The Harmatten and other things

I thought I should make quick note of the fact that some serious Harmatten winds swept through here on Monday and Tuesday.  Basically, strong winds whipped through most of the country, carrying with them any dust and dirt that lay loosely on the ground – meaning that an entirely new continent could have been formed from all the dust hanging in the air.  As a result of half the country being held hostage in the sky, the days were hazy and cloudy, and everywhere you looked was tinged with the orangey-red color of the terrain.  It was hard to breathe because of all the dust, so everyone went around wearing masks covering their mouth and nose; they sell both surgical masks here and a sturdier, more ski mask-looking counterpart, and I’ve also seen people wrap a scarf or bandana around themselves, which resembles the Arabian look we know so well from TV news programs.  It was an interesting couple of days, something you would probably only experience in a desert climate, and while I was impressed with the wind’s strength I was told it was actually far worse in 2010.

Moving on, I’m enjoying reading the questions I’ve been getting!  The last time I checked email there was one comment with several, so I’ll try to address what I remember from it now and answer the rest when I can read it again.  One of the questions was: do they use toilet paper here?  It’s actually a very good question because it might surprise some of you to learn that no, in fact, they don’t use toilet paper.  I guess I should begin by explaining that toilets are very rare here; they do have them, but usually they are only in wealthy homes and nice hotels.  Also, for some reason, the toilet seats are never properly attached and always slide off while you’re attempting to sit down.  Anyway, the more common apparatus for relieving yourself is the latrine (or a mildly-concealed mud wall if you’re a man, and occasionally the desperate elderly woman; children here have free reign over squatting locales, so the middle of an open field with walking paths is as good as anyplace).  A latrine is just a hole in the ground with a large empty space below, much like Porta-Potties in the U.S. except without a seat.  You have to squat, but it’s a nice way to build up leg muscles.  While they do sell toilet paper here, locals clean themselves using a plastic tea kettle (the actual name of which I forget) filled with water that they pour over themselves.  I imagine it’s a bit like a tiny, hand-held bidet, but you need to grow up using one to know how to control the water stream; I say this because every attempt I’ve made has gone horribly awry and I end up looking more like I wet myself than I cleaned myself.  Also, when they clean themselves they always use their left hand, which is the origin of the “it’s rude to hand people things with your left hand” rule.  Traditionally, you use your left hand to complete the dirty tasks such as using the bathroom, and thus it’s polite to use your right hand to greet people and eat with.  I say traditionally because, while it is still a rule that is very much observed, members of the higher class here in Burkina might use toilets and often eat with utensils rather than their hands, so they’re less stringent about it.

They also have different types of latrines here.  For example, when you arrive at a bus station you can usually pay to use their latrines.  There might be four lined up in a row, but if you want to use toilet paper you better pay attention to which one you walk into; there are latrines specifically for urinating and others that allow you more leeway.  The ones that are reserved for urinating only have a small hole in one corner that is connected to a pipe leading out of the latrine (so if you want to use toilet paper you’re out of luck because there’s nowhere to put it).  The other type of latrine has a hole that opens into an empty space into which you can drop things.  In fact, now that I think about it, there really is quite a bit of variety in terms of latrines.  I used one at a bus station once that was strictly for women and was hidden behind the larger latrines that I just described.  There were a series of stalls that were cut off about waist-high, so you could wave to or converse with your neighbors while you all squatted over mini toilets with no seats.

Altogether, latrines are awful when you spend a month adjusting to the Burkinabé diet with explosive diarrhea, but once you get used to them they’re not so bad.  You can also begin to tell the difference between latrines that are nicer or well-cared for and those that are not.  Certainly, using a small tea kettle to wash yourself afterwards is difficult unless you grow up here, and even the Peace Corps encourages us not to bother trying to learn that trick.

The second question that I remember was whether or not we eat a lot of goat.  The most common meats eaten here are goat, sheep, fish, and chicken (my site is renowned for its grilled chicken!).  I’ve heard of the occasional meal of dog, cat, or horse as well, but those are less common (it does make the idea of getting a dog a bit daunting, though).  Goat and sheep are commonly sold on the side of the road and added to most sauces, along with fish; I’m not a huge fan of any of those, but it depends on the cut and how it is prepared.  When you get rice with sauce or soup there is usually some type of meat in it, but it could be anything from straight fat, to fairly tender meat on bone, to hide.  Grilled chicken is delicious (if you know the right guy to go to), but it’s expensive.  The animals here are free range and roam through schools, work spaces, courtyards, you name it; somehow, they always find their way back home by nightfall.  A lot of what you eat depends on where you live.  I’m spoiled since I live in a city and have access to most types of fruits, vegetables, and additives on a daily basis; however, people living in villages might only have a market every 3 to 6 days and can only buy food such as Laughing Cow cheese or oatmeal when they travel into their regional capitals.  Thus, they might rely heavily on their neighbors’ cooking, while I’m able to prepare meals at my house that are closer to what I would eat at home (mashed potatoes, pasta, etc.).

Thanks again for reading and all your supportive comments.  Keep the questions coming!

