Riding the Bus / Struggles with Tougan / Good Luck Getting Your Money Out of the Bank

**This a long post, with several intertwining stories.  There’s a few more stories I could add to this, but I’ll write about them in a separate post, as they are equally as long.

Monday, December 5, 2011

So last time I didn’t get a chance to even start my reminiscing about what final events led up to the end of stage…and I probably won’t this time either, as it late (9:14pm aka 21H14 – we use military time here) and I’m just waiting for my computer to finish charging.  The electricity has been cutting in and out, which makes it difficult to do anything and to charge my computer quickly, but it’s at 88% right now.  Go, computer, go!  I’ve been hanging out at the pharmacy A LOT these past few days, doing a lot of computer work.  I’ve written tests for both of my math classes -- in fact, two versions of each test!  Mwahaha, take that, students who like cheat (aka each and every one of the 120 students in each of my classes)!  My two versions of each test were made all with the hope of slightly deterring the amount of cheating that happens…but I really can’t blame them for copying each other’s work.  They can hardly help it; there’s so many students crammed into the classroom that they’re practically sitting on top of each other…how can they not happen to see their neighbor’s work or answers?  I also made an excel sheet with all of my students’ names for easy grade calculation at the end of the trimester and entered their grades from their previous test and exercises.  I leave for Ouaga on Sunday to attend IST (Inter-Service Training) for about 2 weeks.  Bien sur (certainly/of course), I will be staying in a nice hotel with internet access, and I’ll probably eat so many hamburgers and ice cream cones that I get sick…but it’ll be worth it.  I’ll return to village just before la fête de Noel, so I’ll be able to celebrate Christmas with my villagers…and don’t think that just because everyone’s Muslim here means that there’s no Christmas.  Burkinabe know how to take advantage of every opportunity possible, including “Christian” holidays, to have a fête, take a day off from work, and eat good food!  BUTTTTT…. before I can get excited about seeing my other volunteer friends at IST, eating hamburgers in Ouaga, celebrating Christmas, and leaving village in general (sometimes it’s nice to get away), I need to give my final (aka second) test of the trimester, correct the tests (over 200 of them), enter grades, and then calculate the trimester averages with coefficients and this whole big mess of other numbers that the Burkinabe school system uses… all this work might kill me.  Grading 200 tests is not fun.  Not fun at all.  Especially when I need to finish it within a matter of 2 or 3 days while still having classes and doing my other work as well, like the clubs I’ve organized and spending time at the CSPS (hospital).  I should be thankful, however, that I have the ability to use a computer (aka Microsoft Excel) to calculate my grades easily for me…the rest of the teachers must do everything by hand (sometimes they have the aide of a calculator) for over 800 students.  Yikes. 

Anyways, a little update on my life in village.  I actually have been getting cold.  As in I put on a sweatshirt the other evening.  And then all the people at the pharmacy laughed at me because “the tubabu is cold” and usually I’m always saying how it’s so hot and I am not cold, even when they have their winter coats and earmuffs on.  Also, this morning, I wore pants to school and a light ¾ sleeve jacket over my blouse.  Yup, I guess the “cold” truly has arrived, if the tubabu is sporting long-sleeves and pants...during the morning/night, anyways.  As soon as the sun is out, it gets hot realllll quick and the cold leaves, not to return again until the sun has set.

My last few weeks in village have been pretty crazy, complete with mishaps in Tougan and struggles riding the bus, painting my house, celebrating the Muslim fête of Tobaski, getting sick (twice!), not having any money (story to follow), wedding crashing, teaching my neighbors how to make bread, and all the things with school.  So before I return to recalling what I was doing 2-3 months ago during Stage, I’m going to fill you in on what exciting adventures I’ve encountered in village, and specifically, riding the bus.

Riding the Bus / Struggles with Tougan / Good Luck Getting Your Money Out of the Bank

I’m quite lucky to live in a village that’s situated on a main road, and thus is along the bus route.  I don’t need to bike to a nearby village or to a bus stop or even travel that far at all.  I literally walk about 300 feet to the gravel road to get on the bus.  The bus (referred to as STAF, because that’s the bus company’s name), usually arrives in Lanfiera around 8am every morning (give or take an hour) and travels to Ouaga, approximately an 8 hour trip.  Along the way, there are plenty of stops.  The first main stop is in Tougan, the city/village (regional capital of my area) located about 42km away.  So, if I have a need to go to Tougan (for example, to go to the bank and use the Internet), I can hop on the bus in the morning, arrive in Tougan around 9:30am, do whatever I need to do until about 4pm, and then get on the afternoon bus to return to village sometime later that same afternoon/evening….theoretically.  The afternoon bus departs from Ouaga in the morning and makes the journey to my region, spends the night at the last stop, and then starts again bright and early the next day, doing the voyage in reverse, and in effect, becoming the morning bus that I can take to Tougan/Ouaga.  So this is how STAF is supposed to work.  But this is Africa.  Things are never consistent.  Time is flexible.  And thus, my experiences with the transportation here have been…interesting…if not downright frustrating…to say the least. 

