also religion, psychology, politics ect all that stuff

Dipama, math and biology teacher and the school clown. He is always talking and developing new catch phrases that are infectious and you find yourself talking like him. He is up to noooo good.

Konate, math and biology teacher and long time neighbor and good good friend. She is very sweet and patient and I'd be screwed (oh no Jay bird the S word!) without her

The Serveillant, he is in charge of discipline and he is VERY drunk in this picture as it was also a market day and theerefore a day for sampling the dolo beer

Sawadogo, math teacher. Those little feet you see sticking out from behind her back belong to her baby boy Alverique

Wrapping things up

2009-06-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps service is wrapping up. The rains are starting to fall on Tougouri. There are tiny ambiguous green plants proudly pushing up through the red sandy soil. My neighbors are preparing their feilds for farming. Corn, millett, sorgum. I really love the rainy season and its my last one. I love the blessed cool air. I love that bright color green of plants that are newly showing their leaves. Two weeks ago even the acacia trees were bare. Brown. Brown. Brown. Sand. Dirt. Dust. The rains will wash the dirt from the earth and all will be green again.

This is a new event of course. Three weeks ago I could not have imagined what it felt to be cool to not sweat all night long. Around the 13 or so of May I was busy teaching my very last hours of school. Ever. EVER. The rainy season was a distant memory from last year. I was in my favorite class teaching our last hour of the week (and consequently our last hour of the year, of my life) and, chalk in hand, I found myself writing the very last sentence and then the very last period. Remarquez-vous classe! Cest notre derniere phrase!! I finished the sentence, poked the chalkboard with my chalk punctuating the sentence and began to cheer. All 90 students got up and cheered with me. Any excuse to be loud right? What a moment! It was made even more complete when i realized I had made a couple of french mistakes and hod to go back and erase. Typical.

Pretty soon I was teaching my very last hour of my very last class - the class that i really really despise and i didnt even teach the last hour because they made me so mad i walked out. I gave my last test

I corrected my last test

I filled in my last report card.

My last last last. To me, that was the emotional peak of leaving. All the "lasts." You all say how proud you are of me . . . but I am proud of myself. I dont think Ive ever learned so much in so little time. When I think back on my first weeks and months here I just laugh at how much I didnt know. The language and customs and general "way of doing things" etc. If i knew then what i know now. I cant even explain this because it wouldnt make sense to y'all. Let me put it this way, Ièll never say that I cant do something and I ill never feel like i cant figure something out because I can.

If the world ends the only survivors will be cockroaches, glitter, and peace corps volunteers.

Here I am at the very LAST staff meeting. It lasted from 7am to 1:30pm. Burkinabe have lots of opinions and everyones has to be heard even if its the same opinion over and over and over again. The teachers gave me a present and Konate and Diallo wrapped it in blue plastic and made flowers and ribbon out of pink and white toilet paper. I was tickled.

Big Thank You

2009-05-18T03:49:00.000-07:00

I am very very happy to say that this past Friday (May 15th) the Principal and I went to the capitol and bought the generator for the school!!!!!!!! We were very excited and got exactly what we wanted. This is going to greatly improve the functioning of our school. I should say their school as i am a week away from the official end of my last school year in burkina! I just wanted to say thank yout to all of you who contributed to the project. Your generosity was much appreciated by the community of Tougouri, especially the students and personnel of the school, and of course me too. Thank you for supporting me and this community. This will help us do a lot of basic things . . . like print tests. Yay!!!

I will take some pictures for you guys and post them as soon as I can. Thank you again!

Tidbits

2009-05-18T03:25:00.000-07:00

The traveling salesman has been sighted three more times!! I took poictures to share with you people but ... alas they have disappeared. No worries I still have 9 weeks and three days or so . . . i'll get him again. He has added mystery chinese lotion to his repertoire to soothe aches and pains and . . . probably Dengue fever . . . just as a bonus. Sheesh . . . if only i could get him hawking malaria meds we'd be in business.

I recently broke another pair of glasses and peace corps gave me replacements. They are very very art deco and grape purple. Mac says i look like a european lesbian . . . thanks. Sorry Mom about breaking the glasses. I had set them down while i was doing laundry and stepped on them. I was pissed.

Sazlmad has woken me up with poop twice this last month. The first time i was asleep inside my house. It was 5:30 am and i sense some motion going on beside me bed. The next thing i know there is a little black fist shoved in my face and it releases a handful of dryed up goat poop onto my mattress. Good freakin morning. About two weeks ago Salmad let himself into my house at about 6am. I was up sweeping and he was just chasing me and my broom. Then he drops into a squat right on my "kitchen" floor and poops . . . goddamnfreakinwhatthefuckshitass . . . Mariam!!! Come get your kid!! Hes pooping in peoples houses. Actually he has a bit of a record of this kind of behavior and his courtyard nickname is "Shieur publique" or "public shitter"

My friend Marty has a neighbor whose dog got rabies. It started acting all crazy . . . and well . . . rabid. Totally creeped Marty out. Well the dog had a violent episode and actually fell . . . oh my goodness . . . it fell in a latrine. Thats right, a six foot pit of human excrement. Oh my geez . . . i cant imagine a more horrible end. Rabies and then you fazll in a latrine. If any part of me ever touched the inside of a latrine, id have to be institutionalized for post traumatic stress syndrome. Eventually they had to get the dog out and they finally took it off somewhere and ended its suffering

One day I was headed off to the Marché. I get all toughed out if im going to be spending extended periods of time in noon day sun. This partiocular day I am decked out in my Barak Obama t-shirt, long flowy skirt, bandana, and my shades. I look really really Peace corps-y and not a little bit mannish. Anyway, im biking along and when i bike (just like when i walk) I look at the gound right infront of me. I get a whiff of something . . . stinky . . . a zoo smell . . . i look up and not 3 meters infront of me are three camels wamlking side by side. Its a wall of smelly camel butt and i am about to bike into it. A quick swerve to the left and all was good . . . what a peace corpsy thing though . . . silly white girl, barak obama tshirt, camels, etc...

Safari Bitches!!

2009-03-27T03:45:00.000-07:00

It is spring break here (i have ten days off from teaching) and so I went on a short safari. There are several animal parks in Burkina - all of them are in the south. I went to a park called Arly near the border with Togo. This is the truck we went in. It was crazy windy and sunny up there.

Eventually i got in the front with Adama - the sun was killer.

This is the first "animal" we saw . . . and its a dead one. A dead elephant. But dont be sad because we saw a lot of live elephants too. And baby ones!

Like this elephant here! He was the alpha male elephant and he ran at us and attacked that big tree in the bottom right corner of the photo. Sorry!

They are so wonderful!! Oh the wee ones are so cute!!!!!!

Here are some hippos.

And some warthogs . . . and yes, i DID call the hogs while on safari.

The Travelling Salesman

2009-03-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

I have a huge crush on a travelling salesman. He's been on my bus three times and he flirts with me and gives me freebees. This is not in itself outstanding as i like to flirt and tend to have multiple crushes at any given time. What is outstanding is that there is a traveling salesman on my bus at all. Let me explain...

The first time i saw him was on the STAF bus on the way to Ouahigouya last July. I have taken A LOT of buses in my 21 months of service and I was confused when a man got up and stood in the center aisle of the moving bus and began addressing everyone. My first thought was - wtf? i hope its not a proselytizing christian! I gave him a disinterested cold shoulder when he started passing out candy to get peoples attention. Great! A proselytizing christian with shitty candy! This 3 hour bus ride is going to be fantastic!

He began his speech and to my surprise it wasnt about Jesus and eternal damnation at all! He was talking about health of all things. Now this was a surprise! Culturally speaking, in Burkina people do not really talk about their health. When you're sick it's because someone cursed you. Babies grow in the stomach. Meningitis comes from eating green mangos. The menstrual cycle and pregnancy have nothing to do with each other. There is very serious ignorance in this country when it comes to the human body and its quirks and functions. And here was a man talking about health!

I was very confused and listened in to what he had to say. He was talking about menstrual cramps! Infertility! Malaria! He was telling men that it was okay to have sex with their pregnant wives and that it wasnt good to look for another woman in the mean time! What what what??? Yes! Finally there was someone talking publicly and without embarrassment about health and the humna body! I quickly discovered what was going on because the guy started hocking weird "chinese" medicine to cure any number of ailments. Fatigue, heat rash, malaria, muscle pain etc. First of all - the Burkinabe are used to getting things from China - cheaply made shirts, plates, jewelry, everything! They call it "la chinoiserie" and they think that the chinese have lots of secrets and answers so random chinese medicine being sold on a bus was a hot item. The guy started selling tons of the chinese tea stuff. They couldn't get enough of it! Try to get them to take quinine for malaria or wash their hands and its a waste of time but mystery chinese medicine?? It sold like hot cakes. Geez. The guy was so charming and funny that even I was thinking - hey, maybe this stuff would be good! Geez.

Well, it didn't stop there. The chinese tea was only item numbe one. Next, he had these weird patches that you apply to the skin. Large white tape rectangles that stick right on the skin. I read the directions - its like a trans-dermal analgesic something or other. Wow I thought mystery mentrual cramp tea was popular! The people on the bus were pointing out places on their bodies that have been suffering from pain for years! The travelling salesman assured them that the patch would soothe their stiff necks, feet, hands, backs etc. I got off the bus three hours later and half the passengers are covered from head to toe in white sticky patches. The driver even had one across the top of his head. Pasted on feet. Slapped onto forearms. It was hysterical!

I think two things here. I think first off - I am so glad that someone is actually talking about the menstrual cycle and malaria and diarhhea and not claiming these health issues as curses but as actual diseases with logical and avoidable causes. Awesome! The second thing that occurs to me is that buying mystical chinese tea from a travelling salesman on a bus isnt all that different than a visit to the witch doctor for a traditional tea brew to ward off curses. So, there is a small gain - a window of communication was opened albeit by the hand of magical chinese tonic. I still have a huge crush on the travelling salesman - he really is so charnimg. Argh! Freaking salesmen!

Cursing Nuns

2009-03-22T23:55:00.001-07:00

Note: This blog post contains the F-word so if you dont want to see the f-word continue elsewhere

Have I mentioned my lovely and enthusiastic group of nuns that I teach english to? Of course I have. English class is going well and they are almost fluent . . . well not fluent so much as . . . well, lovely and enthusaistic. One day we were playing the game 20 questions to practice vocabulary etc. The object chosen by the Nun in question was "fork." Well, this was all fine and good until the end when the nuns started to practice the word "fork" and hit a little too close to the word "fuck." Well, we can't just have Nuns going around saying "fuck" and i certainly can't be responsible for this transgression. So, to make a point of it - i told the nuns to be careful.
"Sisters! Be very careful. When you are pronouncing the word "fork" it sounds very like another word in english that is very bad."
Of course this small tidbit peaked their curiosity and bade me explain further; afterall ignorance never helped anyone and i found it more than amusing to explain the word "fuck" to a group of nuns. I'm sick. I know.
"Well, the word means to have sex but in a not very nice way. And it is the strongest word in the english language. I do not know of a stronger word and if i were to say this word in front of my mother she would smack me for saying it" (totally not true but it gets the point made).
"Ooooh . . . no this is not good." Good. The nuns have understaood the gravity of such a pronunciation mistake. "Say the word for us again so we will be sure not to confuse the two."
So i repeat, "Fuck."
And . . . God forgive me . . . all the Nuns repeat in unison and with boistrous clarity "FUCK!"
Noooooo!!!!!! All the Nuns just said fuck!!!!!!
"No no!! My sisters do not repeat this word! God will strike me down." Now we are all laughing and some of them keep saying "fuck" just to watch the shame play across my face. Eventually we have the two words separated out and they can say "fork" without dropping the "r".

That's one wild bunch of Nuns.

General Update

2009-02-01T06:14:00.000-08:00

Hello People! I'll see you all in 6 months! Yay!!

Yes, I may be counting down the months BUT things are going well in Burkina. I'm just ready to be part of my own culture again and more than anything a tangible part of y'all's lives again. With only six months left to go I've thrown myself into my village trying to get everything out of it that I can. I just spent 5 un-interrupted weeks there and I'll probably only leave village once a month for the rest of my service.

One reason that i'll be leaving less is because I have started a new project. There is a group of 7 nuns that live in my village and run several operations. They are all Burkinabe excpet one who is

Ivoirian (Ivory Coast). There they are in the picture up above! Two of them work at a private catholic elementary school. Two are nurses. One runs a pharmacy. One runs a girls technical school (the girls learn how to sew, knit, crochet, and dye fabrics). The last one (the one seated at the far right), Sister Anastasie, teaches french at the high school with me. She was telling me one day that the Nuns all love English and would like to learn so i offered to teach them. We have class on thursdays and saturdays for one hour. I ADORE them!! They are super cute and laugh a lot and give me things (yogurt, lemon juice, pagne). So, i like to stay on the weekends in village now because i don't want to lose an hour with the Sisters. Also, we are planning to do some other projects together on malnutrition.

Other than the Sisters, much is the same for me. School started the 5th of January and goes til the 21st of March. EEK!! L'enseignement vas me tuer. C'est sur. So my life is lesson planning and grading tests. And dreaming about being back in America. AMERICA!!

I'll be back in Ouaga probably around the 28th. That weekend is FESPACO which is a huge african film festival that Burkina hosts every two years. Should be interesting.

Eloise is (i'm pretty sure) pregnant again. Well, last week she started acting all crazy and these two boy cats kept hanging out at my house making all kinds of racket and keeping me up at night. One even followed Eloise inside my house through her "kitty door" in the window. Not cool. I've had enough of this kitty kat courtship business and Eloise will be getting spayed here shortly (slash maybe an abortion depending on how you look at things). Kittens! I am tired of kittens!

Let's see . . . can't really think of anything else. My life is cool but not a lot happens. Ok, c'est tout. A bientot!

Obamania

2009-02-01T04:11:00.000-08:00

January 20th.

There was no way I was gonna miss the inauguration. I, like so many Americans, am suffering from chronic Obamania. I wanted to hear the world change, hear his speech. However, you have to have a pretty fancy radio to pick up BBC in my village. No prob Bob, my neighbor David inherited a satellite radio from the volunteer i replaced and lent it to me for the special event. On the 19th I checked to make sure the batteries were good and the radio was in good working condition. I was trying to be (however uncharacteristically) prepared. The radio itself has a 20 ft or so cord that connects its to the antenna. I tried to find a good spot that got reception and was out of the way of Salmad the one year old's curious hands. Again, are y'all proud? I was planning ahead!! Not one of my best skills. All was working and looking good.

The 20th arrived and I was kinda anxious because the broadcast started at 5pm out time but I was giving a test at school that ended at 5 so i was gonna have to haul ass back home in order not to miss anything. I leave the school a few minutes before five. Im basically skipping with joy as I arrive home. Two of my neighbors were there and Bienvenue. I go inside and bring the radio out and set it up in the exact configuration that was working the day before. And SILENCE. What???? SILENCE!!!???? NO!!!!!! The speech! The Speech!!! History is being made!! Come on!

I'm cursing in english at this point. Quickly i grab my bike and book it over to a colleagues house. "Yelkouni! Does your radio get BBC??!"
"Bon soir Rebecca! But why are you not listening to the broadcast?"
"Radio's not working. Does your radio get BBC?"
"Oh, BBC? No but if you . . . hey! where are you going?!"
And I'm off back to my house - certainly i can get that thing to work. I get home and start yelling for Bienvenue "Bienvenue get over here and grab ahold of this radio while i run around the yard looking for reception!" So I start trying different spots in the courtyard wandering around the yard (ok running around) trying to get some seception and basically dragging Bienvenue who is attached to me with that twenty foot cord between the radio and the antenna. I send him up on the roof. Silence. I am definately cursing. But wait!! Aha!!! I finally get a signal with the antenna perched up on my courtyard wayy by the gate. Quick Bienvenue bring me a chair! Bring me a table!! Quick!

And there is Barak's deep comforting voice talking about the economy, the war, foreign aid, etc and I can't help but feel like I am in a movie. Im sitting in a chair made out of skinny tree switches and translating this great man's speech into french. Close up it's me and the radio. The camera pans out. There's a twenty something dusty white woman sitting in an even more dusty and barren courtyard speaking to a 15 yr old African kid, another twenty something african woman doing laundry with her hands deep in a plastic bucket, and an elderly woman with carmel colored paper like skin. The camera pans out further. The courtayrd is surrounded by a bunch of huts. Women are walking with babies on the backs and 40 pounds of god knows what balanced on their heads. There are some scrubby trees and a dusty breeze. Its the middle-of-nowhere deep in the middle-of-nowhere in west africa. And the soundtrack is this man's speech and all the hope and promise that he is bringing. He's talking about his roots in a Kenyan village not too unlike the one in which I am in translating his words. It's very peace corps and even i cant be too cynical not to feel that the moment is unique and special.

