Solar Panel Project

Renewable Energy Renewing Minds

EIGHT DOLLAR KING

I make eight dollars a day and I am rich.

I do not mean figuratively rich enjoying God’s blessings anew every morning. I literally have a lot of money and often search for ways to spend it. My salary is eight dollars a day.

Two weeks after graduating from Taylor, I boarded a plane bound for Burkina Faso officially becoming a teacher with the Peace Corps. After a year’s worth of burnt candles and bucket baths, I can’t say that I miss either running water or electricity, both of which I live without.

I send a boy to the pump every other day to fetch water for my 80L cistern. He straps a yellow 20L plastic jug to the back of my bike and makes the trip four times. I pay him one dollar a week and his friends are jealous of his job.

Every other Saturday, I give a neighbor girl my dirty laundry, a packet of powdered soap and 40L of water. Also for a dollar, she happily does my laundry laboring over buckets bent-over straight-legged forehead to knees scrubbing my clothes over the washboard.

Everything I eat, with the exception of spaghetti, tomato paste and Blue Band (margarine), I buy at a farmers market to which I bike 8 km every sixth day. In absence of a fridge, my weekly diet is a function of which foods spoil first. Meat, for example, taken from slabs of cow or goat hanging from the butcher’s tree, needs to be fried and eaten within 36 hours. If kept wet, leafy greens can keep for up to 48 hours. Since meat and leafy greens spoil first, I often have meat and salad on market day – a meal fit for a king.

Day three after the market, I make a tomato or peanut sauce from scratch. Cabbage, eggplant and lentils give the sauce substance but don’t spoil like meat would. This allows me to eat the same sauce for several days cooking new only the rice, spaghetti or macaroni.

Yacouba does English exercises at the blackboard 

This brings me to day 5. Having eaten all the vegetables, I am forced to make do with peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Village peanut butter makes Whole Food’s peanut butter seem like Wal-Mart’s. The process is simple. Grind campfire-roasted peanuts at the local generator powered mill and out comes nothing-but-peanuts village peanut butter.

Waking up on day 6, I face an empty house, nothing to eat. Thankfully it’s the sixth day and I can bike to the market after teaching class.

Keep in mind that I live the most posh lifestyle in all of Loumana. The sauces I make, sauces fit for a king, would be cut and diluted many times over to fill the many stomachs of a large African family. The stomachs may be full but the bodies are left malnourished and fatigued.

I am at a loss when I discipline a student for sleeping in my class when staring back at me are eyes sunken and bloodshot seeing nothing but hunger. I try not to think of my thick and hearty sauce waiting for me at home. I tell them fatigue can be overcome by a strong mind knowing that the strongest of minds cannot function without proper nourishment. I would invite kids to eat at my home, but between my four classes, I have nearly 300 students. Even the richest man in Loumana can’t daily fill 300 stomachs.

The obstacles preventing my students from advancing in their education are sobering. Class sizes exceed 100. Overworked teachers often juggle 30 hours of class per week making a mere 200 dollars a month. From crumbling chalkboards, students copy diagrams of chemistry experiments and drawings of plants as the majority can’t afford the eight dollar textbook. Beakers and graduated cylinders are foreign objects the teachers can only explain in theory.  

It is not surprising that every year nearly half the students fail each grade. Their scholastic careers are ended if they fail a second time relegating them to a life of farming or herding.

How do you choose who to help when it can’t be everyone? One answer is to find projects that empower people to help themselves.  

The students at my school have no way to study at night. There is no electricity in Loumana rendering the homes pitch black after dark. The lack of tables and chairs leaves my students crowded around lanterns on plastic mats sprawled around dirt courtyards.

Additionally, the children must help with chores around the home. Studying is set aside until the chickens are fed and in the coup, wood gathered, cisterns full, dinner cooked and dishes cleaned. Children also help the parents with whatever their family trade may be: making soap, baking bread, butchering meet, making furniture, watering the garden. These distractions create a chaotic, not to mention dark, environment making effective study nearly impossible.

Students flood out of the afternoon's English clss

To give their students a place to study after dark, the community has expressed an interest in illuminating the village school. Since the slow-growing electrical grids of Burkina Faso are a long way from Loumana, light would have to come in the form of solar panels and car batteries.

