Overdue and overly brief update...AND HAPPY NEW YEARS

It’s been a while since I have updated my blog. So many stories and images are in my mind and my mind alone. It is time I attempted to share them through word. I will write this in present tense as each spark and thought that enters my mind will appear in the following paragraphs. I am thinking of which story to tell first, I have stopped thinking as the answer to the said question is as clear as day. I must talk about what has been at the forefront of my mind and tickling my heart for the past several weeks. No, it is not Christmas is Orodara, no, it is not New Years in Ouagadougou, no, it is not the dusty taxi rides nor my well manicured garden. No, it is not the camping excursions, no, it is not my love for teaching nor is it the intensity of joy that I experience spending time with my fellow teachers. Each one of these things deserves a story of their own. Frankly, those stories will probably all remain in my brain and my brain alone. However, the seminal event that has stolen the stage the past couple of days is the arrival of my beloved mother and beautiful older sister. I should clarify and correct the previous statement be saying that I have greatly anticipated the EXPECTED arrival of my mom and sis. To make a long story short, to completely place to the wayside intense anxiety and to save words and time, visa troubles delayed the arrival of my loved ones three days. Many panicked phone calls and pulled strings later, they will be arriving January 2nd, two days from this moment. I have been living at Rouamba’s house, Rouamba being best friend and fellow teacher, sleeping on a dirty short couch and eating to with mystery sauce, awaiting their arrival. The hospitality was warm but the only thing colder and smellier than the food was the latrine bucket baths. An upgrade was in order. Voila, I am staying in a volunteer frat house, more or less, using speedy wireless internet and sipping jack and coke. The whole experience is lovely and bizarre at the same time. I will leave you with this as the volunteers in front of me have finished watching their episode of Glee. Pray for the safety and health for my mom and sister as they travel around the world to see my new life in the fourth poorest country in the world. What a blessing it is to have a family that loves me so much. The rest of my blessings aside, of which there are many, my loving family is enough to sleep easy.

First Month at Site

Happy Birthday Frere (Brother) Joshua Gates

Written October 1st, 2010

Sending packages to West Africa is quite the ordeal. The packages are guaranteed to arrive in poor condition two-weeks to two month after being posted. I was told by a volunteer that adding the pseudo-title "frère or soeur" (brother or sister) to the recipient’s name promotes tender and swift care of the package en route. I suppose respect of clergy is universal. Why not use it to one’s advantage? I asked my mother to do just that – to take advantage of the unquestioned respect for clergy.

Keep in mind that my mother never once called me in sick to school when I really wasn’t. I was somewhere in between puzzled and impressed when my mom agreed to falsify my identity as an ordained clergy. Agreeing is one thing; doing is another. Nevertheless, when I reached into my shared PO Box in Banfora, the package slip was addressed to Frere Joshua Gates. I laughed proud of my mom.

It was exceptionally hot the I went to get my package. My watch at one point read 105F. Walking into the post office, I was wearing an unbuttoned short-sleeved button-up shirt. Wearing it unbuttoned was much cooler but it also exposed my sweaty A-frame under-garment. I thought it prudent to button up to look more clergy-like before redeeming my package addressed to Brother Joshua Gates.

“God bless you.” I said with a smile as I took my package that arrived in record time and in mint condition.

Voila, Peanut Butter

Written September 23rd, 2010

Peanut Butter has been difficult to find in my village. It is particularly frustrating because it was been easy to find everywhere else. It scared the small village I will call home for two years lacks one of my favorite foods. As kuyper would say in a nasally voice, unlucky. After passively keeping a look-out for peanut butter since my arrival, I intensified my efforts four days ago.

Before I go into my quest for peanut butter, I should first describe the markets en brousse. Each village is not big enough to sustain a daily market. Having a full daily market in my tiny village would be like trying to sustain a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Saratoga, Wyoming. For those who are unfamiliar with Saratoga, it is a small town, of which my uncle is superintendent of schools, and in which, I promise, will never be a Starbucks, let alone a Wal-Mart.

The villages here en brousse are so small and the people so minimalistic that there wouldn’t by enough sales to keep a daily market afloat. Yet, just like everywhere else in the world, people need groceries. The villages found a clever solution to this problem. Six villages in my region, for who knows for how many centuries, rotate hosting the market. The vendors become nomadic salesman. For example, my neighbors make soap and piment to sell at the markets. Each morning, they fill sacks full of prodect, strap it to a moto, and the sons take it and sell it at whichever village is hosting the market that day. I would guess that a village’s population, at least downtown traffic, more than doubles on market days, and the economy has to increase by even more than two-fold.

Here is a list of produce and products on can find at such rotary markets.

5-6 Small Tomatoes 50 CFA 10¢

3-4 Onions 40 CFA 40¢

3-4 Cucumbers 100 CFA 20¢

8-10 Small Potatoes 100 CFA 20¢

Baggie of sugar 300 CFA 60¢

*Loaf of village bread 50 CFA 10¢

5-6 Plantains 50 CFA 10c

100 Limes (Not a typo) 100 CFA 20¢

*To picture a loaf of village bread, think of a subway white foot-long, subtract 4 inches, cut the diameter in half and decrease the freshness perhaps significantly depending on the day.

This is the context in which I had been unsuccessfully searching for peanut butter. There does not exist a peanut butter vendor that solicits the heavenly product at the Loumana market. There is une vielle (old women with implied female gender) who occasionally makes and sells peanut butter at her house. However, the asking price seemed to be quite outrageous. Keeping in the prices above, she was asking 1500 CFA (3 dollars!) to fill an empty peanut butter jar left over from a care package my mom sent me – thanks mom! I couldn’t get myself to pay that much money. After going days without peanut butter and craving it, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I was going to make peanut butter myself. How hard could it be?

I asked Adama what was the first step to make peanut butter. I should have predicted his response.

“You must buy peanuts.”

“How many?”

“Many.”

