August 21, 2011
Here’s some more “recent” events. And by recent, I mean they’ve occurred sometime within the past 3 weeks… (and as today is September 3 when this is finally being posted, it's actually been a month since this stuff occured...)
Tree Planting
One of the goals of PC Burkina Faso is to improve Burkina’s environment, namely, by planting trees. Starting this year with my stage, every volunteer, whether working in Education or Health, will be required to plant (and keep alive!) at least 625 new trees each year, with those volunteers who are in the DABA sector being responsible for at least 1000 trees each year. With these efforts, by the year 2016, PC will have planted over 1 million new trees throughout Burkina Faso. Which, by the way, is enough trees to reach from Ouaga to Paris. That’s a lot of trees. Especially when you consider the fact that Burkina Faso is located in the sub-Sahel, and thus a good portion of the country (northern Burkina) is essentially a desert and doesn’t grow much of anything. Planting trees will not only improve the environment by physically enhancing the soil and adding nutrients to the ground, but of course trees will add a visual, aesthetic appeal to Burkina. We’ll be teaching our communities how to plant trees (or anything else that grows in the ground, such as gardens, for that matter) and how to ensure the plant’s survival by adding compost and natural fertilizers to the soil. And then there’s the food. Mangoes, oranges, bananas, karite, papaya, lemons, limes, weda, and lots of other good things grow on trees. In Africa. Right here in Burkina. Thus, if we plant fruit trees, eventually, in a few years, there will be nourishment for people to eat -- and it will contain 500% more vitamins and nutrients than the white carbs everyone here currently supplements their diets with. Thus, our tree planting efforts will also serve to teach the Burkinabe about nutrition and eating balanced diets. Malnourishment, particularly in children, is a big issue in Burkina, and so our tree planting is also a way of combatting that. Although, trees are a long term answer -- which is a good thing because it’s more sustainable! -- so unfortunately we won’t be able to see many of our tree planting’s immediate affects, whether for combatting malnourishment or for simply helping Burkina look pretty and green. But if we ever come back and visit 10 or 20 years from now, then maybe we’ll be able to see if our work ever amounted to anything.
So. In order to teach Burkinabe to plant trees, we first need to teach/learn how to plant and care for trees ourselves. The DABA kids have had TONS of sessions on this topic, since it will be one of their main focuses, but us Education people haven’t received any information on how to go about ensuring the survival of 600+ trees. Until this past week, that is, when we finally had a session on tree planting and got to get our hands dirty. We mixed wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of compost, sand, and clay to culture the perfect growing environment for our tree seeds. Then we each filled 100 little plastic bags with the dirt mixture and set them up in our designated pepiniere (i.e. “Tree Nursery”). It was a long and dirty process, so most of us opted to throw on shorts and a t-shirt – even the females, though our shorts exposed our knees and then some, resulting in us feeing really self-conscious and half-naked, but we kept our shorts on anyways… cuz there was no one around except for the other Americans, cuz it was nice to wear something other than a long skirt or pants for once, and cuz we were going to get dirty, and dirty legs are a lot easier to wash than dirty khacki pants. We all enjoyed chatting while listening to music and filling our bags of dirt. I thought it was a perfectly picturesque Peace Corps scene. Like exactly what people picture when they think of Peace Corps and try to imagine what PC Volunteers do: ya know, dig wells, plant trees, etc. Yes, it was such a perfect PC moment. We’re in Africa, sitting in a big circle with other young, well-educated colleagues, planting trees (well, getting ready to plant trees, anyways), discussing world peace and global hunger and American politics, while listening to music. Classical music, at that! Where else would you find a group of people doing all of these things, besides Peace Corps?!? I think the Classical music topped it off and made the whole experience almost surreal. And everything became even more magical when the ipod (which was on random shuffle) switched from a Chopin mazurka to Blink-182’s “All the Small Things,” causing everyone to revert back to their pre-teen years and sing along at the top of their lungs. Now if only a verse or two of “Kumbayah” had broken out, the perfectly Peace Corps picturesque scene would have been complete. Anyways, finally, once all our bags were filled, we planted the seeds. We could choose from a variety of tree seeds, including mango, baobab, merengue, papaya, and more. Some are good for producing fruit or edible leaves, others are for shade, and still others are used to build live fences/barriers. We’re in charge of caring for and nurturing our seedlings until we leave Sapone in about a month, and after that, they’ll be given to our host families and other places throughout the community to be planted. Unfortunately the 100 trees I planted (assuming they all survive) don’t count towards my quota of 625. These 100 were just practice; my 625 starts once I move in to my site in September. Oh, and good news: after only a few days of watering and lots of love, some of my seeds are already sprouting!
