Monday, December 12, 2011

Biking Basics

November 29, 2011

So I as currently write this, I’m sitting in the pharmacy, 8pm at night (wow – many nights I’m in bed by this time!), letting my computer to charge while I simultaneously give a mini computer lesson.  Well, to be honest, as I’m obviously typing this right now, clearly, I’m not giving a lesson on technology…I’m in fact waiting for my “student” who just returned from working in his field. And yes, I now know the pharmacy owner’s name – it’s Augustin… and it only took me a couple months to learn that!  Anywho, I’m waiting for Augustin, who happens to be waiting for his marmite (large pot) full of water to heat over the fire so he can wash/bathe with l’eau chaut this evening, because the “cold” has arrived.   Yes, it’s the start of cold season, and I love it.  It’s still above 80 degrees right now, but I’m comfortably wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and though I don’t think it’s nearly as “cold” as the Burkinabe find the low 80’s to be (they wear scarves and sweatshirts), I could probably go for putting a thin jacket or long sleeve shirt on right now and feel relatively comfortable.  Maybe I’d be a little warm, but not too bad. I’d compare the weather right now to being very similar to Minnesota’s fall season.  Mornings and evenings are chilly, though afternoon temps can still be quite warm with the sun (here, “quite warm” means 100+ degrees).  Furthermore, also fall-like, are the leaves and plants, which are changing colors (aka dying) and falling to the ground because there hasn’t been rain in 2 months.   Amusingly, in the mornings around 6-7am, it is truly kinda cold, as in about 70 degrees.  Lately I’ve been wrapping a pagne (thin sheet of fabric, like a blanket) around my shoulders when I crawl out of bed and head to the kitchen to heat water for my breakfast oatmeal and tea or hot chocolate.  The villagers tell me that the cold is beginning, and soon I’ll be wearing sweatshirts all the time like them and sleeping with several thick blankets.  I look forward to it. 

Also, speaking of weather and cooler temperatures, morning and late afternoon bike rides (or walks/runs) have become a new obsession of mine.  It’s SO nice out when the sun is rising or just beginning to set, and usually there’s even a breeze.  (“Breeze” might be a bit of an understatement.  The wind is often insanely strong and sometimes there’s even dust twisters that form and rip across the land). I’ve been doing a good amount of biking lately – today I went to Di (21km away), hung out with my friend Vida, the volunteer there, checked out their marché, and then biked back home.  All in all, about 42km, which is about 25 miles.  I was pretty proud of myself for: first of all, not dying and being totally exhausted either at Vida’s house or when I got back to my village, and second of all, making the one-way trip in just over an hour.  Approximately 20km/hour = awesome, especially considering the fact that it’s not like these are highways or bike paths that I’m riding on….these are gravel roads with bumps and potholes and cowtracks…you gotta have your eyes on the road constantly, or you might run over a thorn and pop a tire, or you could dip down in a magically-appearing 8-inch deep hole/crevice in the ground, causing you to fall off your bike.  Also, the other day, I left my house at 6am and went for a bike ride to Kassoum (about 17km away) and back, all in one shot.  So about 35km altogether, nonstop.  That took me just over 2 hours -- the wind was pretty strong going out, and by the time I was coming back, my legs were getting fatigued -- and so I was back to my village by before 8:15am.  Not a bad way to start the day.  Eventually, I’d like to be able to bike to Tougan, my regional capital and nearest “city” with access to Internet, a post office, the bank, omelet and onion sandwiches (eggs are scarce, if not completely non-existent this time of year in village), canned tuna, cold yogurt, and a hotel decked out with air conditioning and showers in each room.  Tougan is 42km from Lanfiera, which means it’s about an hour by bus (provided the bus doesn’t break down), or – I’m hoping! – just over 2 hours by bike (provided I can maintain my 20km/hour speed and avoid getting a flat tire).  I have several reasons for my crazy goal of being able to bike to Tougan:
1.       Good exercise – gotta burn off all those white empty carbs I eat with my villagers somehow… Also, a white girl biking through African brousse isn’t nearly as “weird” as a white girl running through African brousse.  Why is she running? Is she being chased by a wild animal?  It’s for fun!?!  Who does that?  What a strange thing to do.  …..Although, no matter if I’m walking, running, or biking, I will still look weird to Burkinabe.  What is she wearing?  Capris (not a skirt?!?!), a bright, solid-colored t-shirt, and those things on her feet that aren’t flip-flops…they’re called tennis shoes?  How odd.
2.       Excellent opportunity to check out the terrain and see the sights…which mainly consist of flat red land and odd-shaped bushes…and occasionally a random collection of several mudhuts, a herd of animals, and a bunch of people (i.e. men drinking tea out of tiny glass cups while watching their wives work, naked kids playing with old tires, and semi-naked women doing housework while simultaneously breastfeeding a baby) …this is what is called a village.  Welcome to Africa.
3.       Saves me money.  If I bike to Tougan, I don’t have to pay for the bus ticket.  Okay, okay, so the bus only costs 1.000 CFA (a mille) there and another mille on the way back.  A grand total of 2.000 CFA aka $4.00 American.  Big deal. But hey, 2 mille in my pocket is a nice chunk of change.  I could drink 5 cold bottles of coke, pay a tailor to make me a dress, buy enough fruits and veggies at the marché to last me a week…
4.       A chance to be “alone” and have thinking time, or just zone out to the harmonies coming through my ipod.  Often times in village, it’s really hard to be alone.  There are constantly people who want to greet you…feed you…or just stare at you for hours at a time because you’re so strange (gosh, stop being so weird, you Americans). Also, Burkinabe culture doesn’t really have a sense of solitude like we Americans have.  In general, I think it’s safe to say that we Americans like our alone time.  Sure, we like people, but sometimes, we need to be alone.  And for Peace Corps Volunteers, I think this is especially true.  I mean, after all, if we’re capable of “leaving” our home and families and friends for 2 years, we probably kinda more-so-than-most-people really like our alone time…. Burkinabe don’t understand this.  But a bike ride is a good way to get alone time without looking overly strange and weird like we do when we sit inside the house for an hour reading a book (alone, of course).  What is she doing staring at that collection of papers?  It’s called a book? What’s that? Wait…she’s not studying? She’s reading purely for enjoyment? Who reads?  In fact, who even knows how to read? Everyone I know is illiterate…
5.       The pride and sense of accomplishment that comes with being able to say, “Yeah, that’s right.  I biked 25 miles this morning just to use the Internet, take a real shower, and eat a cold yogurt.  What’d you do?”

Blast to the Past: Stage (Part 1)

November 17, 2011

Now that you’ve read about my village friends and perhaps gotten a little glimpse of what my life is like in Lanfiera after having lived here over a month and having had the chance to get somewhat settled and develop routines, I’m going to back track.  I’m gonna jump way back into time and describe (in condensed form) all the major events and stories that occurred up until this point in time.  These experiences will be written about in several different blog posts, and topics include: my final weeks of Stage and living with my host family in Sapone, the week in Ouaga that consisted of Peace Corps Burkina Faso’s 50th Anniversary Fair and my Swearing-In ceremony,  saying goodbye to everyone in my stage and Affectation (moving to site), and my first few weeks in village when I essentially was a lost child who didn’t know what to do or where to go and had to have others feed me because I didn’t know where to find food myself.  Good times, good times.   I wonder how well I can recall all of these things, some of which are almost 3 months old by now, and how easily (or not) I can keep the stories simple and refrain from colossal exaggeration of the facts.  I guess we’ll find out.  Let the journey back into memory lane begin…


Stage Draws to an End

We felt it would never come, and yet at the same time, the end of Stage arrived way too soon.  We’d been in country for over 3 months attending classes and formations with the same people every day and, consequently, were practically ready to kill each other.  But on the other hand, there was NO way we could possibly be ready for living in country -- in a village -- on our own, without American friends surrounding us each day, without our host families to make us dinner, without our language teachers to help us correctly pronounce new words or understand cultural/social events.  But like all things, Stage did end, and we had to move on, whether we were ready or not. 