That is what I did. I went to the market, as Loumana’s turn in the 6 day rotation, to buy many peanuts. I brought a sack full of peanuts and we started peeling raw peanuts. That in itself was a new experience. After two hours of peeling, with the help of Adama and his younger brother, Imbrahim, my thumbs were raw but the sack was almost gone. I asked Adama what we must do after the peanuts are peeled.

We said the peanuts I bought would not make much peanut butter. He said I would have to go buy more peanuts.

“How much more?”

“Many”

I went back to the market and bought again many peanuts. After another two hours of peeling and really raw thumbs, the second sack was almost empty. I repeated my question inquiring the next step in the process. He said I must let the peanuts dry.

Let them dry I did. A full day my 2X many raw peanuts sat evenly spread drying in the African sun. Dried peanuts are depressingly smaller than raw soft peanuts. The water simply evaporates. My raw peanuts filled to pots while my dried peanuts only filled one.

“Adama,” I asked. “The peanuts are dry. Now what must I do?”

“Build a fire,” he said with a knowing grin.

Build a fire I did. The fire was built in a metal cylinder not unlike the ones found in campgrounds in the states. Once the fire was going, Adama, with a limp from elephantiasis, dragged from a shed a metal cylindrical peanut roaster. The waster was 12 inches in diameter and 2 feet long. It was speared with a metal rod allowing one to rotate the roaster while it sat over the fire.

Rotate we did. For over an hour, Adama and I protected out eyes from smoke, fought to keep the fire hot and rotated my peanuts until they were golden brown. Several times we removed the contraption from the fire and several times I was to hear him say they were not yet ready. Finally, after I was beginning to question the wisdom in the decision to make peanut butter, he said they were ready.

After letting the peanuts cool, Adama said we have to remove the skins from each of the thousands of peanuts. I was getting tired.

Fortunately, we used a board to crush the peanuts against the cement floor to separate the skins from the nut. Tossing this mixture of peanuts and peanut skins repeatedly into the air with a plate allowed the skins to be caught by the breeze leaving only the nuts to fall back to the plate. With this completed, I was ready to go the mill.

At the mill, there were four different presses: one for corn, a second for millet, a third for random things, and a fourth for peanuts. I gave the teenager my pot of roasted peanuts, and free of charge, he ran my peanuts through the press completing the transformation from raw peanuts into delicious, natural, absolutely 100% nothing but peanuts peanut butter. I had exactly enough peanut butter to fill the jar that would have cost me 1500 CFA. Depending on how you look at it, I saved 750 CFA, 750 lemons or a buck fifty by making peanut butter myself. Even thought it was a good experience, the next time my peanut butter jar is empty, I will happily pay the difference.

Three Blind Mice. Actually, 23 dead mice – plus one

Written September 21st, 2010

My sleep was disturbed during each of my three nights of site visit in Loumana in late July. The provenance of the derangement was two-fold. Both the voices of the people on my porch and the nocturnal shuffling of mice vitiated my slumber. I have found solutions to one of the problems.
After my visit, I knew I had to kill the mice. I am still searching for an appropriate solution to the voices. I asked my Dad to send mouse traps. He sent me 8. Today is my 21st day in village. I have killed 23 mice. 24 have died. The mousetraps, baited with peanut butter, have accounted for 21 mouse deaths. My homemade trap has raised the death-count by 2. It is a wily contraption of which I am quite proud. Used onion peels placed at one end of a cutting board, which is precariously balanced with one end over a water bucket and the other resting on the cooking table, tempt the mouse to venture out and cause the cutting board to topple into the water. I have successfully and joyfully drowned two mices. At night, the satisfaction from hearing the snap of a mousetrap is only trumped by the sound of onion peels, the cutting board, and a mouse splashing into the water below.

My efforts have killed 23 mice. A 24th has died outside of my will. It happened this morning, not even an hour ago. In fact, the death of number 24 provided the impetus of this journal entry.

I was sitting on my porch as I do every morning drinking my third cup of coffee. I was studying Djula when, immediately to my right, I heard a plop. I didn’t even have to rotate my head to see the twitching body of a mouse not two from where I sat. I did nothing but gaze at the mouse for quite some time. I was trying to process what had happened. I looked up trying to pinpoint from where the mouse fell. Where did this mouse go wrong! I stood up to align myself directly above the mouse, or more accurately the corpse, to see exactly from which perch the mouse fell. No such perch existed. Above the mouse was the bare underside of my tin roof. The death of number twenty four will remain a mystery. Perhaps it was the last surviving member of its family, and I had killed all of its brothers and sisters. Instead of meeting his end by mouse trap or teetering deathtrap, perhaps in an act of defiance, taking control of his fate, it threw itself from the underside of the tin roof proclaiming its’ dignity and declaring its freedom.

Whatever the explanation may be, it lay dead at my feet – and made my morning. If falling/jumping to its’ death wasn’t enough, a chicken was already enjoying a hearty mouse breakfast in the time it took me to retrieve my journal to document the morning’s events.

A View from the Latrine

Written September 17, 2010

My urination experience in village is one of great contrast. If there was a real-estate section in Loumana’s newspaper, a newspaper that doesn’t exist, and if it did, it surely would not have a real-estate section, but if such a paper did exist, the advertisement of my house would highlight both my douche interne and douche externe. The direct translation is that my house has both and internal and external shower. The literal translation is that my house comes fully equipped with two separate holes: one hole, inside my house, through which bucket-bath water may pass, and a second hole, outside my house, into which waste may fall.

Most Burkinabé families are not as lucky as I am. Most Burkinabé clean and relieve themselves using the same hole. Actually, there is usually two separate holes that both lead to the same basin. This is nice because one doesn’t have to stand where others have squatted when trying to get clean. But since both holes drain to the same basin, the cleansing bucket bath experience is inevitably tainted by the warm rising aroma of sewage.