Transport

                Okay, I’m currently in Ouaga for a GAD meeting (Gender and Development volunteer committee, of which I am now Co-Chair/VP), and I’ve got a computer and basic Internet connection, so I’m going to try to throw a blog up.  I figure a good topic could be transportation here in Burkina.  This thought was triggered by my encounter Thursday night, during which I experienced my most epic bus-boarding while in country:

                I gave an exam to my students in the afternoon but didn’t want to take the night bus into the city, so I bumped up the testing times and left myself about a 20 minute window to rush home, grab a few necessities, and head to the bus station.  This meant that I ended up leaving my house about 5 minutes before the bus’s departure time, but I only live about a 3 minute bike ride from the station, and transportation here is always, always late.  So, I figured no problem.  However, as I was heading up the incline towards the bus station I saw the giant STAF bus paused in the station like a horse in the gate, waiting for the gun.  My site is home to a fairly large bus station, or gare, but the easiest way to know where a bus is going is by which direction it’s pointing in.  There is only one paved road going between Ouagadougou and Ouahigouya, a large city just north of Yako, so if the bus is heading south, you know where it’s going, and vice versa.  All told, I knew this was my bus. 

                I sped up to the door and hopped off, sweat trickling past my ears.  “Ouaga?” they asked.  “Yep, but not with the bike,” I replied.  Some of the bigger stations have guys who will watch your bike or moto while you’re gone, but you have to pay.  He was off halfway across the station lounging in a chair, so one of the bus workers started whistling and yelling to grab his attention while I yanked my bag off the back.  The bus, in the meantime, had started moving, so another onlooker banged on the side a few times to let them know that they weren’t quite finished boarding.  Just as I thought I’d have to leave my bike and hope for the best, someone shoved a bike ticket in my face (meaning the guard must have sprinted over from his post) and I hopped on.  This entire interaction took place over the course of about a minute and a half.  I then got to lounge on the bus for an hour and a half, shoved shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh with my neighbor and sweating like I was in menopause, until we reached Ouaga where, upon entering the bus station, we actually wedged ourselves against another bus that was leaving, and had to sit tight while the driver slammed on the gas and forcibly (and audibly) removed it from our side. 

On the plus side, I got to learn a bit about traditional Chinese and Indian medicine during my sojourn.  Oftentimes, buses are used as marketing platforms here in Burkina (and in West Africa in general).  For instance, on a bus ride down to Bobo, Leigh and I got to listen to a local man spouting the benefits of another medicine he was promoting, and in Ghana I sat on a bus where a man conducted an awareness raising campaign that involved waiving a wooden penis wildly to and fro.  This time was much more subdued, since my promoter forgo the usual lecturing and shouting that accompanies the production pitch and opted instead for a congenial “hey, how are ya?” while he handed out candies and a short strip of paper discussing the medicinal benefits of his products.  Unfortunately, I decided halfway through my reading that I wouldn’t be investing in any of Mr. Shoo’s merchandise because I honestly don’t believe that the same product can prevent both malaria and premature ejaculation (do they even share any overlapping triggers?  I can’t imagine so.). 

Hmm, what else about transportation here?  I suppose there’s really no end to what I could discuss, given that it’s all so different from what you see at home.  For starters, there are no traffic rules.  Well, there are, but really there aren’t.  They have street lights, but it is always a question of whether they will actually be followed (and the answer is usually no unless the cross street has a formidable amount of cars lined up in it).  Cars and motos are plentiful in the capital, but outside the preferred form of transportation is the moto, accompanied by bush taxis and buses that are ferrying travelers.  Speed has no specified limit but is determined by the driver’s comfort level, which results in being stuck behind motos that I can bike past and being overrun by those whose tailwind nearly knocks me over.  Accidents, as you can guess, are plentiful, and when they happen they rarely involve only two people.  That’s because people load people, animals, and goods onto transport until there rests literally no room for movement, and then they add a bit more.  It’s very common to see bush taxis careening through traffic with an overhead capacity comprised of leaking foodstuffs, furniture tied on at rakish angles, and screaming livestock, whose overall square footage rivals that of the actual vehicle on which it rests.  At the larger bus stations in Ouaga, buses sit awaiting their charges with labels across their fronts, such as “Ouaga-Kaya,” which presumably tell you where the bus is headed.  Beware: this is a lie.  In fact, that bus could be headed anywhere, so you better check with a station worker to find out its true destination.  And forget about getting on it.  There are no such things as lines here, so even if you have a reservation, once the bus opens its doors half the bus station swarms them pushing, jostling, and generally trying to displace one another to gain a foot.  When your name is called, you better yell out your presence, and even then it’s a fight to the front.  God forbid you don’t have a reservation during prime travel time!  The reason for the crowding is that once all the reservations have been read through, the workers will allow others that are waiting to get on until the bus is full.  In an otherwise polite culture, the transportation system is one of the only lasting safe havens for assholes.

Regardless of what you may think, the system works.  It’s frustrating and seems to lack any system of rules or regulations, but in the end they’ll usually get you where you’re going – even if it takes all day.  There is a method to the madness!  But it is probably one of the most frustrating aspects of living here.

I could go on and on about travel here, but it seems a bit overwhelming to cover all the aspects in one entry.  What if I miss something!  I’ve also realized that, after living here for nearly 8 months, aspects of the culture and lifestyle that at one point would have seemed incredibly different or shocking or confusing have become normal.  So, as much as I love all of your encouraging comments (you can still send those!), I have a request: write to me about what you want to know!  What facets of the culture are you curious about?  Are there things you do at home that you wonder if and how they are done here?  Rumors or stories you’ve heard that you would like clarification on?  As much as this blog exists to tell my stories and experiences, it is equally here as an outlet for me to share this culture with all of you, so let me know what you want to hear about.  And thank you for all of your words of support and kindness – trust me, they are much appreciated.  Here’s looking forward to your ideas…cheers!