I think most of us were ready, even if we didn’t want to be or didn’t want to admit that detail to ourselves, and this partly stems from the fact that our last few weeks of Stage weren’t exactly pleasant.  It was almost as if the training facilitators had purposefully planned an extremely painful and boring last few weeks of Stage, so that we would by itching to get out of there, get out of Stage, be done with everything Stage-related, and be on our own.  It worked.  For me, anyways.  If Stage wouldn’t have ended when it did, with the bright light of going to Ouaga and officially becoming a “real” volunteer in visible sight, I probably would have seriously considering ETing (Early Termination of Service) and caught a plane home.  I don’t think I couldn’t have made it through another week of Stage.  Oh, but don’t get me wrong.  The last weeks of Stage contained just as many good and really exciting happenings as they did painful and excruciatingly boring events, and, clearly, I survived through them all to become a real volunteer. 

Here’s what I all did my last few weeks of Stage:

TEFL: Teaching English as a Foreign Language
To put it nicely, our week of TEFL training was worthless.  The trainers came specially from the TEFL office in Ouaga, and they meant well and were nice men, but the training itself was not fun or helpful to us as future volunteers, who, quite possibly would be teaching English throughout our time here, whether formally in the classroom, with adults, or as an extra-curricular club for students.  We sat through “classes” 8am – 5pm for a week, Monday-Saturday, during which the trainers essentially just read aloud PowerPoint presentations to us, without any other explanations, information, or supplementary material.  Considering we all had college degrees and already spoke English, we could do that ourselves; we didn’t need Burkinabe locals who weren’t that great at speaking English themselves to read to us like we were little kids.  Also, a big part of their training was based on how to write a lesson plan…but, again, we all already knew how to do that.  We had been writing our own lessons for weeks, as we had conducted model school and each had a classroom of 15-30 students.  We tried our best to pay attention and be a good audience (engaging in doodling, day-dreaming, list-making, and other “polite” forms of distraction), but when the second day turned out to be exactly the same as the first day, we lost patience.  People began chatting to each other, reading books, listening to ipods, sleeping, studying local languages, doing French exercises/homework, and even typing letters to home on their laptops and watching movies!  Right out in the open!  Where everyone (including the trainers) could see in plain sight.  I was appalled at first -- though I myself had been doodling and glancing at my French vocab list from time to time – but by day three, I too had joined the crowd, bringing out my laptop to upload pictures from my camera and to copy movies onto my external hard drive from others’ computers.  By the time our week of TEFL torture had ended, I had organized all my photos into folders on my computer, read a book, almost lost my sanity/patience due to the never-ending boredom, and added over 200 movies and a few seasons of TV series to my name.  Thank you, TEFL, for a week of time well spent…or not…depending on how you look at it. 

Visit to the U.S. Embasssy
Fortunately we were given a small break from TEFL one afternoon following morning classes and lunch, when we left for Ouaga to visit the U.S. Embassy and meet the U.S. Ambassador.  It was a much needed escape from TEFL and a great relief to spend the afternoon doing something productive.  Walking into the Embassy was like stepping into America, literally.  I believe U.S. Embassies, no matter what country they’re located in, are under USA jurisdiction and are technically American property, and thus, they are located on American soil.  We were all taken back a bit when we stepped inside the waiting room and saw how clean and nice it was, with its comfy leather couches, not to mention the shock we got at how cold the air conditioner was, how good and pure the water (which came from a drinking fountain) tasted, and how bizarre it was to use a real toilet, wash our hands with nice-smelling foam soap from a dispenser, look at ourselves in a full-size mirror, and dry our hands with a blow-dryer.  It really was like being back in Americaland…we had almost forgotten that this is what a normal office and waiting room in the U.S. is like.  The Ambassador was pretty cool and gave us a nice speech/presentation, as well as answered any questions we had.  He talked about America’s interests in Burkina Faso from an economic and governmental standpoint, as well as our interests from more of a moral or humane perspective.  We were thanked for coming to Burkina to work with the people here and sacrificing the things we had left behind us, like family, friends, electricity, and Internet.  The ambassador stressed the importance of Peace Corps Volunteers, as we are the ones who actually work with the native people and build a positive relationship between America and Burkina Faso.  We are the ones living in a village alongside them, eating what they eat, speaking the languages they speak, wearing what they wear.  We are the ones who directly have an impact on the Burkinabe, whether it’s teaching them to wash their hands or planting trees, not the government officials.  The people in government undoubtedly play an important role also, but they’re living the big city life, with many of the luxuries of America thrown in and easily accessible.  It’s not the life shared by most people in Burkina, even high-ranking Burkinabe officials.  As the ambassador said to us, “I may be the U.S. Ambassador of Burkina Faso, but I don’t know much about how the Burkinabe live. If you dropped me off in a village without electricity and running water, I wouldn’t have a clue what to do.  I’ve been in Burkina for a couple years now, but I still can’t speak anything other than English and French.  You volunteers are amazing for taking the time to learn their languages; I couldn’t do that.  It’s because of you, that the Burkinabe hold America in such high esteem.”