Solar panels and other necessary equipment are no cheaper here than they are in the states. The community needs five thousand dollars to get the project off the ground. This money would light two classrooms, the on-site community library and the administration building. For the first time, students would have access to a place devoted to their studies with proper tables, desks, chalkboards and textbooks away from the distractions and duties of home. Go to my blog (gatorsinafrica.blogspot.com) for pictures and information.

Go to https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=686-148

if you are interested in helping.

The day I am writing this is a market day. After lesson planning, I look forward to enjoying my weekly meat and salad, a meal fit for an eight dollar king.

Only in Africa

The day of a math test, a student approached me saying he couldn’t take the test. 

“Why?” I asked. 

He showed me his hand – his writing hand. 

Due to a parasite, it was swollen and black. He was partially correct. There was no way he could use his normal hand to write. 

I was faced with a decision. His hand may never get better. If that is the case, he will have to learn how to write with his other hand. 

“You are going to take the test.” I said. “Use your off hand and don’t worry about time or penmanship.

I told him he could finish the test at my house over lunch if he failed to finish on time. I gave him computer paper allowing him more space to work. He finished on time with a passing grade. Too tough? I think not.

Add parasites to the long list of obstacles facing education in Loumana:

1.      80+ kids per class

2.       Limited textbooks

3.       Classes taught in a second language

4.       Strikes

5.       No lights*

6.       Parasite infested limbs

*Working on solution in soon to be introduced solar panel project. Keep an eye out for it on my blog and Facebook in the near future.

The life of a chomeur (bum)

Classes have been suspended nationwide. I find myself suddenly unemployed. Yesterday I busied myself with cleaning my house. I think my house maintains an acceptable level of cleanliness. My visitors disagree. Funny, I had the same problem in college. 

Poignana and Pascaline wash clothes

I wonder why I get satisfaction in cleaning places I never see, touch, smell. Do I sense they are dirty? Does merely knowing the floor under my bed is littered with mouse poop keep me from a good night’s sleep? Do I better enjoy a book that comes from a shelf under which is clean and proper? I hope the answer is yes to all these questions because I labored in sweat all day cleaning places I never see. At the end of the day, my house pretty much looked the same. But I knew it was clean?

I didn’t even get to enjoy the clean floor under my real bed as I slept outside for the first time last night on my cot. The heat in a sun-baked, cement-walled, tin-roofed house has become unbearable. I will continue to sleep outside until the rainy season starts – May or June depending on the year. 

The air was cool and the stars bright sleeping on my porch- my new bedroom for the time being. Contentment and restfulness accompanied the rising sun erasing like fog nightmares of nocturnal scorpions and serpents. 

My neighbors were stirring at daybreak. Unfortunately, they are not equipped with a snooze button. Poignana swept the courtyard and Pascaline washed the dishes from the day before. The days of illegitimate children start early in village. Even now, my ragged clothed bastard neighbors are shining shoes, fetching wood, and have not yet finished washing the dishes. My well clothed legitimate neighbors heat water for Nescafe, play with the baby, and mix in sugar with a spoon that the illegitimate Pascaline just washed. My neighbor, the father of all the children, both ‘legit and not, only the former of which he finds the money to send to school, greeted me this morning in broken English. 

“I love you. You are kind.” He said with a chuckle. 

I don’t know if he understood what he said or was just saying what he could with his limited English. 

Regardless, this warm greeting made me cold. It’s not his fault really, it’s the injustice of it all that makes me sick. The world around groans for better days.

Cinema Burkina

So what does a bachelor of 23 do on the weekends in a village with no bars, let alone beer, no video games, let alone electricity, and no woman, at least none that are not married or one of his students?

This is a great question; the answer to which at least to me is at the same time amazing and depressing. At the very least it makes me smile. 

What I hope will be an enlightening introduction is in order. I hope that through this introduction, I can bridge the gap between African village life and America.

To you I present the Guru. 

The Guru is bottom-right.