We also had a tree-planting session on planting actual trees (as opposed to seeds). We planted nine 3-foot-tall mango trees, as well as several hundred twigs that will become fences/shade but currently are only about 1-foot tall. We got to plant the several hundred trees with our model school class at a nearby school; every grade/classroom and their teachers (i.e. 3-5 of us) were assigned a spot in Sapone. It was really nice to hang out with my students outside of a formal school setting and just have fun with them, teaching them how to plant trees and them teaching us how to pump water from a well. They thought it was HILARIOUS to see Madame Hauth filling buckets of water at the pump. My 12-year-old boys were showing off on their bikes, popping wheelies, riding without hands, and doing other cool tricks for me, and the girls and I had some good conversations: “Mme. Hauth, did you plant a tree?” “Yes, I did.” Girls: “What?!?!?! You did? Where? Which one?” Me: “Which one?!?! What do you mean ‘which one?’ I helped plant half the trees here!” Girls: hehe haha hehe… Keep in mind that we planted several hundred trees around the school…and that Burkinabe find it strange to see Americans to do any kind of physical work, especially if it’s an American female working…
Silent Auction
It was a normal day, just like any other day for a PC trainee in Burkina. It was lunch time, so most people were eating at a nearby restaurant, but a few of us were still at the FDC. One of our Burkinabe facilitators who’s in charge of our training program announced that mail was here. We quickly looked through all the packages and letters to see if we had gotten anything…and then we saw it: 2 big boxes addressed to Amanda. Yes, Amanda. Sadly, we no longer had an Amanda in our group; she had returned to America shortly after we first arrived in Africa. Despite her packages being sent to her in the beginning of June, they were first arriving now, in the middle of August…with Amanda lonnnnng gone. Sending packages back to America is possible, but ridiculously expensive and not worth it, unless whatever is being mailed is extremely valuable. We opened up Amanda’s boxes to see what was in there, if it was still good after 2 months in transit (or had turned moldy), and if there was anything personal or really valuable that should be sent back to Amanda in America. We were thrilled to see that both boxes were filled with food: cheese sauce, spinach tortellini, JellyBelly beans in every flavor, yogurt-covered raisins, Fiber One bars, pistachios, Goldfish, and more. But then came the hard part: what to do with this package sent from heaven? Sure, the few of us there could have kept it to ourselves, split up the goodies, and not told anyone else. But that would have been mean. And we’re nice people. So we wanted to share the treats with everyone. But how, exactly, were we to share the treats? Yeah, I suppose we could each pick one thing, or we could pass around the jellybeans and hope that everyone gets a few, but more than likely, this would result in drama, with people getting angry that they didn’t get what they wanted or that they didn’t get as much as other people got, etc. So we decided against that, too. Then Alynn came up with a brilliant idea: we would hold a silent auction! And donate the money we raise to a good cause, such as one of the grant programs used to fund Peace Corps activities in Burkina Faso, or perhaps give it to Valerie, the owner of a small boutique/restaurant right near the FDC (our training building) that all of us go to multiple times a day because she makes some of the best benga (beans and rice) around, as well as these almondish-flavored biscuit things that are the closet thing to cookies we’ve seen in Burkina. She’s also open every day, all day whenever we have class (which is pretty much every day of the week), is really nice and always helpful with whatever questions we have about Burkina culture, and furthermore, is rather cheap: a plate of rice and peanut sauce costs 50 CFA, or 15 cents American. In my opinion, she severely undercharges us and thus probably isn’t making a profit. Which is exactly why some people thought it’d be nice to give the money to her, as an investment in her restaurant/boutique.