A few others at the embassy office spoke to us also, including a young woman who looked to be our age.  I forget her name (we’ll just call her Kate for now), as well as her title or position with the embassy, but she essentially works in “customer service” answering any questions Burkinabe have about the embassy or the USA, which generally includes the subject of attaining a visa.  Burkinabe always want to know, “How can I get a Visa so I can live in America?”  Kate’s the one who works with them, either helping the lucky ones through the paperwork process, or gently letting the not-so-lucky down and telling them it’s not a good idea to go to America if they can’t speak English, lack an education, don’t know someone currently there, etc.  Plus, they need to be able to buy a plane ticket if they want to get to America; America won’t buy a ticket for them…and the mention of money usually convinces Burkinabe to cease in their pursuit of a visa.  I can’t even count how many times someone has asked me to help them get to America or to buy them a plane ticket or get them a Visa.  Sometimes it’s people I know -- even friends -- but most the time it’s complete strangers.  Their reaction to my refusal to “help” them, which I supplement with reasons for my lack of support, is always entertaining.  For one, they usually don’t know the price of a plane ticket, and when I tell them, they are blown away.  Also, it’s always fun to explain that life in America is very different, and they probably wouldn’t have great living conditions or good jobs.  If they can’t speak English even remotely well, no one is going to hire them.  They won’t be able to find a place to live, and no one is going to just take them in and offer them a place to stay for free.  There’s no tôt with slimy green sauce to eat, and they’d have a lot of trouble finding anyone else who spoke French (if they themselves even speak French to begin with!), not to mention Jula or Moore or some other local language.  Furthermore, it’s really cold compared to Burkina:  even when it’s “hot” in America, Burkinabe would still find the weather chilly.  You don’t saluer (greet) everyone you see 500 times a day and ask them “How’s your family?  You wife?  Your job?  Your house?  Your animals?  Your work?  Your health?  Your family? (again) Your dog?” etc.  And to top it all off, gender roles are a whole other world!  In America, men cook for their wives, women work outside the home, etc.  It’s not common (or even legal!) to have more than one wife, and there is NO repose period during the middle of day (in Burkina, much like South America’s siesta time, everything stops from about 12-3, the hottest part of the day, during which everyone eats lunch and then lounges around and/or naps).  As soon as I tell them just one or two things on the list above – I never get past 2 or 3 things – they decide that maybe America isn’t as nice and perfect as they thought.  Maybe living in Burkina isn’t so bad – they have a home (aka mudhut) and a couple of goats, fields to tend to, plenty of tôt to eat, and they don’t have bills to pay (like electricity) or cold temperatures to endure.  Perhaps they’ll stay in Burkina after all.  Anyways, our friend Kate at the embassy works with visas (should I have any problems with mine, she’s who I would go to), and it was amusing to hear her tell us, “…and even though you now know the person who’s in charge of Visas – me – don’t tell Burkinabe that you know me.  Just lie.  Always lie.  I’m not endorsing lying, buttttt…this is a time when you should lie.  And say that you don’t know anyone at the embassy.  Otherwise they’ll never leave you alone and will think that you have a golden ticket and can get them to America or get them connected with the right people...which, well, you can, but it’s just better to say you can’t…”  Kate was also interesting because she had just arrived in country a few days earlier to start her 2-year term doing whatever she does at the embassy, and so it was reassuring to have someone “important” tell us that we knew more about Burkina and Burkinabe people than she did.  Since she looked so young, we asked her what led her to this job and what she had done before the embassy.  Turns out she studied French and International Relations at college, went to grad school and became a lawyer, and then, without doing much work in law, decided she wanted to work abroad and use her French.  She had to take some exams and special courses to attain the position with the embassy, but she was successful with them all and landed her first-job within the American government and foreign world, which worked out well for her, as she is now using her French, International studies, and some of her law background.  Pretty cool.  There’s a few people in my stage who are very interested in working abroad or for the government, like what Kate is doing, following Peace Corps service, so she was able to answer a lot of questions about what it takes to land a job abroad and/or within government.

We all hated to leave the Embassy, as it was like being back in America again, but afterwards we went to the Transit House for a brief tour, where there were hamburgers waiting for us!  A whole table full of hamburgers – about 50 of them! Basically they were just French bread loaves sliced in half with some chopped up meat and fried onions slathered in ketchup and mayo, but to us, they were some pretty tasty hamburgers!  We enjoyed our brief tour of the Transit House, which is comparable to a college fraternity house.  It’s a big house equipped with several bathrooms and showers, an adequate kitchen with some cooking utensils and dishes, storage cubicles for each volunteer to keep basics/essentials like shampoo so we don’t have to lug around that stuff in transport every time we go to Ouaga, numerous bookshelves loaded with books, games, and DVDS, some couches, a couple tables, some bedrooms with 2 or 3 bunk beds in each, and a huge screened in porch where everyone generally prefers to sleep – we just pull a mattress off a bed and drag it out to the porch.  It’s better that way – much cooler – since the Transit House doesn’t have air conditioning.  Although, it does have a ton of ceiling fans, as well as electricity and internet, so I can’t complain.  It’s a pretty nice place to stay because we can feel free to be “American,” speaking English freely, wearing shorts and a tank top, eating cereal or making cookies, etc.  After our burgers and tour, we piled back into the Peace Corps minivan/bus and headed back to Sapone…returning to our host families…and with a few more days of TEFL training to look forward to.

A Night at the Transit House
Following the week of torturous TEFL, half of our group got to go to Ouaga and overnight at the Transit House for an evening (I was in this first group; the other group went the following weekend).  Along with being a time for fun and relaxing, away from Sapone and our host families, it was also a “practice” weekend for us in Ouaga, trying out the Transit House for the first time, taking taxis, eating at fancy restaurants downtown, and being more or less on our own for the weekend.  There was nothing planned or scheduled – we had all of Saturday and most of Sunday to ourselves to do whatever we wanted in Ouaga, be it sleep, use the Internet, read a book, or shop.  Even though we had just been in Ouaga several days earlier for the Embassy visit and Transit House tour, we had no problem returning so soon, as this time we could go wherever we wanted, which meant being able to hit up Marina Market for some soft-serve ice cream and real cheddar cheese.  I watched a movie Saturday evening with a bunch of friends, while thoroughly enjoying my supper of cheese and crackers.  The next morning, after a breakfast of fried eggs which I topped with more cheese, I played cards, did some internetting, picked out a few books from the Transit House’s library that I wanted to take back to Sapone with me, and napped.  Around lunchtime, a bunch of us decided that we were hungry and were gonna go get hamburgers.  But then we got a phone call from another friend who was currently at the American Recreation Center having her interview with Shannon, our country director.  She told us we should go to the Rec Center for lunch, and if we still hadn’t had our interview yet, we could do it at the Rec Center and Shannon would buy lunch.  The other 4 people I was with had not had their interviews, so they decided that this was too good a deal to pass up: free lunch at the Rec Center -- just have to pay for a taxi to get there.  Though I had had my interview with Shannon the first week we were in country, I went with too.  I wanted to see the Rec Center, and I figured I would just pay for my own lunch since I wasn’t being interviewed.  But when we got there, Shannon told us to order whatever we wanted – to eat up and eat a lot – she was buying.  If we wanted 2 cheeseburgers, fine.  A milkshake also?  Great.  Still hungry?  Then order a burrito.  We felt a little guilty at first, but when it came time to order our food, no one held back.  Everyone got a large milkshake, either chocolate or strawberry – and man, they were huge.  And SO good.  Since we weren’t paying for the food ourselves, we decided that we would each order something different and then share it all with everyone.  I ordered a chicken-bacon club sandwich with fries; Lyndia got a taco salad; there were onion rings, a quesadilla, cheeseburgers, pizza, fried/battered mushrooms, salad, and more.  While most of us girls just ordered one meal – “I’ll have the cheeseburger and fries, please,” – the guys had no reserves about ordering more than one thing – “I’d like the chicken quesadilla…yes, with extra guac and sour cream; also, an order of onion rings and an order of fries; oh, and the 4-meat pizza…no, not the personal size, the large size, with thick crust.  And lastly, another milkshake, please.  This time I’ll try the chocolate.”  We all had a few bites of everything and before we knew it, we all had stomachs that were filled past capacity.  But that didn’t stop us from eating…or ordering a second milkshake.  Everything was just too good.  We enjoyed our afternoon of eating at the Rec Center, which in addition to the restaurant also has a pool, wide screen TV, air conditioning, and WiFi.  ….but we should have known better about all that food.  Our stomachs aren’t used to all that good stuff anymore: meat, spices, cheese, dairy, etc.  A little bit is fine, but since those things are a sparse part of our diet in Burkina, our bodies couldn’t handle the massive amounts of “American” food that we consumed that afternoon.  For me, personally, I’m thinking it was that second milkshake that did it (and also probably the other things I ate once I got back to my host family’s)… but that additional milkshake…yeahhh.  Probably not a good idea.  I should have resisted and been content with one.  But I wasn’t; I wanted another one like everyone else.  And I paid for it that night.  We got back to Sapone that evening, ate supper with our host families like normal, washed, and went to bed.  Even though I’d only been away 2 days, they prepared a bit of a “welcome home” feast for me, complete with cooked cabbage, a couple chunks of meat, and my favorite green-leaf and rice sauce, which I’d compare to cooked spinach.  Since I had eaten so much that afternoon at the Rec Center, I really had no desire to eat anything for supper, but they had prepared such good food for me, that I had to eat some of it.  I couldn’t let it go to waste!  Furthermore, I had brought back the rest of the chunk of cheese that I hadn’t finished, along with a bar of chocolate, to share with my host family, but they didn’t really like it: “Cheese?  Who eats that?  You put this substance on what?  Noodles, bread, vegetables…? And chocolate? It’s too sweet for me.”  So I ended up eating a chunk of cheese about the size of a deck of cards and a big bar of milk chocolate after my supper (it was melty-ish due to the African heat, so it had to be eaten tout de suite otherwise the ants would probably get into during the night).  I knew my stomach felt a little funny when I went to bed that evening, but that’s not all that unusual – I often feel a little weird after eating things here.  I have had plenty of experiences of eating my host mom’s meals or buying something “off the street” only to have my stomach twisting and turning minutes later, shortly followed by me needing to run to the latrine.  This was nothing out of the ordinary, plus I figured I just overfull, having eaten so much for both lunch and supper. But during the middle of the night, my body decided it couldn’t take it anymore – it couldn’t process or digest everything I had eaten – and it reacted.  I awoke around midnight to find myself breaking into a massive sweat with stomach cramps, and eventually, I threw up.  Several times.  As well as went to the bathroom.  Multiple times.  After about an hour or so of throwing up and going to the bathroom, my body was empty and felt much better.  So I drank some water, went back to bed, slept soundly, and was just fine when I woke up in the morning.  You could say I was sick that night.  But I wouldn’t really call it being sick.  It’s not like I had the flu or a fever or anything.  I just had eaten too much stuff that my body could no longer tolerate, namely, dairy products and meat.  It certainly wasn’t an enjoyable experience – especially when you don’t have a real bathroom or toilet or running water to use while “sick” – but I managed on my own.  I didn’t tell my host family what had happened; they would worry too much and be over concerned for my health.  Looking back on it now, it’s rather comic, especially considering the fact that I spent that not-so-good hour during the night sprawled outside on top of a bedsheet I had placed on the dirt.  Had my host family seen me, they would have thought I was crazy.  But I could sense I was going to vomit, and I had no desire to camp out in the latrine (gross!), and yet to stay inside my house was both too hot as well as too difficult to get outside should I have needed to suddenly throw up (I didn’t have anything that could function as a bucket/container to put next to my bed).  So outside was the better option.  It was so much more convenient.  And every time I threw up, I just had to cover up my mess with a bit of dirt…in hopes that my host family wouldn’t notice the weird colored piles/lumps of dirt outside my door the next morning.