Story 1:  Before Halloween I had gone to Ouaga for a meeting with other volunteers to plan Camp GLOW, a summer camp for kids here.  Transport to Ouaga wasn’t bad.  Long, sure.  Hot, yes.  Dirty, definitely.  Squished, bien sur (there were 2 women, 2 babies, a toddler, and me, crammed into a row of 3 seats.  If that’s not squished, I don’t know what is).  But overall, not a bad 8 hour ride.  Especially compared to the trip back that was to come a few days later.  On the way back, the bus kept breaking down and having insanely long rest stops, and before I knew it, it was getting dark and we had first just arrived in Tougan.  Technically, as Peace Corps Volunteers, we are not to be traveling at night…safety/security reasons.  But the sun was just beginning to set, and my village was only about another hour past Tougan, so should it turn into “night” while on the bus, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.  I’d much rather just get back to village and sleep in my own bed.  Though of course, once we arrived in Tougan, the bus sat.  For a LONG time.  Soon it was past sunset.  The men who man the bus kept saying, “We’ll leave toute de suite” (aka immediately). Ha.  Toute de suite. That means nothing here.  Burkinabe find nothing wrong with telling someone they’ll be back immediately, and not returning until 2 hours later…. So toute de suite?  Take that as you will. 

Some nice functionaire guy, who was also on the bus and now waiting like the rest of us, bought cold cokes for me, Vida, and Brooke (the other 2 volunteers from my region who also attended the Camp GLOW meeting and thus were on the bus with me) and we had a nice discussion.  But soon it was really dark and past our bedtime.  We were tired and crabby.  Didn’t really have the energy to endure another hour (or more) of bus riding and plus then deal with finding our houses in the dark once we actually arrived in village.  Furthermore, the bus showed no signs of running anytime soon -- the mechanics were busy dinking around with some engine in the front of the bus.  Fortunately there are 2 volunteers stationed in Tougan (one guy and one girl; no, they are not married or a couple…yet), so we gave them a call.  They came to our rescue, mounted our bags, packages, and boxes of goodies (aka cans of oatmeal and other “necessary” food items we had bought in Ouaga) onto their bikes, and took us to Sue’s house, where we were able to wash the dirt of our faces and spend the night. 

The bus breakdown was bad enough.  But the whole situation was further complicated by the fact that we had NO money.  Had we not had friends in Tougan, we would have had to pay for a hotel, which we maybe could have scrounged up the money for, but still...it’s not easy on the mind to be broke and in an unfamiliar place.  Being in Ouaga, we had depleted most of our funds, buying hamburgers and good smelling shampoo.  But it was near the end of the month, so we didn’t hesitate too much with our purchases of things to indulge in and to bring back to village.  After all, our next living allowance payment would be in our accounts at any moment.  In fact, it should have already been in our accounts (according to Peace Corps), but the Burkinabe banking computer system hadn’t yet registered our installment, so we couldn’t withdraw any of our money that was supposedly there.  I had had a decent chunk of money on me, but with everyone else’s funds running low, I had been borrowing money to friends, and soon, I had essentially no money either. Like literally, about the equivalent of $5 American in my pocket and maybe another $5 back in my house in village.  But here, that’s certainly enough to get by, especially if you’re eating meals with neighbors and friends.  While I wasn’t too worried about going hungry due to not having money, I was still quite frustrated that our attempts to withdraw money at the bank had failed – not once, but twice!  We had gone to the bank, waited in line for over 2 hours, only then to find out that we had no money to withdraw but were told we could come back the next day and it would be ready for us then, returned the next day, waited in line for a ridiculous amount of time again, and still had no money….oh, Africa….why must you be difficult?  But having no money isn’t the end of the world (unless an emergency or something out of the ordinary should arise).  I’d just have to be really careful with what I buy…though, when I can buy a plate of beans and rice for 100 CFA, 6.000 mille (aka 6000 CFA) goes a long ways… and also, I’d need to find a day to journey to Tougan – a day when I didn’t have classes scheduled – hopefully, probably, sometime within the next week, and go to the bank then. Not a big deal.  A bit of an inconvenience, considering I had just been in the big city for a few days with relatively easy access to the bank, but not a big deal. I could handle coming back to Tougan for a day. In fact, Halloween was in a week, and I’d be back in Tougan anyway, for our Peace Corps Halloween Weekend get-together.  Certainly our money would be in our accounts a week from now…  Oh yeah, and our bus, the one that had broken down and caused us to spend the night with Sue…well, turns out they got it fixed…eventually… around midnight. 

