August 14, 2011
Here’s what’s all gone down in the last 3 weeks since arriving back in our host village of Sapone after having been gone for a week visiting our future village and regional capital:
1. My host sister returns…but my host mom leaves….
2. Mustaches
3. Stage Prom!!!
**There’s also Camp Glow, planting trees, model school, more Minnesota PC Volunteers/teachers, and a Harry Potter Movie Marathon, but they’re all pretty extensive and exciting, and I still need to plan my math lesson for today, so I’ll write about them in my next post.
My host sister returns…but my host mom leaves….
My 12-year-old host sister Valerie hasn’t been around for most of my time in Burkina Faso so far. Shortly after moving in with my host family, she essentially moved out. She went to stay with family (I believe her grandparents) near the capital city of Ouaga, and she was gone for about a month. However, when I returned from my week-long excursion to my future village, she was finally back, although I didn’t realize it at first. You see, before she left, she had lots of long little braids that she always wore pulled back into a pony tail slash messy bun kind of thing. But when I returned from my trip, there was a girl in our courtyard with almost no hair. There are always random people who stop by our courtyard to visit or young kids who come by to do a chore or task, such as filling our water jugs, so I thought nothing of this unfamiliar face. I simply said hi, took my bucket bath, and then went to straight to bed because it was late, I was tired from traveling, and I had class in the morning. Much to my surprise, the same girl was there at 6am the next morning, which I thought was a little weird. Shortly thereafter, this girl brought me my breakfast. Also weird. But then I remembered that long, long ago, I once had host sister named Valerie who I had known for only a couple short weeks. I was pretty certain that this girl was Valerie, but I didn’t know for sure; after all, this girl looked different and didn’t have much hair. Plus, I had yet to hear anyone call her “Valerie.” I went to class, wondering if my host sister had finally returned and if I should have said, “Hi! Good to see you again! How was your trip?” or something along those lines… Fortunately when I got home, the same girl was there and my little brother was able to verify her identity for me when he tattled on her: “Mommm! Valerie hit me!” This was also the point when I realized that the reason she no longer had hair was because she never did. She had worn hair extensions or a weave or something or maybe a combination of the two, as most Burkinabe women (who have at least a little bit of money) tend to do. Very few women actually have all-real hair on their heads, unless their hair is buzzed off or very short with small braids. Oh, but don’t get me wrong, Valerie isn’t bald or even close to it – her hair is just really different from what she had before. In fact, she has longer “real” hair than many of the girls I’ve seen, and it’s braided into little 2-inch long pieces that go all around her head with a green bead attached at the end of each braid.
Anyways, so Valerie was finally home and the entire family back together…for a few days, anyways. Until one day when I came home from class and discovered my mom, brother, and baby sister were gone. No problem, my mom goes places all the time and always takes the kids, like to the market or to a neighbor’s house to chat. That night, Valerie brought me my supper, since my host mom was still gone. The next morning, I awoke to my host dad trying to boil water for my breakfast tea. That’s strange. Men in this country NEVER cook. When I got home after class that day, Valerie was making my supper, and my mom and little siblings were still nowhere to be found. My host dad finallllllly mentions to me that my mom, Christi, and Cecilia were attending a wedding and would be gone for a couple days. Ok, cool; good to know. That explains a lot, like my dad tending to my breakfast and my 12-year-old sister making my supper.
Well, a “couple days” without my host mom painfully turned into a week and a half. And man, was it brutal. The food was absolutely awful. Burnt noodles. Undercooked rice. Green meat. Cold fish. Props to my dad and sister for trying, but really, they should have just told me to buy something in the marche for my supper before I went home each evening. Or they should have let me cook. For both myself AND them. I may not know a whole lot about cooking over an open fire, but I’m pretty sure I can handle boiling noodles or rice in a pot of water, and when it comes to meat, as long as the fish smells that funky and the beef is oddly green like that, it’d be better to just forgo the protein altogether.
