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.