Funeral

Funeral

Yesterday (Saturday), I attended a funeral here and I thought I would share the experience with all of you:

I have a friend that I met at the dolo hut just beside my house (a large hangar where people sit around and socialize and drink locally-brewed millet beer, called dolo).  He’s older, probably somewhere in his 50s, but incredibly sprightly and energetic.  I always run into him at the Post Office – at this point I’m assuming he works there, because aside from receiving mail, packages, or money, I can’t exactly classify spending the day at the Post as truly that exciting – and he greets me by jumping out of his seat, shouting “MON AMI!” in a coarse, boyish voice, and slapping his hand roughly into mine for a vigorous handshake.  Obviously, I like the guy – he’s got a lot of spunk.

Last week when I made a trip to the Post, he was there, as usual, and informed me that both of his parents had died and they were holding the funeral this Saturday.  In fact, at first I didn’t understand what he had said because he seemed so jovial about it.  His house – which I had previously been invited to but had yet to visit – was supposedly just around the corner from mine, and later that week I gathered that the actual funeral mass was Saturday morning at 9 am, after which everyone would troop on over to the house for drinks, food, and generally an after-party.  Deciding that this would not only be a great cultural opportunity but also a chance to show my support for my neighbors, I resolved to go.

Saturday morning I got cleaned up, put on a nice dress, and made my way to the Catholic Church where I was told the mass would be held.  Cars and motos littered the lawn in front of the church, so I figured I was at the right place.  Most people seemed to be lingering just outside the church and, seeing as it was the first time I would ever set foot inside, I decided to follow suit, lest I unintentionally burst in on some personal family viewing or other intimate ceremony.  As the clock struck 9 am, people began crowding toward the church’s side doors, heads bowed solemnly and hands raised or clasped in reverence.  Seeing as this was a Catholic Church, I assumed what they began speaking next to be Hail Mary’s in local language, but since I don’t know how to say those in English, I just stood quietly and waited with them.  Getting nervous, I figured that since nobody here really speaks fluent English, if anyone stopped me from entering the church because they noticed I hadn’t said my Hail Mary’s I could just bow my head and recite whatever song lyrics or Arrested Development monologue struck me…luckily, it never came to that.

After the prayers we all entered the church and filed into pews.  I wanted a good view of the ceremony so I found a seat in one of the first sections.  As people began filling in the seats around me, I mentally remarked on the fact that an overwhelming amount of the churchgoers were male.  In fact, every single one of my neighbors was a man.  Suddenly, I flashed back to conversations I’d had with fellow trainees who had attended church in Saponé and their comments on how surprised they were to find that men and women sat on separate sides of the church.  Ahh, yes.  To confirm my suspicions, I sneaked a glance across the aisle and observed sections of pews overflowing with women.  Right, I figured, reaching down to grab my purse so that I could casually make my way over the women’s section, as if I had planned all along to sit there but just decided to take a break midway through my 10 second trek to pause for a breather and to turn off my cellphone.  However, just as I was rising from my seat, a very ancient looking man slid onto the other end of my pew, blocking my path.  It would be a tight squeeze, and a cruelty to make the man take to his feet again after finally reaching his destination, so, groaning under my breath, I slid back into my original place.  At least being awkward wasn’t a new experience for me.

The mass began and was given largely in Mooré, so I could only guess at what was being said most of the time.  There were several portraits lined up in the front of the church, I’m assuming of the man and woman who died, but other than that I saw no sign of the deceased; no coffins, no urns, not even the family member I knew.  We went through the motions of a normal mass, including taking the Sacrament and saying the Peace to each other, but when everyone exited after the hour and a half ceremony, I couldn’t find any indicators that it had actually been a funeral ceremony.  I stood on the lawn outside the church looking for someone – anyone – that I knew but, finding no one, I dejectedly trooped back to my own house.  I halfway wanted to follow the crowd of people heading from the church into the neighborhood, but the more convincing half of me strongly rejected the idea of finding myself crowding around two bodies (they had to be somewhere!) to mourn with a group of strangers who were all wondering why I was there.  I can do awkward, but I try to draw the line at inappropriate, and I really wasn’t sure if it was acceptable for me to wander into a funeral ceremony alone solely for the cultural experience.

I passed several frustrating hours at my house, trying to contact people who might be at the ceremony but coming up empty-handed.  Finally, on a last-ditch-effort phone call my counterpart picked up.  Shortly thereafter, she swung by my house and invited me to join her ensemble of friends and family who were heading over to pay their condolences.  We walked over and I realized how absolutely embarrassing, in retrospect, it would have been for me to say that I didn’t come by because I didn’t know where the house was.  We literally left my house, walked about twenty yards (passing the dolo hut on the way), the road led between two houses and as soon as we emerged we could see a large field filled with people and modes of transportation.  A few neighbors called me over to say hi as we walked, and then we greeted my friend from the Post, who was standing outside and talking to visitors.  He was absolutely ecstatic that I had come!  There are many occasions in Burkina where it is customary to present a gift, and this happened to be one of those circumstances, so I gave him a mille franc, which he thanked me for graciously.  Mille franc is not much, but it’s not meant to be a gift of a lump sum or anything like that – it’s just the thought behind the donation that matters.  We briefly rejoined the group in which we had arrived, who were busy greeting the elders; these members of the family and the community were sitting under a hangar on one side while visitors sat across from them and paid their respects, and those of us who could not fit under the hangar squatted or kneeled behind them.

