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…
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