Test Questions

2009-01-31T07:53:00.000-08:00

In 6th grade at the end of the unit on plants, we talked about the importance of plants and why we should protect them. The kids at Lycee Departemental de Tougouri are HORRIBLE students. In part because they dont see the benefit or value of education . . . because they are majorly unsupervised at home . . . because they dont speak french . . . myriad reasons.

ANYWAY, hardly any student studies at all. Just to give you an idea of the absurdity i submit to every time i sit down to grade papers here is one question i asked and some of the funnier responses. The question is taken from a test I wrote on the above subject - the importance and protection of plants in burkina. Obviously not a difficult subject - mostly common sense etc. So here you go:

Question (roughly translated):
Give a strategy on how to fight against deforestation and cutting down too many trees.

Answers:
You must avoid a lot of trees.

To fight against abusive tree cutting we must have a better knowledge in our lives

Imprisonment

It allows animals to live

Bush fires

Wood allows us to light fires

When men cut trunks the tree our country must to be the desert

Dry wood to cut for selling

One can create life

Cut wood with a machete

When people cut the trees the rain doesn't rain anymore and when the rain rains the seeds grow the animals eat

When people cut the trees the rain doesn't rain anymore when the rain doesn't rain anymore the people will die at the also the animals

Vertebrates and Invertebrates

Oh my!! God bless those children. Hmmm... I don't think they understood. Vertebrates and Invertebrates???? What does that have to do with deforrestation?? BUSH FIRES??? Umm . . . kinda the opposite?? Geez - on the one hand its stuff like this that makes me want to stay because its so freakin funny and on the other hand its stuff like this that makes me want to go home. But for now I'm laughing and I hope you are too.

Spectator Sports

2009-01-31T07:40:00.000-08:00

I've never really been one for spectator sports. There's too many rules to follow and i don't like crowds. Considering my level of boredom in Burkina I have put aside my prejudices and have become a watcher of spectator sports. Well . . . kind of. One sport. And really, I can only stand to watch some of it.

The sport i am talking about is none other than "cat and mouse" or . . . lizard . . . or bat . . . or other unwelcome creature in my house. Lke the proverbial car wreck, when eloise brings in her kill, no matter how disturbing, i just can't not watch. She maims the little meal just enough to impair its ability to run away easily - takes a foot or bites its head etc. Then she plays with it swatting it and jumping on it while i jump around the house crying out "Oh!" "Oh my God oh my God!" "Eloise!!" "Just eat it!! Oh!!" When its been still for awhile and unresponsive to her whacks she lays down near it pretending to be bored hoping it will make a run for it which it invariably does. "Oh Eloise!! There it goes! get it get it!!" After about 40 minutes of all this she finally eats it and goes out for another one. Im half disgusted and half entertained. One can only stare at the wall for so many hours a day.

Genies and Sorcerers

2008-12-20T00:02:00.000-08:00

"They sold their blood??" I can't believe it.

She explains: "Yeah, at the clinic in my village they were pulling more blood than necessary for HIV/AIDS tests and selling the extra blood to the fetisheur!"

Sarah, a fellow PCV, works at the local clinic in her village. As all Burkinabe are first animists and then Muslims or Christians, visits to the fetisheur (or witch doctor) are frequent. I was aware of the not-so-under under current of animism among burkinabe but the particulars and superstitions were not clear to me. Stories like Sarah's above are shocking but not unheard of. SO, like i always do when then nuances of Burkinabe ways and means evade me, I asked Konate.

"Konate, tell me, what exactly are genies and sorcerers?"

She's not surprised I'm asking of course and jumps into a brief break down.

"There are two kinds of genies. Genies that work for good and genies that work for bad. The people, they believe when something good or bad happens to them its because of the genies." Seems simple enough and not unlike American ghosts.

"Do you believe in Genies?"

"Me? Hiya! Things happen. You dont know." She is a math and science teacher and is avoiding just flat-out saying YES because she wants to be 'western' or 'rational.' Often, when babies die or the rains dont come or you fail a test etc. Burkinabe just say . . . that's a bad genie! One week Salmad was being weird and fussy and not his usually giggly self and Mariam kept saying "What is with my baby? Theres got to be some kind of genie in the courtyard." Of course she is half joking but she really does believe in that genie half. There is a really really smart kid in my 5eme class. His name in Dramane and his test scores are always way above everyone elses in every subject. Bienvenue, who is in his class, says,"Hiya! When you look at Dramane . . . in his eyes . . . he's got to be a genie." Of course, Dramane just studies which is a foreign concept to the vast majority of students. But genies are only part of the story.

"What about sorcerers Konate? What do sorcerers do?"

"There are good and bad sorcerers too. They curse people." She seems more confident about this aspect of animism.

"Would you ever go to a sorcerer?"

"Me? Whyee! If someone put a curse on me I would definately go get a counter curse. You've got to protect yourself. People are mean, they'll curse you. They get jealous. The bad sorcerers, they are just bad mean people. Thats how you know them. You know a good sorcerer because their family and friends prosper and they are very nice." Apparently, sorcerers dont advertise, its all speculation.

"Do you know of anyone that you've suspected to be a sorcerer?"

She gives this some thought . . . real thought.

"No . . . well . . . hmm . . . n-n-nooo . . . No, I dont know anyone ive suspected of sorcery. C'est du mal" It's not a good thing. Intriguing

I tell her the story at the beginning of the post about the clinic taking extra blood to sell to fetisheurs. She's outraged. "People" she says "Ah! They can be bad!" Then she tells me that some people get rich by selling people they know to fetisheurs who kill them for their blood. What??? For their blood??

"Yeah, you see africans with cars . . . where did they get that money??"

Geez! Obviously this doesnt happen toooo often but i believe her that it does indeed exist here.

We talk about how people hide behind sorcery and genies to explain illnesses and poverty because its easier than the alternatives: western medicine, admitting that the environment of the country isnt intended to support life (theres no water here! you cant grow anything!). Of course all this was done in french and i might have misinterpreted some things but i think not.

Hah. Africa. No matter how long a person lives here, a person not born here, they can never really understand this place. Every month Im more and more aware of how much there is that i can just never understand. I can be culturally appropriate - know the people in that sense, their practices, daily lives, etc. but something will always be amiss. A lifetime wouldnt be enough.

Learning me some kids

2008-12-05T23:48:00.000-08:00

My everyday and official job is as a teacher. There are many facets to being a peace corps volunteer; every volunteer has their "primary project" and their "secondary project." The former is your official assignment - be it teacher, health volunteer, small business development, agriculture, etc. Your "secondary project" is anything other need your community has that you try to fill outside of y our primary role. So anything i do outside of the school is a secondary project etc. Teaching takes up a lot of time - for instance i have 600 papers to grade this weekend and a two hour lesson to plan. Really, the perk of being a teacher in peace corps is actually having a 9-5 job . The other sectors (health, business development, agriculture, etc) have to kinda wing it. Also, no matter what I say about development , i think teaching is one of those things that can only open doors to people. In Burkina there is a lack of science and math teachers (really a lack of all teachers in all subject and of actual schools in general) so we , as peace corps volunteer teachers, fill that need as well as being a full-time teacher the school doesnt have to pay. So, here are some pictures of me in the classroom learning some kids about plants.

This is me and Marie Sawadogo talking about asexual plant reproduction. My resources as a teacher are scant and include an official Burkinabe text book, some various colored chalk, and a chalkboard.

Probably 12 out of every 90 or so students are girls. Here are three of them from my 6th grade class.

The buildings in the background are our new PlanInternational classrooms. There are super nice and well appreciated. Gotta love acacia trees. I think that one is Acacia senegal.
This is one of my 6th grade classes. There are 98 of them

That is a cluster of Neem (Azadirachta indica) which is a pretty neat tree - its leaves make a very effective insecticide. I heat the leaves and put the infused water around my other trees to keep termites and locusts away. It also helps keep the skeeters away. Oh yeah, and obviously makes for good shade for bikes and old fashioned between classes hanging out.

That is where i spend my days... Im in class 15 hours a week monday through thursday. I meet with each class (i have 2 6th grade, 2 7th grade, and 1 8th grade class) twice a week. Once for one hour and a second time for two hours. I hate teaching a will never ever do it again. Teachers dont get near enough credit for all the shit they have to take from ungrateful teenagers. (However, I do love peace corps/living in a crazy weird context at least half the time and enjoy other volunteers and like hanging out and cooking with my neighbors etc. so there are other things to get me through the week.) I sort of realized recently that I dont blog much about my actual peace corps job so i thought i'd give you guys an idea. Besides, i think the general idea people have about peace corps is that it is development work. In a way, it is - but that slow kind of development that takes generations to see. Peace corps is really more cultural exchange - like . . . wow in Burkina you do things this way?? Well in America we vary the things that we eat so our nutrition is more balanced! etc. Ok, i'm done rambling. Enjoy the pictures.

My Peeps

2008-12-05T23:26:00.000-08:00

Out of sheer sloth i havent posted pictures of the "who's who" in my courtyard so I will do so now to give faces to names you all have heard before.

This is Bienvenue Banhoro. Yes, for you french novices he name does indeed mean "welcome." He is Konate's nephew and a student in one of my 7th grade classes. He's cutting up a chicken in this picture. On va bien manger!

You all know Salmad. His full name is Ibn Abdoul Salmad Konate. He and his mother share the same last name as my neighbor Konate (yes, she goes by her last name. This is very common in Burkina. I hope you arent confused). They are Muslim so his name is, as I'm told Arabic. My neighbor David always jokes that he can never go to America because he has an "Al-Queida" name.

That is Sidonie Catherine Konate - or as you are used to seeing just plain Konate. She is cutting some veggies. She is of no relation to little naked Salmad there. She teaches math and biology.

This is Salmata Diallo. She rocks my socks and is excellent conversation - a natural teacher. She teaches french. On the 11th she is scheduled to give birth to her first child!! Soon there will be two babies in my courtyard. For those of you who are curious about birth practices in Burkina, there are both extremes. The real villagers have been known to give birth wherever and whenever the moment strikes - alongside the road, at home, in the market etc. Some women choose to walk out into the bush to do it alone. More and more there are women who go to the local clinics to give birth. There are also those women (mostly functionaires - or people with real jobs i.e. not farmers) like Mme Diallo who have their babies in hospitals and get sonagrams and receive pre-natal care.

This is Mariam Konate, the school secretary and Salmad's mother. She is loud and funny and a mooch.

The only person not pictured is David, the school vice-principal and my duplex mate. He is not pictures because he is almost never around - i think that is in part because he works a lot but also because he is one man living with four women. Who can blame him? At least he never has to cook or do his laundry. Just to give you an idea of the ethnic diversity in the country all five of us are of different etnicities. I'm white, Mariam and Salmad are Djoula, David is Mossi, Mme Diallo is Peuhl, and Konate and Bienvenue are of a tiny ethnicity that I can neither pronounce or spell.

Random pictures of life in Burkina

2008-12-05T16:23:00.000-08:00

So I was just walking to my marche one day at noon minding my own business etc. you know like you do . . . when I walked by my local chiefs house (he lives like a 2 minute walk from my house). Outside were two men dressed in traditional gard with the big cloth head wrap and heavy cotton robes astride equally tarted up horses. To have a horse is Burkina is a big deal - they are expensive animals that take a lot of water, food, and more water. But they have a lot of social and historical significance to the various ethnic groups. I asked some students who were standing around what was going on. What with the fancy horses and all the drumming and women ululating I thought maybe there was some kind of holiday i was unaware of etc. But the students were equally amused and interested as I was and just said that the neighborhood chief was celebrating just to celebrate. Ok i thought. Snapped some pics and went to the market. At lunch there was some crazy 15 minute bar fight at my lunch place where i eat rice and peanut sauce every market day. Seriously, there were like 6 people involved, men and women. One lady even chased the bar man with a machete. It was nuts. Certainly one of those experiences that assures me (for better or worse) just how used to Burkina and confident in my surroundings I've become because i was just watching that crazy bar fight eating my rice as if I were in a movie theater eating popcirn in an action movie (mental image of Eddie Izzard munching popcorn while talking about The Great Escape versus A Room With a View etc). Be assured no one was injured. Apparently the bar lady was asked to serve someone and she refused. That was what the 15 minute brawl was about. I consider bar fights of this nature out of character for Burkinabe - they prefer naps to fights.

Another picture of the same thing. Obviously.

That is just dangerous. Dont worry mom, when i ride in these cargo trucks i always ride in the cab.

Tabaski (the Muslim holiday 40 days after Ramadan) is the 8th and so sheep are a hot commodity right now. Actually, the bus station attendants had written this sheeps destination on his horns before putting him up top like common cargo. Once, when Mary Elizabeth and I were in Bobo-Dialosso taking a bus to head back to Ouagadougou, I was busy discussing something with a bus attendant while MEP was watching the guys load up the bus. Among the rice sacks and motos were a momma goat and some baby goats that they were just shoving under the bus, again like common cargo. Anyway, I was watching MEP from afar to see what her reaction was . . . she looked a bit disturbed. We ended up sitting in the seats directly above the goat family and could feel their eeeeehh's vibrating under our feet. In america we are so far removed from the living aspect of the animals we eat - you just pick up the lovely pink tenderloin from the butcher. You dont ride on a bus with it first. I actually dont know which method i prefer.

November down . . . 8 more months to go

2008-11-29T02:53:00.000-08:00

Just two pilgrims giving thanks.

This is a mosque in Bani 40 kilometers north of me. There are about 6 mosques, one of which faces Mecca and the other five are centered around and facing that first mosque. Bizzare.

This is Dori where we celebrated Tday this year. Its sandy. Really sandy. My village is about 65 kilometers south.

This lady was trying to see me some kind of mystery grease ball. No thank you mam. Wend na lok raaga!!

This is the Thanksgiving day party. A bunch of volunteers gathered in Dori. We had chicken, grilled pork, salad, stir fried veggies, mashed taters, and rice ans peanut sauce. It was very tasty. I made hats. As you can see. What?? I get bored in my village.

That is little Aida Rebecca Zongo. She is one month old and so precious!! And peeing on me in the course of this picture. She is Karim Zongo's first child (he's an english teacher at my school). My life is full of babies. Later this same day Salmad pooped on my foot.

The kittens have gotten bigger and will be going to their respective families in a few weeks. Geez! They are cute and entertaining. The mostly black one is the little girl "Petite" and the mostly white is the boy "Petit." Petit will be living with the Ouedraogo family 4 doors down and Petite is going to live with two students, the Kafandos. I am 95% sure that they wont be eaten by their families.

The school year is in full swing now. I have papers and more and more papers to grade. See the stacks upon stacks on my desk. It drives me to the drink - 100 percent alcohol for me and a 50 percent average for my students.

New Editions

2008-11-02T01:11:00.000-07:00

There have been several new additions to the courtyard. As you can see from the picture on the left, Eloise had two new kittens. Thank goodness they are already spoken for. I can't be living alone with 40 cats. My self-esteem couldn't take the blow.

Three new professors have moved into the courtyard as well. Like I've said before I live in what translates as "a singles home." Meaning that in the courtayd are several small houses for people who live alone. A new english teacher moved into my old house. We got a new secretary who has a baby - that's him on the left. Also, there is a new french teacher in the courtyard who is pregnant and due in december. So, its kinda like a sorority house. There are now 4 women, two men, one baby, and one 14 yr old student living in the courtyard. The women, being Burkinabe, gossip and chat all day long and are all up in my business and want to know what im doing and whats that and aren't i hungry and oh i need to get fatter and why dont i come outside and chat too. I am never wanting for company. Its really kinda fun. They crack me up and are all naming future babies after me.

Scorpion Carrier

2008-11-02T00:53:00.000-07:00

That is a picture of what the locals call a Scorpion Carrier spider. I don't like them. They are sinister looking and huge. And they insist on living in my house. I see two a week or so. I can catch their movement from across the room out of the corner of my eye. This particular one crawled across the length of my body to finally rest there beside my head at the edge of my chair. Yuk. Im not as afraid of them as you'd think a person would be. Sure, I keep my distance but I dont scream and shout and stay awake at night worrying that they are crawling on me and laying eggs under my toe nails (they dont do that it just seems like something that would keep up at night). I dont even kill them. I'm too afraid that they can think and I'll find out that they do indeed bite. I mean, look at those pincers. They don't seem to be too afraid of me and so its up to me to relocate when they want to hangout by my right ear like this guy. Ive never ever seen them in the day or discovered a spider web or spider hovel etc that they would live in. And I don't really want to. The arthropods in this country way freak me out and when I'm trying to work by lamplight while simultaneously flicking away praying mantises that want to pinch me, mosquitos that want to give me malaria, locusts that want to make loud noises while jumping in my hair, and beetles (sp?bea?) that want to walk slowly across my lesson plan, and my neighbors one uping each other on the most horrible scorpion sting stories, and what not and I think "GEEZ!!! What is wrong with this country?!?!! Can't a person work without worrying about freakin bugs?!??!! I want to go baack to America!!!!!!"