Afterwards, we were invited by my friend to enter his family’s courtyard and view the tombs.  There was a short corridor through which we entered that opened into an average sized yard bordered by the family’s houses.  However, our eyes were immediately drawn to the center of yard, in which sat the reason for our visit: two enormous, beautiful tombs sat next to each other, made out of sparkling white porcelain tiles.  They had obviously been cleaned and tended to with care, as I’ve never seen that color exist in this country (a result of all the dust, for starters).  Both tombs had framed portraits of their inhabitants, and the father’s actually had a second picture on the other side of the tomb in which he glared into the camera with a cigarette butt hanging off his lip at such a brash angle he could have been the Burkinabé version of Bob Dylan or James Dean.

I was told to take a look around, so I reverently circled and admired the handiwork; the tombs were constructed by family members, and their intricacy led me to believe that these two people had been loved and respected.  There’s nothing to break a good reverie, though, like a camera in your face, so when I rounded the last corner and that’s what I found, I was a bit surprised.  If I had ever harbored aspirations of one day becoming a celebrity, my experience in Burkina has thus far firmly squashed those dreams.  Two girls pounced on me as I finished my tour of the tombs and attempted to capture me on film as a funeral-goer, so I invited each to take a picture with me – and unfortunately they still insisted on the ever-so-awkward photo of the white person alone, the allure of which I will never understand.

After viewing the tombs, we continued into a neighboring courtyard where we were served chicken, meat skewers, tô, and drinks.  As we ate, vultures hungrily prowled the yard and pecked just below our feet, gnawing on previously-ejected chicken bones, and neighborhood kids waited anxiously to receive our leftovers.  We socialized for a bit before saying our farewells and heading home.  All-in-all, it was a very joyous funeral with a beautiful homage to those who had passed.  In Burkina, funerals for old people that have died are generally happy occasions, celebrating the full life that was lived by the person.  If it had been a young person that had died, it would have been a much more mournful occasion; however, I like the idea of commemorating someone’s life and accomplishments.  Here, not everyone is lucky enough to live to an old age and raise a family that will care for them – and they know it – so for those who achieve that goal, there is much less to lament than to rejoice.

Winter in Burkina!

Winter in Burkina!

                Well all, it’s winter time here in Burkina, and as you all cozy up to your fireplaces and hot cocoa and spacious Snuggies, I would like to take a minute to describe for you my own winter wonderland – in the desert. 

                I’m going to begin my dissertation with an assumption (and that’s usually very taboo, I know, but generally more fun).  My assumption is: you think it doesn’t get cold here.  Ever.  Honestly, I can’t say that I blame you.  Seeing as I do live on the fringes of the Sahara desert, it would be logical to conclude (going off of whatever mathematical theory it is that states)

if a = b

and b = c

then a = c,

that

if my home = desert,

and desert = hot,

then my home = hot. 

And you would be right.  And now I’m about to blow your mind.  It gets COLD here.  Downright frigid, even.  The desert does this crazy thing where it jumps from one extreme temperature to another during the day.  During the heat of the day, noon to three pm-ish, it is scorching (as long as you’re in the sun, because it’s not very humid up here); the temperature is probably somewhere around 90s to 100s, but that’s just a guess.  Either way, you get the picture – I emerge from my courtyard and bike to class, showing up ten minutes later sweating profusely with other teachers asking me if I just worked out.  It remains fairly warm until late in the night (I’ve gone to bed at midnight or 1 am and still felt hot), and waits until you’ve just fallen into your first or second REM cycle, then…BAM!  Like some nighttime bandit, chilling winds sweep through and temperatures drop to the low 60s or high 50s.  It has been literally impossible for me to sleep through the night without waking up at 2 am or 3 am shivering, grabbing about in a frantic, sleep-induced haze for sweats and socks and some piece of fabric I can use as a blanket.  When I crawl out of my cave in the mornings shivering and cursing the wind, I do feel slightly ridiculous remembering that I live in Africa, but suddenly the Burkinabé biking around in ski hats and winter coats don’t seem so crazy.

                The wind is another element of wintertime/dry season here worth mentioning.  It gets incredibly windy here, and that means that the dust is constantly being blown into your mouth, eyes, nose.  I cleaned my house before leaving for In-Service Training, and when I returned 10 days later, my house looked like it had been abandoned for 10 years.  The wind we have here is a tricky little minx, too.  It likes to play with you.  I thoroughly sweep my house once a week, but unfortunately the only door to my house that I can sweep out of is exactly in the line of Wind’s favorite jogging track.  So, naturally, I manage to gather all the dust that has collected in my house into the hallway in preparation for its complete expulsion, and then suddenly a gust of wind comes chuckling through my doorway and sends me scurrying, trying to trap all of the dust I had just collected with a defective broom.  Most of it just gets all over me, and by the end of a cleaning session (or a normal day) I’m covered from head to foot like I was Mary Poppins’s chimney sweep.