Story 2:  Halloween Weekend.  The get-together with a bunch of other volunteers stationed in this area was great.  There were about 15 of us, plus a few extras who endured a long bus trip across the country to join us.  It was nice to see everyone and share our stories of what our first month in village was like.  We stayed at a nice-ish hotel, where we had electricity, fans, air-conditioning, showers, real toilets, etc. and took advantage of eating cold yogurt, omelet sandwiches, fried chicken, fresh bread from the bakery, and cold watermelon.   Also, I had some caramel apple suckers my sister Erin had sent in a care package that I shared with friends, and so those were a nice treat that helped us get into the Halloween/fall spirit.  We drank boxed wine (wine typically comes in boxes here, not bottles, and we like to refer to our boxes of wine as “adult juice boxes”) , danced at the bar/restaurants who played music and had a “dance floor” and all in all, basically just were lazy and sat around talking or watching movies in our air-conditioned hotel rooms. 

We were able to make a pit stop at the bank at the start of the weekend, but our money still wasn’t in. So, I decided to withdraw the last bit of money that was still in my account – my crutch/emergency fund.  Courtesy of advice from Peace Corps and horror stories from current volunteers who didn’t budget their money wisely, I had the ingenious idea of keeping at least 25.000 mille in my account at all times, but now I had to use that money.  I guess that’s why I have a crutch fund, for times like this when bank systems aren’t working and I can’t get my monthly living allowance on time like expected….  25.000 mille isn’t a huge amount of money, but it was certainly more than enough to pay for my “fun” and hotel room in Tougan that weekend, along with taking a decent chunk of money back with me to village until the next time I could make it to the bank in a few weeks or so.  So I had no worries.  When the weekend came to a close, we said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways, with some taking their respective buses, others biking back to their village, and still others taking bush taxies.  My bus came that late that afternoon like normal, and Sami, Molly, and me took our places on the crowded bus.  We waited.  And waited some more.  I pulled out my book for a while…and then I think I even fell asleep.

Next thing I know, it’s been over an hour since we loaded the bus, and the bus hasn’t moved.  In fact, the engine is no longer even running.  Everyone’s still sitting in their seats, as if the bus is ready to leave any moment now, but then I hear some guy say something about the bus being broken and that a new bus is on the way.  No way.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Bus troubles again?  Two times within a week?  No way.  This couldn’t be happening.   I wake up Sami and Molly, and we decide to get off the hot, smelly, overcrowded bus and see if we can figure out what’s going on.  Is the bus indeed broken?  Is another one coming?  If so, when?  Within the hour?  Or in 5 hours?  Are we better off just spending another night in Tougan?  Or should we wait for this bus so we can return home tonight?  We all had things to do in village the next day, me especially, since I had class at 7am.  I really couldn’t just “spend the night” in Tougan again and not show up for school.  But maybe we could find someone with a car or truck to take us back to our villages tonight or early tomorrow morning…or maybe someone from our village could come pick us up.  But wait.  Who has a car?  The chances of finding a person that evening who actually owns a vehicle was slim to none.  Oh Africa.  Once again, things are more complicated than they should be.  After a bit of waiting and some discussion, we decided to pull our bags off the bus and wait at Yogurt Place (so called because it has thee BEST yogurt ever in little plastic sachets!), conveniently situated right next to the bus stop.  We figured we’d maybe eat some more yogurt and give the bus an hour to either get fixed or for a new one to show up, before we’d give up, call it a night, and go back to the hotel.  Some of our friends who weren’t planning on leaving until the next morning were still at Yogurt Place from when we had said goodbye over an hour earlier, and when they saw us walk up, the reactions on their faces were priceless: 

“What are you doing here?  Did the bus come back for something?”

“Uh, no.  The bus actually hasn’t left yet.”

“Oh…we didn’t notice.  So.  Were you sitting on the bus all this time?”

“Yup.  We were.”

“I’m sorry.”

We chilled for a bit, tried our best to relax and not be overly frustrated with Burkina’s transportation systems, and did indeed eat some yogurt as well as my watermelon – we were hungry, plus I didn’t feel like lugging a watermelon around with me anymore, so I figured it was best to just eat it up.  Yogurt and watermelon: not a bad supper.  We were just about to call it quits waiting and march back to the hotel when another bus rolled into town.  Wow, they weren’t lying!  There actually was another bus.  And it didn’t take 5 hours for it to arrive.  In Africa, this sort of occurrence could be considered a miracle!  We packed up our bags, headed to the new bus, and attempted to climb on.  But they (the bus staff/employees? If that’s who they were?) proceeded to push us away and tell us this was the wrong bus and we should quickly find our places on the other bus.  What?  But isn’t that bus broken?  What is going on?  Why is there another bus here if it’s not to take us home? Why don’t we ever understand what is going on in this country?!?  Much to our dismay, the new bus refused to let anyone on, and 5 minutes later, it drove away.  But everyone was making a mad dash towards the broken bus, which hadn’t moved, started its engine, or even had any mechanics dinking around to try and fix the problem the entire time we had been waiting.  We were hesitant, but made our way towards the bus also.  We climbed up the steps of the bus, but that was as far as we went, despite the crowd of people behind us pushing and shoving to get on the bus also.  You see, before we boarded, we had a few questions/concerns.  Molly took control of the situation and her conversation went something like this, with its literal English translation making everything all the more frustrating and simultaneously, ridiculously hilarious:

Random guy on bus: « Madam, il faut entrer. »   Madam., you must enter. (i.e. enter the bus)

Molly : « Primèrent, j’ai une question.  Est-ce que, on va partir ? »  Firstly, I have a question. We will leave?

Guy: « Oui, trouvez un place.»  Yes, find a place.

Molly : « Le bus n’est pas cassé ? »  The bus isn’t broken?

Guy: « Non, c’est prêt. »  No, it’s ready.

Molly : « Qu’est-ce que c’était le problème ? »  What was the problem?

Guy: « Il n’y a pas des problèmes. »  There weren’t any problems.

Molly : « Pas des problèmes !?! Puis….pourquoi nous avons attendu beaucoup de temps? »  No problems ?!? Then…why we have waited a lot of time?

Guy: « Oui, c’est nécessaire de attendre. »  Yes, it’s necessary to wait.

Molly : « Mais pourquoi ?  Qu’est-ce que la raison? »  But why? What’s the reason?

Guy: « Madame, s’il vous plait. » Madame, please.

Molly : « Donc, on va partir maintenant ? »  So, we will leave now?

Guy: « Oui, toute de suite. »  Yes, immediately.  (But we all know what « toute de suite » means in Africa…anything from 5 minutes to 5 hours….)

Molly: « A quelle heure? »  At what hour?

Guy: « Ce soir.  Madam, il faut asseoir.»  This evening.  Madam, you must sit down.

Molly: « Mais, à QUELLE heure, exactement? »  But at what hour, exactly?

Guy : « Je ne sais pas. C’est n’importante pas. »  I don’t know. It’s not important.

Molly: « Non, ça c’est très importante ! »  No, this is very important.

Guy : « Oui, ça va aller. Il faut entrer. »  Yes, it will go. You must enter.

Molly : « Ca va aller…quand? »  It will go…when ?

Guy : « Oui. »  Yes.

Molly : « Quand? A quelle heure ?  »  When? At what hour?  (Molly is practically yelling at the top of her lungs…)

Guy : « Madame…»  Madam…

Molly : « Encore, je demande: QUAND? A quelle heure ?  »  Again, I ask/demand: WHEN? At what hour?

Guy : « Madame… »

*awkward silence while Molly glares ferociously*

Guy : « Cinq minutes »  Five minutes…

Molly : « Ok.  Merci.  Je peux asseoir maintenant.  »  Ok.  Thank you.  I can sit down now.

Molly’s conversation/argument to find out when/if the bus was leaving definitely ranks as one of my top ten stories in Africa so far.  We couldn’t help but to laugh until our stomachs hurt once we finally took our seats, and even to this day, we still find it amusing to reenact the bus situation and imitate Molly and the man she argued with.  It’s probably one of those times when “you had to be there” but whatever… it was funny…at least for us.  Surprisingly, the bus did actually leave “toute de suite”…as in within 20 minutes after we took our seats, and we were able to make it home that night.  Oh yeah, but that hour ride to my village in the dark was rather terrifying.  I now fully understand why Peace Corps rules state that we are not to travel at night.  There’s a very good chance we could die. If bus rides aren’t scary enough during the daytime to begin with, due to horrible road conditions, random animals standing in the middle of the road, and drivers who speed along like they’re Nascar racers, try riding the bus at night…when there’s absolutely zero light to see anything, whether it’s large potholes or donkeys sleeping in the road.  Yes, the chances of an accident occurring are very, very high.  I’m still shocked that I made it home safely that night.  I also have come to the conclusion that, while in Africa, I will not in the least bit miss amusement parks or carnivals.  I have my own roller coaster and thrilling action rides here, in the form of public transportation…  Public transportation: it gives Disneyland a run for its money.  Whether bus, taxi, or donkey cart, they’re all guaranteed to leave you thrilled…if not fearing for your life.  Plus, considering that public transport lasts much longer than your typical ride on a roller coaster or spin on the Ferris wheel and is also significantly cheaper (i.e. an 11-hour bus ride for $10 American), it’s not a bad deal: you definitely get your money’s worth…along with a few bruises.