Returning to my specific latrine situation, I can take my bucket baths indoors a go to the bathroom outdoors. As glamorous as this may sound, my douche externe is nothing more than a deep cement basin designed to catch waste. The 6 inch hole, which serves as a point of entry, is surrounded by a cement walls, 5 feet high, and covered by a tin roof. There is an uneven space between the wall and the tin roof creating an open-air experience. I am fortunate to be able to do my business in privacy, in the shade, and even protected from the rain. A life of luxury I have.

I drink four cups of coffee each morning. I spend that time, and the time before and after, sitting on my porch readying, studying French, practicing Djula or writing, as I am now. Since I drink so much coffee, I probably urinate five times each day before noon. My walk to my douche externe is short but filled with mixed emotions. I dread opening the rickety door, dodging the roaches, checking for scorpions and being suspicious of the toads. But after I find my footing and take aim, my eyes are free to peer over the cement wall and under the tin to gaze at the majestic peaks and cliffs North of Loumana. I pass the moments appreciating the view, temporarily escaping the latrine to imagine the view from atop the tallest peak. Vast, green, with a cool breeze. I promise myself, almost five times a day before noon, that I will soon explore those peaks.

A week later, I stood on top of the highest peak, enjoying the vast green view with a cool breeze looking down on my latrine. The contrast during my urination experience is now even more pronounced. Standing in my latrine, I no longer have to imagine the difference between standing majestically atop a mountain versus above a hole full of sewage.

The Handy Taxi Man

Written August 7th, 2010

Training is over. It is time to disperse and begin the real Peace Corps experience. The class of 80 newly sworn in volunteers was broken down into 11 groups based to region to which they were being posted. Some groups were fortunate enough to get Peace Corps transportation from the hotel lobby to the front doors of their new homes. Other groups, such as mine, were forced to take public transportation to regional hubs, where we were to stay a few days, buy groceries and furnishings for our houses. When the time came to move into our houses, we were shuttled to our villages in a Peace Corps land cruiser.

To put it simply, I hate public transportation. The problem is that the average seat on a public transportation vehicle is designed to economically accommodate the average size person. I am a larger than average American man. To put it simply, I am too big for public transportation, cannot get comfortable and hate it.

In the morass of Peace Corps parlances in which I am too often mired is the term site rat. A site rat is defined as a volunteer who is goes to village and rarely leaves for two years. I have a theory that a site rat becomes a site rat for one of two reasons: a special affinity for village life or a special social ineptitude making traveling to a big city to interact with other Americans a bad idea for all parties involved. I think I may become a site rat, but I am also an exception to my theory. I don’t see myself developing a special affinity for living en brousse, I enjoy electricity and hot water too much. For those of you that know my love for hot tubs, a hot shower has become my new hot tub. And I don’t consider myself socially inept. To put it simply, it will be hate for public transportation that keeps me in village driving me to become a site rat.

The morning of the dispersal, I was intensely envious of those loading their stuff into spacious air conditioned Peace Corps vehicles as I clumsily walked by them with my bike laden with my bags and bulky groceries. They waved at me smiling through shiny Peace Corps glass while I prepared to engage in real life frogger in an effort to cross a busy street to hail a cab going in the proper direction. To make my situation even more depressing, the taxi was going to take me and three unfortunate others with me to the bus station where we would begin a full day on public transportation. My worst nightmare. The four of us were making the journey across Burkina Faso from Ouagadougou, the capital city, to Banfora, the regional capital of the southwest.
I had been in a bad mood ever since I was told I would be taking public transportation a week earlier. That morning was the culmination of several days of dread. I used my frustration to must the necessary assertiveness to hail a cab. I take that back, we were actually walking, pushing our bikes piled with bags, to a roundabout where we know cabs would be waiting. But if I had needed to hail a cab, I would have had more than enough negative energy to do so.
We arrived at the cabby ground to be swarmed by buzzing suitors. I chose a cab whose driver was most avuncular, and told him in a languid voice that we needed a ride to the bus station. I suggested that two cabs were necessary as I was certain loading 4 people, 4 bikes and 4 sets of bags into one car was impossible. He insisted otherwise. I pointed to his jetta sized cab, to all our stuff and then back at the cab and shook my head. He nodded his. Celenia told me to let him try if he thinks he can do it. I conceded.

They started man started stacking the backs in the trunk, and we did our best to fit four people and bags in the remaining available space. I sat shotgun and had the three girls pile helmets, purses, sacks and bugs under, behind and beneath my feet, on my lap and under each armpit. The girls clamored into the back seat with the rest of the stuff as the driver, finished with the bikes, started the ignition and looked at me with a victorious I-told-you-so grin.

We were off. The cab was riding low bottoming out with each little bump. We had not been on the road five minutes when I heard a snap that coincided with a sudden deceleration. My instinctual assessment of the situation began immediately.

The moments between non-emergency and emergency are very interesting to me. It is the immediate moments following an accident or tumble upon which so much depends. So much is determined by the almost instantaneous perception and processing of a potential emergency situation.

For example, I used to snowboard. I was never really that good, nor did I have the courage to attempt anything exceedingly bold. I was the opposite of magnanimous. Even though most of my snowboarding experiences were more tranquil than extreme, I took my fair share of bad falls. I remember one time, approaching the jump, knowing it was a bad idea to begin with, I wondered why I was going so fast. Something went awry, most likely my lack of skill, and immediately after takeoff I know I was going to fall. In the air, I calculated my chance of injury as probable. Hitting the snowpack hard, the chaos of the tumble overwhelmed my ability to sense any injury. After the chaos subsided and my flailing limbs came to rest, I immediately started probing my senses for any sign of injury. It is these pivotal decisive moments that I find so interesting.
I was thinking to myself of all the hassle, time and rehab that would ensue if I had the bad luck of breaking my leg or some other serious injury. If someone would have been able to closely observe me during those moments, they would have been able to see in my eyes, first, the urgency of assessing a potential urgency, and second, the relief of concluding that nothing other than my pride had been injured.