                Biking is even more of an undertaking during the windy seasons.  To begin with, no matter which direction you bike in there is a headwind.  I feel a bit like a conspiracy theorist, but honestly, how is that possible?  You head out for a nice bike ride and the wind’s whipping you in the face, but you promise yourself that it will be an easier trek on the way back, and after literally turning around on the same road you’ve been on the whole way to start your return trip you realize that, in fact, the wind is just as strong the other way.  How?  The mystery remains.  But as much as the wind loves kicking up dust, so do cars and bush taxis, so everyone wears surgical masks when they take to the dusty roads (which is all of them, because there is only one paved road that goes through my city…and it’s still dusty).  It’s also impossible to see if you find yourself in the wake of a large bus, and I’ve often imagined how I must look to someone watching me slowly reappear from the dust storm that’s kicked up, careening from side to side on a very unmarked dirt road with my eyes barely open and wheezing like a 90 year old chain smoker.  But that’s not the worst of it.  Ever tried biking in a skirt?  Probably not.  Why would you?  Biking in a skirt is annoying at best on a good day, especially living in a conservative culture where flashing a stray knee could up the ogling quota on the way to work.  However, biking in a skirt with the wind and dust whipping around your two-wheeler is absolute hell.  Most of the fabrics here are stiff or heavy, but during the windy season you can see their advantage – I might as well wear my little cotton skirt as a bonnet on my afternoon commute.  As if I didn’t get enough attention on a daily basis simply from being white, picture me biking to class, one hand on the handlebars attempting to steer myself up and over hills and in between rocks and ditches, the other hand pinning my skirt to my seat in a desperate attempt to retain some of the dignity of a professor, all the while coughing and sneezing and veering and holding my breath as cars pass me by.  I’ve even had young men in trucks or policemen on motos pull up beside me and try to chat me up as I’m huffing and puffing my way up a hill that I can barely make out through the dusty haze; let’s be honest, that’s probably not a moment where I’m really on my best game. 

                So, in conclusion, it’s surprisingly cold and dusty here for the winter; we’re in the cold season now but supposedly February is the “dusty season,” so we’ll see what that’s like.  That’s the weather – I’ll try to make my next update about how people here celebrate the holidays!

How to Settle into Your New Home in Burkina Faso

Today was a particularly eventful one for me, although comparisons can be made to last Thursday, where I stopped by my school for the first time since moving here. On that day, I was told that we had a “Conseil de Rentree” at 8 am, which roughly translates to the back-to-school-meeting-for-teachers. Anyway, I figured I would pop by, say hi as my working partner introduced me, then bop back out in an hour or so as the teachers were being handed their schedules (my class isn’t part of the curriculum, so I have to wait to get the class schedules from the other teachers before creating my schedule). Well, as you can probably guess, since it’s the route that my small anecdotes usually take, that didn’t happen. In fact, I showed up at 8, when the meeting promptly started (amazing for West African time), and I proceeded to slump progressively further down my chair over the course of four hours, after which time I was essentially reduced to a puddle on the floor about the legs. The teachers did eventually receive their class schedules, but only after thoroughly discussing the calendar and plans for the entire school year and electing various committee members, a responsibility which nearly everyone did their best to escape (I enacted the age-old tactic of gazing profoundly at the spider webs in the corner of the room whenever committee seats were discussed, and additionally relied on the assumption that only a truly inane human being would suggest that the funny-looking white girl who speaks broken French would really be the best representative of our school on any counsel).
Anyone who knows me knows that I run sort of like a car with low gas-mileage; I need constant refueling. After four hours, my tanks were on empty, and I limped out of the meeting nursing my wounds by imagining any of the possible combinations I could cook once I biked home. However, it was not to be, as I was told “Wait, we’re going to eat.” This piqued my interest, of course, because it implied free food, but yet I was still wary on account of the fact that I had yet to see any food. You’ll be proud to know that I stuck it out for another (grueling) 45 minutes until the food showed up. You can imagine my confusion when a fellow teacher who had decided to befriend me during the sojourn grabbed me and whirled me into a classroom where they were pulling entire grilled chickens out of a cardboard box and handing them out on little strips of newspaper. One chicken per two people. They were also quite generous with the drinks, three per person, which meant that I was rationed just enough Fanta to make the bottom row of my teeth fall out. My new friend and I split a chicken, and periodically she looked over at me and remarked that I wasn’t eating, and I in turn assured her that I was going to eat more. The truth? Ripping chicken off the bone and folding it over a piece of bread with one hand is damn hard! You all know chicken; it’s kind of slippery at some parts, but then it can be real stubborn coming off the bone. Additionally, here it is impolite to eat with your left hand, because that is reserved for doing dirty tasks such as using the latrine, while the right hand is considered the clean one (it makes sense when you consider that water and soap aren’t readily available in many places here). Eating next to a Burkinabé, I must have looked like a two year old playing with his toy truck and making zoom-zoom noises while buckled into the back seat of his mom’s carefully maneuvered minivan. But the chicken was good! It’s kind of a specialty here, not to brag or anything…
Well, that was Thursday. Today, I had no official business to take care of, so I decided to bike around my city and get some quotes on furniture and refrigerators, and to do a little cooking. One chore included properly setting up my mosquito net, which up until now had been left dangling limply off the wall at a very unhelpful angle. I resolved to better my protection, and to do that I needed four places to mount the corners of the net. Wedged into the corner of two walls, I could easily access three, but the fourth corner reached out into the space in the middle of my room. At first I thought I could whittle a stick into a post for the end of my cot, but after about twenty minutes I got bored and went searching for alternate options. I was quite elated when I realized that a nail in my ceiling tied to some string would just about reach to where the mosquito net needed to hang; however, my ceilings are quite tall, and I, shockingly, am not. I stood in my room gazing upwards, contemplating my possible options. The previous volunteer had left me three rectangular canteens of various sizes to stores pots and pans and other items in, and I thought that if I stacked them on top of each other, I could probably just about reach the ceiling (to clarify, I don’t have a stepladder, and I have yet to see one in this country). I checked myself.
“God, Kelsey, that would just be so stupid.” And then I realized. For better or for worse, stupid is something I’m usually pretty damn good at. So I went about retrieving the canteens and stacking them so that I could climb up and just reach the ceiling on my tip-toes. Great, but there was a second catch. I had purchased nails, but I didn’t exactly have a hammer. What I did have was a big heavy rock I had found in my courtyard. I gave the nail several good smacks, wobbled, and caused a shower of chipped paint and wooden splinters to rain down on me. I just needed about two more inches! Thinking quick, I grabbed a large bucket used for cleaning supplied and tipped it upside down on my homemade rubble pile and scrambled up. I believe this is the part where even truly thick-headed individuals would be grimacing and shaking their heads. Well, I got to the top and gingerly placed one foot, then my weight, on the plastic bucket. I had just gained my balance and was reaching towards the heavens, and imminent success, when the top of my pyramid buckled and I went crashing through the plastic bucket and my mosquito net. I emerged from the carnage amazingly unscathed, but surrounded by bits of ceiling, my rock-hammer, a shattered plastic bucket, and wrapped in a limp mosquito net.
In the end, perseverance paid off, and I finally managed to wedge the nail far enough into the ceiling with several hard smacks while balancing precariously on my tip-toes. No harm, no foul, and my house is still intact. I am considering buying a hammer, however.

