Welcome Back to Village!

If you can’t tell by the fact that I haven’t posted anything for a while, I’ve been really busy.   I often wonder where time goes, especially since I’ll often have 3-5 day stretches where nothing happens.  Literally nothing.  My days will consist of sitting under people’s trees and watching them clean fish for hours at a time, drinking tea with my homologue, napping, reading, eating, napping again, taking a bucket bath, eating supper with my neighbors, setting up my moustiquaire to sleep outside for the night, and doing it all again the next day.  Tough life.   And then all of sudden everyone decides they want to do something and need/want me to be there:  Let’s make tofu!  Wedding dance tonight!  Show us how to make bread!  Polio shot campaign happening at the clinic!  Come to the primary school and do a lesson about hygiene with the kids!  Paint the library shelves!  Hold a meeting for women who want to learn how to read!  Do this!  Come to that!  Go here!   

And that – the never-ending program of daily activities – is exactly what my last month and a half has been, ever since I got back to village after my month in Ouaga due to my bush taxi accident.  Whew, I’m exhausted!  Whatever happened to sitting under a tree all afternoon and staring at the goats near me?  Or reading a whole book in a day?  I’d love to just curl up in a sweatshirt in a freezing cold room and sleep for a week; I’m so tired and ready for a break!  Not that I’m complaining, of course.  I’m glad there’s so much going on and everyone seems motivated to do something or learn a new skill.   I’m just starting to worry that there’s not enough time left to do everything before I COS, and that I’m not going to have any more lackadaisical days in village as I attempt to make the most of these last months in Burkina.

So what has kept me so extremely busy lately?

Well, I finally got home after almost a month in the med unit.  When I stepped off the bus, it was about 5pm and some of my middle school math students were playing soccer near the Pharmacy aka bus stop.  They immediately ran up to me, greeted me, and took all my bags so I didn’t have to carry a thing.  A parade of children accompanied me to my house, with some of the little children crying because they also wanted to carry a piece of my luggage but were left empty-handed as all the older children had already claimed everything.  As we marched through the village pathways to my house, neighbors waved and shouted blessings of welcome and good health. 

Once everything was deposed inside my house and all the month’s worth of goat poop swept off my cement porch, the kids said goodbye and I made a brief tour around the village in hopes that my dog and cat were around (and not eaten by my village).  I’m sure they must have missed me terribly (my cat and dog.  well, maybe the villagers, too).  Also, my stroll through town gave many people a chance to see that I was back.   I’m not sure they even noticed I was gone, but in case they had been wondering why they hadn’t seen the white girl for a few weeks or why their children hadn’t had math class all month, I wanted to reassure people that I was still in Lanfiera – I hadn’t gone back to America, or died, or gotten malaria… So, I stopped at the boutique and bought a yogurt, waved at all the women in each courtyard who were busy preparing tô and sauce for supper, sampled some weird deep-fried fish meatball things that a lady was selling near the road, finally spotted my dog and cat playing with some other animals (Sabari was beyond overjoyed to see me and wouldn’t stop jumping on me; Kamikazee couldn’t have cared less that I was back), and at the very end of my walk, actually stopped into my neighbors’ courtyard to chat.  While there were tons of people who would have loved to have me enter their courtyard and sit for a bit, I knew that if I did one family, I’d have to do them all.  And sitting for a bit doesn’t mean 5 minutes.  It means 5 hours.  Seriously.  I’d have to greet everyone, one by one, shake all their hands, receive all their blessings in a mumble of words I didn’t understand, hold all the babies, stay for the evening meal, etc.  Since it was already sunset, there was no way I even had time to do this.  Besides, after riding in an over-crowded bus for 10 hours, I just wanted to go back to my house, wash the caked-on layer of red dust off my skin, and sleep under the stars.  So I didn’t really stop to talk to anyone or sit down under anyone’s tree, until the very end, when I arrived at the yard of the neighbors who live right next to me.  Batoma and her daughter Barakissa are essentially my host family, along with everyone else who lives there: about 10-25 other women and children who float back and forth from this yard to the bigger house/yard…aka  chez la grande famille …which is just across the dirt path and is where the men live.  So it was only fair to them that I actually do stop and talk.