Story 3:  So this mishap was my own fault.  I’d like to blame Africa, but I can’t.   I’ll admit I screwed up and should’ve been thinking more clearly, but I’ve learned my lesson.  I now know that Sundays are not a good day to go to Tougan.   And hopefully I’ll never forget that.  Here’s what happened:  It was a Saturday morning, and while painting my house, I get a phone call from one of my education supervisors in Peace Corps.  He asks about some forms that I apparently was supposed to read via email and send back over a week ago; I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about as I hadn’t checked my email in over a month.  He encourages/demands that I go to Tougan and check my email as soon as possible, but I am hesitant to agree, because I have tons of things going on in my village, my class schedule is packed for the week (resulting in me not having a free day to journey to Tougan), and I’ll be going to Ouaga in just a few weeks for IST.  He isn’t satisfied with this response and again insists that I get to Tougan within the next few days.  He asks what I’m doing tomorrow (Sunday) and if I could go then, since I can’t go during the week because of school.  I think about it for a minute, decide that my laundry can wait a few more days and that it’s either tomorrow or never for going to Tougan before IST.  I tell my supervisor that yes, I’ll take tomorrow to check my email in Tougan, and then I immediately get back to painting my house, as there were over 12 students helping me paint and they were going crazy and making a mess – i.e. painting themselves instead of the walls – while I had been outside talking on my cellphone.

I was slightly annoyed, because, as aforementioned, I had plenty of things I wanted to get done in village (like laundry), and I really had nothing I needed to do in Tougan besides check my email.  But I figured what the heck, it’s not the worst thing in the world to spend a day running errands around Tougan, going to the bank, buying a few cans of tuna to take back to village, and relaxing for a few hours at the Cyber while waiting (patiently, of course) at least ten minutes for each Internet page to load.  And considering I had just spent pretty much all my money buying paint for my house, I probably should be heading to the bank anyways.  I went to bed that night, thinking only of the fact that I was going to get up early, catch the bus, and spend the day in the “big city.”  So when I got up the next morning, I grabbed all things I thought I would need for the day and stuffed them into my backpack: my computer, my bank card, a book, water bottle, and a few bills so I could buy my bus ticket.  I left a few bills at home, but in all honesty, I really didn’t have a whole lot of money left to either take with me and/or leave at home; I had planned to withdraw a rather large sum of money at the bank, and then with that money, buy my cans of tuna and other goodies. 

My ride into Tougan went smoothly; for once, there was hardly anyone on the bus, so I had no difficulties finding a seat!  As soon as I arrived in Tougan, I indulged in some cold yogurt to which I added a cut-up banana and apple that I bought from fruit lady on the corner of the street.  Then I casually strolled to the bank, smiling and greeting everyone I passed by.  But as I walked down the street, a feeling of something not being right overtook my body.  Then it hit me.  It was Sunday.  How could I not realize that it was a SUNDAY?!?  What was I thinking?  I mean, I knew it was Sunday, but for some reason it didn’t register in my head that Sundays aren’t like the other days of the week.  There’s no bank on Sunday.  Duh.  In village, you never have to think about whether something is open or not, since there aren’t any businesses to begin with.  There’s no such thing as store hours.  So why would Sunday be any different?  But I had forgotten that such modern phenomena as “weekends” and “business hours” exist throughout most of the world, even in Burkina Faso…well, at least in Burkina’s bigger cities, anyways.   I felt ridiculously stupid for my mistake, but kept my hopes up as I continued to make my way to the bank to see if, for some odd reason, it was actually open.  But of course it wasn’t.  Then I became mad.  What was I going to do in Tougan all day with no money to spend?  I couldn’t buy anything.  I barely had enough money on me to pay for my bus ticket back to village, let alone anything else I’d need to pay for throughout the day, like a plate of rice and sauce for lunch, some sachets of water, or a couple hours at the cyber.  Seriously, what was I going to do?

As I tried not to freak out too much or be too angry at the world, I made my way to the cyber.  I didn’t have a lot of money, but I had enough to at least pay for an hour of Internet to check my email like I had planned.  Since email was the main reason I was in Tougan in the first place, I decided to get that taken care of and figure out how I was going pass the rest of the day with zero money after my Internetting was done.  I arrived at the cyber with optimism.  But again, my hopes were crushed: the cyber was closed.  It was Sunday, duh.  And apparently, sometimes it’s open on Sundays, and other Sundays, it’s not.  How was I supposed to know that today would be a Sunday when it decided to be closed?  So much for my day in Tougan.  Pas de l’argent.  Pas de cyber.  Pas de quelque chose.  (No money, no cyber, no anything).  Now really, what was I going to do?  I had a whole day to kill, with absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go.  I wandered around town for a little bit, perused through the marché as if I had money and was going to buy stuff, and then went back to Yogurt Place to sulk and mope about my horrible day.  It was only 11am, and I still had at least 5 hours before the bus would arrive and I could go home.  I called a few friends on my cellphone and whined to them, and their only suggestion was to spend the day slowly eating lots of cold yogurt – savoring every bite – at Yogurt Place while reading my book.  Urgh.  This was not how my day was supposed to go.