When the snapping sound came from the taxi’s engine, I could see that the affable taxi driver was in midair calculating the probability of injury. He pressed on the accelerator, but the car did not respond. I could see, first, that he was intently assessing the urgency of the situation, and second, unfortunately, no sign of relief indicating to me the situation was indeed no passing matter. His eyes told me this. As a mother can distinguish meaning from her baby’s cries, the driver knew something was seriously wrong with his car.

We sputtered to the side of the road and the driver let out a sigh. I asked him if it was serious. He affirmed my suspicions. I thought to what a terrible day way to start a day that I already knew was going to be terrible.

The driver got out to look under the hood. Over and between helmets and bags, I saw him reach into the hood and pulled out a thin cable that was frayed and snapped at one end. I had not idea about the function of this cable other than that is was probably at the root of our problem. He used a hammer and screw diver to make a fresh cut where the cable had frayed. Cutting a metal cabal without the proper cables is no easy task, and it demanded ten minutes of our driver’s time. He had plenty of time to catch our bus as we left the hotel early just in case something happened. We were wise.

Sweating profusely, he finally cut the cable and began it back into from where it came. I would never predicted to see the cable poke through the dash and come to rest on the driver’s seat. I was even more surprised to see the drive shut the hood and climb back into the car.

“It’s fixed.” He said. “Let’s go.”

I was confused. The chord was now sitting in his lap. He proceded to wrap the cord around the screwdriver and started the ignition. I was now confused and skeptical. He put the car into gear and pulled on the screw driver to give the engine gas! The screwdriver had become the accelerator operated not by his right foot but by his right hand! He pulled into traffic as he juggled shifting and pulling on the gas to maneuver his way through chaotic West African traffic. He was constantly passing the screw driver, which had become the gas pedal, between his left and right hand, while shifting or steering with the other. I was no longer confused but impressed. His ingenuity was one of the only two good things about that entire day spent on public transportation. The second was that the day simply came to an end. I found myself safely fatigued in Banfora hating public transportation more than ever.

Combos and Skittles

Written August 24, 2010

I said goodbye to my second host family today. I have been there adopted son for the last five weeks. Saying goodbye this time around was more difficult considering I didn’t even have a chance to say any goodbyes to my first host family in Ouiagouya during the evacuation. The family was very hospitable to me, and I learned much about Burkinabe family life from my time with them.

My host sister, Audette, age 25, is a very talented tailor. She made a v-neck embroidered mint-chocolate chip dress-shirt, a Burkinabe and American themed short sleeved button-down shirt, and a rainbow suit. The suit is made from left over fabric patched together like a quilt. I have matching set of rainbow quilt pants and shirt! I guarantee I will wear both of them upon my return to America.

Hoping to use Americans models to advertise her clothing, my sister hired a photographer and asked me to don my rainbow suit. Tim, my roommate, and I took advantage of the opportunity to take a family picture. (These pictures are posted to facebook) An hour later the 30+ person family was assembled for the group photo as everyone needed extra time to change into their best clothes. The photographer got more than he bargained for but I tipped him well for his efforts. When I say well, I mean I gave him an extra dollar. But that really is a big tip here.

Anyways, I gave my family various goodbye presents like kitchens sets, bright orange Rockford Rams t-shirts, and candy that my mom sent me in a care package. Thanks mom! I will post my new address if anyone else is so inclined to make a young man very very happy. I received more candy than I could handle, so I made it my business to give away the candy to my family. This is a tiring business considering the large number of hungry children roaming my court yard. To illustrate my point, if I want to share a normal package of skittles, I can only give one skittle to each person if I want to ensure that there is enough for everyone in my family. One night, after I gave starburst and skittles to the little ones, I retired to bavarder (chit chat) with the older girls of the family. They of course quickly asked me for candy as well. Thinking to be generous, I gave them both combos and skittles at the same time. As it turns out, the mixture of cheesy combos with fruity skittles is disgusting to both American and African taste buds. They initially said that American snacks are disgusting, but I had to explain that combos and skittles are delicious by themselves, but the two don’t make a good mixture (or mélange in French). I got a good laugh.

C’est comme ca, c’est come ca, lèves-toi.

Sunday afternoon, my supposed day-off, was quite busy. I went to church for the first time since arriving in country. The service was in Mooré so I understood nothing. But the music was nice. My host brother, Richard, whom I call Dick, strapped plastic chairs to our bikes before we left. The church service was BYOChairs. I nearly crashed on the way to church when one of the legs of the chair got caught in the spokes of my rear wheel. I skidded to a stop and cussed out my brother, in English, for not knowing how to properly jimmy rig a chair onto the back of a bike. We both had a good laugh.

Having returned from church, I was tired and craved nothing other than a Sunday afternoon nap. I guess old habits die hard, even when on the other side of the world. After my nap, my host sister/aunt coaxed me into accompanying her to soccer practice. I don’t know how she managed this considering how much I hate soccer. [Clarification: I don’t hate soccer. I just suck at it and I hate things at which I suck]. During the scrimmage, I insisted that I be goalie. I was thankful for my decision as these girls were vicious. It must be explained that we were not playing on grass. Even describing the field as a cement parking lot would paint to soft of a picture. Half the girls were playing barefoot sliding to stop as if they were Nadal in a French Open final. I was more than content with my space in between the goalposts.

One instance summarizes more than just this isolated football experience. After a collision that left a smaller girl on the ground, the Venus Williams-esque counterpart of the collision said without missing a step, “C’est comme ca, c’est come ca, lèves-toi.” This literally translates “It is like this, it is like this, raise yourself up.” Clearly there was nothing the girl could have done to avoid, or win, the collision, but she was on the ground none the less.

I stood there comfortably in between my goalposts, in between wealth and opportunity, and the disparity between my reality and the reality of the girl on the ground was never more real.

Once we got back to the house, my family asked me how the football match was. My sister/aunt laughed saying I didn’t even play as I was only the goalie. In a sense she was right. I can live and work among the people here, but I will never be subject to the same rules. I can never play exactly the same “game”. I’m not sure I would want to. C’est comme ca.