You Have to At Least TRY

2008-11-01T23:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in awhile. Sometimes I just don't have much to say about PC that you haven't already heard. Hard to believe but true. SO I'll just update everybody on recent events what's been shakin in Burkina.

The first day of school was the 1st of october, a wednesday. 5 out of 11 teachers were actually in Tougouri and showed up at school on the first day, myself included. I didn't even go back to the school until the monday following. By that monday morning (the 6th) about 8 of the 11 profs had arrived and were at least going into the classrooms. I was able to go into every class and talk to them about what we would be learning etc and what it means to study science and why its important to their lives. By the next monday morning all 11 of the profs had arrived. I began formally teaching!!!!!

Teaching is much easier this year but I don't like it any better. Here are the figures for this year: I teach (am in the classroom) 15 hours a week
2 6th grade classes @ 100 kids each
2 7th grade classes @ 90 and 93 kids respectively
1 8th grade class @ 60 kids
I teach in the mornings mostly except for wednesday afternoons which sucks big time because its hot and im usually in a heat induced lethargy that doesnt make for stupendous teaching.
No classes on fridays. sweet. escape.
All told, I'm very pleased with my workload and schedule. My only complaint is ... um ... well having to go into a classroom.

I did have one of those supremely peace corpsy moments the monday morning i began actually teaching. Usually the teachers all stand around in the mornings and chat a bit before going into class. We're just avoiding the inevitable. Anyway, as I walked off toward my 7am 7th grade class I was thinking about the exact same moment the year before . . . . . . (flashback) . . . . . .

I had been in the country almost 4 months exactly. The first three months of which I spent in training learning how to be a teacher in Burkina Faso. The fourth month was spent figuring out how to live and not die in my village. There are many aspects to what exactly PCV's do everyday. My "on paper" job is just one small thing BUT it was the shape that PC service had taken in my mind before i set off on the adventure - I AM A TEACHER. So it had taken me 4 months to get to the day when I started my job. Up until that point it was all training and now it was time to put it all to use . . . money where my mouth is etc. So i stood there outside the classroom that first day of real teaching last year and thought . . . geez, this is it. This is the exact moment where you decide if you really want to be a PCV. You can walk in the classroom and teach and live in an african village for two years and do all that goes with that OR you can go home and enjoy all the comfort and peace that goes with that. In one step I was deciding to be a PCV and I really considered both options. The only thought that was in my head was this: "Well, you have to at least TRY. Yeah . . . i do. I have to try. Its gonna be hard. Yeah its gonna be hard. I have to try. Deeeeeeeep breath. Ok. Fuck it. Here I go." And I walked in and decided to be a PCV. (END flashback).

This year was not nearly so pivotal in my mind but I had a little giggle and burn of pride in thinking about how FAR i had come and how much I had learned since then.

Benefits of a Concrete House

2008-09-03T12:51:00.000-07:00

This past June, indeed for my 23rd birthday, i moved houses. This was easily the best b-day present I ever received. Before I lived in a filthy old mud hut. I think it qualified as a hut at least - no the roof wasn't mud but tin - however, there were bits of straw sticking out of my walls in some places. I would brush against the wall and have a spaz attack because I knew that a freakishly poisonous animal was about to strike and I would be seizing on my floor and no one would hear me because i would be too paralyzed to scream. Turning to face my inevitable end and it would just be dirty straw that was coming loose from my wall. When the wind would blow hard, small rocks and dirt would fall on my head. There are myriad joys and annoyances of life surrounded by dirt. (That's my old house on the left)

But then on June 2nd I moved on up. To a deluxe apartment in the sky. Or at least a deluxe concrete two room house in the west African Sahel. I'll take what I can get and that's it to the right with the awesome smurf pride blue paint. Really, though I love the concrete house. It's new so the bugs are just now moving in (I killed 3 small scorpion carriers last week) and when the wind blows my house doesn't crumble on top of my head. It's wonderfully cool compared to the old house which had low ceilings (friends over 6ft tall had to duck to get in the doorway). But these all pale in comparison to one other bonus that my neighbor David pointed out to me . . .

One day right before moving into the house David and I were discussing all the wonderful things about concrete houses. The house David and I live in (he lives in one half of the concrete duplex paradise and I in the other side) is the ONLY concrete building on my side of town except for the high school. These glorious sentinels of sensible housing are rare in villages so the fact that David and I were actually discussing the joys of getting to live in one makes sense. I mentioned all of the things I said earlier in this post and then David mentioned just like it was a normal thing that the best part about living in concrete is that your neighbors won't push through your walls and steal your stuff. Geez! Push through walls?? That is soooo typical of Africa. How do do-gooders expect to start "sustainble" business or education or any foreign project etc. in a place that doesn't even have sustainable buildings. Most buildings in the more rural parts of West Africa build with mud and sometimes a bamboo lattice (but that's only in countries that can grow things). Eventually houses literally melt away from wind and water abuse. There is a Mosque in Mali that is the largest mud structure in the world which has a festival every year where people come and "build back" the Mosque where it has wasted away over the previous year. As far as houses are concerned, a family will just build a new mud house when the old one gets beyond repair. It's essentially free because the earth under your toes is belongs to who stands on it, just mix it with straw and water and you've got a house.

Geez. Now I've gone and abused my Peace Corps soap box when really I just wanted to laugh about what David said. Hahaha push through the walls!

Stealing from the Poor

2008-08-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

In rural Africa, homelessness is a realtive term. Buildings are little more than enclosures that keep some of the wind, dirt, and rain out of your face. People don't really live in their houses and are likely to sleep anywhere. In every village however, there are les fous or people with mental illnesses who are family exiles and their care becomes the responsibility of the neighborhood. Neighbors make sure they get some food, enough clothingm, an occasional handout etc. There are 4 fous in Tougouri.

I bring this up because I recently found out that i've been stealing from my fous. I told some of you about how I find money on the ground and will ask around, "hey, is that yours? No" Nobody ever claims money found on the ground. I always thought this was kinda strange in a country so poor. Anyways, if no one would claim the money I'd pick it up for myself. Well . . . I was talking about this to another volunteer who informed me that Burkinabe never pick up fallen money because it's God's way of giving income to les fous. Like manna from heaven.

So shameful!! I've been stealing from the poor and needy. I have stopped picking up fallen money and reformed my ways.

Happy Anniversary

2008-08-30T07:22:00.000-07:00

I just recently celebrated two major Peace Corps milestones. My one year anniversary as a Peace Corps Volunteer and my one year anniversary as a resident of the genial village of Tougouri in the Namenatenga (province) which is part of Centre Nord (region) in Burkina Faso (country), West Africa (continent) on Earth (planet) . . . to be specific. Congrats to me et felicitations! I am intensely proud that i've made it so far.

Both special days turned out to be nothing quite special at all. They were typical days in village. I woke up around 7am and journaled while I breakfasted on oatmeal and coffee. I alternated staring into space and chores and reading. Everday I make myself go for a walk as the sunsets. I say "make" because somedays I just dont have the patience or am not in the mood to be stared at and called white every 3 seconds. But I always make myself go. On the anniversary of my arrival in Tougouri I was walking down the paved road in my village like I do every evening. I bought some bread etc. and I am just thinking about how amazing and ridiculous living in a village in Africa is and enjoying the beautiful sunset and the general absurdity of my being there in the first place. I hear this rumbling behind me and panicked voices. I turn around and almost got gored by some runaway bulls and a goat tearing through the middle fo town. How wonderfully appropriate. Twenty paces down the road and Bundi, one of my little neighbor children, brings me a galette for a present which is a kind of fried doughnut made from millet. So my anniversary was celebrated by two of my favorite things about living in this country: the wonderful hospitality and warmth of its people and the ridiculous and bizarre circumstances I find myself in.

Second Hand T-Shirts

2008-08-11T02:31:00.000-07:00

One of the perks about living in the third world is the t-shirts. All those clothes out there that are donated to charity by countless self-less Americans end-up in open markets across the world. Burkina Faso is no exception. The market in Tougouri is no exception. I see Africans wearing the most random and ironic t-shirts. Just today, somebody put an "I'm Big on Little Rock" t-shirt in my box. Some self-sacrificing Arkansan decided to share the joy of Little Rock with Africa and now the t-shirt is mine! Some things I see are just sort of . . . incongruous. For example, I saw a huge grown man . . . you know, the type that would be cast in movies as the semi-neanderthal who stomps about grunting. A really big guy. And he was wearing a t-shirt that said "Princess" in pink sparkles. Seriously. In Tougouri we have something called APE which is the Burkina equivalent of the PTA. It's made up of rich parents in the village just like in America and the president (an important man in the village) often sports a shirt that says "It's gettin Hot in huuuur! So take off all your clothes!" Soooo professional.

When men wear ridiculous shirts its funny but when it's little girls in wildly inappropriate garb it becomes kind of tragic. For example . . . we PCV's really try to get involved in International Women's Day (March 8th) because the women of this country are at best second class citizens. I had a friend who was playing soccer with a bunch of neighborhood girls when she noticed one of her team mates (a 12 year old girl) was sporting a t-shirt that read, in puff paint, "A suck, a buck." I'm sure some sorority girl donated her shirt to a "good cause." Gee whiz. Another time i was proctoring a test in my 7th grade class when I noticed one little girl wearing a shirt that said "I killed a 6 pack just to watch it die" I don't even know how I would go about explaining that. Ridiculous.

The weirdest thing about all this is that they don't even care what their t-shirt says. I love explaining to Burkinabe what their t-shirts say but they never really care. In America we are always conscious of what our t-shirts say: what will people think if I wear this "Phish" t-shirt?? Will they think i'm a jobless druggie?? What if I bump into a really big Phish fan? Will they think I'm a complete phony if I don't know all the words to Reba?? Maybe that's just me. But these Burkinabe honestly dont care if they are a man wearing a shirt that says "I have the p@#$y so I make the rules."

So if you have a particularly offensive shirt you might as well donate it to Africa because they don't know what it says nor are they effected one way or another by the t-shirts meaning. So keep on keepin on America! Donate those t-shirts!

Peace Corps Part II

2008-07-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

It's funny how I feel like I've been here before. I'm in the Memphis Airport NWA terminal on a LONG trip to Africa. This last June (2007) I sat in a very similar terminal waiting for one of many flights drinking my Starbucks Latte and saying to myself "This . . . is your last . . . vanilla latte . . ." When in reality I'll probably have about three more latte's but every one could be the last good one. Maybe they'll burn the coffee or put too much vanilla in the coffee etc. After this it's back to insatnt coffee . . . (bereaved sigh). I'm even listneing to my iPod like i was last time. And listening to a song that I was obsessed with when I left the first time: John Mayer's "Stop This Train."

13 months ago I was completely freaked out and feeling naive and out of my mind. Who moves to Africa? Especially someone who considers themselves a major home-body. Nothing like 2 weeks in your parents house will help cure you of that latter sentiment. But I do miss Little Rock very much when I'm gone. It's so cute. I am sitting in this terminal and thinking . . . I have a second chance. It feels so much like I'm just doing it over again. Let me see if I can explain a bit. I have already been there over a year and feel like I've seen all there is to see and now all i have before me is the opportunity to do it again but maybe better this time. The learning curve has dropped off and along with it most of the novelty of living in Africa. Things that were once cute are now annoying ("Nasara!! Nasara!!"). Things that were once insane are now commonplace (Ladies biking while talking on cell phones with 20lbs of stuff on their heads and a baby on their back). I already feel like I'm doing it all over again (13 months of being a teacher gone and 13 to go) and the added scenery - airports and their endless terminals of "lasts"- last coffee, last burger, last good beer, last country full of cute well-dressed men etc - leaves me feeling like I have been given a second chance to do things with my service that i wanted to get done but hadn't yet.

So Peace Corps round II here we go! Allons-y!! This time around I have some SERIOUS advantages. I speak French and Mooré. I know how to live in Africa. I have a pumice stone. I packed a bag full of the things that really matter: tuna, chicken, folgers individual coffee bags, books, and clothes made of cotton. This year will be much easier. There are two things I really want to work on and get going in my community:

First: Moringa!! Moringa is a tree that grows in Burkina (it's native to India) and is rich in vitamins A and C, potassium, calcium, and proteins. It actually is richer in vitamin C than oranges as well as richer in calcium than milk. Needless to say, in a village abounding in malnutrition this is a miracle tree. The thing is to make its growth sustainable and to educate the people about its use. Really, the most sustainable way I can see of spreading it around is to grow the trees for my immediate neighbors and educate them in a really informal way. The only stipulation being that they grow seedlings and give trees away to family and friends. My fingers are crossed but I've been in Africa long enough to know not to get my hopes up.

The second project I want to do is Women's Health. This will hopefully meet two important goals: the first being to empower girls to take care of their own mental and physical health and secondly to teach them about basic health. I have already mentioned this particular project in past blogs but I hope it goes well. These girls are just not in charge of or educated about their own bodies and it makes me sad. My hope is to bring in locals (the midwife, the doctor, etc) to educated the girls.

So, yes - I am glad to be going back. So many of you have been asking if I am sad to be getting back to Burkina after being on vacation, i mean, being in America. I have built a life there, I have a nice little niche that took time to create. So my hopes this time around are to really do some things that could benefit my community. So much of my last year in Burkina was devoted to learning how to simply not die and not freak out constantly. This is why PC is two years long - it has to be in order to be effective and sustainable. Lesson learned. So now I can get back to business.

Thanks to all you faithful blog readers out there!!! I really appreciate y'all's enthusiasm and comments. It was good to see you all and to be a part of Mobert's and Jarkie's nuptials. Congratulations.

Yes, I'll have the Crunchy Rolls

2008-07-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Detroit Airport. Man . . . I love America. I am on the internet while drinking a Blue Moon . . . and its cold!! So awesome. Maybe I'll have sushi for dinner . . . or mexican? I don't know!!! Anything is possible!!! Goodbye land of cold beverages! Land of free education!! Land of English speakers!! Before I moved to Africa, I liked America - you know, we have our share of political . . . how should i say it . . . embarrassments and idiocies. Is that a word? I'm not sure but Im American; therefore it is now. That's how America works. You are born there and are privy to its free education (until 12th grade and after that you basically have to sell your soul to government loans or to your parents) and then all you have to do is work hard - and you'll be rewarded (of course this doesn't include people on minimum wage). But in Africa you can work hard all your life and its like treading water.

This is my answer to a question that was posed my direction repeatedly over my visit to the Glorious Land Of The United States of Cold Libations and Tasty Food of America. The question being: Doesn't being over there just make you really appreciate what you have here." Yes. Dear God. Yes. Everyday, I see something that makes me soooo glad that I had the luck and fortune to have been born in America. My life is insanely easier just by virtue of being born in this wonderful place.

Props to MEP

2008-06-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

Props to world traveler extraordinaire MARY ELIZABETH PRITCHARD!

No worries friends and family - MEP is safe and well (for the moment). She arrived about a week ago at the humorously dilapidated Ouaga Airport. Use your imagination and all your pre-existing mental images from movies about what an african airport might look like and voila! There aren't terminals - everything is done on/off the tarmac. There are only three rooms. The middle one is baggage claim where the jolting rubber conveyor is buffered on the sides by old used tires. The noises it makes inspire every confidence that your bag has been eaten and shredded by whatever is making that sound if not just lost in somewhere in the International Airport of Addis Ababa.

Out in the arrivals area outside the airport i was nervously awaiting MEP's arrival. Excitement, nervousness, and one generous white russian all mixed together had my synaptic celfts firing furiously (or at least it felt that way. what with the vodka and all my nervous system was taking its sweet time). Anyways . . . i was freakin excited. And there she was - I saw this little person pop up above the crowd searching for my face. There were gasps on either side of the dividing people and them she bursts out from behind the divide and it's true MEP actually came to africa. I couldn't believe she was there. Someone from my previous life made it into this one. There were some teary eyes and lots of hugs and squeling. I think it freaked the africans and europeans out. I have never been so overjoyed in my life. To see a friendly face like that after a year - someone you have already done all the work with, who knows you, and accpeted you a long time ago . . . well, i just didn't realize how much i missed all of you. I could feel the absence from my sinuses to my gut to the arches of my feet. All of that represented in this little messenger MEP. It's like wearing spandex all day long and then you get home and put on your favorite sweat pants . . . sweet reflief. Don't be sad Mom. It'll be ten times more intense when i see you in a couple days. YAY!!!!!!!