As I approached them, they all stood and smiled; some of the women even laughed and shook their heads at me.  They knew what had happened because Molly had told them for me and asked them to keep an eye on my house and my animals.  They sent a kid to get a chair from the grande famille’s yard, and another kid to bring me a cold water from the nearby lady who has a fridge in her yard and sells various juices and waters in sachets.  If I’m lucky, sometimes they’re even kinda frozen/slushy!  What a treat, especially when it’s 120 degrees out.  We chatted and they gave me blessings, I held every baby, shook everyone’s hands, and, of course, ate tô with them.  I hadn’t had tô and leaf sauce since mid-March, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!  I forgot how good it is!  (Yeah, I know… my taste buds have gotten really weird in Burkina, if not destroyed altogether, and now I do actually find most tô and leaf sauces to be tasty!  Key word: most.  Some are still nasty.)   I explained to them a little bit about the accident and what had happened, and they were very concerned and kept asking about my current state of health.  They declared that kids would be sent over to my house the next morning so that I didn’t hurt my back and could rest, aka sit under my tree and read.  They would do my laundry for me and help me clean my house – it’s unbelievable how much dust can accumulate inside a mud brick house, even if the windows are closed!

By this time it was about 9pm.  I told them I was tired and they accompanied me back to my house, where I immediately passed out for the night – I didn’t even wash my skin’s coating of red dust off!

And right away the very next morning, the craziness began.  There was cleaning to do, people to see, and a visit to my school to inform the director (in addition to my students) that I was back and math class would be starting again the very next day.

Resuming math class after the students had been gifted with over a month of break was difficult.  Although, I’m not sure if it was more challenging for the students…or for me.  They had forgotten most everything we had learned prior to Easter break, and with only 3 short weeks left until the end of the school year, all but about 3.5 of my 250 students weren’t the least bit interested in learning how to find the volume of a cube or how to plot a point on an x-y coordinate plane.  It was a struggle.  The classes needed to learn something – anything – and, unfortunately, we hadn’t even come close to finishing the assigned curriculum for the year.  Fail on my part, I guess.  But how was I supposed to know I’d miss almost of a month of school and that no one would cover me during my absence? 

I wasn’t all that surprised to find out the students had had no math while I was gone, but I had thought/hoped that maybe, just maybe, the director or another teacher would have given them some exercises or told them to look at a page in their crappy 1984 textbooks (only about 1 in 5 students even have the book) and then do the homework… but they didn’t.  Not a thing.  They literally let my students run wild every hour that was scheduled for math time with Madame Hauth.  I asked my students what they did when I was gone; they told me.  “Madame, Moussa always took naps.  Those boys went outside and played soccer.  Fatimata braided other girls’ hair.   Many students went to town and bought food to eat.   One day Siaka played music his cellphone and danced in front of everyone.  We didn’t do any exercises, because we can’t learn if you’re not here, Madame!  We just waited for you every day.  We thought you had gone back to America.” 

So no math learning occurred for over a month.  Except for the one day when my homologue (the other math teacher at the school), gave my 5e class (8^th grade) a quiz a few days before I came back, about powers and exponents.  You know, 3³ = 3x3x3 = 27.  However, I was the one who had to correct the quizzes – they handed me the big stack of loose-leaf papers when I returned to school that first morning back – what a great welcome back gift.   Correcting the quizzes myself meant I had to actually look at how bad these quizzes were, rather than just the grade written on the top.  Considering I had already done several lessons on exponents followed by a big TEST, right before Easter break, it was very depressing to see that my students apparently had forgotten everything.  Or maybe not learned it in the first place…  I’m gonna blame the low scores on their poor memory skills and lack of ability to retain information, which is probably a result of their being malnourished as a baby/child:  their brains didn’t fully develop.  Not to mention the overall school system in Burkina and the fact that it is horrible… 

After a few days of lessons and pulling teeth, I realized that the last weeks of school weren’t going to be successful, no matter how hard I tried or how interesting my lessons were.  We performed experiments and took polls and surveys; we measured and compared the volumes of various objects by both mathematically calculating the volume and also by just filling the object with water, dumping out the water into a measuring cup, and reading the measure. 

 I brought in various sizes of balls, of which we found the circumferences and surface areas; we sang songs.  Heck, we even talked about sex.  SEX!!!!  But these middle-schoolers were long gone.  There was no getting them back.  Their eyes were only on the upcoming prize of summer vacation, and I’d been away from them for far too long.  It was useless.  I didn’t even care myself, anymore.   Just had to give these kids a couple simple quizzes so that I had some grades for their last trimester, give them their final cumulative test that I had written last year in order to measure student progress throughout the year, calculate final grades, fill out their report cards, and send them home.  Then I’d be free!!! 