Drier than the other side of the pillow

Certain aspects of life in Africa have allowed me to appreciate new things. For example, the heat doesn’t go away at night. When sleeping in Indiana, I would flip my pillow in search of the cooler fabric. The cooler side of the pillow does not exist here. However, the other side of the pillow still has something to offer that is equally as tantalizing. Last night, with my head wading in sweat, I flipped my pillow not is search of the cooler side, but rather the drier, non-sweaty side. I will be the first to argue that the transition from wet to dry is much more satisfying that the transition from warm to cool. O the things one can learn to appreciate.

A trip home to a faraway place

I am now two days back from visiting my village that I will call home for the next two years. Visiting my village has changed everything. I now have a concrete place and actual people to which I can attach worries and aspirations about the coming years. I was able to see me house. I know the names of my neighbors. And experienced for the first time humbling respect that I will received from my future students. I should note that it was only by this respect was I able to discern students from adults as many of my students are only a few years younger than I. Let me start from the beginning.

The week prior to our actual site visit was the site announcement. For obvious reasons, all of the trainees were excited to find out the location of our new homes. Peace Corps delivered this information in a fun and creative way. On a cement basketball court was painted a giant map of Burkina Faso. On the map was labeled the cities/villages to which a trainee was going to be sent. We surrounded the map and followed orders to blindfold ourselves. We were then lead to stand on the city that would become our new home at the end of summer. After a countdown, we took off our blindfolds to see where in the country we were standing. Not only were we able to see the name of our new home, but we could also see who would be our nearest neighbors. I was happy with both.

Fast forward a week to the days leading up to the actual site visits. A counterpart from each village is matched with every trainee. These counterparts are fellow teachers, principles, or members of the Burkinabe equivalent of the PTA. They are directly responsible for easing our integration by being our first point of contact to handle concerns in village.

Roumba Abu Bakar is my counterpart. He is 23 years old and looks much younger. The fact that he is a teacher at 23 is an impressive accomplishment considering most of my middle school students (I am guessing) are between the ages 15 and 18. This indicates two things. The first is that Roumba’s parents valued his education and started him in school at a young age. The second is that he worked very hard as a child to avoid “redoubling” grades which is very common in the Burkinabe school system. Working for the government in Burkina Faso is an esteemed position as it is the only way to guarantee a steady income. Most people aspire to become government employees (i.e. teachers, policemen, etc). The opposite is true in America where the real money is in the private sector. Government employees are often haggled about being civil servants as they would often get paid much more to do the same job in the private sector. Good money in the Burkinabe private sector is few and far between. Therefore, I would compare Roumba’s accomplishment of becoming a teacher at 23 to a college graduate in America immediately making six figures.

All of the matched counterparts made the journey to Ouagadougou for a two week workshop introducing them to the incoming volunteers as well as the basics of Peace Corps. Roumba and I got along very well as we spent these two days together. I treated him to dinner the first night and he returned the favor a few nights later. He was eager to talk about our village and the school at which we will be working together. Similar to how PC volunteers are placed at a site, public school teachers also do not choose their assignments. I asked him about his initial reaction when he first received the news that he would be heading to “bush.” He admitted that he had apprehensions about the lack of electricity and restaurants. These apprehensions, by the way, are the same ones that I have now. The lack of electricity worries me much less than me cooking for myself for the next two years. I can do Ramen, mac N’ cheese, and frozen pizzas. But to make raw products straight from the ground into tasty meals is not something I would say I am experienced with. I foresee myself making veggie omelet sandwiches daily. I shared my concerns with Roumba and assured me that if he could adapt then I would be fine as well.
I suppose I can try and describe my house. Getting out of the Peace Corps land cruiser that Fermin conveniently arranged to take me from Bobo to my village, I was not expected to be suddenly stricken with fear. But fear was my first emotion when I first saw my house, and my dog to be standing guard. To make a long story short, I didn’t even attempt to touch Jack, my dog, one time during my 3 day stay. He was always chained up and I had to wake Jenny, soon to be introduced, in the middle of the night to restrain the dog so I could use the restroom. To say the least, it will be an adventure my first day at sight when I need to get into my house and Jack is there standing guard in front of the door, most likely unchained.

The intensity of the fear of my dog was easily offset by the warm welcome of the volunteer whom I will be trying to replace. Filling the shoes of Jenny will be a difficult task. I don’t even like using the word replace. I prefer to say that I will try to continue her work and not completely drop the ball that she worked so hard to get rolling. [I think I could be more cliché if tried]. Anyways, I was so thankful to have her there to explain the ins and outs of the village. The things she told me will make my transition so much easier come next month. This isn’t even to mention that I don’t have to worry about furnishing an empty house as I will be the third volunteer in my house.

My three day stay was full of introductions. I met the mayor, the chief of the village, the police, the village doctr, the president of the PTA, my neighbors, fellow teachers, and my future boss. I won’t go into detail now describing each of these people primarily because I don’t think I could say much about any one person. All of the people that I met have since blurred together into more or less on vague personality. Anything I may have tried to say would most likely have been more inaccurate that truthful. The time will come to describe the people of the village, but for now just know that I spent nearly three full days in introductory conversations.

Before I ramble on too long, I am even more excited for my two years after my site visit. I realize the importance of the next month or so of training, but at the same time I am biting at the bit longing to make a new home.

A sudden goodbye

I thought it prudent to wait a while before posting this. Know that everything worked out fine and we are back to training as usual in a different city.

However…

Thursday afternoon, July 1st, after a full day of French class, the last thing on the schedule was a community meeting. All of the volunteers from the different sectors (Secondary Education, Girls Education and Encouragement, Small Enterprise Development, and Health), all get together for casual announcements. The meeting is led by trainees and it is a place where each sector can give a little tid bit of news from their training. The topic of last week’s meeting was to take care of details in planning for our 4th of July party that was, at that point in time, three days away.
In the middle of taking food and drink orders, our Safety and Security, Congo, walks in and says to everyone that he has a really important announcement. He started by saying that the embassy here in Burkina Faso issued a warden message warning of potential Al-queda activity in North. Ouiagouyia, the city in which we were training, was specifically targeted for the kidnapping of westerners. In response to this, Congo informed us that we would be evacuating the city the next day.