The Recap

Well folks, it’s official. That’s right, you are now casting your eyes on the blog of a real-life Peace Corps Volunteer. No more of this trainee crap. Take a minute, I know, it’s a bit overwhelming.
I’m really not even sure how to accurately recap everything that happened since I last blogged, but I’ll do my best to cover the important things. We spent our last few weeks at our training site doing a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) formation and one on latrine building. We interspersed those with a few visits into Ouaga to meet with the American Ambassador at the Embassy and explore the Peace Corps bureau and transit house, which is sort-of a halfway house for volunteers that come into the city for work or travel and are looking for a less expensive housing option. A few of the stagaires managed to schedule a trivia night in there as well, which my team somehow did not win, but regardless it was fun and a great way to get everyone together one last time before leaving for our swear-in ceremony and subsequent events.
After a sad goodbye with our host families, we packed up all of our things and headed off for Ouaga. Our week in the big city sucked us into a whirlwind of activity. Many of us needed to wander the markets and side-streets for items for our new houses at site; in addition to this, Peace Corps Burkina Faso was holding a three-day fair to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps worldwide, and many of us were recruited to help with the booths and events. The fair showcased the various activities and projects that volunteers and their counterparts have been developing at their sites, and local vendors could also purchase a booth to sell their products; as a result, there were groups selling anything from dried mangoes (which I’ve eaten enough of by this point that at any moment I expect to simply turn into one) to clothing to bags, and there were informational booths on Peace Corps committees and projects. Some volunteers also performed dances with their site partners or sang songs. It really turned out to be a great way to celebrate the impact that Peace Corps has made in Burkina over the years.
But I should backtrack. The fair opened up with our swearing-in ceremony and the arrival of the bike tour, which is a Peace Corps project in its second year where volunteers bike around the entire country and hold small formations in the communities that host them. As a result of all this activity, our swear-in ended up being a pretty big deal, and it was held in a great auditorium in Ouaga where our Country Director, the Ambassador, and Burkina’s Prime Minister Luc Adolf-Tiao all gave speeches, along with several of our stagaires who were elected to speak in French and all of the local languages that we’ve been learning, which ended up being about seven since we’re pretty well scattered throughout the country. Afterwards, the Ambassador had us recite the oath of office, and then we were officially sworn-in (there’s only one oath taken for all government positions, which gets pretty intense; as we recited the part about protecting our country from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, we all darted glances at one another wondering exactly what role we play in that statement as volunteers for the Peace Corps). On a good note, it poured the morning of our swear-in, and although it meant that a few of us showed up drenched and the Peace Corps volunteers setting up the fair needed changes of clothing, rain in Burkina is a good omen and a sign of welcome, so the fact that it rained on both the day we arrived in country and the day of our swearing-in can only provide a positive outlook for our two years here.
There was a nice reception held after the ceremony and then the fair commenced. We spent the following days helping out at the fair, searching for items for our houses, and taking full advantage of the variety of food found in Ouaga before heading to our sites. On Saturday a closing ceremony was held to mark the culmination of the fair. Our honored guest at that ceremony was the First Lady of Burkina Faso, and she gave a short speech along with our Country Director. There were cultural demonstrations and performances by Floby, the most popular Burkinabé singer, who wrote a song specifically for the Peace Corps 50th anniversary. There was another reception following the ceremony (and after the two we learned that when it comes to Burkinabé and free food, you better bring your running shoes and a pole vault if you want to eat), and then a concert by Floby that night. The concert technically started at 8 pm but a variety of opening acts preceded Floby, who came on stage at about 10:30 pm. Following this, we had one more free day to shop and an all-volunteer meeting to attend before “affectating,” or leaving for our sites, starting on Monday (I left on Monday, but people at sites further away left as late as Wednesday, or had to take public transportation and spend a night or two in a regional capital before being driven to their sites). Needless to say, after three and a half grueling months together, it was hard to say good bye to our fellow stagaires, people we’d become close friends with, especially when many of us are separated by either long distances or roads whose difficulty makes a short drive several hours longer. However, this part of the experience is what we came here for, and all of us, while nervous, and ready and excited to begin working in our communities. On va voir!