So I took MEP to a bar and we got kinda drunk. Ok . . . pretty drunk. It's the best way to get someone used to the time change and erase all that discomfort of air travel. We stayed in Ouaga a couple days and ate good food. Then we moved to my village for 5 nights. Poor MEP . . . i'll let her describe it all in her guest blog that she will be posting . . . but she discovered the freakish amounts of flies that exist (much to her displeasure). She did laundry by hand, dishes by hand, ate To, used a latrine, bucket bathed, ate with her hands etc. I told her that it gets hotter at night. The sun goes down and the thermomeer goes up - she didn't believe me but found out soon enough for herself. We went to the market.

After 5 days though we needed to get moving. So we headed to see the elephants. They were spectacular!!!! Or at least they would have been had we seen any. I don't want to talk about it.

After that we went to Bobo-Diolousso which is wayyyy cute - you know, if Burkina were Arkansas, Bobo is the Eureka Springs of Burkina. Sadly, MEP got one of those 24 diarrhea/vomit bugs and we spent most of it in our room. Which is fine cause it rained anyway. I got over-confident and let her eat raw vegetables. oops. She's fine now no worries and no more raw veggies.

Next, it's off to Ghana!!!! So, that's it for now. I just wanted concerned parties to know that we are alive and having a grand time.

Either Kill Me or Come Get Me

2008-05-28T10:58:00.001-07:00

Here is a health update for all of you who are concerned about me and my horrid kidney stone.

The Sunday evening before last I passed a kidney stone . . . that is to say I gave birth to a rock. I have been told that the pain is worse than child birth and I can see how that would be. It hurt. A lot. About 5pm after chugging halk a liter of water i got huge cramping in my abdomen and left side and, being the science nerd that I am, knew exactly what it was. "Oh GOD! Not a kidney stone!! Please GID don't make me pass a kidney stone alone in my hut! Please Please Please!!!" Well, GOD did not answer that particular prayer and that's okay - no hard feelings. By 5:30pm the pain was bad enough that i was onlyhalf conscious. Also, my phone wasn't working - i couldn't call people and they couldn't call me. Just text messages. So i sent this message to our PC doctor: "kidney stone. please help." A few hours went by and the doctor hadn't contacted me (i didnt know my phone wasnt working) and so I sent this message: "come get me or kill me. i cant get up" and about 15 minuted later my homologue (a colleague who helps me out integrating in my village etc...) came over and i talked to the PC doctor on his phone. Then Nikiema (my homologue) went in search of drugs. Glorious glorious drugs. About an hour later he came back with the doctor in charge of the clinic in my village and they gave me the most refreshing IV injection i have ever had! Twenty minutes after the injection and 4 hours after the pain began I was doing okay - no longer screaming, thrashing, or pulling out my hair etc - there was pain but it wasn't nearly as bad. Eventually I passed out and woke up stone free!

My whole village thought I was dying and everyone has an opinion as to why I got sick:

"You shouldn't live with your cat like that! You can't touch it!"

"You eat out too much!"

"It's your water! There is too much calcium in the water!"

The PC doctors agree with the latter (my homologues opinion) and I will probably have to take some meds to help my kidneys out. But I should be fine! No worries everybody. The thing about kidney stones is that once you pass them - it's done. The pain is gone. Anything is better than Malaria!

Hope you are all doing well and I CANNOT wait to see all of you when I come home in July!

Je suis plein!

2008-05-11T00:49:00.000-07:00

This is a blog post for any of you out there who have been through the ridiculous and confusing task of learning a new language. French is especially interesting, i feel, because english vocab is 60% french. So there are a lot of words that are the same but pronounced differently. Take the word "different," in french it is "different" or "sensation" which is "sensation" in french. Actually, pretty much any word that ends in -tion in english is probably the same in french. Same with words that end in -ive in englsih are probably the same in french only with a -if at the end. However, sometimes I find myself trying to talk with somebody and I will need a word . . . "Oh what's the word?? what's the word?? comment on dit???" My mind searches and searches and comes up with nothing. SO, I just take the word in english and pronounce it in french. This often works. Like . . . "distruction." But sometimes it doesn't. Like the english word "partition" you would think that you could just pronounce the same letters but in a french accent . . . think again! "Partition" is a musical score in french . . . the word I needed was "cloisin." Argh! It's so frustrating to always sound like an idiot.

Pronunciation is always fun but even more tricky is trying to figure out if something in english translates into french. For example . . . if you want to tell the restaurant guy that you want to take your grilled chicken "to go" you have to think . . . "hmm . . . i wonder if that translates . . . i'll try it." and you say in french "pour sortir" and voila! he understood you. However, sometimes you want to tell people that you are excited about the upcoming marriage of your neighbor and so you think "surely 'excited' translates!" so you say "Je suis tres excite pour vous!" Well, what you think is "I am very excited for you" actually translates into "I am very horny for you!" and now you have offended some people. The same goes for the french word for "full" or "plein" but when you have eaten a lot of food and you want to tell your hosts that you can't eat anymore goat testicle - that you are full - you cannot say "Je suis plein" because that means that you are pregnant and then they will probably just want to feed you more.

My other favorite activity is circumlocuting a word you don't know. I can never remember the word for speakers so I am always saying "You know . . . the thing that you attach an mp3 player to and sound comes out . . . what do you call that?" Like the other day I wanted to use the expression "Wolf in sheeps clothing" but couldn't remember the word for wolf or coat (not that they would understand it because there aren't wolfs here) so I ended up saying this "You know the savage dog who wears the hair of the sheep and he is not nice like the sheep and he eats of the sheep but it is hidden because he wears of the sheep hair like the other sheep" Good GOD these people must think I am an idiot.

That is just a sample. You people who have learned another language know what I'm talking about. It is a bumpy bumpy road. Hmm . . . I wonder if that translates . . . le chemin est . . .

Long Time No See

2008-05-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

Hello friends. I have not blogged in a really long time and i beg your forgiveness. i am not dead or sick or sad. I just haven't had anything interesting to say! I am approaching a year in Burkina and miraculously, this is becoming "old hat." Having said that, I hope that I have used that expression correctly. Recently the fine lines between French and English have become blurred and the first thing to go was my ability to navigate idioms and english is FULL of idioms. The Americans I interact with regularly speak the same language i do - franglais - and so any language fumbles are rarely noticed. I was speaking with my lovely sister M0lly the other day and we were talking about her rehearsal dinner and, in wishing to express my excitement, i said, "Oh! I will be at the top of the page!" There was a confused silence on the other end of the phone and it occured to me that what I just said may not be an english "ism" afterall. "Wait . . . what does that mean?" Molly politely asked and . . . i had no idea what it meant or where I came up with it. Top of the page? It's not even a translated french idiom. So excuse me when I say weird things. I know not what I do.

How have I been keeping myself occupied lately you ask?? Well, I have been teaching Sex Ed. That's right. Sex Ed. In Africa. In french. Actually the french makes it easier because I don't react when i say things like "muqueuse uterine." Pleasant. I had to draw lots of diagrams of the reproductive organs on the board for the students . . . in colored chalk. Corpus cavernosum in purple. Oviduct in green. It was a good time. They had many many mis-understandings about the origins of pregnancy which I was very sad about because they tend to become sexually active at young ages here. "Madame, is it true that if you only have sex during the day you won't get pregnant?" "Um . . . no. That is NOT true. The time of day has nothing to do with it." We talked about STD's and condom use. Family Planning and the menstrual cyle. There are several illigitamately pregnant girls at my high school and I really feel strongly about teaching sex ed. I must admit though, and its difficult to admit this to myself, but I fear that it all went in one ear and out the other and then when it comes down to it they will side with their traditional beliefs. Argh! This is development. You battle mind-sets and points of view and its a lot of work for not a lot of gain. You can give a day-long sensibilisation about the evils of female circumcision (which is illegal and yet still rampant in Burkina) and then have someone approach you and say "Sorry I can't meet your for tea tomorrow. My daughter is getting circumsized." Wait . . . what?

On a lighter note. There has been an addition to the fam in Tougs. Eloise had a baby! Just one. Clay calls Eloise "Louis" and started calling the kitten "Clark" which he is allowed to do because it will be his cat. So Clark currently lives under my bed and makes a lot of cute noise. My camera is broken so I don't have a picture but she is all white except for her tail which is black and gray stripes like Eloise.

It is very hot. Never below 90. Not even at night. I sleep outside and it's annoying because the mosquito net blocks the breeze and the animals make lots of noise and wake me up at 4:30 am.

I am approaching a year! And about to have a birthday! The novelty of living in Africa is wearing off. It's becoming "My life" and not "My life in Africa." Things that were crazy to me a year ago have become normal and uninteresting. Holding someone's chicken while they get on the bus . . . ladies on bikes with a baby strapped to their back and a huge bowl on their head . . . the food . . . warm beer . . . these things are just kinda normal. Wh0 new you could get used to a life in Africa?? Of course there are still some surprises. Here's a good story for y'all: This didn't happen to me but it could have because it happened on the bus I take for transport to the capitol. An old Fulani woman (the Fulani are a really marginalized ethnic group here - they are truly villagois) stood up out of her seat on the bus and placed a kalbash (a bowl made of a gourd) on the floor of the bus and squated over it and actually peed right there on the bus and tossed it out the window!!!!! Hahaha!!!

What's next you say?? June is taken up by my lovely friend Mary Elizabeth who is coming to BF for the whole month!! yay! I hope she has fun. Then in July I have Molly's and Jackie's weddings and AMERICA!! Also, in July and into August I am helping to train the new group of teachers who will be arriving in June. Nana and I are taking a trip in September! And then the school year starts again in October. I am spoiled. But I dont mind.

Peace Corps Burkina Faso Pack List

2008-04-26T04:52:00.000-07:00

This post is intended to help out the group of incerdibly fortunate americans about to depart for BURKINA FASO!!

So, this is what I would pack if I could do it all over again: (sorry - its kinda girl specific)

CLOTHES:
1 light weight rain coat
1 jeans
2 pants - cropped
2 skirts - below knee because knees are "sexual objects" here
4 short sleeve shirts
2 tank tops
2 long sleeve
2 t-shirts
*note: thats a lot of clothes but really - just because its hot and dusty doesnt mean you wont care what you like. I have specific clothes that i wear to teach in and specific clothes i wear when i am at PC functions in the capitol etc . . .

15 undies - cotton
2 underwire bras
2 comfy bras
2 sports bras
1 pair chacos/keens/sporty sandal
1 running shoes
1 maybe flip flops
1 sleep shorts
1 longer comfy pants/pj pants

TOILETRIES:
soap, shampoo, razor and blades, deoderant, contact lens and accoutrement, make-up (once again, if you cared about what you looked like in america that wont change just because you are in burkina. trust me.) face sunscreen, rubber bands, bobby pins, etc . . . bascially a 3 month supply of stuff you already use in america

STUFF:
travel pillow (not necessary but i LOVE mine)
thermarest
tent (bughut or travelscreen)
books
jewlry
pens/paper
journal
world map
scientific french-english dictionary if you are a science teacher
calculator
nalgenes (2)
hat!!
IF you ae a glasses wearer - bring two pairs of glasses and i also really LOVE my perscription sunglasses
computer and accoutrements and carry case
iPod (any gadgets that help you maintain sanity)
your hobbies (for me thats knitting maybe a guitar etc - dont abandon your hobbies just cause ur in africa)
sewing kit
duct tape
tapes (tape players are everywhere!)
batteries
car chargers (i'll explain later)
cell phone - it will probably work in burkina and you just get a SIM card here
bike helmet
mirror
mini sewing kit
stuff to remind you of home and family
camera and extra card
memory stick
cash (200 bucks maybe for vacations to Ghana etc . . . PC will give you a living allowance all thru staging etc.)

BAGS:
purse
med sized back pack - like a hikers pack
huge duffle
large satchel/sm back pack - for weekend travel etc.

NOTES:
- if you want to be able to access your bank account get a visa card and there are ATM's in the capitol you can access. You can get by without this, of course, but it might make some things easier.
- this is not a camping trip. so dont pack like you are going camping for two years. You will live here, cook here, you want to be comfortable
- Ok. I tried to pack as little as I could - like 45 lbs i think it was. In hindsight, I would pack much more.
- This is how electricity works here: some people -very few- will have electricity. For everyone else you use solar panels to charge a car battery or Solios. You get a car lighter socket that hooks up to the battery so anything that can charge from a car lighter socket you can charge in your village. Awesome.
- Burkina is very brown so everything you own will be brown eventually, So when packing keep in mind that its best to bring things that you can bleach the crap out of, or that wont turn brown as easily.

Hope all that helps! If you have any questions just send me an e-mail: hedgera@gmail.com

Worth Your Weight In Cows

2008-03-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

In Burkina, at least in village, a man's wealth is measured by his number of cattle and wives.
"Mr. Sawadogo has 5 wives and 15 head of cattle!"
"Dang!!"
Being an Arkansan this is not such a foreign concept for me. I will relate a conversation between myself and a student to all of you - one i have about every week:

"Madame, will you take me back to America?!"
"Sure. You can stay with my parents until you learn english. But its expensive and I'm not gonna buy you a ticket."
"That's okay Madame. I have ten cows!"
"1o Cows?! Why didn't you say so!"

It tickles me that my initial reaction to this conversation is not: "What do cattle have to do with plane tickets and why is this kid bragging about his cattle herd?" but "Hot damn! 10 cattle? Come on to America then!"

I am slowly becoming more and more African. Thinking of wealth in terms of cattle is just one example. My ravenous cravings for American food have been replaced by a preference for Burkina fare.

"Yumm . . . which do you want: this juicy cheesy hamburger and fries OR this steaming plate of rice with tomato sauce?"
"Hmm . . . are those morsels of delicious sheep meat i see in that sauce?"
"Why yes they are"
"Shit! Hand it over. Screw the hamburger!!"

Who am i? Things that should not be common place to a naive white girl have become regular daily activities. Goats in my latrine, bones and rocks in my food, shoeless and bottomless dirt covered children, old men on bikes with cell-phones, women shouting and shoving peanuts at me at bus stations . . . all this stuff passes by me and rarely do I think . . . "ya know, 10 months ago that would have freaked me out." Burkina is becoming home.

I keep trying to look at my African life with my old eyes. The eyes that looked at the Peace Corps website pictures and wondered how Americans could live like that. The eyes that read my Peace Corps Invitation describing the next two years of my life and thinking "Holy shit. How am I going to do this? No electricity, no running water, huts, French, Africa, 70 students in a classroom?? How will I be able to do this??" But now . . . it's not only pretty easy to do, I really enjoy it most of the time. I really like living in Africa. I just never pictured myself here. So, when a kid in my class equates his cattle herd with his ability to buy a plane ticket . . . its these new eyes of mine that see what he sees. I continue to surprise even myself and it's only been 9 months. Pretty soon I'll be so well integrated that I'll discontinue using toilet paper and will opt for the "left-hand and tea pot of water" method. Haha. Don't worry Mom . . . that would probably take more than 2 years and if not, I'll keep that tid-bit to myself.

Madame, They Will Hit you!

2008-03-07T01:16:00.000-08:00

It was a regular wednesday evening. Nothing special. I was walking to buy bread from Alidou, my bread guy, and I saw a huge crowd of people along the dirt path. There were many huddled in a huge circle obviously watching whatever was going on in the middle of the circle and also many others selling typical Burkina snacks and chatting etc. I asked one of my students what was going on and they told me: Masks! Burkina, indeed West Africa, has a long traditional history of mask festivals so I was excited to finally get to see some for myself. However, my students quickly warned me, "Madame, they will hit you!"
"Did you say hit??"

Yep, they said hit. Part of the dance of these particular entourage of masks was to hit the crowd gathered around with sticks. Okay, no. They dont hit hard. It's more of a playful whack. The Mask dancers are dressed in what essentially looks like a series of mop heads made of big fat hemp. The Mask itself is wooden (i'm told, made from baobob wood) and painted. As far as i could tell it wasn't a representation of anything, just a mask etc.

There are bongo drummers who do a flirtatious musical dance with the masks. The drummer advances and beckons a mask forward. Then, the interactive dance begins: the masked dancer stomps in tune with the elaborate drum music. Jumping and kicking and whirling and whacking the crowd. It was pretty cool. Then that masked dancer sits down and another is beckoned forth. I was pressed in with the pungent sweaty crowd and anytime a mask moved in close the crowd would jump away trying to avoid being smacked with a stick. I'm white and therefore obviously not from Tougouri so they wouldn't hit me . . . not that I think it would have hurt.

I always like it when I see traditionally "African" displays of culture. After several centuries of colonial rule so much of the traditional culture has become replaced by "francophone" culture. French bread, tea, language, education system, lots of things are distinctly "french" though always with an African twist to it. But it's things like the Masks and To which make my African experience, African. En tout cas, it was pretty cool.