Let me describe how I was interpreting this information. Warden messages like this are not rare. They happen all the time. The embassy in Cairo issued several similar warden messages during my semester in Egypt. Sometimes we changed our plans accordingly, sometimes we did not. During my internship in New York City with the Department of State, I had access and time to read, or at least glance at, warden messages issued from embassies around the world. There were always more messages that I was willing or able to read. Basically, the embassy is obligated to report any and all credible information it may receive regarding threats to Americans. In this context, I was not scared or anxious that my personal safety was in immediate danger. However, knowing that the Peace Corps is responsible for 80 volunteers, each living with a separate host family, biking to and from training often at night, in a city that was specifically targeted for kidnapping, I knew that drastic change was in the offing.

That change came in the form of immediate consolidation into a local hotel. We were not able to contact our host families or pack our bags. This was frustrating for me as my house was three minute bike ride from the training center. All 80 volunteers spent Friday night in that hotel with nothing other than what we brought to class that day. I was lucky to split a three-bed room with four other volunteers. I lost the coin toss and had to share the bed. Others slept on mattresses on the floor in the conference room, so I consider myself lucky.

The logistics to set up our training in Ouyiagouya were staggering. Organizing the host families alone must have been an incredible task. Peace Corps needed to find 80 suitable families, train them how to treat the food for sickly Americans, and make sure their house met safety and sanitation standards. There was one amazing man, Siaka, who had spent several months prior to our arrival solely dedicated to this task. Our French classes also required an incredible amount of man-power. Eighty volunteers have French class nearly four times a day in classes of only 3 or 4. That means Peace Corps had to find well over twenty qualified French teachers that could work full-time teaching each class four hours a day. All of these things and more were up and running masterfully before the warden message. After the warden message, they all came to a screeching halt.
Everyone was anxious that night, not about our safety but about our future as volunteers. It was common sense that we would most likely not resume our training in Ouyiagouya (I think I spell that different every time), Knowing this, the next logical question was where and how are they going to be able to train us so that we can be ready to swear-in as volunteers at the end of summer. Organizing host families on such short notice is a nightmare. Finding facilities to hold classes is equally as daunting. So this is where we stand- in limbo.

I am writing this on the 4th of July. Last night was my second night in an air conditioned room with heavy blankets, and a normal bathroom. Actually our A/C was broken the first night but we quickly had the corrected the following afternoon. We have been told that we will be here for at least two weeks. Classes will resume tomorrow at an international school nearby. At this point, they do not know if we will stay in Ouagadougou all summer or find an alternate city to complete our training. We have been told that it is highly unlikely that we will be going back to Ouiyagouia. This means I will most likely never see my host family again. No one was able to say goodbye and I am still unsure if the families fully understand what happened. This is the saddest part about the whole situation. I have talked to my family a few times over the phone. I think it would be much harder emotionally if my French was better, but most of my energy is focuses on accurately communicating to them what happened as opposed to expressing my disappointment for having to leave my new family.

A quick word about the luggage- remembers I said that we were unable to pack our things. We were never able to do so. An unfortunate few had the incredible task of going to 80 different homes, packing up rooms that have been lived in for weeks, loading the bags onto buses, and transporting them to a different city two hours away. It would have taken me at least an hour and much creativity to pack my own things back into my original two backs. I can’t imagine having to do it with someone else’s stuff- eighty times over. They were able to do it and we had our luggage the following day. I can’t express how impressed I was at this accomplishment.

So this ends the story for now. We are temporarily staying in an air conditioned hotel in the New York City of Burkina Faso. I had a good hamburger for dinner last night. Today we are going to an athletic club to celebrate the birthday of our great country. Classes resume tomorrow as usual with no more than a two-day hiccup. I forgot to mention, all of the language teachers, for the time being, are also staying in Ouagadougou- another impressive logistical success. Let’s just say I am thankful that I am not the one making decisions. I am in good hands sitting under an air conditioner as I type this. I can’t complain.

Crisp morning in Africa

I wrote this a while ago but never got around to posting it. I travel across Burkina Faso tomorrow to visit my permanent site. It is a small village very close to the border with the Ivory Coast. I officially will have no electricity.

Here is what I wrote a few weeks ago...

My watch in my room, resting in front of the fan, read a chilly 92 degrees at 6 AM this morning. There were a few brown outs last night, and during those times, I can’t comprehend how others are able to get by without a fan. The coolest moments are when the electricity kicks back on as the moving air cooled the pools of sweat on my body that were able to accumulate in the stagnant air. These super cool moments last about 5 minutes. I’m trying to decide if these extra cool moments are worth the incredibly hot stretches of still air. I’ll let you know if I ever make up my mind.

Let me tell you about the laundry. Sunday is laundry and cleaning day. To start, I still have scabs on the tops of my fingers below my finger nails from all of the scrubbing I did last Sunday. Two weeks’ worth of I laundry were build up last Sunday, so desormais, it should not be as bad. Here is how the story. I told my younger sister to show me how to do the laundry. She said first I need to go buy soap. She took me across the street to these two kids who were selling nothing but soap. A small bag of powdered detergent and a big bar of soap cost 350 CFA. (Pronounced SAYFUH). 500 CFA is one dollar, so the in total the two things of soap cost 70 cents. An avocado sandwich costs 300 CFA, a bowl of rice with sauce and a bowl of spaghetti both cost 500 CFA, a coke costs 450, and a beer costs 600. We are given 1500 per day during training. I am well under budget if I don’t get a drink and only eat the sandwich avocat.