So there I was, being served almost inedible food (although they put a lot of effort into trying their best), and then I realize that my host dad and sister been eating the same thing for every meal of each day: cold, leftover tot. There was a huge pot of tot the day my host mom left, and each day, the pot got a little emptier. Keep in mind that there are no fridges here, so the tot has been stored in a pot sitting outside for over a week now. Sometimes the pot is covered with a lid, but not always. Furthermore, whenever this leftover tot was consumed, it was not reheated or eaten with a sauce or seasoning. It was just eaten straight-up, right out of the pot, as is. The only thing done before eating was rinsing each chunk of tot off with water. Although, I don’t think that little splash of water did much to get rid of any germs growing in that tot. But who knows, maybe tot doesn’t even grow germs. It might be magical like that. I guess I should be thankful that they never tried to serve me any of this leftover tot, but then again, it’s not like I ate the stuff they made me anyways, and sometimes, even the dog wouldn’t eat what they made. So maybe they should have served me the tot -- I could have pretended I was really hungry and taken a lot of it (and given it all to the dog). Then their pot of tot wouldn’t have lasted more than a few days and so they would have had to made themselves something “fresh” (or at least more sanitary) to eat. Or, as mentioned before, I could have made them something to eat. After a few days of inedible suppers, it reached a breaking point where I was so hungry that:
1) I had to go the market first thing in the morning on my way to school to buy myself yogurt or bananas or anything I could find
2) I had to buy myself something every evening on my way home to either eat before I got home or after my “supper” when inside my house so my family couldn’t see me eat this additional food.
3) I started eating things I never used to eat; for example, karite, a little green fruit about the size of a golf ball with a huge pit inside which is used to make shea butter. The first time I ever tried karite, I said to myself, “I will never eat this again, if I can help it.” But during the week my mom was gone, my host dad offered me a bowl of karite…and I ate the WHOLE bowl. And I don’t even like karite. And I still detest it. But that’s how hungry I was.
One of the days I tried to bring home some bananas and yogurt to share with my dad and sister, but of course they refused to touch it, even though I told them it was a gift for them. I was disappointed they wouldn’t let me “feed” them, but at the same time, I definitely did not mind eating all the bananas and yogurt myself. My family still has a hard time accepting gifts from me (even when it’s just a measly banana) or letting me do any kind of “work” to help them out, but they are getting better.
Mustaches
All the guys in my stage (i.e. French for training group, not pronounced “stage” as in where one performs theater or music, but rather “stah-ge” – it rhymes with “lodge”) have decided to grow mustaches and/or other forms of facial hair, in hopes that our stage will now be known as “The Stache Stage.” (Every stage/training group tends to create a name for itself to distinguish it from the other stages; for example, the last stage was really big, with over 80 trainees, and so it is now called “Super Stage.”) While a couple of the guys actually look decent and much more wise (or at least older) with their mustache and sideburns, most look pretty bad. Not to mention creepy. Think 1980’s meets creeper/pedophile. Eww. None of the girls like it. But all of the guys are doing it anyways. And refusing to shave. ALL of them. Even the guys who have practically hairless faces to begin with and can’t grow much of anything, besides for random little patches of fuzz on their chin or cheek. They too, are refusing to shave. Wonderful. In case the locals didn’t think we Americans were weird enough already, our guys have taken the image of a “weird American” to a whole new level. Thanks, boys.
Stage Prom
Peace Corps Stage Prom. Yes, it did happen! Yes, we went with dates -- each couple wore dresses/tuxes made out of matching pagne material! Yes, there was dinner, entertainment, and booze! And yes, we even voted for a prom king and queen – congrats King David and Queen Lindsay! It was epic. Everyone had a good time (except for those who drank too much), and it was a lot of fun. Our entertainment was put on by ourselves, with over half of us trainees participating in a talent-show/open-mic-nite/coffee-house extravaganza thing. I showed off on my clarinet and sang a few songs with my guitar; there was viola playing, trumpeting, more guitar and some vocal duets, ukulele strumming, and even a choreographed dance performed by all 12 of the DABA trainees to Cher’s hit song “Do You Believe in Life After Love?” It was fantastic. And most of it was caught on video. If there ever is a need for a promotional clip to persuade people to join Peace Corps or to show people “what” Peace Corps is all about and what we do, we got it covered. The DABA dance was one of the best things I have ever seen. Not to mention, some of the DABA folks gots some pretty sweet moves. To top it all off, at the very end of the dance, the two skinniest DABA boys, Jason and Bilin, ripped off their shirts and exposed the “DA” and “BA” written on their boney chests, respectively. Perfect ending. That’s Peace Corps, right there.