Jesus and the Mullet Man

2008-03-06T23:49:00.000-08:00

Well, I went to church again. This time to the Catholic Church which was, characteristically enough, completely different than the protestant service and exactly alike all Catholic services across the world. Last time I went to the Protestant Church they did "freestyle prayer" which is enough to make any good episcopalian completely freaked out. "Wait, are they freestyling?? Oh shit. If they ask me to freestyle I'll just recite something and hope they cant tell the difference. Oh shit. Dear God, please dont make me freestyle pray." This was one of the freestyle prayers going through my head. The other freestyle prayer looping through my thoughts was divinely inspired when the my fellow freestylers erupted into fits of crying and shouting as the force of the spirit made them either desperately irate or desperatlely thankful. I couldn't tell which as a beleaguered repenter screeched, "BARK-WENDNUM!!! and us fellow sinners boomed in response,"AMINA!!!" (Thanks be to God and Amen). Thus, the only prayer in my head was asking poor Jesus to please make these poeple calm down and stop screaming at him. I was a little freaked out but I'm a southern American so I'm at least a little used to this kind of "praise."

This brings me to two things I appreciate about the Cathies. One, no one is ever asked to freestyle pray, thank God! Two, no matter where you are, you know what to expect when you walk into a Catholic Church. Even in the middle-of-nowhere in Africa you can count on the presence of: a tabernacle, taperd candles, an altar draped in the appropriate color for the particular season in the church calendar, frequent use of the word pecher or "to sin", specifc readings and hymns, and a blessed quiet. Certainly there are a few deviances between the various parishes etc. The Catholic Church in Tougouri, Namentenga Province, Burkina Faso, West Africa, Earth, Milky Way boasts a spectacular fresco/mural. Typical of many religious murals, this one pictures "God" crowning "Jesus" before a "choir of angels" and a gathering of various "worshippers." What was so spectacular was the amazing and inspiring wimpiness of the "God" depicted. He was a 35 year-old with a yellow-blond page-boy haircut and matching goatee (how do you spell that?). What? The worshippers is attendance were my favorite part. They were a crowd of people around the angel choir which i'll get to in a second. Among the faithful watching "God" crown "Jesus" were three bishops - one was wearing aviators. One middle-aged men with a "high and tight" army style hair cute, aviator sunglasses, and a mustache. he kinda looked like a stormtrooper. One broad "King Triton" look-alike -- you know, from The Little Mermaid -- long white hair and moustache but he also had a tiny red ball cap on his head. My favorite was a middle-aged man resplendent in a white t-shirt, handlebar mustache, and long brown mullet. All he needed was a pack of cigarettes and a beer and it would have been complete. Really??? A guy with a mullett? All-in-all there were about 30 people there represnting all races except those of Asian decent. Ther cherub choir was also racially inclusive; black and white faces together watching "God" crown "Jesus" with equally yellow-blond wigs on to match that of "God's." Whatever.

It's funny to me what ends up being cross-cultural and what doesn't. In my experience, not interrupting, un-spoken laws about personal space, and critical thinking skills are things do not translate into the culture here. That is to say, i thought everyone around the world knew that it was rude to interrupt a conversation or touch strangers and that critical thinking was a genetic capacity and not a cultural one. However, the customs, mindset, and style of worship of Protestants (in this Assembly of God Protestants) versus Catholics seems to know no borders.

Where Does All My Money Go?

2008-02-02T10:04:00.000-08:00

What the hell do I spend money on in a village? Good question. I often wonder where all my cfa goes (thats the currency here about 500cfa/1$). Let's break it down shall we? Here are provisiona for a month

2 boxes of oatmeal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2000 cfa
1 box powdered milk . . . . . . . . . . . . 1200 cfa
"cheese" (vache qui rit) . . . . . . . . . . 1600 cfa

Every marche day (market day) i buy:

tomatos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 cfa
onions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 cfa
curi-curi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 cfa (this is cat food/these fried peanut things)
minnows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 cfa (cat food again)
lunch (benga or riz sauce) . . . 100 cfa
other veggies/fruits . . . . . . . 150 cfa (it depends on whats in season: cabbage, bananas, sweet potatos, cucumbers)

Miscellaneous:

gas for my stove . . . . . . . . 4000 cfa
petrol for the lantern . . . . 500 cfa
beer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 cfa (like i said, i teach 16 yr olds. sometimes you need a beer or 3)
bread (everyday) . . . . . . . 150 cfa
cellphone minutes . . . . . . . 1000cfa a week

so yeah. That's basically what i spend my money on. Sometimes I have to buy little things like matches, flour, margarine, pagnes (bolts of fabric that africans use for clothing, luggage, bath towel, curtains, sheets, pagnes do it all), or yogurt. It's the trips to Ouaga that make me poor - ice cream, chicken sandwiches, cab rides, beer, iced tea, pizza etc. Not that budegeting has EVER been one of my talents.

Mud-Colored Month

2008-02-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

All volunteers have the goal to spend an entire month in village. Usually, PCV's will do two or three weeks and then take a weekend in a bigger city or visit another volunteer etc. Mental health - you know how it goes. I just spent all of January in Tougouri and loved it. I really like being in my village. I became so much better integrated this month - I actually have Burkinabe friends!

My neighboor, Konate (ko' nah tay), is my best friend in village. Quick profile: Katherine Konate is 24 years old, teaches math, dates the censeur, is very timid, very funny, and lives in the celibatairium with me. She thinks im crazy . . . which i am. We make food together and bitch about african men and the role of women in africa. It's fun! Another woman moved into my celibatairium too. Her name is Fathou (fah' too) and is the Lycee's hard-working secretary. Because she lives alone and thus has beaucoup de leftovers she cooks for me a lot. Friday nights, I go over to the other celibataraium where the other teachers live and we talk about African and American politics. Good times.

My triumph for the month was blowing my students minds with my national geographics. I love national geographic. When I explain the pictures etc in NG students look at me in horror or disbelief . . . depending on the photo i guess. Whales, Dubai, Volcanos, women who smoke, anything that lives in the ocean - it all freaks them out and I am happy because I know I am broadening their perspective on the world. Yes! Sustainable development! Albeit, on a small scale. However, I am more than content with that.

The real Harmattan began this month. WOW. How do I describe it? The Harmattan is an amazingly gusty and constant wind that sweeps across the Mahgreb and the Sahel knocking over all the sky scrapers, light-up signs, electrical poles, and trees in its path. That last part was a joke. We don't have any of those. It is sooooo gusty! It moves my outdoor chair arround and lifts my tin roof. The thing you must remember is that we've not had rain since early september. This coupled with persistant gale force winds means that the ground is now in the air. There is a general haze all the time because of all the dust and dirt in the air. Is dirt a greenhouse gas?? Haha. No, really? If I dont keep my mouth tightly closed outside, my teeth will wear dirt sweaters. Gross. Teeth are not the only things that suffer. There is a constant battle between me and the perennial layer of dirt covereing my house. Thank you GOD that I only have a two-room crumbling shack to sweep out. My entire world is the color of mud . . . my clothes, my skin, my formerly white cat, the air, the ground . . . the harmattan displaces what usually stays beneath my feet and repaints the whole world.

My exercise regimen in village is very intense. I run in the mornings - but thats the easy part. Getting water from the pump is a great total body workout. You bike to the pump. You pump the pump which resists your mighty efforts to "enleve l'eau" so you have to jump as you do it to add to your pump force. Then - the worst part - you have to lift the water jug (20 liters of water or 5 gallons) and get it back to your house. Africans can strap it to their bikes and bike it home. Or, they put it on their heads. I can do neither so I strap it to my bike and walk the bike/water home. Man . . . you gotta love a faucet. Watch-out for my wicked water-toting biceps. Another favorite exercise routine is doing my laundry. By hand!! Basically, its an hour of being bent in half while rubbing cloth against itself. My hanstrings are sore for three days after doing laundry. Life is hard people. If you come visit me I will let you pump water and do my laundry just so you can have the full experience.

The month of February will be another village month for me. I am looking forward to all the tasty tasty To Konate and i will make. Between watching my cat eat lizards, reading 3 books a week, and teaching I will be very very busy. Or not . . .

King of Siam

2008-02-01T05:40:00.000-08:00

There are many cultural differences between my native glory-land of America and my current dust-bowl country of Burkina Faso. Some of these never fail to confound me even though I have had 8 months to get used to them. Specifically, teacher-student customs. For example, when a teacher walks in a class all the students have to stand. Thats not all that weird. BUT, there is one custom that always makes me feel awkward. It is routine for students to bow to the teachers. In fact, all kids bow to teachers. Ok, when I say 'bow' i dont mean that they bend in half or curtsey or anything. They cross their arms high-up on their chest and then bend at the knees and say "Bonjour Madam!" I just dont really like being bowed to.

This in itself is pretty goofy but the best part is how the little children who live in my neighborhood bow to me. Je m'explique . . .

I'll be walking down the "road" past where my gaggle of children are always playing. They will immediately stop what they are doing when they see me - this happens a lot with people of all ages. Then, the kids all-out run towards me and throw themselves directly in my path blocking the road infront of me, and in slow-motion cross their arms over their chests, bow down really low and, with huge eyes and a look of bewilderment on their face cry, "Bonjoooour Madaaaaam!" Sometimes they call me monsieur . . . they dont really speak french. I mean . . . we are talking LITTLE kids. Like 4 or 5 years old. They line up behind in each other and bow to me like i'm the King of Siam or something.

GHANA!!!!!

2008-01-02T07:44:00.000-08:00

Ghana rocks. They speak english there and the scenery is amazing. You should all think about going for your next vacation. This is just a brief summary of my trip to Ghana. Actually, there are three posts about the trip but this one is all-encompasing. Don't forget to check out my pictures. The link is on the left.

I went with three boys: Clay LaPoint (his blog link is on my blog page - i reccomend it, he's a great writer), Adlai Mast, and Mac Wisdom (his blog link is also on my page). Going from Ouaga on a volunteers budget meant, however, that i took a 20 hour bus ride to go from Ouaga to Takoradi (it's like going from Little Rock to Dallas). Whatever Africa! Takoradi is a really cute beach town - you know, cute for west africa. Most buildings were two-story, the bank was air-conditioned, all the buildings were painted bright colors etc. We just stopped there for an afternoon and ate our first Ghanaian local food and I got my Christmas present from the Western Union. Thanks Dad! From there we made our way to Ezile Bay.

When we arrived in the village of Ezile Bay - because that's what it was, a village (they didn't even have street food to buy) we had to hike to the resort. That was really amazing. There were mountains, colorful huts, wooden canoes, happy well-fed children, and pristine beach. Everything is cuter in Ghana: the poor villages, the goats, the dogs, everything! We only stayed there one night and then we moved on down the beach a little bit to Busua.

Busua Beach is . . . one of the best places in the world! We stayed at Dadsen's Inn and it was perfect. We had a huge room with a porch. That's where we celebrated Christmas. Our Christmas celebration was tons of fun but uneventful. We sat out on the porch and danced around, listened to music, took tons of pictures, and then went to the restaurant and ate tasty food. While at Busua Beach we frequented the Black Star Surf Shop and made friends with its lovely patron Charlotte. We ate fish burritos, Red Red, Jollof Rice, so much awesome food. The fish was so fresh and they have veggies there! It was heaven! Ghana!!!!!

We just sat around on the beach for the most part. Except one day we went to Butri Beach which was just down the beach from Busua. Our friend who worked at the Inn we were staying at knew a guy who would take us down the Butri River. So we climbed in a hollwed-out log/canoe and paddled down the river. It was pretty neat. We were surrounded by mountains and mangrove forest on either side - which is pretty cool if you are a bio nerd like me. There were beautiful birds and mudskippers and crabs. Then, when we were turning around the guy asked if we wanted to see where he makes palm wine. "Hell yes we want to see that!" I felt like Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart as we pulled over to a hole in the mangrove forest and followed a jungle path to the guys palm wine factory. It was pretty cool. They just take the phloem out of the palm tree and ferment it in barrels. The guy also takes the palm wine and distills it into a liquor that tastes like PGA. Yuk. I had a sip and lost a substantial portion of my brain cells. I'll never get 'em back. That was all we did in Busua and Butri because we spent the second part of our trip hiking and sitting on tro-tros.

Okey dokey . . . where to next? Wli Falls outside Hohoe. What a spectacular sight. Look at the pictures. It was essentially a one and a half hour vertical hike. It kicked my ass but it was sooo worth it. Those glasses you see me wearing in the pictures are Adlai's second pair because i lost mine in the ocean trying to kayak out to an island. That's why you bring a back-up pair. I look like a lesbian.

The next day we hiked Ghana's tallest mountain. It was actually a pretty easy hike compared to the Wli falls hike. I was the tallest woman in an entire country for about 30 minutes. That is a first and last for my five foot two inch frame.

The next day, I fed monkeys. They were swo cute! And that was the end of our trip. I am tired of writing now. So I will stop. Look at my oics. They will say it all.

What Can An Ocean Do For You?

2008-01-01T02:50:00.001-08:00

Apparently, a lot! On the coast the villagers are plump. Even the dogs aren't starving. There is food and industry! It's kinda like how people shouldn't live in Nevada or Arizona - no water etc. but they have California and Iowa to help carry them. If only Ghana and Ivory Coast could help out Burkina.

The Mamba's Bite

2008-01-01T01:54:00.000-08:00

This is a true story. I wish I was making it up but I'm not. Even Tom Robbins couldn't invent such ridiculousness.

It was a cool evening at Busua Beach as myself and three buddies made our way up to the restaurant atop the peninsula. The place is called "The Black Mamba Corner" and I would rather face a black mamba than ever go to that house of insanity ever again. The place is run by a nutsy hefty German lady named Gabriella. She is about 50 and has a hunk of dread locks oddly extending horizonatlly out the back of her head. You can tell Gabriella is at least bi-polar if not also schizophrenic after about five minutes of talking to her. In the time it takes to place an order for pizza she could go from being whimsical and goofy(with hysterical fits of laughter) to deeply upset and irritable. She has one guesthouse that sits at the bottom of the peninsula and runs a small restaurant on the patio of her own house. Alex, her live in boy-friend, is a rastafarian Ghanaian who, as she told us, has wrecked three of her cars. I'm pretty sure he's always at least profoundly high if not on shrooms or "tse magic mushrooms" as Gabriella called them.

All we wanted was some pizza but what we got was something truly horrible. We tromped through the wilderness leading up to her crazy compound - at high tide it is about a 5 minute walk on a wilderness "path" to get to her peninsula from the road. When we arrive, we notice that Gabriella's rastafarian friend is acting really wierd. I thought: he's a rastafarian so he's probably just stoned. I wish. Then he got really angry and kept pacing around the restaurant (we were the only patrons that night) and shouting ridiculous things at what he kept referring to as "the foreigners." Really, it was a domestic squabble and we were just caught in the middle. The things he was saying were soooo hysterical. I kept almost spitting out my wine as he paced around accusing us and Gabriella. Here are some of my personal favorite Alex phrases (use rastafarian accent):
"Fuck you and your fuck money!!" (ew.)
"I am not a dog! I am a human being!"
"You and your fucking money eating pizza while i am eating this slop!!"
"You are not safe here!! She will poison you!!"
"Call the police!! She will poison you!!"

Yeah. We were FREAKED out. Gabriella did NOTHING to appease Alex's crazed state and only succeeded in antagonizing him. Gabriella is just as crazy as he is if not more. The conversation topics she chose as she joined us for dinner (damn it!) were things like this (use german accent):

"They hate us becasue of our skin. But look at their country. They are sitting on gold (gesture left)! They are sitting on diamonds (gesture right)! But they want to be white."

"I was twice in Mexico but I never eat the taco. What is this, the taco? Is it like pancake?" No you crazy bitch it's not a pancake! How do you go to Mexico and never eat a taco?

"I don't know how much I should tell you (Oh God! Don't tell us anything!) but he does the cocaine, the magic mushrooms, the marijuana." Please stop talking lady!! She talked the whole time (almost three hours) about ridiculous shit while Alex oscilated between tripping and being angry. I had multiple safety action-plans in my head. Honestly, I was afraid that if we just got up and left she would poison us or sick her 14 dogs on us and we still had to walk en brousse for 5 minutes before getting to the road.

Gabriella's idea of sensibilizing men on the role of women in African society is this: "I say to the men: why then do the men have the breast nipples? why? They have the breast nipples like a woman" Oh my God. Stop saying breast nipples, i'm trying to eat my pizza.

When it came time for the check she totally fell apart. "Please. You must help me! It is so difficult!" It took about an hour to add up the check and there were four of us and a calculator. I couldn't believe she didn't make the meal free considering there was a drugged rasta man and a loony german lady interrrupting our expensive meal. WTF?

Finally, we start back and we are all freaked out. We walked in silence for about a minute just in case she was following us with her 14 dogs. Then, there was some creature in the bushes staring at us and that just did us in so we ran the rest of the way to the road. The "Black Mamba Corner" was reccomended by our Lonely Planet travel guide as the best pizza in west africa. The pizza was okay but the ambiance freaked me out. If you go to Busua Beach, stay FAR AWAY from the Mamba.