However, a few times a week I go get a beer or two after class, buy 1000 CFA calling cards (which literally last less than 5 minutes if I call the states), go to the internet café which is 400 CFA per hour, and buy my host family treats. My 105 degree water just wasn’t doing the trick yesterday after class. I asked my sister and brother if they wanted a cold drink. Of course they agreed. The yaccompanied me to the Alimentation – the Burkina version of a 7-eleven. I bought two bags of water (deux sache d’eau) and three cans of coke, two for my siblings and one for my host mom. They didn’t know how to open the cans, so, at the very least, cold crisp coke is a rare treat for them. The bags of water are the cheapest way to get a cold drink. They are square bags that fit in your hand similar in size to a full sandwich sized plastic back. They are uniformly sealed on all sides so biting a corner is the ticket to a mouthful of cold water.

The wood chopping man

A worn wood chopping man came by a few days back. I was sitting on our porch one day after school when a leathery old man walked through the gate into the court yard. Slung over his shoulder was the biggest axe I have ever seen. The blade itself was well over a foot long and looked more like the grim reapers … I forget the name of the grim reaper’s tool of choice but I think you know the one I’m talking about…anyways…the blade was huge. Opposite the cutting edge, the blade narrowed and was secured by piercing the thick end of the “handle.” I put “handle” in quotation marks because the handle must have been the femur of a horse – I suppose I’m in Africa so it very well could have been the femur of an elephant or giraffe. This think was at least one and half times longer than any other axe handle that I have ever seen. After I was able to take my eyes of the axe, I gazed upon a man who looked like he has seen a ton of life. If a black person could be tan, this guy was California beach bum bronzed. I doubt he weighed more than 140 pounds but I guarantee I wouldn’t stand a chance. He wasn’t muscular, just efficient. Every inch of his body was chiseled and defined, his biceps as much as his rib cage. I looked to my little sister and gave her a look that said, “who is this old guy with the huge axe!”

My little sister giggled and told me to greet this guy in Moore. “Ya zaabri yaa laafi” I said in what seemed an extremely boyish voice compared to the tiny burly man that stood before me. He responded with a raspy voice, a three-toothed smile, and beat-red squinted eyes from a lifetime of African sun and heat. After exchanging the usual greetings, my sister led him around the corner of the house, and my first thought was that I was going to see dinner killed right then and there. I had a mini panic as I was not in the mood to see this man go to town with an axe on some chickens or a goat. Fortunately, my sister pointed him to a pile of wood and it became clear to me that this man was here to chop wood. I immediately told my sister that I thought I could do it. She immediately responded with a smile and a finger shake that indicated she had little faith in my wood chopping ability. She was more in touch with reality than I was.

The wood they use here looks more like tan, sun-beat drift wood than the logs one would normally think of in America. It is long, narrow, and spirally. The wood must be cut lengthwise with the logs sitting on their sides. One must straddle a log with the goal to make narrower pieces of the same length. It is very hard wood and when the axe man took his first swing I realized why he needed such a big axe. The first time he raised the axe above his head and made the first swing, I half-expected the log to explode. His motion reminded me of a perfect golf swing in slow motion that is a perfect combination of art, finesse, and explosive power. It’s as if his back swing and the first half of his downswing was in super slow motion but went double time right before the blade hit the wood. As I said before, I expected the wood to explode on his first swing, but blade bounced off barely leaving a dent. It seemed as if some law of physics had been violated. It did not look natural. He didn’t hesitate to take another swing but with this time made a sound when he exhaled during the down swing that again made me feel twelve years old. I swear the sound came straight from deep inside his lungs. This time, a small piece kindling flew off with a crack. After ten or so similar strokes, the first log split in two. To end the story before it gets too long, after thirty minutes watching this now sweaty man labor in the heat, I looked to by little brother and said in English so that he wouldn’t understand, “Damn, that is why you stay in school.”

A day in the life

I don’t think I will lose weight this summer because I am eating like a king. For breakfast, my mom serves me a fried egg baguette sandwich. I use coffee from your French press to wash it down. All of us go out to restaurants for our lunch break. So far I have tried rice with a tomato sauce, rice with a peanut sauce, spaghetti with the same tomato sauce, cuscus with the same peanut sauce, and an sandwich avocet. Of all people you should know that I am a happy man if I can fill my stomach for less than a dollar. My mom cooks me a good dinner, consisting of mostly the same dishes, but I get a sliced mango for dessert.

As I said before, the vast majority of food here is starches and oils. I take pride in my stomach strength, but even I feel the effects of the drastic change. It’s actually not the drastic if you consider I have been eating dc food and cheesy double beef burritos from taco bell the last four years of my life. To get off the subject of my bowel movements, it has been the topic of most of the conversations here since many people are having troubles in this area. For the time being, I am not.

So let me describe my room as if to put you here right beside me. I am sitting on the edge of my bed with my mosquito net brushing against my back. The fabric of the net is much closer to plastic than to cloth. I may look into buying a nicer one once I move to site. My computer is resting atop a chair over which is draped that blue and white thin cotton button up that I wore on my wengatzy days back at Taylor. I am stripped down to me skivvies with my fan cranked targeted at the center of my body. I am still sweating. My watch currently reads 96 degrees and its 9 pm at night. Today in the afternoon my watch read 105 degrees in the shade. There are several volunteers that are breaking out due to constantly sweating.