So it was decided, a silent auction would be held…and where the money was going would be voted on at a later date, after we saw how much money we had to work with. I worked with Alynn on sorting through all the food items and grouping some of the smaller treats together, like the two 100% organic strawberry fruit roll-ups with the lone 100-calorie pouch of pretzels. A few days later, the auction was held, and man, did some people get a little crazy when it came to food. For example, the goldfish were a hot item. And the girl who REALLY wanted them opted to stand by the table the whole time and proceeded to threaten anybody who tried to outbid her… Since the money would be going for a good cause, I played devil’s advocate or whatever you wanna call it, and bid on pretty much everything to get prices started and to get people to outbid me. “Gosh Beth, why did you put 1000 CFA for the Fiber One bars? The previous bid was only 500 CFA. You only need to increase bids by 100 CFA…” Me: “Yeah, I know, but I really like FiberOne bars and will happily pay 1000 CFA for them. Plus, other people who want them also will outbid me…if they really want them as bad as I do.” And sure enough. Three minutes later, I was outbid by the person who wanted them even more than I did and was willing to cough up more money. Besides, let’s be honest. 1000 CFA? Even 2000 CFA? That’s still only $4 American. That’s nothing. That’s pretty much what the item would cost normally in America, and if you have your family send it here, you have to tack on the outrageous shipping fee also. So really, it’s still a good deal. Yes, you could have bought 20 bowls of beans and rice or 40 bananas with that 2000 CFA…but these are FiberOne bars (or goldfish, or M&M’s, or cheese…) and you’re not going to find this stuff anywhere else… so suck it up, use the money you were planning to spend on beer, and pay the dang 2000 CFA for the little pack of cheese sauce. Despite bidding on pretty much everything several times, I actually ended up walking away with only a few items: Rustic Organic Spaghetti Sauce, Trail Mix, a bag of dried fruit, and 2 FiberOne bars. Yes, I really did desire those FiberOne bars – they’re good for you and they were covered in dark chocolate (which is a rarity in Burkina)! But I only got 2, not all 6, because me and the other 2 people who were constantly outbidding each other decided to make an alliance and split the box 3 ways. It was a good compromise, and we all ended up happy and got to enjoy a little bit of FiberOne goodness drizzled in chocolate. I would have gladly bought every item in the auction, should no one have outbid me, but fortunately my devil’s advocate scheme worked. Others did outbid me and I didn’t have to choke forth the huge sum of money that everything in the auction would have cost: 42,000 CFA. The grand total was a whopping sum equivalent to about $85 dollars American, which maybe doesn’t sound like much, but here is HUGE – it’s enough money to buy 10 pagnes and have them all taken to a tailor and made into fancy outfits, or enough to buy 90 bottles of Coke, or 420 loaves of bread. It’s more money than most people see each month, if not a 3-4 month period. So we were pretty proud of ourselves for raising that much money off of our pathetic bids for American food, driven mainly by how badly we craved chocolate or pistachios, rather than how badly we wanted to help out a good cause… but hey, whatever works. (Or gets us to spend our money.)
Harry Potter Marathon
Electricity may be scarce, but there’s no shortage of DVD files/movie clips (which may or may not have been downloaded illegally) amongst us stagieres. Amongst the 47 of us, we have everything from Aladdin and other Disney classics to Indiana Jones to Mean Girls to Harry Potter, plus tons of complete TV show seasons, like Friends and The Big Bang Theory. Most of us came to Africa with a laptop and/or very large external hard drive equipped to handle storing thousands of movie, music, and book files (yes, electronic books, like “The DaVinci Code” and “Pride and Prejudice”), all in hopes of having an outlet to keep us sane when we’re bored in village with nothing to do (very common, especially if it’s a rainy day) or really missing the comforts of America (i.e. watching Glee every Tuesday night). Of course everyone shares their goodies with everyone else, and so by now, most people have copied all the media files they could possibly desire onto their computer. I came with one movie on my hard drive (Inception); I now have several hundred to entertain me once at site…provided I have electricity to run my computer since my computer battery is basically worthless and only lasts for about an hour when not plugged in. Awesome. Anyways, as most people in America know, the last Harry Potter finally came out: Harry Potter 7, Part II. And though there are no movie theaters anywhere near us right now, we still got to transport ourselves to Hogwarts for the night and enjoy the final film of this epic series. The movie was great – I thoroughly enjoyed it! – and the Russian subtitles didn’t take away from the experience at all. Really, besides for the Russian and occasional shaking and slightly misaligned timing between lip movement and audio, you never would’ve guessed that this particular Harry Potter film wasn’t from America.