Latrine Building
Another interesting, but kinda wasted week.  We spent two days in a classroom listening to a presentation on how to wash hands with soap, how to avoid malaria, and why it’s important to drink clean water that’s stored in a covered container.  Once again, we of course knew all of this already, as these topics had been included in some of the trainings our first week in country, but we had to endure it again as this time, the Latrine Building Formation was not only for us, but also for a Burkinabe counterpart, generally someone from our host family.  Each volunteer had his/her host mom/dad/older sibling attend alongside him/her.  For me, my host dad attended, and he really got into it, taking an active role in asking questions, answering questions, and leading group work.  I ended up reading two different 400+ page books during the 2 days of classroom sessions, but this time, no one did anything worse than doodle or read – there were no laptops, card games, or side conversations happening, thankfully.  After 2 days of sitting in a classroom, the latrine building commenced.  Yes, we were actually going to build some latrines for pre-determined people/businesses within the community of Sapone.  This was more interesting than listening to a lecture in a classroom, but still rather frustrating.  There’s only so much you can do when there’s 30 people working on one latrine:  we were divided into “small” groups by Burkinabe standards, but us Americans, had we had our way, would have been in groups of 10-12 for each latrine site.  It was quite frustrating to get to our site, and then just sit around (either under a big tree or else out in the scorching sun if we weren’t lucky enough to have shade trees) and watch 3-4 men dig a hole and pour cement.  We wanted to help.  After all, we like work.  That’s why we’re here.  In Africa.  As Peace Corps Volunteers.  Although we can be lazy sometimes, for the most part, we all enjoy working and accomplishing something.  But anytime we tried to help, they told us to sit down, we were going to get dirty, it was too hot for us to work, we weren’t strong enough or intelligent enough to dig holes or move cement bricks, etc. – certainly Americans have never before seen or used any of these strange contraptions to do construction type projects – everything in American is done by magic!  Every now and then, one of us would get handed the shovel and proceed to work, only to have all the Burkinabe laugh at us and take the shovel away within minutes.  So we stopped even trying to help.  And instead, engaged ourselves in reading books, napping, playing cards, and writing letters to friends, etc.   Of course there were some positives to our week of latrine building: I can’t deny that I enjoyed teaching a bunch of my students to play American card games like Go Fish!   Also, it was pretty cool to watch a “modern” latrine be constructed within days.  Whoever woulda thunk that a hole in the ground could be so fancy and high-tech?!?  (Actually, it was a hole above ground, with a pipe for urine to flow into a separate compartment from feces, and the ability open up a little door and clean out the feces compartment every 6 months after everything has decomposed and is now ready to be spread over the fields as nutritious fertilizer.)  And probably my favorite, most positive outcome of the latrine building experience: the food.  While normally we’re on our own for lunch and head to a local restaurant or buy some fruit and yogurt in the Marché, the participation of our Burkinabe family members/counterparts had persuaded the Peace Corps to hire a catering service.  It was AWESOME.  There were white tablecloths on each table; an assortment of cold juices, pop, and water, a coffee and tea bar complete with sugar, cream, honey; a morning pause café (aka snack break) with chocolate filled pastries and sugar-coated peanuts; and meals that were out of this world.  Rice and Lamb Curry, Spaghetti with hamburger/veggie sauce, garlic roasted baby potatoes and fish, etc.  We looked forward to each meal with great anticipation, practically running to be first in line as soon as the sessions broke for lunch.  We usually licked our plates clean and most of the guys went back for seconds until all the food was gone.  Sometimes the girls did too, though our plates were served heaping full, so we always felt a little sick and bloated after each meal, similar to the after effects of Thanksgiving. While the Burkinabe were impressed by the catering service, they didn’t appreciate it nearly as much as we did.  They rarely went back for seconds, or cleaned their plate at all, for that matter.  Who puts meat in tomato sauce and serves it over noodles?  What are all these vegetables doing in my rice?  Potatoes, who eats those?  They couldn’t understand why we inhaled our food like we did, stuffing ourselves until we were overfull.  They also had the impression that this was what each and every day of stage was like for us.  We left our host families in the morning, had a couple hours of class and then a luxurious coffee break.  After an hour more of class, we were served a catered meal.  Of course that’s how training in the Peace Corps works, duh!  We all had a lot of fun attempting to explain/convince our families that this was not an everyday occurrence.  In fact, this was the first time we had ever had anything like this, besides the very first week we were in country and the 2 days we stayed at a fancy hotel to meet our village counterparts for the first time.  Besides those experiences, we were NEVER served catered meals or even coffee breaks during our long days of class.  We had to fend for ourselves each lunch time, and depending on the situation with our host families, sometimes we had to come up with our own breakfast and supper too.  That is, unless we were content with only dry bread in the morning and rice each night…