Also on the chair in front of me is draped a town that I use to do tidbits of P90 workouts on my motivated mornings. I didn’t do one this morning as I was already in a full sweat when I woke up. I am so thankful for my fan. Others do not have one, and I couldn’t imagine bearing this heat in dead still air. Behind the chair is my water filtration system that the Peace Corps divided. It is basically a two gallon bucket resting atop a five gallon bucket. A two part filter connects the two so I dump water into the top bucket and it filters into the bottom bucket. The whole contraption rests on a footstool so that my water bottles can easily fit under the bottom bucket. Resting next to my water filter is another bucket I use to fetch water from the main living room. Above me and to my right is a clothes line that stretches the length of the room (~10 ft) and is about a foot from the left wall (the left wall as you walk in from the door – I am facing the door now, the water filter would be immediately to your right if you were to walk in). Resting on the clothes line are the clothes I wore today. Do laundry in a bucket is a bitch, will talk about that later, so I let used clothes dry out so they can be used again. I even flip my underwear so I can use them two days in a row. The is one small window to my left covered with an orange and yellow flowery drape. To the left of the window hangs a board with hooks on it that I use to hang up all my shirts and pants. I am also very thankful for this as most of the other trainees will be living out of a suitcase for three months. In the corner in front of my and to my left is a small table. The table is too small to do work on so resting on it is my shampoo, toilette paper, a picture of my family, and a picture of Margee. Also there are two random sacks of peanuts as my brother gives them to me every other day even though I insist that I don’t really like them and can never finish them fast enough. Last thing, immediately to my right is a green metal chest in which is the stock pile of my supplies (My med kit, deodorant, q-tips, shampoo, lotion, etc). This probably goes without being said, but I sleep directly on my mattress. My pillow is rock hard and the bed is too short. I make it sound worse than it is as I have had no trouble sleeping. It’s all a mental game.

First words from Africa

I'm alive and well. It is super hot. I am sitting in an internet cafe and copied the text below from a flashdrive. I pay for the internet by the hour so I wrote this last night knowing I would be coming here today. I have been in Africa for just over a week. Training has begun and I am living with a host family. I had another entry prepared but I must have not have saved it properly on my jump drive. I'll upload it later.

However, sending an entire summer with no worries other than to learn a language(s) and a culture is a dream. No papers, exams, or group meetings. Progress is measured and rewarded in my ability to order food, socialize, and build relationships. The past week has flown by distorting everything other than my excitement for the next few months of training and the two years of service that will follow.

After arriving in Burkina Faso, we were two nights in Ouagadougou, the nation’s capital. During those first days as a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT- as opposed to PCV-olunteer), we set up accounts, were photographed for ID’s, received a health briefing, and had a language progress interview. My French is par for the course. Currently I am rated at intermediate-low. I must be at intermediate-high in order to swear-in as a volunteer three months from now. There are some trainees with much more French and some with much less. I am confident that I will reach the markl with enough time and effort.

After two nights in Ouaga, we headed to Burkina’s third biggest city, Ouiagouia. The two hour trip between the two cities allowed me my first glimpse of the flat and dry Burkina terrain. There are more trees than I expected but the ground is dry, rocky, and flat. There is a good chance I could ride my bike across the entire country without having to worry about impassable terrain. Where there is not a tree, the ground is solid, feels like asphalt, and very easy to ride a bike over. Speaking of my new bike, it’s awesome! My opinion of my bike may be inflated as I have never owned a high quality bike; I have actually never even owned any bike. With that being said, we were given very nice bikes that make travelling here very easy. As I said before, the flat and firm terrain allows you to take your bike anywhere, and the bikes outnumber motor vehicles two-to-one where there are paved streets.

Monday was our first night with our host families. The preceding adoption ceremony was quite awkward. In the evening, the host families came to the center where most of my classes are held. The trainees talked amongst ourselves as the families filed in. When the actual ceremony started, Siaka, the cross-cultural director and member of the Peace Corps staff, called up a member of an African family. Then he called the name of the newly adopted American volunteer, took a picture, and then the family, with their newly adopted trainee, sat together in awkward silence. This process repeated itself until all the trainees were given a home. Once each volunteer had a home, we all hopped on our bikes and followed our host families to our new home.

My host family’s home is actually bigger than I thought it would be. There is electricity, a large living room, two bedrooms, and a bucket both (no running water). I take two bucket baths a day, once in the morning and once before dinner. Upon arriving that first night, I tried to talk to my family for a bit, and then headed to my room to unpack my things. It felt great to have a place to call home for three months after moving from place to place and living out of a suitcase the past three weeks. My room is ten feet by teen feet with a bed, hooks for clothing, a metal chest, and a small desk and chair. I can’t complain. It took 30 minutes to unpack all my stuff, and after doing so, I was in a full sweat. I sat down on my bedand realized I had no way to cool off. There was not fan, I already took a bath, and at this point I wasn’t sure if it was water scarcity made it inappropriate to take another. So I sat their trying to slow my heart and let evaporation dry my body. I tried to wipe myself off with a towel but being dry just made me hotter. I quickly caved, took two Benadryl, and passed out as a sweaty mess. Roosters woke me up in the morning. I was still sweaty. The morning bucket bath was the best shower I have ever taken. That evening, I came home and my father showed me a fan that he bought for me. I gave him a big hug and have been sleeping great ever since. I sometimes even wake up a little cool and have to put a sheet over my legs.

My host family is amazing. I have two younger siblings, a 13-year-old sister named Saly and a 9-year-old brother named CD. For the first few days, my sister rode with me to school in the morning and then picked me up in the afternoon. She feels more like an older sister than a younger sister as she is always looking out for me and I feel like a 5-year-old when I have to express myself in French. My host father is a teacher and my host mother stays at home taking care of the house. Getting to know my family is going to be a long process as my limited French allows for only basic conversation. I will get to know my family better and better as my French progresses. I will be able to understand their opinions, appreciate their sense of humor, and value their interactions as a family. Currently, I can barely tell them what I learned in class that day or understand what they did during the day. I am thankful that they are patient with me and are always willing to help me with my French.

When we are not with our host families, we are in class. The average day begins at 8 AM, is split into four two-hour sessions, and concludes at 5 PM. On most days, two of the sessions are spent in French class. Our class of 22 divides into small classes of two or three based on French ability. The other two sessions are spent learning about medical issues, safety concerns, or how to be an effective teacher in a Burkinabe classroom. For our teacher training, we will be writing lesson plans and will actually be teaching summer school daily for a month before we are sent out to our site. I am thankful for this training even thought the days are long and hot.

For now it is the weekend. We are going out tonight and have plans to visit a pool tomorrow.