In other news:
*I got my LPI results. I am no longer a Novice-Low French speaker; I am now Intermediate-Low. Hooray! Je parle Francais! Well, bilfu bilfu, anyways! (bilfu bilfu = “small small” or “a little a little” in Moore, a local language here)
*I’ve finally received some mail from home! 2 packages sent by my family (mainly stuffed full with things I had requested) and one letter from my friend Sarah. Getting mail here is always a real treat and everyone gets extremely excited whenever anyone gets something; I had 5 or 6 people “helping” me look through my boxes to see what goodies my family had sent me.
*Whenever it rains here, it gets a little crazy. Well one day after class, a storm was a brewin’ and so we all pedaled home on our bikes as fast as we could in hopes of beating the storm. I was one of the first people to leave, but I didn’t even make it to the main road before the massive gusts of wind hit and rain drops started to pelt me like bullets. I was pedaling as hard as I could, but the wind was so strong, that I seriously was not going anywhere. Pretty sure I was actually being pushed backwards. Sheets of dust (with little rocks) were coming at me so I couldn’t see a thing in front of me; it’s a good thing I had my helmet on to protect my head from the force of the rain drops and little rocks being picked up by the wind gusts. As far as I know, there aren’t tornadoes in Africa…but I could be wrong. I’m not exactly sure what I experienced, but I remember thinking: “This must be what it feels like to be in a funnel cloud.” Somehow I made it home safely (and before everything really went crazy with lightning and thunder) and I quickly put my bike in my room and ran to my host family’s house for shelter (and cuz that where my supper was). I was completely covered in dust/mud, and my muscles were SO tired. Consequently, I was really sore the next day.
*Remember when I said that the food (or lack thereof) has been a little difficult to adjust to, but that it would get better once we were on our own and once the crops/gardens after rainy season were harvested? Well, I guess I lied. Although it’s technically supposed to be rainy season right now, it really hasn’t rained a whole lot throughout Burkina Faso. And that’s not good. Not good at all. It’s hurting the crops, which in turn means this upcoming harvest (and the rest of the year in general) are going to be rough on a lot of families. The majority of income for most families comes solely from their crops, and if they don’t get a harvest, then they don’t have money to buy food. And if they don’t have money to buy food, they definitely don’t have money to send their kids to school or buy medicine or do anything… So everyone (even the kids) will be trying to do additional income-generating activities to make up for the lost crops, and thus they won’t have “time” to attend school or participate in clubs or health sensiblisations or any of the things we, as Peace Corps Volunteers, will be trying to implement. Instead, they’ll all be focused on finding enough food to eat and/or earning the money to buy that food, because – naturally – food trumps all. A hungry man is an angry man – and also a man who is certainly not in the mood to listen to an American tell him that he should wash his hands and let his daughters go to school. So. We’ve been forewarned that unless we get some serious (and continuous) rain soon, this next year is gonna be tough. Great. One of the poorest countries in the world is about to get even poorer. But I suppose that as long as I’m in Africa, living in a 3rd world country that lacks electricity and running water, I might as well experience both a drought and famine. Might as well. Heck, why not hit us with a sandstorm right away, too? Or a locust infestation? Or how ‘bout a political uprising while you’re at it? Tangent: Should political instability occur (or anything else deemed “unsafe”), don’t worry, all Peace Corps Volunteers would be evacuated to a safe spot and/or sent back to America. For those of you who didn’t know, there was a bit of political unrest in Burkina earlier this year…nothing too serious…but unrest within the Burkinabe population, nonetheless. So I probably shouldn’t joke or be sarcastic about this topic. Or about famines or locust attacks either. It’s actually all very plausible. So let’s pray everything goes well and Burkina Faso gets some rain, and then we won’t even have to worry about any of these issues…
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