My Village Friends

Thursday, November 10, 2011
My Village Friends

Today is the first time I’m using my computer in village!  Epic accomplishment! And yes, it is possible to use a computer in village.  You just need to find a place to hide while using it (so that you don’t have a million petites and other villagers wondering what weird “American” contraption you’re using and attempting to use/touch/play with/destroy it), and an electricity source to charge it (or if your computer battery is worthless like mine, an energy source to be plugged into at all times -- not just during charging).  After being in village for about a month and half, I’ve been able to scout out who has what in town, and so I now know which families have electricity, a TV, a DVD player, a fridge, a computer (gasp! oh my goodness, yes, there are other computers besides mine in the village of Lanfiera!), etc.  Do realize that it’s not at all common for most people in Burkina to have these things -- especially people who live in tiny villages in the middle of nowhere -- but some are fortunate enough (aka educated enough) to have a consistent job and, thus, a decent income (by Burkinabe standards).  These people are called “functionaires” and the work they do is generally in the public service sector: hospital nurses, teachers, police officers, school/mayor’s office secretaries, etc.  Even the smallest of villages usually has at least one functionaire-status type person, if not several.  Often times functionaires don’t really consider the village they work in their home.  They might live in village, but on weekends and/or holidays they go to the big city (i.e. Ouaga or Bobo) that they more than likely grew up in and have family in.  Because functionaires are essentially government employees, they usually move/relocate to a different community every couple of years (think church priests/pastors: every 2-5 years they change to a different parish), but some functionaires choose to make the village they work in their actual home, get married, raise a family, and invest in their homes and community (i.e. install electricity, purchase a fridge, etc.). 

And these are the people I’ve decided I want to be friends with.  Of course I’m “friends” with everyone in village, even the crazy/weird people that I try to avoid.  But naturally, there are people that I’m more prone to spending time with.  Here’s the rundown of who I “hang out” with while in village:
1.       The five women and bazillion kids who live in the courtyard next to my house.  And I’m not exaggerating when I say bazillion.  There’s seriously like four kids of each age: 4 babies, 4 toddlers, 4 first-grade-age kids, etc.  Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little, but not much!  Oh, and don’t ask me where their men are.  Or possibly man, as in just one male, as in they share a husband...  I haven’t quite figured that out yet, and I have yet to ever see a man there, though I’ve spent whole days with them.   But oh well, these women speak a little bit of French, as opposed to the majority of other adults in my village who only speak Jula or Daffing. (FYI, it’s really hard to have a conversation with someone or to figure out what their needs/ideas for the community are, when you can’t get past, “Good morning, my name is…”).  Also, another plus, these women feed me, and usually the food is decentish compared to some of the village food I’ve eaten!
2.       The young woman who makes gateau every afternoon and sells it at school every morning.  She lives near me, gives me food if I’m around at mealtimes, as well as more free gateau than is healthy for me to eat.  Her gateau (the word used here for “cake” or “cookie” or carb-like snack substance) is salty, comparable to a tortilla chip, with a smidgen of onion and fish in one of the corners, and (of course, like all things here) deep-fried.  They’re not bad.  Actually, fresh and hot out of the oil, they’re great.  Now if I just had some salsa to go with them, they’d be amazing.  I’ve spent many a afternoon with her, helping her deep-fry gateau.  I’ve also burned myself a number of times, when the hot oil splashes me.  Although she’s married, she doesn’t have any kids yet and her house walls/floors are extremely clean and new-looking, and thus I have reason to suspect she’s quite young and was recently married -- her husband is also young.  For all I know, she could be my age (23-24 years old) or still a teenager (16-17 years old).  I can’t tell.  And I haven’t yet asked.  But she’s nice and speaks French and doesn’t really have anything “else” to occupy her time with (i.e. babies) besides the general house work, laundry, making food for her husband, frying gateau, and entertaining me. 
3.       The hospital nurses.  Functionaires, as well as all female and around my age…I think…my “best friends” at the hospital aren’t married yet, I for sure know that – they’ve asked me to find them a good American man to marry! There are a couple of women who are older and married and live here in Lanfiera with their husbands and kids…but as for my “best friends,” Aza and Olga, I’m going to assume they’re not past 30-years-old.  They also feed me on a regular basis, and their food is generally a huge step up from typical village food: refined white rice, good sauce loaded with veggies, chunks of beef or chicken, etc. They speak great French, a practical amount of English, and of course 1-2 local languages.  They also have great fashion sense, always dressing to a T, and one of these days I’ll have them help me get an awesome, but traditional, African outfit designed by the local tailor.    The nurses recently had fun braiding my hair into a bunch of little braids and are trying to convince me to let them braid my hair in “African” designs/styles every week.  We’ll see.  They’ve succeeded in braiding my hair twice now within the past 8 days. I have to admit, having my hair in a bazillion little braids this past week has been quite nice.  I don’t feel as hot, it stays out of my face, and it hasn’t turned into a rat’s nest full of knots or dred-like clumps like my hair normally does each day here, with all the wind, dust, and sweat it has to endure.  Fun fact: the local hospital (called a CSPS – basically it’s just a clinic and a place for women to have babies) has a computer!  All the little babies born at the CSPS within the last year or so, as well as anyone else who comes in for medical care (often children sick with malaria), now have records stored on the computer.  It’s not much compared to medical-records in Americaland, but their name, birthdate, village, parents, height/weight, medical issues/diagnosis, prescribed medicines, etc., and even a photo taken digitally by the computer (wow! technology!), is entered into the database!  I was shocked when I first saw that the hospital here (which kinda looks like a run-down building from the outside), actually has a computer and keeps records of its patients.  Very high-tech and advanced for a village in the middle of nowhere, don’t ya think?
4.       The teachers at my school.  All men; all rather young, probably between the ages of 25-35.  I believe only one of them (my homologue) is married.  The rest are all up for grabs, as far as I know.  Not that I’m interested… but anyways, they like to take me out for grilled fish and a drink of beer or dolo.  We also play Scrabble…first in French (I’m really bad) and then in English (they’re really bad).  I’ve convinced them that, for now, until my French improves, any word I come up with on my own and actually spell correctly (in Français) without their help earns me double points, automatically.  I still always lose…by a lot… despite this advantage.  Although, my French has been improving and vocabulary expanding, and lately I’ve been able to successfully pull off a few jokes and phrases of sarcasm, which they actually laugh at.  Whether they’re laughing because I’m truly funny or because my French is horrible and I’m a white girl and altogether my trying to use sarcasm in African French is just too hilarious for them, I don’t know, but either one is fine with me. 
5.       The mairie (mayor).  He’s about 50-years-old, has an awesome house and a really nice wife. Although we’re not yet exactly “friends,” he’s offered to help me with anything I need and to use his house for privacy/work space if necessary (like when I need to use a computer).  Plus, I can’t discredit the fact that we’ve shared a bottle wine together…I think that makes us at least kinda friends…right?
6.       The owner of the pharmacy.  I feel awful, but I don’t even know his name.  I always forget.  But I know his kids: Arnaud (he’s in my sixième class at school!), Steve, and Kevin (he’s preschooled-age and refers to me as “tanti,” literally “auntie”…gosh that makes me feel old, but oh well).  The pharmacy doctor purchased a copy machine within the past year, and within the past month added a desktop Dell computer with a printer to his business!  Not that he really knows how to use the computer… I’ve been helping him with the basics: turning the computer on and off, using a mouse, typing on a keyboard, saving documents, and recently we’ve advanced to using Microsoft Word and creating tables/charts, which he is using to write, as an electronic copy rather than a handwritten document, Lanfiera’s 2012 Community Action Plan and Budget.  We have a system: I help him learn how to use the computer and I get “stuff” in return.  I can’t accept payment since I’m a volunteer and the reason I’m here is to be a resource and provide technical assistance with their needs, not to make money/financial gain, but I can accept “stuff,” such as eating a meal with their family, watching TV with them, charging my computer (they have electricity, obviously), and graciously accepting offers of cold drinks, be it water, juice, or alcohol (they have a mini fridge!).  As nice as this sounds -- and trust me, it is nice -- I also have to endure lots of not so nice things.  Sometimes this includes long, boring hours of watching him painfully type words one letter at time, using only his pointer fingers, rather than all five fingers on each hand…maybe I’ll teach him how to type in the next month? But the keyboard is arranged for the French alphabet, so I can’t really type on it either…at least not yet, anyways. Also, don’t forget that all the computer lingo is in French so I’m learning as I go, too, like how to say “Double-click two times really quickly with the right side of the mouse.”  Often times I experience a language barrier and can’t accurately verbally express how to do something on the computer, or even figure out how to do the simplest of tasks on Microsoft Word myself, like inserting page numbers, all because I don’t understand the French or formatting used in Microsoft Word (French version).  But I’m learning.  Plus, as he lets me charge me laptop (I’m currently in the pharmacy office right now, 7pm in the evening, typing away as my computer charges), I really can’t complain.  Electricity is scare in these parts, so to have a place where I can safely charge my computer (provided the power isn’t out) is definitely worth the long hours of “Computer Basics 101.”  Furthermore, I can type math tests on my computer, print copies of the test as well as other items/photos/sheetmusic (thank goodness for the invention of flash-drives, they really makes things extremely easy and actually possible, even in African villages!), and give my students typed tests on paper, as opposed to typical method used here, which consists of writing 5-9 questions on the chalk board and having students rewrite the questions with their answers on a piece of notebook paper.  More to come on the subjects of school and tests in Africa, later.  Anyways, I like the family at the pharmacy, and so they’re good people to know and be friends with.  Now if only I would learn the man’s name…