***In case you’re wondering how I talked about sex in the math classroom, I’ll tell ya!  I’m quite proud of it, actually... even though it was a failure. It coulda been SO good, but the kids couldn’t focus to save their lives…   

So we were trying to learn about x-y coordinate planes, and in order to practice placing points, everyone got to graph their birthday.  Obviously we were only using the first quadrant, but that’s fine.  I don’t think these kids could’ve handled using negative numbers…   Months were on the bottom (l’axe X) and the days went on the side (l’axe Y).  For example, my birthday of January 23 was placed by finding 1 on l’axe X and climbing up to 23 on l’axe Y.    A birthday of October 5 would be placed on 10 of the X-axis and rising up to 4.  After all 100+ kids had placed their points, we were able to see if anyone shared a birthday, how many birthdays occurred in July, that no one had a birthday on the 7^th of September, which month was the least popular, etc.    After looking at some of these results, I transitioned into the sex portion of the lesson.   How long does a baby need to grow inside the mother’s tummy?  Nine months, of course.  The students knew this, but when I asked them to apply it and tell me approximately which day/month they had been conceived, i.e. when their parents had sex, they were lost.  Or just really shocked that I was even talking about this.  Finally we got to a point where they understood they had to count back nine months.  We made a new graph on the chalkboard with each student plotting his/her respective point of conception (i.e. nine months before his/her birthday).  For example, my point was placed on April 23 since my birthday is January 23.  We then interpreted our points on the graph and decided which months were the most and least popular for conceiving children.  Interestingly, the most popular months were December and April, with December being one of the coldest months (that makes sense: when you’re cold you’re more likely to snuggle…) and March being in the middle of hot season (that makes no sense: when it’s extremely hot, you don’t wanna be near anyone…unless it’s exactly for that reason: it’s so hot you can’t sleep…so you don’t sleep…).  Anyways, interesting stuff.  And I guess the lesson really wasn’t about sex.  But even mentioning the word causes the entire class to go hysterical, so I’m glad my lesson was still mainly geared toward math.  Not that any of the kids were really learning anyways. *Sigh*

The last few days of school also included a random day off that no one told me about until I showed up to school and no one else was there….  Love Burkina Faso.   Oh well, at least the free day gave me a chance to correct quizzes.  The very last real class I had with my students was giving them their cumulative tests.  120 questions.  120 minutes.  Multiple choice.  Exact same test I gave them at the beginning of the year.  And yet almost half the kids didn’t understand what to do.  I had to repeat over and over, “Choose the best answer.  One choice is correct, the other three are incorrect.  If you pick more than one choice, I will not give you the point.  You can only choose one answer.”  I had kids recopying the entire test (questions and answer choices) onto their notebook paper rather than just answering the question on the test I had given them; there were kids who forgot to put their names on despite me saying at least 4 times, “Write your name NOW.  Look at your neighbor’s paper.  Did he write his name?”  Oh, just so many problems.

After the cumulative tests, we still had a few days of math class time, but I mainly did America culture lessons, or we sang songs.  And then every afternoon, from about noon to 5pm, I sat outside and graded test after test for about a week.

All throughout the couple weeks of school, my busyness was further escalated by library work and activities, Camp HEERE prep, getting henna on my feet (both traditional while with my neighbor and fake/Chinese ink while at Careth’s village for one last girls’ day hurrah), going to a baptism, a community soccer game and women’s bike race, choosing 4 students to go to Camp GLOW in Dedougou in July, arrangements and paperwork for a replacement volunteer after I leave, Augustin and Lady’s wedding, and me personally trying to readjust to the heat.  A month in the med unit’s air conditioning had spoiled me and now I could no longer tolerate the 120 degrees without being completely exhausted by noon every day and continuously covered in sweat.  

See, I'm not lying.  It really is 120 degrees.  Hotter, actually.

______________________________________________________________________________

Here are some pictures from all these different events, with tons more on facebook.

HENNA with my neighbors (Traditional)

Day one: taping my feet and putting on the green leaf powder paste which will sit for about 3 hours before we wash it off

Day two: after the green paste again, which turned my feet red, a layer of grey stuff is put on to turn my  feet black

The finished product

it should last about 2-3 weeks, depending on how often I scrub my feet and how much soap I use...

SOCCER GAME - les célibataires contre les 
maries (single men vs. married men)

Molly, Careth, and Me

Guys play soccer either barefoot or wearing flimsy jelly shoe-sandals

half-time entertainment (middle school girls dancing)

no community event is complete with the town gunsmen?....he'll shoot off his rifle randomly, as he pleases

Top winners of the Women's Bike Race, presented with awards during soccer half-time

The champion of the bike race won a brand new bike!