Milo
My host family’s dog, Milo, isn’t exactly the nicest dog in the world. You may recall me telling about the first few weeks in Sapone when Milo would constantly growl and bark at me, even to the point of not letting me out of my house at night when I had to go to the bathroom. Whenever my language teacher would come by to visit after school and check on my situation with the host family (this generally occurs about once a week), he would always comment on how mean Milo was, especially towards strangers. But eventually Milo got used to me and accepted me as one of the family. It probably also helped that I always fed Milo my leftover bone/fat chunks and other scraps, along with anything else I deemed inedible but didn’t want the family to know I hadn’t even attempted to take a single bite of whatever they had prepared… In fact, Milo has come to expect that if I’m eating, he will also get fed. He’ll sit right next to me, staring intently at me with sad puppy dog eyes as I eat, waiting for me to drop something or to sneak him a piece of my “inedible” cuisine. The family always yells, “Milo! Allez!” (i.e. get/go away!) and sometimes they even throw little rocks at him, though I’ve tried telling them it’s alright if Milo is by me when I eat and that he doesn’t bother me. It’s not like Milo is jumping on my lap or anything. He’s just sitting there, by my feet, like a good, loving dog should. So. For the past month, I’ve been pretty certain Milo likes me. But this certainty was confirmed a few nights ago when it rained. Like all rains, it was a crazy and intense storm. It was about 2am when I awoke to the sound of strong wind gusts and rumbling thunder, and I knew it was about to downpour. Unless I wanted my entire room to be filled with water, I had to shut my metal door, which I normally keep open at night. I opened up my screen door so I could remove the large rock that keeps the metal door open and in place against the house wall, when all of a sudden, something huge dashes into my room. It was slightly terrifying. With it being dark, I wasn’t sure what had just ran past me and brushed against my leg, and was now in my room right near me. I got my cell phone and shone it at the creature, only to discover it was Milo. Weird. Milo has NEVER attempted to come into my house before. But it was also such a relief. I was very happy to see it was Milo and not some other random animal or hyena or who knows what. I tried to get Milo to go outside, but he wouldn’t budge. He plopped himself down on the floor near my bed, as far away from the door as possible, and curled up into a little ball, right as the rain started pelting the metal roof and thunder cracked overhead. Poor dog. I wouldn’t want to be outside in the storm either. I decided Milo could stay in my room until morning…it’d only be a few hours until it was time to get up for the day anyways. Plus, having a dog that will growl ferociously at any strange person or animal that comes within the vicinity was kinda comforting. And made me realize that when I get to site, one of the first things I’m going to do is find a puppy to claim as my own and train it to only like me and to bark/growl like crazy whenever anyone else appears. Like a watchdog. My dog will probably end up being racist, only tolerating “white” people like me and getting really defensive whenever anyone else (i.e. a black person) is around. But oh well. Safety first, right? My only other thought as I climbed back into bed that night and listened to the patter of the falling rain was that I just hoped Milo wouldn’t do anything weird during the night, like get into my boxes of food or pee on my suitcase of clothes… and no worries, he didn’t. He was a perfectly good dog. Until it was time for him to leave. I had to go to class, which meant locking the door to my house before I left. But of course, I couldn’t lock the door if Milo was still inside. I tried prodding Milo and nudging him with my foot, but he would not move. I almost thought he was dead. Turns out, he’s just really good at playing dead and ignoring me. I was going to be late for class if I didn’t get going, so finally I went to my family to tell them about the situation, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be happy with Milo and would probably throw a rock or two at him. After going through the typical “Bonjour! Ca va?” and other necessary greetings, I said that Milo was in my room. My dad smiled and nodded. So again I say that because of the rain last night, Milo is in my room. NOW. Still. Again my family smiles. Clearly they weren’t comprehending my French. Which was sad, because I knew all of the words to say “rain” and “room” and “currently/now” and I’m pretty sure I was pronouncing them right… So I try again, speaking very slowly: “Milo – the DOG – is in MY room, RIGHT NOW and won’t leave.” That was it; they finally understood. My dad: “Agh! Milo? The dog? Milo? In your room? Oh no! Not good. So sorry.” He marched straight to my room and pretty much grabbed Milo by the collar and threw him out the door. Sorry Milo, I tried to avoid this; if only you had moved the first time I asked, then all this violence could have been avoided. Oh well, at least I know Milo likes me.
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