The Guru is the senior of the six teachers at my school. He teaches French, History and Geography masterfully juggling more classes and students than any of his colleagues. The Guru is at the same time the shortest and heaviest among us teachers. This feat, bringing shame in the states, earns him instant respect. In Africa, a stomach well fed belongs to a person who knows how to look out for his own. A bulging waist-line is the African equivalent to driving a Beamer or sporting a Rolex, yet much more indicative of the owners actual well-being. A person will fed in Africa is probably the happiest and most content. While in the States, the man behind the Benz may very well be the saddest of the bunch. 

The Guru is a widely known as a man who does life well. His reputation is not in small part due to the four solar panels gleaming deep blue perched in his courtyard. With these solar panels, he has lights to see inside and out, a boom box to blare music day and night, and a fan to keep him cool while the rest of us swim and sleep in our own sweat. His most prized contraption, and most beneficial to others, is his home entertainment system. 

Each and every night preceding a day without school, which has been numerous lately considering the student strike, he hauls outside his battery and clamps together wires connecting a DVD player, TV and speakers. With one push of a button, poof, like magic, shining blaring into the dark African wilderness is modern cinema.

This is what I do on Friday nights. I huddle around a small TV in the company of my fellow teachers. To take a break from the likes of Steven Segal, Chuck Norris, and Jean Claude Vandam, all of which the Burkinabe consider gods, I tilt my head skyward.  Often, the only think better than Cinema Burkina is Cinéma des étoiles – cinema of the stars.

When my opponents cannot afford to lose

I recently had a FaceBook conversation with the mother of a college friend. She is remarkably experienced with the American education system for her remarkable young age and resplendent beauty [Mrs. Convey I am speaking of you]. Between discussing her famed tomato sauce recipes, she commented that American students have it too easy. I believe she means to say we pamper our students and guard their self-esteem in such a way that we end up blinding them to the realities of the world. The students in my classroom do not have the luxury of such sheltered blindness – or ignorance if you prefer. If my students were guilty of such apathy that I remember seeing among American students, they would be kicked out of school and into abject poverty before once watching SportsCenter or Hannah Montana [or Boy Meets World for those from my generation].

Let me explain.

Nearly half the kids from each grade earn failing marks and get held back each year. That is to say that half of my English students are taking first year English for the second consecutive year. In my math classes, half of my students, for the second year in a row, are failing to wrap their minds around the concept of negative numbers. It frustrates me know that I am failing to transfer knowledge from myself to my students, the ultimate goal of education. It hurts even more knowing the grave and eminent consequences awaiting students who fail to grasp the concepts.

A student is allowed to repeat a grade one time without consequence other than burdening his family with an extra year of tuition fees. A student is barred from school if held back a second time. Being a math teacher, I calculated with minimum effort that one in four of my students will not be allowed to return to school after this year. When grading tests and giving multiple consecutive failing marks, 7 out of 20, 5 out of 20 and even 1 out of 20, I can’t help but think that I am contributing to the termination of my students’ education. It doesn’t take an overly compassionate person to understand the frustration and anger I feel when my students fail to do homework, sleep in class or in general fail to recognize, or perhaps have repressed, the gravity of their situation. Keep in mind my students are malnourished, ragged clothed and often smelly 6th and 7th graders.

This is the context in which I need to play the game. What game you ask? It is really no game at all and the manner in which is played is by no means playful. The objective of the game is simple. The students try to gain every point possible regardless of the morality of the means. That is to say come test day, if my students realize that their laziness has caught up with them and remembering that they failed the previous two tests, they no longer hesitate to cheat if the opportunity presents itself. With one hundred kids to a class and three to a bench, the opportunities are plenty. 

I recognize and understand my students, my opponents and friends. For me, victory would be to see each of them earn the right to move on to the next grade. This will not happen as the resulting log jam would cause the entire system to implode. So my redefined victory is to give the right, to those who have earned it, to pass. This means recognizing those students who have worked hard and grasp the concepts. This is easy at first. But the difficulty comes in separating student number 75 from 76. The former will pass and continue to be educated. The latter will be relegated to a life in the fields. [I shall argue the fault in assuming a life in the fields as undignified later.] This decision will be mine to be made come May. For now, it is for me to punish the cheaters and corner-cutters, allow the students to work hard, and accurately reward those who do. This is my game. A good life.