I tried the “savor yogurt and read” thing for little while, but after an hour I was bored, hot, and tired.  Plus, it was weird to sit at yogurt place for so long…by myself… with people staring at me.  After all, it’s not a normal occurrence in Burkina Faso to, one, read a book, or two, use a “restaurant” as a coffee house type setting…considering coffee houses also don’t really exist here…  Since I had my computer, I figured I should take advantage of all my “free time” and get some computer work done.  I’d just need to find a place to do that…somewhere not out in the open and where I had access to electricity.  My best bet was the local hotel we had stayed at during Affectation (the 2 days we got to spend in Tougan buying stuff for our houses before we were permanently moved to our villages).  The hotel had electricity, ceiling fans, and a toilet in each room, plus a comfy queen sized bed.  That was all I needed.  Somewhere where I could get some work done in private, and maybe also stretch out and take a nap under a cool ceiling fan.  I walked to the hotel, talked to the owner, and convinced them to give me a room for the day – for about 4-5 hours until the bus came.  I argued down the price, pulling the “but I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer and don’t have much money” card, and in the end, I ended up paying the equivalent of $3 American.  Not bad.  I relaxed in my room, turned on the fan, played music on my computer, charged my cell phone, took a nap, and typed up a few pages of things that have now been posted on my blog.  But mainly I napped.  I was really tired.  Had a headache.  Throat was aching.  Was really warm – my face was burning up.  All just a natural result of being stressed and frustrated, right?

Later that afternoon, around 2pm, I met my friend Eric for lunch.  It was refreshing to talk to another volunteer (also a math teacher) and share ideas and strategies for our classrooms, as well as the future plans/projects we hoped to implement in our communities.  Lunch was good (I had ingyams – aka yams – in a tomato sauce) but my throat was so sore that I could hardly swallow my meal without flinching at every bite.   What I couldn’t finish, I gave to Eric and he happily cleaned off my plate.  After lunch, I went back to my hotel room with the intent of actually getting some blogs written up, but within minutes I found myself giving into another nap.  I slept until it was time for me to pack up my bag and head to the bus station to catch my bus and go back to my village.  I bought my bus ticket and then plopped myself down at Yogurt Place to eat a yogurt while waiting for the bus to arrive.  I waited.  And waited some more.  And then I ordered a sachet of water.  And waited.  I watched the French world news that was on the little TV above the stove at Yogurt Place.  And waited.  Soon (well, not soon at all, it took forever), it was well past the time the bus should’ve arrived.  As in the bus was over 2 hours late, even by African standards.  I was so tired and my head was pounding so much I thought I was going to die.  When/if the bus ever showed up, how was I possibly going to endure an hour of bumpy, dusty bus-riding?  I put my head down on Yogurt Place’s counter, and almost fell asleep.  But finally the bus arrived.  I pushed and shoved to get on the bus and find a place.  I set the alarm on my phone for 7:30pm, a little over an hour past the current time, in fear that I should pass out on the bus and not be awake when the bus drove through my village.  There was no way we’d be at my village in an hour, even if we left immediately (which we wouldn’t…we never leave immediately), and so this way, with my alarm set, I could attempt to sleep soundly and be reassured that I wouldn’t miss my stop.  Sure enough, I fell asleep, and when my alarm woke me up, I discovered that we hadn’t yet even left the Tougan bus station.  Urgh.  Seriously?  Is this really happening again?  Why can’t I just get home?  Why must this be SO ridiculously difficult? 

I set my alarm for another hour later, and went back to sleep.  Thank goodness when I awoke again, the bus was moving and about half-way to my village.  I finally got home after 9pm.  It was pitch black --there’s no electricity to light up the houses or streets, and it was silent -- every human and animal in village was sleeping.  I somehow found my house in the dark, plopped myself down on the floor, and tried to eat an orange.  But again, my throat was so tight and painful, that I couldn’t eat.  My head was spinning and every muscle in my body ached.  Lately, I’d been getting a little chilly at night, but this night, I was burning up.  Transport in Africa is never easy, but feeling like this after a bus ride was not a normal occurrence.  Something had to be wrong.  I dug out my medical kit, found the thermometer, and took my temperature: 103.5 degrees.  Yikes!  No wonder I felt like I was dying…

I took some meds to combat my headache, muscle aches, and dangerously high fever.  After flushing my face with “cool” water, I went to bed.  Every hour or so throughout the night, I got up to stagger towards the latrine and relieve my bladder, followed by drinking some more water.  I awoke around 6am the next morning feeling even worse than when I had gone to bed, partly due to being sick, but mostly due to it being Monday and knowing that I was supposed to go to school.  I tried to heat up some water to make tea and oatmeal, thinking that if I could just eat something, I’d feel better – or at least well enough to make it through my morning classes – but was so dizzy that I gave up and took my temperature again.  102 degrees.  An improvement.  But still not good at all; I was in no condition to go to school, more or less leave my house.  So now I had another problem to deal with: missing school.  What do I do?  Who do I tell?  Will someone inform my students that we’re not having class? 