Why Why Why Please!!

2008-01-01T01:26:00.000-08:00

The official langugae of Ghana is English . . . supposedly. Indeed, you can get by in Ghana with English but most Ghanaians can't really converse in English - no talking about religion, postulating about philosophy, or indicating where the bathroom is. Actually, I understand about as much Burkina French as Ghanaian English. It was like another language sometimes. The phrases that they use were so funny to me as a native English-speaker. You can throw the word "please" in any sentence you want. For example:
"Do you have any bread?"
"No please"
"Wait . . . does that mean yes or no?"
"No please"
" . . . ok . . ."
When a taxi sped dangerously through the beach village a concerned villager shouted, "Why! Why! Why! Please!!" at the driver. You can't say they're not polite.

Also, one does not "eat" in Ghana, one "chops." I don't know where it comes from . . . maybe chomp? Who knows. But yes, you "chop" bananas. When you are hungry, you want to "chop" chicken. There was even an official sign that said it was illegal to "chop" turtles.

The speech and grammatical patterns of Ghanaian English are also a source of amusement for the native speaker. Very often a sentence would be worded in a way that only Yoda could have understood. Here are some examples:
"Coming I am please!"
"Chop rice you want to."
"Good price I give you please!"
I had no idea Yoda was from Ghana. By the end of the trip my fellow travelers and I started talking like Yoda and interjecting please in every sentence. It was really nice however to travel and use English. There were some Ghanaians with pretty good English, but for the most part reversed the sentences were please.

Nasara Goes to Church

2007-12-21T04:16:00.000-08:00

Many of my community members and students have been very concerned about my soul because of my lack of attendance at church. They know I am protestant and the Christian as well as Muslim students are all very concerned that I have not been spotted at any one of the four protestant churches, one catholic church, or even the one mosque. Actually, I find it crazy that any American would come here to prosyletize as the Africans keep prosyletizing me. I have, on a few occasions, tried to explain what I see as the difference between religious observations in America versus Burkina but it doesn't seem to make much sense to them so I just say to my students and neighbors, "nope. I havent gone to church yet." When pressed further i just shrug. There are so many differences that I like to really get into with Burkinabe: no, our black people are not slaves anymore . . . all americans are american and something else (chinese, german, mexican), there are more women in universities than men, women and men share work as well as household tasks, women marry around the age of 25-30 in USA (its more like 15-17 here) - you know things that freak them out and blow their minds. But, I didn't want to get into religion with them. Hah, everyone here is an animist as well as Christian or Muslim and they all really get along.

Anyway (en touts cas), one of my students mothers wanted to thank me for giving him a granola bar (thanks Katie and Sutton) after he cut this huge snake-bearing vine out of my courtyard. So, she invited me to church. And I went last Sunday. The student came to my house to show me how to get there. I put down my copy of Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion" and went to church in a tiny village in a remote country on a remote continent.

Imagine every stereotype you have in your head about what you think an African protestant celebration might be like . . . its all true. I arrived at 10 am and the men were seated on the right dressed in their sunday best: clean 'funtionaire' shoes, slacks, and shirts as well as some in the traditional full head-to-toe getup. The women were on the left with babies on backs and their wonderful african print matching outfits. Childen were at the front with the drum circle. I walked in the sactuary and immediately thought "yes! am i in a movie?"

The building is like all other African buildings: mud brick but then plastered on the outside and painted dark brown. There were a few windows and a small attempt at grand buttressed rafters. Or, you know, wood beams supporting the tin roof. Hanging in multitudes from the wooden beams were all these paper cut outs of flowers, spirals, shapes, stars, etc in colored paper that the children must have made. Purple, pink, white, yellow etc. Voila! The African equivalent of stained-glass. They were very sweet. There was one picture of a very feminine-looking anglo-saxon Jesus on the wall. A cross and plastic flowers in the shape of a heart framed the preachers head as he stood at the podium. A rose-window so to speak. We sat on small wooden benches - just typical african ones like i sit on when i wait for buses.

The service was in Moore so a really pretty and really nice lady sat next to me and translated the whole thing into french for me. Hah, wheni say "sat next to me" i mean in a Burkina way. Men and women - even married couples - NEVER touch each other in public. But, within the same gender there is absolutely no space. Men hang all over men, hold hands, wrap their arms around each other, touch touch touch. Women do the same with women. So the lady translating for me rested her arms in my lap and idly played with my skirt, knees, and hands. Which was very welcome because, since I work with mostly men I get almost no tactile comfort.

First, a man stood up front and would call out a phrase in Moore and we would sing the phrase together stepping and clapping with the drums and voices. Sometimes he would call on a member of the congregation for a song request. Men would sing something and women would respond. It was that kind of beautiful African singing where everyone is belting it out but no one is on the same key and yet it sounds so beautiful. As my translator wrote down the moore for me I would sing along with the whole group, about 50 people. It was so delightfully similar to being at camp mitchell in hoke right when all the campers are arriving and the counselors and CAs have to sing themselves silly.

We did the stepping and clapping for about an hour and then the actual preacher got and said something about sin and prayer. Then the whole group, except the nasara, errupted into shouts and erratic mumblings in moore with hands in the air many gesturing wildly. I would have loved to see the look on my startled face. Haha. Then he asked them to pray for peace and they errupted again in a chorus of babbles. This time i was prepared. No one looked at me funny because their eyes were all closed. Next, there were 3 readings: corinthians, then peter, and dueteronomy. And the preacher . . . preached. Mostly, it was about peace and loving your neighbor and living like Jesus - no guilt or tons of talk about sin. Then more emphatic erruptions of "tongues- sounding" prayer and finally, the best part: eucharist.

The eucharist was kept covered until the time to partake at the end. Nothing would have prepared me for what was under the cloth. I am only amazed I didn't burst into laughter. The precher removed the cloth to reveal . . . bits of bread soaked in palm oil and . . . Coca-cola. yes, Coca-cola. He calmly picked up the bottle and popped the top leaving me struggling to keep from laughing as the cool "phfffff" sound reverberated around the sanctuary. I still cant believe it. Africa continues to surprise.

There was more step clapping after that and all-in-all it was an awesome experience and I will be going back for sure. The whole time I knew it was one of those events that would have had my Auntie crying to see all these sweet people gather and worship together. They were so joyful and happy as Africans almost always are. My Uncle Jon would have been inspired and humbled. My Nana would have loved it and felt connected. My Dad would have been uncomfortable as many strangers would have been touching him - but he'd like it anyway. It was pretty cool.

It's me, Eloise

2007-12-07T01:08:00.000-08:00

There is a new addition to my family of termites, spiders, and geckos.

Thats her. Eloise. Those are my bed sheets. They have green apples on them and say Merry Christmas. I don't know why. Africa has taught me to quit asking why.

Isn't she cute!!! Awww!! I'm quite smitten.

Don't worry Nana, i have good stuff to feed her and she's had a rabies shot. I'm going to try to get her spayed or she'll get knocked up by some ruffian en brousse.

I am eat of the Sagbo

2007-12-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

Test giving and grading is my least favorite teacher task. Truly, grading 300 tests in french is really, really . . . what's the word . . . oh yeah, it sucks. Tests in Burkina are called "devoirs" (confusing because thats the french word for homework) and they are out of 20 points. Quizzes are called, and i love this, "interrogations" which sounds really extreme and intimidating. "That's right!" i say in commanding tones "It's time for an interrogation!! What," i demand "is the air speed velocity of an unleaden swallow?" Some things just dont translate.

Of course all the students complain and say how hard the test was and "Oh Madam! Je suis malcontent!" Yeah, well i'm "malcontent" that i have to grade 300 freakin tests. Really though, I'm a total push-over and they know it. To appease their sad faces I give bonus questions on my tests. Usually, I ask the students to write a sentence in english. Their responses are HYSTERICAL. The bonus question entertains me while i grade all those papers. For the most part i get the same responses: "God is One" or occasionally "Good is One." "I love you" is a popular response. Sometimes they ask God to bless someone; this is often me because they think they'll get extra points, but usually it's various rastafarians and 50 cent who are the aim of God's blessings.

The last test I gave i asked them to write their favorite meal, in english if they could do it, if not french was fine. Most often I got this hysterical response "I am eat of the sagbo" which i'm still giggling about. I must confess as a person who gets laughed at continually for their misuse of language, its rather satisfying to get to laugh back. It's not just the double verb and extravagant use of articles in the sentence that tickles me, it's the reference to sagbo. Sagbo is the Moore word for to, that west african staple i have told you about - it looks, feels, and tastes like white playdo. Burkinabe eat it at least twice a day in village. They just do not understand that Americans dont eat to. That's the whole point of speaking english - you dont have to eat to! One student understood that sentiment and had this to offer for his bonus question: "I like some rice of America." Me too. One very ambitious student wrote this for her bonus question:

madam rebecca is the Bess Prof.
God Bless madam rebecca
madam rebecca Love the carote ou madam
rebecca Like the carrote
a cucumber

I gave her 3 points for that slice of awesomeness.

When you give back tests it is an hour long event called "reclamation" that i loathe. Anal retentivenss is at its most picky when grades are involved and at least half the students want to argue with me about what i've graded. In fact, it so annoys me that i dont want to talk about it anymore.

Have some rice of America on my behalf!

Je vais ajuter

2007-11-26T01:40:00.000-08:00

I forgot to explain the title of the previous entry. The classrooms dont have lights and board visibility relys on the very particular ratio of light from the door and windows. The students are always disagreeing back and forth between the sides of the classroom about which exact windows should be open and if the door should be open etc. . . this is always a source of amusement to me becasue the students become very angry and window and door openess becomes an important issue. "Madame! On ne peut pas voir le tableau!" "Madame! Ouvre le porte! Il fait chaud" back and forth . . . back and forth. The two sides battling it out until just the right combination of windows are opened and i am able to continue teaching. "Ok classe! Haha. Ca va aller! Haha. Ce n'est pas grave! Vous peuvez regarder le cahier de vosvoisins" War inevitable breaks out no matter what i say. Eventually they let me teach.

Madame, I Cant See the Board

2007-11-26T00:41:00.000-08:00

It has been requested that I explain some of my actual job to all you faithful blog readers. It's just a lot of info but i will do my best to give you a picture of what it is like.

First, the Lycee is a typical West African lycee. The buildings are made of cement blocks or mud bricks and then plastered over. There is no glass or wood or screen for the windows and doors. Instead the square hole or "window" or "door" is equipped with metal slats like blinds that open and close. Each class/grade has their own classroom and the teachers move between the classrooms. There is no electricity. There are no bathrooms. The students sit in 2's 3's or 4's at bench-like desks. Some of them have the text books some dont. They all love to write in blue ink (which is deteste!). They all have notebooks. There is only the chalkboard which often has a crack and the teacher as resources. My Lycee serves 42 villages and many students bike to school from 10k away or more. School begins at 7am, there is a break between 12 and 3 and then it continues until 5pm. They arent in class the whole time though, some afternoons they have off etc. There are about 70-100 kids in a classroom. A classroom is about the size of an average american living room.

They take biology, english, history-geography, french, math, PE, the older kids also take physics/chemistry and philosophy. All of this is really challening for the kids to actually comprehend because it is essentually impossible to do experiments with the kids (no electricity and a class of 100 students - yeah thats what i call impossible). So they rely on their abilities of memorization. Critical thinking is really hard for the students because the lack of resources makes it difficult for them to be able to synthesize and understand the information.

Some kids (the ones who are better off and dont worry about having food and water) tend to value their educations. They want to learn and they see what can come from having an education. The poorer kids have to foremost worry about their families work in the fields and the pressing needs of the home (getting water, making food etc). This means that the poorer female students tend to be taken out of school or fail out at a young age (the age for girls to marry is around 17 - hint hint). This is why Peace Corps has an entire sector of volunteers who work for the empowerment of women. The roles and attitudes of the two genders here is very much like victorian america. Strangely the literature of Jane Austen and its themes applys to life in West-Africa.

Lets see . . . the schools operate on a trimester system that accomadates the rains as well as Muslim and Christian holidays (Ramadan . . . Easter etc). In village, education is secondary to the harvest and God. Age and grade are not very correlated - you can have an 12 yr old and a 15 yr old in the same class and it wouldnt be that strange. They three grades a trimester and each grade is over 20 points. Students are happy with a 10 out of 20 - in fact thats a pretty decent grade. They pass if they get an overall score of 7 out of 20. The Ed system is really different than what im used to.

I like teaching. As far as Peace Corps goes it is an easy way to be effective. Other people have assignments that are completely ambiguous but with teaching it is very clear what and how to be an effective volunteer. But we also have a ton of work - last weekend i had to correct 300 hand-written tests. Eeek! I teach 12 hours a week. The average teacher does about 15-20 hrs depending on the subject they teach. I actually do not find the classroom of 70 african kids who speak french to be that scary. At first it was frightening. I'll never forget the dread and terror i felt just before i walked into my first official classroom. They behave as well as 13-15 yr olds can be expected to behave. We laugh a lot. I however am not cut out to handle 70 15yr olds and it wears on me - patience not being one of the traits granted me by God. But it could always be worse. At least its not 140 kids.

This was a bunch of info but i hope it gives you and idea of what i do. I am in village most of the time. About every two weeks I go to the capitol or to a friends village and i speak english, sit in air conditioning, and eat tasty food for the weekend. I do need my little America fix. Honestly, the best thing about Peace Corps is that I can say, for the first time, without any hesitation that yes, I am immensely proud of me too. I dont know how or why but I can do this and it really isnt that difficult for me. Challenging but very do-able. You just never know what you are capable of.

The "Entergy" of Village

2007-11-26T00:10:00.000-08:00

It's 7pm in village. I step out of my hut to dump my leftover onion and bread bits in the compost. "What is that light?" I search for the offending light post in vain . . . that light is the huge, smoky and still luminous moon. Life without electricity makes you in-tune to so many things you would never notice otherwise in your bright, air-conditioned den with the reflection of the tv screen on the windows. I do not miss electricity at all. Sure, some nights i wish i could plug-in a fan . . . maybe i iwsh it were easier to charge my ipod and cell phone but thats all. In place of "Entergy" in village we have the glorious luminosity of Monsieur the Moon. Do you have any idea how bright the moon is? I thought i did . . . you know from being at the farm or at camp etc i thought I knew how brilliant the moon and stars could be. I was mistaken.

When you live in a place where the production of light is a small miracle you cant help but be startled at the moon and stars capability at flinging their endowment haphazardly towards your mud hut. They are like people with an immense natural talent that they dont appracitate and squander. During the growing half of the moon, the full moon, and then a little bit of the diminishing half one cannot help but want to chastise the moon for his waste. "Hey Moon, cant you spread out this light distribution? Hell, at this rate in two weeks you wont have anything left to spend and then i wont be able to find my latrine in the dark!" I get so excited when the full moon comes back. You can walk around village without a flashlight at night, i can find my latrine in the middle of the night without having to light my lantern, and of course not to mention how beautiful the moon is.

The light breeze at night after the ridiculous velocity of the afternoon harmattan winds, the tiny cheerful pinpricks of the stars like GOD is filtering the magnificence of heaven through a collander, the fluid Milky Way which winds carelessly languidly over the roof of my house, and then the audacity of the moon. I drink a cup of tea. I take a deep breath. I enjoy the marvelous pyrotechnics of the night village sky. These are things you can only see when the nearest gaudy artificial light is 80k away.

Roomates

2007-10-20T00:24:00.001-07:00

This is a blog entry for all of you who have expressed worry for my safety -- being a young naive single woman living alone africa and all. No worries! I several roomates to look after me now! Some of them I dont really like very much - they hog all the limited space of my hut. Some keep out of the way pretty well and earn their rent. Others are there for entertainment. I am talking of course about the 'real-world' africa drama played about between my various arthropod and reptilian roomates and myself.

First, the most numerous and determined of the loafers, the termites. Man, i both love and hate termites. I admire their organization and distribution of tasks (they are a colony much like ants and have different roles etc). Because of this, i am in a daily full-on battle with these greedy guys. Seriously, i spend time each day attempting erradication. I'll take my little broom and sweep their tunnel off my wall and then a few hours later they will have built it back! Arhg! The battle is on and I will be the victor! Truth be told, it is their house and im the renter.

Next, spiders. I used to be so afraid of spiders and they just dont really bother me much anymore. When i first got to my house there were millions of them and i kicked them all out. But now, they are starting to return slowly. Fortunately for the spiders, they have proven to me that they can earn their keep in my home . . . by eating the termites. Spiders love to eat termites and i love for them to be eaten. So, if a spider can prove, upon inspection of his web, that he will kill termites for me i let that spider stay. This is however only a deal ive worked out with spiders in the corners of my house. The ones in the windows and on the ceiling perish as soon as they are spotted by me.