You might have noticed that most of the people on my list of “friends” are pretty important people within the community, so to speak.  I find it interesting how easy it was for me to get in contact with them and begin working alongside them.  Well, at this stage, there’s more chatting/eating/drinking than working, but the work and planning of activities/projects will come…right now it’s more important to build relationships with the people in my village.  In America, a stranger would never be able to so effortlessly and quickly play an “active role” in the happenings of a community…more or less a foreigner who barely speaks the town’s language.  We Americans would be thinking, “Who are you to tell us what to do and what to eat?  Who do you think you are, foreigner who doesn’t even speak English?  You want to meet with our state’s governor or the CEO of some big company?  Yeah right, go back to wherever you came from. And learn to speak English.”  But here, right away, everyone was like, “Hey!  Tubabu!  Eat with us!  What can you help us with?  Plan activities for our kids!  Meet with the mayor!  Discuss pertinent issues with the regional director!”  It’s a whole different ballgame here, and I’ll probably never be “so important” or “well-known” in a community again.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Brief Update (aka, I'm Alive)

For those of you who follow my blog, you may have noticed that I haven't written anything new in awhile. Almost 2 months, actually.  Of course a lot has changed within the last 2 months, and eventually --hopefully -- I'll get around to actually typing up some posts about some of the recent (or not so recent) events that I've experienced throughout the months of September and October.  However, this post is only to let you know that yes, I'm alive and well, along with a few other select pieces of information:

1. I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer now!  I swore-in on September 22, 2011.
2. After swear-in, I have since moved to site -- my small village of Lanfiera, located along the western border of Burkina Faso near the country of Mali.  Thus, I no longer live with my host family or have trainings or language classes.  I'm in village and I'm on my own!
3. I do not have electricity, running water, Internet access, or other such luxuries near my village.  In fact, my village does not even have a restaurant or a place/person to buy bread or eggs from.  I can only purchase food at my marche, which occurs every 5 days in another village that's about a 10-15 minute bike ride away from my village.  I've been living off of fresh fruits and veggies when I can find them (thank goodness watermelons are in season!), as well as scrounging food off of my neighbors.  Thus, I've been "lucky" to eat lots of to and slimy green sauce with my fellow villagers.
4. My house seems to attract rats.  Yes, rats.  Not mice.  I can deal with little itty bitty mice.  These are rats.  They're huge and crawl up walls and get into all my stuff.  I've set out rat poison, and have found (aka, smelled) dead rats in my house.  I was too grossed out to remove the dead rodents myself that I had to ask a petite (child) to do it for me.  She was only like 6 years old and looked really scared, but she successfully removed the dead rat from my floor and washed the spot on the floor with bleach, and then I gave her a piece of candy as a reward.
5. School has finally started in Burkina.  I've had classes for 3 weeks now, and I teach two different levels of math.  Each of my classes have over 120 students in them, ranging in age from 11 to 21 years old.  I have a chalkboard, chalk, and a sponge to wipe the board off with.  That's it.  Oh, and the textbook that I need to teach the kids with, though none of the kids have this textbook (or any book), anyways.
6. I bought a guitar!  A real one!  It’s blue and black, acoustic, shiny.  It cost me a good portion of my monthly living allowance, and it was an adventure to get it and even more of a hassle to bargain for….story to come at a later date.
7. I got bored one day at site, so I cut my hair.  Okay, not really.  It was just a trim, and I needed it.  All by myself, with the aid of a mirror and scissors, I attempted to give all my layers a little trim and cut off the split-ends.  I think I did an okay job, not that it really matters anyways, since no one in my village “knows” what well-kept, pretty, healthy “American” (and by American I mean “white girl of European descent”) hair should look like and I just wear it up every day anyways cuz it’s so hot here.  Also, while I was tempted to cut my hair short, I figured I’d save that for another day.  Either a day when I am extremely bored in village…or extremely angry and need a stress reliever.  Plus, it’s more fun if there’s a friend there to cut your hair for you and to help partake in all the fun.  A friend also helps ensure that you don’t completely go crazy and do a really bad, uneven, choppy job, or shave your head, unless, of course, that’s what you intend to do!
8. After almost a month at site, I endured the 8-hour roller-coaster bus ride from my village to Ouaga for a meeting with other Peace Corps Volunteers to plan Camp GLOW for middle-school aged girls and boys this upcoming summer.  This 4 day trip to Ouaga is what is allowing me to: actually use my computer for the first time since moving to site (thank you electricity!), check email and update my blog (thank you internet!), shower (really, you can't possibly imagine how much cleaner a real shower gets you compared to a bucket bath), bake brownies (courtesy of the stove in the Peace Corps Transit House), eat Frosty Flakes with cold milk and bananas (it's amazing how comforting and "American" it is to eat cereal and milk not just for breakfast, but for a midnight snack as well...it's kinda like being in college again!), buy oatmeal and a few other "necessities" so I have something to eat in village other than rice and to, sleep on a real mattress (as opposed to my plastic cot at my house) with a fan blowing on my face, speak English with other Americans, skype with family and friends, get my mail (yay for packages filled with goodies from home and letters from 6th grade penpals!), and more.  All in all, it's been a good trip.