Model School and other such tales

Where to even begin? It’s been such a long time since I last posted a blog, yet in a few short weeks I’ll be able to start updating regularly. That means – yes – training is finally nearing its end! There is, indeed, a light at the end of this enjoyable yet, at times, interminable pre-service period.
So, what have I been up to during this long, mysterious period of limited contact in which I seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth altogether? I know you’re all clinging to the edges of your seats with anticipation, so I’ll get right to it.
Last Friday saw the closing ceremony of Model School, but seeing as I don’t think I’ve written a post since that began, I’ll start there. As part of our training, the Peace Corps organized a month of classes made available to the members of our village, with the intention of giving trainees the practice teaching in front of a real class. Our non-formal sector trainees worked with young kids doing fun lessons, songs, and games with the intent of conveying messages about sanitation, health, and good decision-making. Teachers of math and science taught classes to students participating in the equivalent of our 6th to 9th grades in the United States, although the ages of their students ranged from about 12 to 20. As IT teachers, however, we had a greater melting pot of students, and those in my class ranged from about 18 to 40.
After an initial exam to clarify the prior computer knowledge of the students, they were divided up into classes based on their abilities; my class was dubbed the “newbies,” so my program with them was very basic. My first lesson, I recall, was on the desktop – what constitutes a desktop, and what are the functions of each part. Now, I am quite cognizant of the fact that everyone gets those “first day jitters” when they start a new job – what will my colleagues think of me, will my work be sufficient for the boss, will I make friends? – and I fully expect to encounter all of those feelings when I move to my site and begin my job there in a month. However, the commencement of Model School brought with it entirely new heights of stress to which I had not previously been privy. At least all of the other teachers had textbooks to go off of. Not IT. Standing up there in front of a group of anxious students, clutching the lesson you prepared the night before while slaving away before a dictionary in a weak attempt to translate the computer terms you do happen to know in English into French, wanting to engage your students from the start by asking if anyone knows how to turn on a computer, yet worried that you won’t understand their responses – that, my friends, is the type of stress that makes you wish you would shit your pants on the spot, simply to have an excuse to leave, and yet your bowels seem just as frozen as the rest of you.
We also had teachers, administrators, and current volunteers sit in on our classes and give us feedback. Sometimes this included critiques of our teaching styles, but mostly it involved describing to us each example of how we had massacred the French language that day – which, I will add, I found a bit harsh, mainly because I was simply amazed at myself each time I was able to produce a lesson that my students seemed to comprehend, and stray articles or gender reassignment were the least of my concerns. Regardless, we got through it, and our comfort level increased with each class. Now, I’m incredibly grateful that it was a part of our training, because I wouldn’t want my first class at site to be the first time I stood in front of a group of students and tried to present a lesson – not knowing what I know now!
Model School also taught us a lot about teaching – which styles and methods work better here, and which ones don’t. For example, I tried to give my lessons with the basic notes written on the board and an explanation to weave them together throughout the class; I had assumed that, like the United States, students understand that they are responsible for all of the material covered in class, and that means taking notes while the teacher talks. Wrong. I discovered, only afterward, that all that showed up in my students’ notebooks was what I had written on the board, usually merely a definition, and not the step by step process of how to use a given function or button, which was discussed during the class.
Another interesting fact about the students here – and many Burkinabé in general – is that they do not possess strong critical thinking skills. Before you jump to conclusions about what that must mean about the people here, let me explain. I had assumed, incorrectly, that critical thinking skills were innate, a faculty that we possessed at birth and fostered as we grew and began to make decisions for ourselves. However, that is not the case. Critical thinking is a skill that is taught, and it is simply not taught here. I have never been more grateful to the teachers I had in my early years as a student as I was when I learned that fact. The ability to make intuitive conclusions given only partial information is a skill that I, and I suspect nearly everyone with that capacity, severely takes for granted. Reflect on how often you depend on that skill on a daily basis, and imagine how different your life would be if you did not have it; you would be forced to rely solely on the information provided to you, and there would be a great many things you simply could not do because you couldn’t imagine how. Now, that is not to say that nobody here can think critically – there were several very smart students in our classes, and there are host country nationals organizing development projects in their communities that require a great deal of critical thinking to imagine and accomplish. Yet, it isn’t a skill that is taught here often. I realized that many of my students could recite back to me the steps for some process on the computer, how to save a document, for example, or select a word and make it bold, but when I sat them in front of a computer, several would simply stare blankly at the screen, and when asked how to do the same process, would shake their heads in confusion. Or, they might learn how to save a document in one program but wouldn’t make the leap to assume that saving a document in another program requires merely the same process. Of course, I had some stellar students in my class who took to their computers like fish to water; but for others, there seemed to be a disconnect between the classroom and the computer lab. In the United States, it’s easier for us to take information we learned in class and intuitively apply to the world around us, or to a specific device, like a computer, because we can imagine it more abstractly, but for several of my students that was very difficult. That was one of the most important things I believe I learned from Model School, and it started me thinking on how I can begin to bridge that gap with my students at site, and how I can teach critical thinking in my classes as well as the actual information.