This ordeal presented a whole mess of problems.  In America, a teacher simply has to call in sick, usually by phoning the office and talking to the secretary.  Then, a substitute teacher will be found so that the students can continue learning and their education isn’t (too) disrupted for the day.  But in Burkina Faso, there are no substitute teachers – heck, there aren’t even enough “real” teachers!  And there certainly isn’t an “office” to call.  My school does have a woman who works as a secretary, but I didn’t have her cell phone number, plus I didn’t even know whether she’d be at school that day or not, or if it’s standard procedure to inform her of absences, anyways.  So much to think about, but not enough time: it was nearly 7:00am.  School would be starting, my students would all be at school already, and most of the other teachers would be there as well….well, maybe not THERE as in at school (teachers rarely arrive at school early before the students, or even on time….), but they would at least be on their way, driving their motos down the road, unable to hear their ringtones if I tried to call them.  I had attempted to call my homologue, and sent him a text message as well: “Je suis malade.  Je ne peux pas enseigner aujourd’hui.” (I’m sick.  I can’t teach today.)  But he hadn’t responded yet.  Did he get the message?  Did school know that I wasn’t coming?  Did they even really care whether or not I showed up?  What were my 120 students doing?  Sitting nicely in the classroom, studying their math notebooks?  Doubt it.  Going crazy running around, jumping over desks, boys wrestling, girls braiding each other’s hair, shouting loud enough that the classroom next door can’t even hear their own teacher?  Probably.  Oh god.   What had I done?  My being sick had (probably) resulted in my 120 students causing utter chaos.  All the other teachers were going to hate me…  It was about quarter after 7 and I still hadn’t heard anything from school.  I was just about ready to put on some clothes (don’t worry, I wasn’t naked -- I had shorts and a tank top on but I can’t wear that in public, so I was going to slip a skirt over my skirt and a t-shirt over my tank), hop on my bike, and go to school in person, just to make sure that someone knew I was sick and wouldn’t be having classes that day.  I wasn’t sure how riding a bike the whole 3 minutes to school would go, considering how dizzy and sore I was, but I felt like I had no other choice.  How unprofessional for me to not show up at school and not to inform anyone (though I had tried to contact my homologue).  As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I’m supposed to be setting a good example for others, especially the other teachers that I work with, encouraging them to take pride in their job and show up on time and not just randomly cancel classes, etc.  But here I was, sitting in my house, clearly not setting a good example…even if I was sick. 

Fortunately right at the moment when I mustered up the energy to go find some clothes to throw over my shorts and tank, I saw my homologue drive into my courtyard on his moto.  I’ll admit I was slightly scared, expecting him to say something along the lines of, “What are you doing?!? School started 15 minutes ago!  You’re late!”  But he must have seen my text message and missed calls, as he instead said, “You’re sick?  Should we call the doctor?  You should go to the hospital.  They can give you medicine.”  We had a brief conversation during which I discovered that he was very concerned I might be seriously ill with Malaria (common in Africans, not so common in foreigners who have the “luxury” of being able to take preventive medicines to combat Malaria before it even starts), and he thought I was ridiculous for refusing to go the hospital.  Also, although he didn’t say anything, I could tell that he thought what I was wearing was beyond bizarre.  More than likely he probably felt uncomfortable seeing me so “exposed” but to be honest, I’m pretty sure that I felt more awkward than him, flashing around my whiter than white legs (with my gym shorts helping to reveal a few inches of thigh above the knee!) that contrasted ever so nicely with my bronze arms and not quite as golden – but not white – shoulders.  I might as well have been naked, I felt so scandalous in my cultural faux pas wardrobe.  Anyways, bad wardrobe aside, my homologue told me not to worry about school, get some rest, and he’d come check on me when morning classes had finished (around noon).  He left, and I felt better, knowing that they knew I was sick and thus I wasn’t a complete unprofessional by not showing up to school.  I took some more meds, and then passed out on the floor in the middle of my kitchen/main room….