My last fellow tennant is a gaggle of 'house geckos' that live under my tin roof and on my walls. As termite eaters, they are also allowed to stay put. However, the house geckos offer as a bonus excellent entertainment. They are my new favorite tv show. They click and charge each other and scrabble around . . . good times had by all. I only get mad at them when they poop on my stuff. "Not cool, house geckos," i say "Not Cool!" Maybe if i say it in clicks they will understand me and stop pooping on my clothes. You have to shake out your clothes here before you put them on because there may be a gecko or a bug hiding in them. Oh! such fun!

So those are my roomates. We have a nice little rapport going. Everybody gangs up on the termites. I pick on the spiders some. And the spiders and I think the house geckos are a riot. Good times had by all indeed.

Running Water

2007-10-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

In America, if you need water you go to the tap and fill up a glass. You step into the shower and turn some knobs. You load a dishwasher or washing machine and push some buttons. Eureka!In America, there is the luxury of running water. In Africa, its not quite so easy. The good pump nearest my house is about a five minute walk away. I dont know if you remember or not but water is really freakin heavy. really. So, i pay a neighbor to get water for me. All functionaires (people with government jobs like teachers) pay kids to do stuff for them like their laundry, fetch their water, do their dishes etc. So, I pay Bienvenue, a 13yr old boy who lives in my courtyard, to bring me water. Bienvenue straps jugs to his bike and goes off to the pump returning 20 minutes later with my water. Thus, i have running water too only mine comes to my home on a bike.
I must say it is astounding to see the women at the pump. Fetching water is for the most part a job of the women of a household. They fill up a 5 gallon jug with a hand cranked pump which is work in istelf. Then, they lift the full 40-50 pound jug of water, balance it on their heads, and walk several kilometers home. Wow. And I think my life is hard?

Ethnic Groups

2007-10-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

In Africa, ethnicity is not bound by country borders and plays a huge cultural role here. I can think of 6 major groups that Burkina has but there are certainly more. The Mossi are the most ubiquitous of the ethnic groups and they speak Moore. For the most part they live in the central part of Burkina. Tougouri is on the edge of Mossi country. They are very patriarchal and make a lot of jokes. The Gormanchi live in the east and on into Niger. They speak Gormanchima. They would be the mid-westerners of the US. They are docile and unassuming. The Fulani speak Fulfulde and live in the Sahel and on into Mali. I have a lot of Fulani in my village too. The woman are beautiful. They plait elaborate silver discs into their hair. The Fulani raise cattle and a Fulanis cattle are at least as important to him as his family is. They take cattle very seriously. They would of course be the south-westerners. In the South are the Lobi, Bobo, and Djoula. The Bobo and Djoula speak languages by the same name and would be the new-englanders and west coasters. They are educated and progressive. The Lobi speak lobiri and are the southerners of Burkina. They like to wrestle, carry rifles for no reason, and are loud. These are the Arkansans of Burkina and like Arkansas the area of the country they live in is absolutely gorgeous. There is a little cultural tid-bit for you all!

If there is anything in particular that I havent covered that you want to hear about let me know. I kinda forget what i have and have not explained.

Male Horse Woman

2007-10-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here are some Burkina tid-bits that make me smile.

My neighbors gave me a local name. I am Mossi so I needed a name to fit my new ethnicity. Almost all the people in Burkina - especially the Mossi - have the last name Ouedraogo. Seriously, at least half my students have that last name. So, naturally I made that my Mossi last name. My first name is Poco. Now, in Burkina, family names are first and the personal name second. Par example Hedges Rebecca. Only now, I am Ouedragog Poco. What does that translate to you ask? I am glad you ask because it translates to "Male Horse Woman." Yes. My name is Male Horse Woman. Awesome.

The rains have ended and it is 100 degrees in my house. Help. Im melting

In Ouaga there are a bunch of taxis. In order to be a taxi driver all you have to do is get a license. Buy a car. Paint it green - like pea soup green. And drive around. There is no regulation etc. Why pea green?

The food of choice here is something called to. Many familys eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner. It is made from millet or sometimes corn. It is white and has the consistency of playdough. You eat it with your hands and dip it in a sauce. I like sauce oseille. Burkinabe never believe me when i tell them that we do not eat to in the United States. "You dont eat to?!" they say in complete disbelief. "No, we dont eat to" i say trying not to giggle thinking of all the tasty delights America has to offer. "Okay, well certainly you eat corn to." they respond with satisfaction. Its not so much a question but a statement. And i assure them "No. There is no to in the United States." Personally, for me, this is the point of living in the United States. You can eat cheeseburgers, mexican food, and pumpkin pie. You dont HAVE to eat to.

In Africa, you drink beverages out of little baggies. Really. Yogurt too. You buy what i guess you could liken to a zip-lock bag but it ties instead of zipping and it is filled with some beverage. Zoom Koom, Bissap, Jus de pain de sange, Tamarin, Gingembre, water, yogurt, degue etc. And you bite off the corner and suck the liquid out of the bag. When you are done with the bag you throw it on the ground. I have to admit the first time i bought a beverage like that it kinda grossed me out. Especially the yogurt. But now . . . not at all. When I come home we can all fill up zip-lock bags and drink out of them. Hahaha.

One thing that continually frustrates me in this country is the lack of change. You have to make your own change when you buy something. They will take the money you guve with the bill at a restaurant and come back and the two of you (you and the waiter) will together make correct change for the bill. Both of you contributing. For someone afraid of math like me this is a nightmare. A clusterf$#@ of mathematical logistics that leaves me in total bamboozlement.

Starbucks

2007-10-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I was bee-bopping around en brousse (in the wilderness) just exploring, seeing if i could come across any cool trees. I climbed some awesome Baobabs. I mounted this rock formation. It was pretty cool. When I was going back I got kinda lost. There was a framer in his field working and so i approached him and asked him in Moore if he could show me what direction Tougouri was in. With a look of disbelief and shock he indicated the direction and I went on my way. As i was walking i was thinking about what that experience must have been like for him. To have a white lady show up in his field and ask in a local langiage where the village was. It must be the equivalent of this:

John lives in a nice quiet suburban cul-de-sac. It is sunday morning and he goes out to retrieve his paper. As he stretches and rubs his cheeseburger american-food belly he hears a clear bright voice at his right. Standing there is an African man, in traditional garb - the robe, cultivateur hat, a rudimentary hoe over his shoulder, elaborate face scars to indicate his ethnicity etc . . . use your already existing stereotypes (i know they fit me from time to time). He says to John, "Good morning neighbor! I seem to be lost. Could you indicate the nearest starbucks. How i long for a carmel frappucchino!"

That is what is must be like for the Burkinabe, to see me appear eb brousse and speaking their local language. haha. I thought it was funny.

Ritual and Moving In

2007-09-06T05:26:00.000-07:00

When i moved into my house in Tougouri, no one had been inside for three or four months. And you could tell. It took me two days to clean it and make it liveable. However, the volunteer who lived there before me left everything there so i actually have furniture. There is a small living room/kitchen. Then a joining small bedroom - it is the perfect amount of space for me! Slowly I have been starting to build ritual for my days. Comfort in the familiar, right? My days revolve around the marche schedule - because a marche day means VEGGIES! yay! nutrition! At 6:30 i get out of bed and eat leftover french bread and drink earl gray tea (with powdered milk in it - i know . . . but actually it is really good). Then i do chores, read, sudoku, and kill time until 10 when i go run errands on the main road and/or go to the marche. I buy things for my house or for me . . . burkina faso football jersey . . . buckets for water . . . cookware. And of course bread and veggies and things like that. The marche is only every three days so i have to make the veggies last. Then i go take a nap. Around 5 i go for a walk and maybe hang out with my Dolo lady who is really nice to me (dolo is a barely alcoholic libation made from millet and fermented for 24 hrs - i really just partake for the socal aspect). Theni ride my bike by the barage for sunset. Man is that gorgeous or what? The barage (reservoir) is a huge oasis and there are lilly pads, huge gnarly trees (that look like live oaks and pecan trees), people walking with 40lbs of stuff on their head, and unfortunatley an occasional bather ("Hey! That's my drinking water!" is what passes in my head - dont worry mom i filter and bleach my water). I nest and make my house MY house. The days are slow and full of languages i barely speak. I love the solitude far more than i thought i would. Slowly my two rooms are becoming mine and eventually that will stretch out into my courtyard and that space will feel like me too. Then, it will go even further and i will be Burkinabe and they wont shout Nasara! at me. And i can finally start to do what i originally set out to do. You cant make any kind of sustainable difference in the lives of a community if you remain outside of it - integration is why peace corps works. so thats what i gotta do.

How Did I Get Here?

2007-09-06T05:04:00.000-07:00

Well, yes . . . obviously by plane (actually people ask me that alot - how does one get to africa from the us?) But what im really marvelling at is all the things i do everyday that i would never have expected i could or would. I remember once about 6 months ago I was reading a personal testimony on the peace corps website about Burkina Faso. The woman was talking about how she has to pick bugs out of her rice before she cooks it etc. and how she lives in a hut. It made me cry - I though what in the world do i think i am doing? Bugs in my food? I dont DO that! But now, i DO do that. And you know what? It is not a big deal at all. I love my tiny hut/house (i have a metal roof so it is not really a hut). I take transport alone and can manage just fine. Sometimes I even find myself speaking french or understanding french without having to think first. I make Burkina-ism's all the time just naturally. Cool.

Where I live is on the outskirts of town. There is a main road that runs right thru Tougouri and i live off of a foot path off of the main road. The walk from the main road to my house is about 6 or 7 minutes long and it is glorious! It is a narrow dirt/mud path that winds through squat baobabs, portly straw thatched huts, corn, sorghum, millet. There are herds of animals, the resevoir off in the distance, tall fluffy clouds with broad flat bottoms as far as you can see. Women with babies on their backs and buckets of water on their heads. How did i get here? It just fills me with joy - I almost shout "THIS IS SO COOL!!!!" I cant believe this is my life. How cool am I?

les choses très amusant!

2007-08-19T07:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the french, it is getting increasingly difficult to just use one or the other - je prefere un melange! Which is good because no one here speaks english except the other volunteers. So, i havent blogged in awhile cause i havent had much to say - yes everyday is still ridiculous and amusing but that in itself isnt new so . . . i didnt feel like i had much to say.

Alors, I have been taking local language classes and some of the words for things are pretty funny. Well hold on, i just need to give you some background information first. Im white. In Africa. I am aware of my race every second of the day (okay, not when im sleeping but you get it). Sometimes the sight of me frightens small children - the belief in ghosts (ou bien, les genies) here is taken very seriously and i think they must think we are genies. Sometimes adults and older children ask me for a gift or money in french (im white so i MUST speak french . . . all white people speak french) and then I ask them for money in Mooré. Its hysterical, they cant believe that i speak mooré and then they think it is so funny that a white person would ask them for money. Sometimes from what people say and ask about the states, i think they really have the idea that money literally grows on trees.

Anyway, the point is that the local people are fascinated by my skin color - they are never rude about, it race isnt loaded with tricky conotations here. Well, at least not negative ones. So, the word in mooré for a stranger or white person is nasara (which i know i have mentioned) and most people here will just call you that as if it were your name. My mom had a woman helping here around the house for a few weeks and the lady always addressed me as nasara. Eventually i told her, in mooré, to call me Rebecca. To this she fell out laughing and still calls me nasara. White skin is just such a novelty here. In mooré, airplanes are called nasara-eagles and airports nasara-houses. Haha! That just cracks me up. I have decided that the one quality you have to have for peace corps service is a sense of humor. Without it you would just have to go home.

I move to my village in a week and wont start teaching for real until october after the rainy season ends. I cant wait to nest!

The Poop Scale

2007-07-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

We volunteers live in a constant state of colon troubles. It is usually not really a problem - mild discomfort or inconvienance - but you dont usually feel all that sick. So bowel health is a regular topic of conversation here. Thus we have a poop scale. It goes from 1 to 3. 1 is essentially water. 2 is normal. 3 is if you havent visited the latrine in a few weeks. SO conversations go like this:

Becca: hey boo how ya doin?
Ray: Im alright i was up all night in the latrine.
Becca: Balls! What are you rockin?
Ray: Well I was at a 1.2 but Im back at a 1.6
Becca: Well thats not bad. Im at a 1.8 myself

Just an example. Awesome.

Ode to Jelly Beans

2007-07-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Back in the states i didnt really like jelly beans . . . they were okay and all but not at the top of my candy list. So when i got a bag in the mail that my darling mother sent me i was glad but they got pushed aside for more important things like gummi bears. Until, two nights ago, I was sitting on my bed like i do at 830 every night - i read or journal etc and enjoy the breeze from my glorious fan - and I got out the jelly beans. DEAR LORD! They are so glorious. I put a cotton candy flavored jelly bean in my mouth and i almost burst into tears. It tasted just like America! One by one i popped them into my mouth savoring the memories they brought back. Buttered popcorn - Im at the movies! Watermelon - canterbury night at camp. Cinnamon - Christmas time. I was laugh/crying with joy! I wish i had an iced tea flavored jelly bean or a pumpkin pie . . .

America is the most awesome place in the world!

Model School or "Faites Attention!"

2007-07-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

Hello . . . I used to be an upper-class white girl who got a brand new car when she started driving . . . my dad graciously paid for my very expensive education . . . yeah i had jobs but i was never financially independent. I was a student riding the dole. And it was awesome. I know it now and I knew it then. The food was good too.

Now I live in Burkina Faso. Most of you if not all of you didnt know that BF existed. I have a real job and a salary (actually i make the exact same amount of money here as i did every month in school). I speak a language that, two months ago, i didnt really speak at all. I teach in a classroom of 90 kids of various ages . . . in French . . . and no electricity. I should be in shock. I know I should, but Im not. That is just how my life is now and I have two options: Find things about it that i love or admit defeat and go home. The latter involves tasty food but the former is the stuff of building a character . . . which is something that is hard to do as an upper-class white girl in a world cushioned from challenges. The world i just left . . . best decision ive ever made.

So, yeah Model School! As part of training we SE volunteers teach at a Lycée (high school) for an hour a day. The kids attend as prep for national exams or to get a head start on the next year. There are three subjects that the volunteers teach: SVT (biology), PC (physics and chem), and Math. I teach SVT, of course. This is because BF has a huge shortage of teachers especially in the three areas i mentioned above.

There are 4 grades in the first cycle of Lycée and right now I am teaching what would be the equivalent of 8th grade. The science they learn in 4eme (8th grade) is geology so i am teaching about volcanos and earthquakes. This presents a prolem because there arent either of those things in Burkina so it is difficult to explain things to kids who have very little, if any, opportunity to see, hear, touch, smell, and, god forbid, taste things in the biological world. There arent any oceans, mountains, or forests where i am teaching so there is a lot that they learn about that theyll never experience. Protists are out too because there arent any microscopes. Just me . . . a cracked blackboard . . . chalk . . . and the hope that Im more creative than i think I am. On the upside, the kids want to learn and they want to do well.

So, at 8am the "cloche" rings and the kids kinda start going into the classrooms (even school is on africa time which is to say not on time. As a side note: i have yet to see two clocks here that have the same time). I usually start teaching at 10 after. I actually teach two hours a day right now so when I am not in class I am making my lesson plans. I am giving a test on wednesday and after that I will see how much they were able to understand. Classes are over at noon and then i have language class.

The level of french that i have is very similar to the level the kids are on which is a really good thing because they can learn a lot of SVT from me because I will be speaking on a level that they can comprehend. Also, the culture of the Chief is so ingrained here that every class has a "chef de classe" or class chief i guess. The chef does everything for you - erase the board, fill out all the teacher stuff, take roll, tell the other kids to can it etc. Its pretty awesome.

I guess that is it for now. I teach biology two hours a day in french as part of my training for the real thing in October . . . just to summarize.

Goats Are So Sweet!!

2007-07-22T10:05:00.001-07:00

Yes, goats are such sweet animals. I say this because when I am riding on a bus in BF and someone puts a few goats on top of the bus the goats dont seem to mind too much. Wait . . . what?! They are putting goats on this bus?? Transportation in Africa is so freakin funny it may be my favorite thing about BF.

Things to remember about Burkina: it is basically desert and sand cannot be driven on. There is a season for rain which means that the ground and roads cannot handle rain when it does come. Floods. Keep that in mind.

There are a few paved roads in Burkina - my town happens to be on one because I live inbetween two main cities (Ouaga and Dori). The next grade of road is dirt road which is decent by Africa standards. There are a lot of ruts and you shake around a ton. Next is "brousse" or the brush which is bascially the great wild open and you just point the car in a direction and go. It is pretty hysterical. They have placed all of the volunteers in my group on at least paved or dirt roads. Thank God.