Model School took up the bulk of August, and on Friday we had a closing ceremony in which we listened to speeches and handed out awards to our best students. I was previously elected to give a speech in French on behalf of the trainees, which I delivered; merely a transparent excuse for attendees to ogle my pretty face, if you ask me. Another trainee gave a speech in the local language, Moore, which permanently endeared him to this community. Likewise, two Burkinabé students gave speeches in French and English. To break up the monotony of handing out a series of awards, the non-formal educators organized their kids into groups who gave brief performances of the games and songs they had learned during Model School. The ceremony was attended by the students, some parents, and administrators from several of the local schools. Ironically, looming in the background of the ceremony’s formal atmosphere sat two great speakers, nearly as tall as me, that pumped out a variety of beats, from Shakira to Akon, at the beginning and end of the ceremony, occasionally unleashing an stray refrain to interrupt whomever was speaking.
While Model School was definitely the most important activity that occurred since I last updated, there have been many others worth mentioning. We’ve held several events at a local bar that also boasts a dance floor smack at its center. I think I can safely say that when you clump a group of young Americans together in a foreign country for a significant period of time, it’s only natural that they should attempt to recreate the most American things they can conceive of in their country of residence. For us, that included prom, gimmicky awards shows, and lots of American dancing. Prom was exactly how you’re imagining it. Everyone got dressed up, and people sought dates through a variety of means, including scavenger hunts and messages written on bare chests. Entertainment was provided by means of the more musical trainees showcasing their talents on stage and even a dance performance by the Agriculture/Business trainees, who were bused in to attend. It was incredibly authentic! The Stagees Award Show, held the other night, included our very own comedic host/hostess duo and printed certificates for the winners (you know, Most Likely To XYZ). Amidst all of these events there is always the dancing, at which I can only chuckle. The Burkinabé too find it amusing, I believe, to watch the group of sweaty Americans bopping around the dance floor with equal amounts of ineptitude and determination.
A few weeks ago we took two days out of our week to travel to a village in the southwest to attend the first Camp G2LOW in Burkina Faso. Camp GLOW is a Peace Corps program that exists in other countries, but it’s the first time anyone has attempted it in Burkina, and they changed the name a bit. It stands for Girls and Guys Leading Our World, and is a camp young boys and girls can attend to learn about proper hygiene, sex ed, and good decision making skills, all while relaxing and having fun. It’s really supposed to be like any summer camp you’ve ever attended in the United States, but with the motive to educate the young population as well. The girls attended the first week, which we saw, and after they departed the boys would come for the next week. We saw some really creative teaching methods put into practice, including a popular American song whose lyrics were changed to reiterate when you should wash your hands. We also witnessed a session about the reproductive organs of men and women and one about HIV/AIDS and pregnancy. Ideally, it would be great to have both boys and girls learning this information and practicing good decision making together, but when boys are around the girls often become very timid and shy, leaving the other sex to participate in class; seeing how excited and outgoing the girls were during the sessions I attended, especially regarding sensitive topics, it seems smart to hold two different camps, at least until a solution can be found to overcome the girls’ self-censorship around boys.
Today was the celebration of Ramadan here in Burkina. Ramadan marks the end of a month-long fast for Muslims and, naturally, is accompanied by vast quantities of food. I woke up and attended morning prayers with a friend’s family, who are Muslim; because of the amount of people in attendance, the prayers were held not in the mosque but in a field by the school, and because of the sun bearing down on us at 10 am, they lasted about ten minutes. Apparently, my body has not adapted to the climate here as well as I liked to think, and while praying I watched helplessly as beads of sweat sprouted profusely from my arms, soaked my shirt, and ran down my nose. I glanced at the other trainees sitting near me in the hopes of finding solace in solidarity but, unfortunately, they seemed unscathed by the sun’s rays, whilst I looked as though I was just celebrating my victory in the Boston Marathon.
Luckily, prayers were short, and we soon headed back home to begin the party. We were fed vast amounts of food and drink, including spicy macaroni and grilled chicken, and two local drinks called bisap (a light and fruity drink brewed from boiled hibiscus leaves) and zoom koom (a spicy ginger drink). During the day, people would stop by to socialize and celebrate, and the most awesome thing I have seen since I’ve been in Burkina occurred in that setting. My friend’s host dad is an important figure in the local branch of Islam, and we were busy huddling in the shaded part of his courtyard after prayers, scarfing down chicken and popcorn, when the first visitors arrived. We glanced up and were greeted by none other than the priest of the local Catholic Church and some high-ranking clergymen (and a nun); they entered, were seated and fed, and proceeded to chat and socialize for a good hour or so before moving on to the next house. All the while, a clump of us white people munching away in the corner could not help but stare wide-eyed at the exchange. Here we are, sitting in one of the world’s poorest countries, without much technology or the amenities of the West, and yet if only the world could take a lesson from these people! Why is it that wars are waged over pedagogy and ideology and yet here, in this small community, the two most contentious religions in the world’s spotlight greet each other with casual, friendly, respectful conversation? It was a moment that reaffirmed my faith in humanity, and yet a shadow slipped through my consciousness; I realized that, not only will most people never see what I have just witnessed, but many will never consider looking for it.