…only to be awoken less than an hour later to the sound of someone knocking on my door and saying “co-co” (the Burkinabe equivalent of Americans saying “knock-knock”).  Dang it.  No.  Leave me alone.  I am sick and do not have the energy to deal with greeting neighbors and other villagers, nor do I have the brain power to think in language other than English right now.  Go away!  But alas, I had no choice but to answer the door, as the neighbor had seen me: he looked through my windows… which apparently is not creepy or taboo here.  In America, if we’d catch someone we didn’t know looking through our windows, there’s a good chance that the police would be called, a rifle would be brought out, or yelling would commence…perhaps all of the above.  I tried to quick grab a pagne or something to wrap around me so that I wasn’t “naked” in my shorts and tank like I had been in front of my homologue, but there was nothing near me.  Plus, my hair was a sweaty disaster from my fever.  Great.  I love looking completely awful in front of non-Americans.  (Ok, it’s not as if I especially like looking awful in front of Americans either, but at least here in Burkina, any other Americans who’d see me would know that it was just a bad day and not what I normally look like…) You can thank me, America,  I’m really giving all the villagers a good impression of what Americans “look” like with my wardrobe choices and crazy hairdos.  Anyways, the neighbor and I go through all the typical greetings (How’s the family?  How’s work?  How’d you sleep?  And your family?  They’re good?) to which I just had to respond, “ca va,” (it goes or they’re fine) to everything he said.  Simple enough.  I can handle that.  Even when sick.  Then he asked me why I wasn’t at school.  What?  Really?  Since when do you even know my schedule?  Every other time you come over to my house to greet me (which tends to be anywhere from 1 to 5 times a day) you ask me if I have class that day, or in the morning, or in the afternoon, etc.  You never know my school schedule, despite it being the SAME THING every week.  I didn’t want to say that I was sick, because he would feel it was his duty to inform others that “the American” was sick, which would cause the whole village to show up at my doorstep, offering me food and water (that would probably make me sick, not healthier) and various traditional medicines.  No thank you.  I just want to be in my house and sleep.  All day.  Alone.  With no one bothering me or “co-co”ing at my door.  Go away.  So instead of telling him I was sick, I just said that I didn’t have school today.  He countered with, “But it’s Monday, every Monday you go to school from 7-11am…” and so I repeated that today, I didn’t have school.  Which he took to mean that, in general, there was no school today.  For anyone.  Fine.  Clearly you didn’t put two and two together in that there were hundreds of kids in blue shirts and khaki pants/skirts that walked by your house on their way to school this morning… but if that’s what you want to think, sure. Go ahead.  No one has school today.  I’ll agree with you.  Just let me go back to sleep. 

I was able to get a few good hours of rest, and when I awoke I discovered my fever had finally broken and dropped below 100 degrees. I sent a text message to Molly, my closest Peace Corps friend/neighbor who lives about 2 minutes away by bike – we practically live in the same village; it’s virtually impossible to tell where my village ends and her village starts – to come to my house because I was sick and she needed to get groceries for me.  It was marche day, and thus, if I wanted any food to eat for the next 5 days, someone had to pick me up some things at the marche – I was in no condition to venture out of my house.  Plus, Thanksgiving was coming and we were planning a big get-together with all the volunteers in the Sourou Valley.  Between my house, Molly’s house, and Sierra’s house, we had plenty of space for everyone (about 15 of us) to make American food and crash on the floor for the night.  But that meant, as a good hostess, I should be prepared with plenty of fresh fruits and veggies and anything else we might need to make our Thanksgiving meal as official as possible, as well as enough ingredients to make pancakes for the next morning.

Molly stopped by, put my grocery list in her purse, and we proceed to visit for a bit (I was feeling better enough by this time to chat).  She also had brought me a surprise: freshly popped popcorn (mhmm!) and a bag of meat (ew?).  Yes, a bag of meat.  Possibly goat or mutton, but who knows.  As she pulled the bag of meat from her backpack, she said, “Soooo….my neighbor gave this to me.  I’m not really sure what to do with it…meat’s not really my thing.  Is this edible?  Can you make it edible?”  And even though I was still not feeling top-notch, I proceeded to wash off this meat, cut away the dry and dirt covered parts, as well as random bone shards, marinate it in a homemade sauce, and then fry it up with some onions and garlic.  It turned out all right, a little tough, but edible.

Of course, just as we’re eating, my homologue stops by to check in on me.  Whelp, I sure look sick, don’t I, visiting with Molly and eating popcorn and fried meat?  Great impression I gave off there.  At least I was still in my shorts and tank top and my hair was a disaster – that hopefully helped prove that I wasn’t faking it…

Molly went to the marche for me, bought me lots of goodies, and came back later that afternoon.  I continued to spend most of the day interchanging between sleeping, reading, and drinking water, and then went to bed early that night.  After a good night’s rest, I was ready to return to school the next day, although my voice was still hoarse and I felt tired and weak.  All the teachers were overly concerned for my health, but were of course glad to see me up and about and could put their minds at ease knowing that I wasn’t going to die of malaria or anything…