I think I'll shower today...or brush my teeth

Describing life in village is a difficult task. Simply saying that I live without running water, plumbing, electricity or climate control provides enough shock value. Even though this might be my token summary of my experience upon return, it does little to describe my actual life. To describe my emotions and reactions to things I see every day is too ambitious a task to start and finish in one sitting. This is why I have found telling short vignettes the best way to provide windows into my life.

Stories that come to mind before my computer dies (1:45 and counting):

Where I sit

Under a secko terrace on a plastic chair, I am listening to Ben Harper enjoying a four day weekend. I biked 15K to Kyle’s house to enjoy the company, cold drinks and internet at a nearby gold mine. The stone well directly in front of his house and in my clear view is frequented by girls and women. I thought today that I could make my millions with a workout DVD called “The Strength of Africa.” I would simply take common exercises that people do in the states and rename them according to the daily activity people do here that work the same muscle. A lawn mower would become a well bucket heave. A woman now at the well is in the middle of here tenth set as write these very words. I counted. A lat pull-down and lateral shoulder raise would be combined into one super move: the tô pulverizer. I could continue but the cleverness of these names is lost on both Americans and Africans alike as Africans don’t understand working out and Americans don’t understand Africa. Kiss those millions good-bye. So are the thoughts of where I sit.

“ID Please” – said Pooh Bear

I live very close to the intersection of Burkina Faso, The Ivory Coast, and Mali. A recent surge in moto smugglings has necessitated checkpoints along the back routes connecting the three countries. The main road running through Loumana is one of these back routes. On my way to market at a nearby village, I came upon one of these checkpoints. I had really had nothing to worry about considering I was on my bike and had the proper paperwork. Nonetheless, armed uniformed strangers make me nervous. I waited my turn with ID and paperwork in hand. Approaching my turn, I noticed the soldier wearing a winter hat. This was bizarre to me considering I was on the verge of a heat stroke. Even more bizarre was that the hat had round yellow ears. Facing the soldier, he asked for my ID and paperwork. I handed them to him and saw looking back at me, not a soldier, but Winnie the Pooh. The hat was fully equipped with fuzz, moving plastic eyes, and fluffy ears all belonging to my childhood hero. He told me to be on my way. “Ookayyyy,” I said in the best Eor voice I could muster. Thankfully, the joke was lost on the soldier. I rode off smiling and less intimidated by the AK-47.

Two big men in a small sinking boat

I was given the opportunity to meet new families grace to the generosity of the Hammond family, They donated filters which my mom brought with her during her visit. Working with the local clinic and an elder, we chose families who have many kids and drink dirty water. [I will write more about this project later]. One of these families was the village fishermen.

Loumana is situated next to pretty rock formations and cliffs. Nestled next to these is a man-made barrage stocked with fish. The barrage is of good size and its’ location make it a good place to have a picnic. Unfortunate I did not discover my village had a beach until after my mom and sister visited.

After discussing the water filter with the fishermen and his family, he invited me to join him the following morning to go fishing. I did just that the following dawn. I met him at his house and followed him during the thirty minute hike back to the barrage. I have never been much of a fisherman, so the novelty of fishing, let alone in Africa, had me quite riled up. In the back of my mind were images of a YouTube video of lions and crocodiles fighting over a wildebeest. Didn’t that take place in Africa?

Arriving at the shore, there was no sign of danger, or a boat. Instead there were several shipwrecked canoes with their noses poking out of the water. The fisherman indicated as to which one was ours. I chuckled eager to get things under way. He bailed out the water, not all of it, and told me to hop in.

I should take the time to note that this fisherman is the one man in all of Loumana that might weigh more than I do. And this boat, or shanty pirogue, reminded of an annual cardboard boat-building contest at Taylor Lake. A contest in which I refused to participate knowing the basic laws of buoyancy and common sense. The same red flags that kept me from getting in the cardboard boats were hoisted at full mast climbing into the pirogue.

We pushed off, me sitting and him standing in back. Being on the water was peaceful and a stark contrast to the dry dustiness of Sub-Saharan Africa this time of year. For two hours, he checked his nets for fish and I bailed out water to keep us afloat. I left that morning with a sack full of fish and a new friend, my first fishing buddy ever.

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.