Halloween is coming up, and the volunteers in the Sourou Valley with me are probably going to get together for a little celebration.  Before I know it, it will be Thanksgiving (another feast is planned for the volunteers in my region, hopefully equipped with as close as we get to the American equivalents of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, pie, etc.), and then it's Christmas!  Wow, is it really almost Holiday Season?  Back home, it's cold out.  It could potentially snow any day now.  Ironically, here in Burkina Faso, we're in the middle of a mini hot season: daytime temps are over 100, nighttime temps maybe drop to 85-90 degrees.  Not good sleeping weather. Just sweating weather.  Ew.  But, supposedly after this mini hot season, it should be cool season here and actually pretty nice.  As in, at night, I'll probably want a blanket or even a long-sleeve shirt!  At least, that's what vetern volunteers keep telling us is coming and how we can look forward to the weather soon, along with GOOD veggies, like green beans, potatoes, and lettuce.  I can't wait!  Really, there's only so much you can do with onions and eggplant before it gets old and you get lazy and decide that it's just easier to eat to and slimy green sauce like the rest of the villagers.

Also, I've decided it's now time to update my contact info and wish lists.  I've been here long enough now that I have a better understanding of where to find things and what things are good to send me, if you so desire to send me a package.  To be honest, packages aren't necessary.  Letters are just fine, if not better, actually.  Plus, letters are significantly cheaper for you! When it comes down to it, there's not much I really need here, or even want anymore, because so many things just aren't practical and these "American goodies" prevent me from being able to fully integrate into Burkinabe culture and live like my villagers.  If I desire something and look hard enough, I can usually find it somewhere...eventually.  It might take a month or two, but eventually I'll come across whatever special ingredient I was desiring, like cocoa powder, for example.  I REALLY wanted to make brownies a few months ago during Stage when we spent a night in Ouaga.  I had a stove and all the ingredients...except cocoa powder.  So I went to the "Americanish" stores in Ouaga...but none of them had cocoa powder or chocolate baking squares or anything like that.  Sad.  No brownies.  So next time I talked to my mom, I told her that she could include some Hershey's baking cocoa in my next package (which she did, by the way).  Ironically, a few weeks later, I was back in Ouaga, went to Marina Market to eat some cheese and ice cream, and lo and behold, they now have TWO different kinds of baking cocoa on the shelf!  Of course.  This is Africa.  This is how things work here.  You have to wait a LONG time for things, whether it's for people to arrive for a meeting, church to be over (gotta love 4-hour long Mass services in local languages), or a certain type of food to appear in a store.  They don't stock things consistently here, and there's no guarantee that a store will ever have anything, even if it's had it every other time you've been there.  Anyways, case in point, like I was saying, I have everything here that I need to survive, and mainly I just have wants, but not even strong wants anymore, and if I want it bad enough I can either buy it and/or search for it.  I just might come across it...sooner or later. So please refer to my updated contact info and wish lists, before you send me anything.  Well, okay, you don’t have to.  Really, you can send me anything you want, if you’re willing to spend the money to ship it here, and I won’t object.  I love chocolate.  I’ve inhaled whole bags of beef jerky in one sitting (this also serves as a reason for you to not send me stuff!  Aka I’ll just eat it all, and then get sick…).  And I certainly love when I get good hair care products or things that make me smell good.  But they’re not necessary.  They’re very nice, but just know that you don’t need to send me packages.  I’ll survive without Snicker bars, mint gum, gossip magazines, and deodorant.  I might not smell good, but I’ll survive.  As the Burkinabe constantly say to me when I express any needs/wants/concerns (such as the rat problem with my house), “Ca va aller.”  Literally “It will go,” but more like “This is how the world is and it’ll all work out eventually…deal with it and be happy.”  Ca va aller.  And so, until the next time I have internet, ca va aller. 

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Food Fun

I’ve noticed I tend to write about food a lot.  Maybe this is because I eat pretty much the same thing each day with my only variety coming from whether my rice was covered in tomato sauce or peanut sauce.  And maybe it also stems from missing the tastes of home and the refreshing satisfaction of a cold glass of milk.  Fun fact: I used to drink at least 3 cups of milk a day…I have yet to even SEE real milk (as opposed to powdered milk) in Africa yet, more or less actually drink even a tablespoon of real milk.  I’ve basically quit milk cold-turkey, as if I were a smoker and drinking milk was the bad habit I needed to get rid of.  I’m just praying I don’t end up becoming lactose intolerant.  That would be sad.   Which reminds me, I haven’t eaten my daily yogurt (the only dairy available in Burkina) yet today.  Anyways, I think my frequent texts concerning food are also because food happens to be an easy topic to write about.  Explaining the nuances of a culture’s values and what certain physical gestures or facial expressions mean compared to what they represent in America is difficult.  But explaining food is considerably less complex.  And it’s also probably relatively easy for those of you back in America – who, no matter how hard you try, will never fully comprehend what I’m experiencing – to understand and relate to.

So here’s some more on my experiences with food…

Peanut butter is a staple food/ingredient found in almost every American’s kitchen.  It’s eaten alone right out of the jar; on bread, celery, and apples; with chocolate; in cookies, bars, and ice cream.  Pretty much anything you can think of (even pizza and tacos) has been eaten with peanut butter by at least one American before, if not by hundreds of people.  Fortunately for us Americans currently in Burkina, peanuts are plentiful.  Which means there’s also peanut butter.  In its most natural and simple state of existence.  It’s not at all like Skippy or Jiff, with the extra salt or sugar or honey mixed in, and it’s not even all that similar to the natural, organic stuff we have in America either.  But it’s close.  Close enough, anyways.  The crushed up dark brown peanut sauce here has been a life-saver and a comfort food.  We’ll eat it on anything.  Typically, the Burkinabe only add it to a watery sauce accompanied by onions and chunks of fat/meat which is served over rice or couscous.  But we put it on our dry bread, eat it with bananas, smother it between rock-hard cookie/biscuit/cake-like things, and more.  Some of the guys have even begun mixing it into their yogurt with crushed up cookies and a spoonful of chocolate powder in hopes of recreating the yumminess of a Dairy Queen blizzard.  The Burkinabe think we’re weird and disgusting for all the different ways they’ve seen us eat peanut butter.  But they’ve started to get used to it and have stopped giving us puzzled looks when we stop at their table in the marche and ask to buy both a baggie of peanut butter and a loaf of bread, along with a banana.   Although I have yet to make myself a peanut butter & banana sandwich (a popular lunch-time creation among most the stagiaires, and for some people in America as well), I do enjoy peanut butter on bread, and peanut butter on bananas.  Just not all together.  But I’m sure that day will come.  It’s not uncommon for me to eat 3 or 4 bananas dipped in peanut butter for my lunch.  Or for breakfast.  Or with my supper.  Or for each meal of the day.