There are three types of transport in Burkina. The "bus" is about the size of a regular American bus but the interior is very different. On one side of the aisle is a row of three seats with two seats across the aisle. They are really camped and the bus driver usually lets on as many people as can pay which means that someone is usually sitting down in the aisle. It is not uncommon to stop every 20 minutes and the bus people have to rearrange all the baggage and get goats and motos off the top and the people sitting in the aisle get stepped on etc. I mean it's crazy. The last stretch of transport that I took was supposed to take 2 hours and it ended up taking 3.5 just because they kept stopping and picking up extra people. At one point we got to a big stop/bus station (a "gare") and I got off the bus to pee. I inquired as to where the latrine was and the guy pointed around the corner of the building. Come to find out the yard was the latrine and there were like 8 people, men and women, peeing against walls. What? Needless to say I turned right around and got back on the bus. Volunteers had always told me to watch how much water you drink on transport so you dont have to pee and now i know why. Even I have to draw lines somewhere.

For some reason they always BLARE Bob Marley on the buses here which never fails to crack me up because it makes feel like I am in a movie. Typical. Buses never leave on time which is fine - Africa cant be predicted so I understand. At the gare is the only place where i am glad to be a white woman because the gare attendants do everything for me - they take care of my bag and they make sure my velo is on the bus etc. This really is awesome because sometimes your bag just never makes it on transport or they take it off at the wrong spot. I always say that if you care about tardiness or losing your possessions - travel in Africa is not for you. Hahaha. A sense of humor goes a long way here. I am exaggerating here of course.

If you do not live on a paved road then you get to take a taxi brousse or a cargo truck to get where you are going. Hah. Goats and sheep actually get on these. These are like those big vans and are usually called "Air Buolsa" or "Air Titao" even though air is not involved. Or at least I hope not.

I could go on of course but i have run out of time on the computer. basically you have to see it to believe it. so come see it. ill take care of you i promise!

Tougou - quoi?

2007-07-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday I traveled to the glorious town of Tougouri. Tougou what? Tougouri (too goo ree with emphasis on the too)! I spent several days there seeing the sights - there weren't many to see so I got bored pretty quickly. The region is called the Centre-Nord and is at the edge of the Sahel. The Sahel is a geographical feature where the Sahara meets savannah and it is characterized by brown dirt and small trees. yay! Actually I will take this time to list for you the types of trees that i see all the time: Baobabs, Tamarins, Nins, Eucalyptus, Papaya, Mango, and a few others I have yet to identify but I have to years so dont lose hope! That is a Nin tree you see up above - he's just a baby.

So that is a picture of my home for the next two years! I have two rooms and a cozy courtyard. I am inheriting this house from another volunteer and you can tell that a twenty-something guy used to live there. I am super-psyched about all the home improvements I will get to make. First on the list is fixing my hangar (that is the straw-roofed porch that you see) and second on the list is painting the inside. Before the other volunteer lived there some missionaries did and they painted some pretty creepy pictures of Jesus on the wall with scary religious phrases so that is getting painted over the first day. See all that green in my yard? That is really green by Tougouri standards so I am thankful for that. The picture on the right is of the right side of my house and shows my douche on the left (thats a shower) and my latrine on the right (thats a hole in some concrete).

So my courtyard is a courtyard inside of a bigger courtyard. Inside the bigger courtyard are three small houses where three single men live. Yes, I live in what is called a celibatairium - a singles community (I wonder what Gob Bluth would call it? Anyone?). So thats fun. They will be very protective of me and they are my co-workers at the Lycée so thats cool. There are 8 teachers at the Lycée and I am one of two SVT (biology) teachers. Tougouri doesn't have any official restaurants but there are some places that sell cold beer. The village is really spread out and there seems to be a lot of people - 6,000 or so - but no restaurants. I live on a pved road which is a glorious things because transport on non-paved roads is interesting. Basically you would have to hitch a ride on a cargo truck with a herd of goats and a donkey or take Bush Taxis which are never predictable. But hey, what about Africa is predictable?

The best thing about Tougouri is the barage. A barage is a man-made resevoir that basically collects water for the village in the rainy season and then stores is for the rest of the year. It is a gorgeous place. I got bored so I went biking around Tougouri and decided to go see what the barage was like. What was it like? A giant oasis of gloriousness!! There were tons of huge trees and grass and people bathing and huge groups of women carrying things on their heads shouting "Zaabre kebaré!!" (good evening). It was awesome. My new favorite place in Africa.

So that's Tougouri. Next time i will tell y'all about transport in country. It should be a riot.

WTF?

2007-07-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

There are moments everyday where I think to myself . . . WTF? How is this my life? I live in Africa. I LIVE in Africa. At least twice a day I am floored by the crazy occurances of my everyday life. Most of these are good moments but not all. There are still some things i just cant get used to. I cant believe that two months ago I was a college student . . . thats a bonus on leaving the country immediately - i got a lot of collegiate closure and feel like I have begun writing a whole other chapter.

Sometimes these WTF moments happen when I am on my velo (bike) at a stop sign (these for some weird reason say "STOP" even though no one here speaks english) and a herd of about 25 goats rush up behind me and i find myself in the middle of a goat herd on a paved road as a mercedes drives by the ensemble. WTF? Large herds of animals are now a part of my eveyday life here. Goats (which always make me think of my friend timmy), pigs with baby pigs, donkeys, and sheep (which for some reason look almost exactly like the goats) have become a part of my daily life as i repeatedly dodge them when i bike places. WTF?

Another WTF moment I had was last thursday when I was in Tougouri. I was visiting my Lycée and the director invited me to his house for lunch. I went to his house and sat under the big Tamarin tree in his yard with the director and two other professors. The mans wife brought out lunch - riz avec sauce d'arrichide (rice with peanut sauce) - and he asked me "ensemble ca va?" or essentially is is alright if we eat this as a group? With a comical smirk on my face I said "oui bien sur" or "why the hell not!" I had not eaten as a group like that yet and there were no utensils so i was half laughing at myself and half excited - I felt African. So, I sat under a Tamarin tree and, with my hands, ate off the same plate as three other Burkinabé men and spoke a little french and even less mooré. WTF? Needless to say I had a little bit of the rhea a few days later but it was negligable and the experience was totally worth it. I cant wait to do it again.

On saturday mornings at 730 my host family watches a french exercise program. They dont exercise to it, they just watch it. That in itself is a WTF? But the best part is the music. Usually it is a remix of U2 or classic rock - I dont know why. Once I couldnt control my laughter and I had to excuse myself to laugh hysterically in my room. I think this is one of those things where you had to be there. It was really weird - I thought "how is this my life now? I am in an African living room watching french exercise programing to the tune of a techno remix of 'More Than a Feeling' WTF?"

Transport in this country is so much fun. It is in itself a metaphor for Africa and deserves an entire Blog entry so all Im gonna say is when they put two goats and a sheep on top of my bus and then I leaned over to see two chickens across the aisle that was filled with people I thought WTF? I spent all day Saturday on transport and I had diarrhea (thanks for the immodium katie) and it was raining Africa style so I got drenched on three seperate occasions and it was so comical that it was one of the better days ive had here. WTF?

Those are just a few moments. I have several everyday. You never know what to expect here and I do things all the time that I would never ever have thought myself capable of. I have lost so many of my fears already. I love Africa - everyday is a new day here.

Tougouri

2007-07-05T06:14:00.000-07:00

Tougouri - Where the hell is that? Many of you had never even heard of Burkina Faso much less the small town of Tougouri. Get used to the name now -- it is my future home. I found out yesterday what my site would be and I am very happy with the result. It is located in the south part of the north of Burkina Faso. It makes a triangle with Ouagadougou and Ouhigouya -- two of the largest cities. So not quite sahel but pretty close. Here are some stats

population 6000
its on a paved road which is huge deal
it has a decent marche
the lycee has 900 students
there is already another PC volunteer living there
I have 4 other volunteers from my stage living nearby
I will have my own house and my own courtyard
There is no electricity -- of course
The nearest cyber cafe is about an hour or two bus ride from Tougouri

All in all I am very pleased. They asked me what my one wish would be for my site and it was proximity to other volunteers -- and I definately got that. It is not very green and when the Harmattan picks up Ill have some good stories for yall. This is the very first peice od real estate that i will be able to call my own. Ill be given some money to furnish it etc. and I hope to plant a garden because otherwise veggies are difficult to come by.

Next week I will be travelling there to see my site and meet the school principal (my new boss). Ill get to see my house and the school Ill be teaching in . . . I am nervous about it but excited. I really am a Burkinabé now. So, go find it on a map and start planning your trip.

My Host Family

2007-06-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

I live in the third largest city in Burkina Faso -- Ouahigouya ( from now on just "OHG") -- and my house is just a few blocks away from the training center for peace corps. All the people here live in a courtyard style set-up. So, behind one courtyard wall there may be anywhere between one and four houses. Usually the extended families live in separate houses in the same courtyard etc. I live with what must be an upper-middle class family. Actually, its pretty ridiculous how much my family has compared to some of the other volunteers staying in villages or further out in OHG. Okay, so my family has electricity, which means i get to sleep with a fan every night -- its the most awesome thing ever! Also, we have a TV and a satellite dish in the courtyard so we get like 20 channels. Hahaha. I know it sounds pretty ridiculous. The TV is turned on constantly -- i mean my siblings here make American kids look like they play in the park all the time. I watch a lot of dubbed spanish soap operas and TV5 France. Also, we have a refrigerator and a freezer -- these my mom uses to freeze the juices she sells.

Our house is the only one in the courtyard. Most of the volunteers in OHG have their own small room apart from the main house but my is inside next to the living room. So, there is a straw roofed "porch" in the front and then you walk in the front door and you are in the living room. This room is about the size of my kitchen at home. Off of the living room are two short hallways and a door. The door leads to my room at the back of the small living room. One of the hallways doubles as a kitchen and leads to the back part of the courtyard. The other hallway gives access to my parents room, the room all three kids share, and the indoor shower. Both of these rooms are about the size of my bedroom at home -- definately smaller than my dorm room in new south. The indoor shower is a small tiled room with a drain in the floor for your bucket shower. All of the rooms have lights -- this is also atypical of the majority of the volunteers home stay experience. Another cool thing is that we have a water pump right in my courtyard -- most people have to carry all their water to their house. Not me!

I live with a family of five. My dad, Abou, teaches math. He is the most outgoing member of my family and he likes to make me use my french. None of my family speakes more than 5 words of english. My mom, Amie, is my favorite. She cooks me all kinds of good food and makes sure I am always comfortable. Shes real sweet and she works really hard. Everytime she makes a new beverage she gives me a little with filtered water. Bissap is definately my favorite. Her french is a little harder for me to understand -- Africans talk really fast. I have three siblings. The oldest, Raicha, is 12. She helps with all the house work. She is really shy. My middle brother, Chaquie, is 10 and hangs out with his friends all day. He is really shy as far as Im concerned. The youngest, Papice, is 2 and he is super precious. He comes in my room just to stare at me. He is mostly just fascinated by my foreign-ess.

In the back of the house is the latrine. It has no door and no roof. I really dont mind the latrine at all. Okay, so thats my situation with the host family. I am sure I left something out but thats all for now.

L`Hiver Nage

2007-06-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

Well . . . it is the rainy season here in Burkina or locally known as L'Hiver Nage becasue when it rains it gets really delightfully refreshingly cold. And by cold i mean 75 or 80. My entire definition of hot has completely changed. The low 90s are toally comfortable and 80 is freezing cold. So, every couple of days we get a good rain -- and by a good rain I mean thunder and lightning for 12 hours. This poses a few interesting issues. Firstly -- there really isnt any grass so rain and dirt just become mud. Mud is really interesting to ride your bike in. And really its not just mud but a certain latrine smell that kinda complements the red dirt and covers your bike in all kinds of fun. I love the thunder and lightning -- it gets so cool at night and if I close me eyes it fells like i am in arkansas. The craziest part of the rainy season isnt the rain but the gale force dust cloud that swallows you whole just before the rain hits. I was on my bike riding to class when the dust cloud ate me alive. The whole sky just becomes orange with dust and its hard to see becasue the wind is blowing all of it right in your face. Usually these storms come at night and i just listen to the doors shake. Even under my mosquito net, inside my house, with my one window i can taste all the dust in the air. Its really crazy. Life in Burkina is always interesting. Some things are easy to adjust to (like bucket showers) and others not (like the absence of privacy). Flat tires on my bike always ruin my day but a good storm at night always sets me right.

Food for Thought

2007-06-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

I thought I would give you all a small glimpse into Berkinabé life by relating the various foods, libations, and customs. Get ready.

Food. Pick a carb, any carb . . . rice, cous cous, yams (okay this isnt what you think of as a yam. Really it is just a big potato), an occasional potato, or millet (it has a fishy taste to it that i dont care for). Next you add a sauce. My personal faves are onion sauce -- so tasty -- ragout, tomato sauce, bean sauce -- also good -- or peanut sauce. On occasion you might find some "meat" in your food. I am never quite sure what animal it used to be and it is usually mostly tendon and bone. I dont know how this works out but there are always tiny fragments of bone in your food that you have to pick out with your fingers. The same goes with fish. Sometimes we volunteers splurge and get brochettes which are little meat kabobs -- these are oh so tasty and of a much higher quality. In general, a regular meal here costs a dollar.

Other faves include Banga which is just mashed up beans with a flavored oil drizzled on top. Sanwiches full of delicious avocados or eggs are another favorite of the volunteers. Berkinabé yougurt is so amazing -- its just plain yogurt but it tastes like dessert. Sometimes it comes with rice or millet in it and then it is called déguè. All liquids here are sold in little bags which are tied off at the top. You just rip a hole in the corner with your teeth and go to town. After you purell your hands of course. Beignets are another breakfast time favorite. They are a chewy salty dough that they fry. My friend Clay gets these for breakfast every morning. All I get is baguette.

Beverages. I already told you about Bissap. There is also Zoom Koom, Jus de Gingimbre, and Jus de Tamarin -- these are all natural laxatives if embibed in great quantities. Jus de Pain de Singe is made from baobob tree fruit. There are also several local beers that we volunteers enjoy -- Flag, Sobbra, and Barkina. Single beers here are twice the size of regular beers and they cost the equivalent of a dollar.

Okay . . . now some nuances of Berkina culture. You cant do anything with your left hand. Here, in place of toilet paper, the locals use a teapot of water and the splash action of their left hand. So, handling food, taking money and especially greeting people are all done with the right hand. There are some people here who are left handed and its been pretty funny for them. Also, you dont wear your regular shoes around the courtyard and house so my host mom bought me a pair of flip flops for our area -- she is really sweet. The local language here in Oahigouya is Mooré adn when you greet someone in Mooré you go through a long discourse on the other persons family, job, health etc. This is not just with close friends but with anyone you stop to greet. Okay, I am out of time. I hope yu have appreciated this update. Next time I will tell you all about my host family.

A Day in the Life

2007-06-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

It is 530 am in Oahigouya, Burkina Faso and the sun is coming up and so I am waking up. I stay in bed and listen to the various animals that live in the street outside my courtyard. Donkeys, roosters, pigs, goats, and some insect or bird that makes a sound very similar to an alarm clock.

Finally at about 630 I get out of bed, wrap myself in my pagne and fetch water for my bucket shower. There is a faucet in my courtyard so i dont have to go far. I love a bucket shower. You toss cupfulls of cool water on your body and dont think about how hot it will be at 2 pm. In Burkina, it is rude to talk to anyone before you have bathed and brushed your teeth so i dont greet my family until i sit down for breakfast which is always bread and hot tea . . . if I am feeling brave, i risk a little butter too.

And then I hop on my bike and ride the 3 minutes it takes to get to ECLA -- the base for Peace Corps Training operations. On the way 20 or so strangers shout "Nasara Bonjour" which means white person or stranger. I laugh and say hello. One time i stopped my bike and 4 kids came up to me and touched my arms -- Nasara! nasara!! I feel like Brangalina. I sit in language classes or technical training classes for 8 hours. At least once a day I have an ADD meltdown and decide that i cant sit still anymore!! Five minutes later i am over it and back in class and reminding myself that training is only a few months and my actual job will be very different. Its an exercise in patience which I can always benefit from.

After class I go home and try to communicate with my family -- African French is nothing like French French and most times i cant even tell if my family is speaking mooré or french. At about 730 it is dinner time and i love Burkina food! It is pretty much always some kind of grain and a sauce. Rice and onion sauce . . . cous cous and tomato sauce . . . plantains and sauce . . . bean sauce . . . beans and oil . . . actually it really is tasty. There are also a ton of special beverages. My mom makes several and sells them in the village. Everyones favotite is Bissap which is made from hibiscus flowers and then sweetened. It is magenta in color and oh so tasty. My host mom makes me some with my filtered water so i wont get sick.

After dinner, I retire to my room -- about 830 or 900 -- and journal, read, or do a little homework. I point my fan -- which the family went out and bought for me because i kept fanning myself -- directly at my bed and tuck my mosquito net in around me and hope that i wont have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The next morning i do it all again.