This past week, I had bought a bunch of bananas on my way home after class.  Like 8 bananas, to be exact.  I planned to eat two with my supper (to supplement the rice/noodles I was sure to be served), save two for my breakfast the next morning, and give the other four to my family as a “gift.”  I don’t see them eat fruits/vegetables very often, unless I bring it home for them.  After they thanked me for the gift of bananas, I sat down in my chair and took my peanut butter out of my backpack.  I told them I really enjoyed eating my bananas with peanut and that it tastes great.  My mom and Valerie gave me a weird look, but said they would like to try it and see whether or not I was correct in it tasting good.  They each spread a bit of peanut butter on their banana and took a little bite.  Instantly, their faces lit up and they said, “Wow, this is good!” and proceeded to smother the rest of the bananas in peanut butter.  They even gave little bites to baby Cecilia, who also gobbled it right up.  I then informed them that “pâte arachide” was full of protein and other healthy nutrients, and so it was a good thing to eat on a regular basis and to help the kids grow. Now to convince them to try peanut butter on bread…and add a few more things to their white rice/noodle diet…like cabbage.

While this is a rough season for finding fresh fruits and vegetables – with this year in particular being more difficult than usual – the marche generally sports bananas, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, green peppers, eggplant, and cabbage on a regular basis.  That’s a lot of good stuff, whether it’s eaten raw or cooked in a soup.  Unfortunately, however, they do cost a bit more…though really, it’s not that expensive.  And sometimes there are even avocadoes, oranges, grapefruit, and apples.  (Right now there are no mangoes because mango season is finished, but normally mangoes are plentiful.)  Eating fresh veggies is not common here, but adding an onion or a few tomatoes to a sauce served over rice is a bit more typical.  Every now and then, there might even be a few cabbage leaves added to the sauce as well.  Unfortunately, any nutrients originally found in the veggies are completely lost though, as everything here is boiled for hours and cooked down to a liquid purée.  So I’ve been trying to encourage eating fresh foods, or at least not so thoroughly cooked veggies.

One night I brought home a head of cabbage, an onion, cucumber, and a few tomatoes and proceeded to make a salad, using mayonnaise and vinegar with a dash of salt as dressing.  They watched in awe as I sliced up the cucumber and diced the onion, surprised by the fact that it looked like I knew what I was doing when it came to cooking and was skilled with a knife.  I made a whole bowl full of salad with the intention of inviting my family to share it with me, but of course they wouldn’t touch it.  I ate my fill (there was no way I was gonna let those good veggies go to waste!), pretended to eat the noodles I was served, and then gave the rest of my food to my family.  I told them I was finished, but if they would like to eat it the salad, they should, because it wouldn’t keep overnight and I didn’t want it to go to waste.  They smiled politely and nodded, setting the bowl inside the house.  But I have no idea if they ever ate it or not, and if they did, whether or not they liked it.  I only had used about half of the head of cabbage, so I also gave that to my host mom and asked her if she could prepare it in a sauce for tomorrow’s supper.

I was so excited the next evening to see that she did cook the cabbage for me.  I savored every bite of my boiled cabbage that had an onion/tomato sauce over it, almost reminiscent to a stew, sans the meat, potatoes, and carrots.  Several times, I said something along the lines of cabbage being my favorite food (it’s not. yup, I lied) and that I wouldn’t mind eating it every day, in order to get the point across that I REALLY like vegetables and would love it if my mom prepared this dish for me again.  Having bought the cabbage myself, I knew it wasn’t overly expensive and that my family could definitely afford to buy it with the food allowance they are given from the Peace Corps.  But even if they couldn’t, I have no problem buying my own vegetables and giving them to my mom to cook for me.  Whatever it takes to eat something other than blah carbs.  Although, strangely, I’ve also started to become indifferent to eating the same thing over and over: I’ve had benga (beans and rice) for lunch six days in a row now, including a couple nights for supper also.  In fact, it’s amazing how “happy” I find myself to see what my meals are each night.  “Oh man, rice with peanut sauce.  This is good stuff!  Just what I was hoping for.  I haven’t had rice since…lunch time.  And peanut sauce for…2 days now.”  And so, you can probably imagine then, how thankfully thrilled I am whenever I have the opportunity to eat something that’s not a blah carb…or even if it still is a blah carb, as long as it’s served with a vegetable-based sauce. 

Take the green leafy stuff my mom serves as a sauce to eat with tô, for example.  The first time I saw it, I was a little skeptical.  I saw them picking leaves that morning.  And now I was being served boiled leaves.  Great. Looks like I’ll be going to bed hungry again.  Before I permanently pushed aside the bowl of slimy green stuff, I decided to try a bite.  And you know what?  It wasn’t bad.  A bitter aftertaste.  But besides that, I found it to be extremely edible and quite satisfying.  I stirred a few tablespoons of salt into my pot of leaf-sauce to kill the bitterness, and voila!  Magic.  I ate the WHOLE pot, practically licking it clean.  I took a large scoop of tô out of the bowl that had been prepared for me, feeding it to the dog so that it looked like I had eaten the sauce with my tô, like I was supposed to.  No one here eats only sauce; it’s always rice or noodles or tô with a splash of sauce as an afterthought, not the other way around like I had done.  When I gave my dishes to my host family, I made sure to tell them how much I enjoyed the sauce.  I also was certain to point out that although I had eaten every last drop of the sauce, I was very full and did not need any more to eat. 

I find it ironic that within the past few weeks, as I’ve been bringing home random fruits and vegetables and telling my family that I REALLY enjoy certain foods, they’ve also become more accommodating to me and have really made a strong effort to vary my food a bit more.  For example, after over 2 months straight of dry bread every morning for breakfast and nothing else with it --no butter.  no jelly.  nothing. – I was finally served something else: an omelet sandwich.  Granted it was still dry bread, but now it had an “omelet” shoved inside it.  And granted the omelet was mainly oil and onions, mixed in with maybe two small eggs.  Maybe.  It really was mainly just oil and onions, very little egg.  But nonetheless, it was something different.  My host dad said to me, “It’s not good for you to eat only bread.  We’ll try to find other food for you.”  I wasn’t sure if I should say “Yes, that’s great,” or “No thanks, it’s not necessary, the bread is fine” so I just nodded and gave them my "I'm confused and don't understand what you're saying" look.  Since then, I’ve now had a deep-fried onion/egg sandwich about once a week (usually on Sundays), along with a hot rice porridge/pudding once, which I added some sugar to and a sprinkle of the cinnamon sent to me from America.  Good stuff.  My mom has also given me my favorite green-leaf sauce 3 times since my first encounter with it, and now makes sure to put about half a head of cabbage in my peanut-sauce that is served over rice.  I’ve even had watermelon once, and sweet corn twice.  Well, not exactly sweet corn like in America.  But corn that’s on a cob nonetheless.  It’s cooked over/on hot coals until it’s almost all black in order to soften the kernels, otherwise the kernels are rather hard.  I’m pretty sure the corn that people eat here is actually what we Americans feed our animals.  Oh well, it’s edible.  Even without butter or salt on it.