Team huddle.  I can't remember if these are the married guys, or the single ones

Reading Time - at my house

We'll often just sit and read, sometimes for hours at a time.

Buying stuff - at the marche

So much good stuff to buy -- both food and fabric.  Love the fresh veggies: eggplant, okra, avocado, fresh mint, tomatoes, cucumbers, mangoes, etc.

Browsing the marche and just looking at everything is one of my favorite activities.  It's like going to the mall.

peanuts!

Yup, that would be meat.  A chunk of beef, actually.  And yes, it's attached to a bike.  So sanitary.

So much squash!

My primary school won the regional soccer tournament, so the boys paraded around the marche in their jerseys with their trophy.

Girls' Day and Henna (Fake/Chinese ink)

Brook, Careth, Molly, and Me got together for a girls' day.  We ate yummy food (spring rolls and stir fry), did henna, napped, and gossipped.

 Sierra's Birthday

The "cake"

We even had a candle and sang Happy Birthday.  With Vida, Elijah, Molly, Sierra, and Me.

Progress at the Library

Trying out the preschool room.

Molly painting the number wall.

Baptism Celebration aka Hangin' Out

There was baptism in Oumar's family.  Probably like the child of his dad's second cousin's third wife... or something like that.  So we went at about 9am.  Saw the baby.  Then waited outside with the guys and drank tea and listened to music.  We did this until lunch time.

We knew we'd probably get bored at the baptism celebration, so we came prepared with paper and  markers and did some doodling.  Molly drew this picture of Oumar.

And Oumar drew this picture of me!  Ain't I pretty?

While we hung out, I took some pictures of passing people.  These boys are bringing water back to their house.

Peuhl women selling milk and yogurt.

Time for lunch!!!  mhmmm

Yup, that would be a random bone shard.  Also, there's some intestine and liver pieces.

I love the big canaries that everyone has in their courtyards.  This is where they store their water for drinking and cooking.

________________________________________________________________________

Before I knew it, Camp HEERE time had arrived.  (Camp HEERE is the 4-day, 3-night camp for 5-6^th graders focused on hygiene, environment, and education.  It was in my village so I was in charge of the food, logistics, scheduling, etc.)   I had more than enough to do with Camp HEERE, but I also still needed to finish grades.  Well, I mean, I was done with my grades….it’s just that none of the other teachers were (of course), so I couldn’t calculate the overall reports cards and tell my 6e students if they passed into 5e or not.  And with camp starting, how was I going to do grades and sign reports cards?  Urgh.  According to all the other teachers, there wasn’t even anything to be concerned about.

Teachers:  “It will be fine.  You’ll finish.”

Me:  “How can I finish when you guys aren’t done with YOUR grades yet?  I can’t even start!”

T:  “Well, that is complicated, isn’t it.  Hmmm.   You can do it during camp?”

M:  “NO!  No I can’t!  I will be busy all during camp.  I will not have 5 hours to leave and do grades.”

T:  “But you’ll be here!  You’re not leaving village.”

M:  “Yes, I will be here, but I will be occupied with camp.  Last month you said school would be over with and grades all done by May 15.  Today is May 21, the students haven’t had class for a week now, camp starts tomorrow, and no one else has even started to record their grades -- besides me!!!!  What am I supposed to do?  Who will do my grades for me?”

T:  “Ah!  No, you need to do your grades yourself.  That’s not our responsibility.”

M:  “UGHHH….”  ***go off and cry in my 110 degree house***

About half of the kids in my 6e class.... since we were done with "math class" a lot of kids didn't show up for the last few days I did activities with them...

Sample report card.  This is what I needed to calculate and fill out for each kid....As you can see, in the 4th column "NOTES" the kid has a couple zeros listed.  He didn't earn a single point in those classes the last trimester.  Needless to say, this kid failed.  Also you can see that he was ranked 85th in his class.

this student did very well and was ranked 29th overall.

The lovely book of report cards and carbon copies.

Further complicating matters was that my school director was now suddenly claiming that I could NOT bring 4 students to camp GLOW unless I paid for their transportation myself (camp is free – the only contribution we ask is that the school/community provide the students’ transport to/from camp).  We’ve talked about Camp GLOW since last year.  And at least 5 times the month of May alone.  I’ve sat in his office numerous times; I’d given him the names of the 4 students I’d chosen.  He’d received multiple information letters.  And yet now he was claiming that he didn’t know anything and the “American system” was complicated.  (Actually, it’s not the American system organizing camp:  Yes, Peace Corps will be there and, sure, we helped with the programming and financing, but Camp GLOW in Dedougou is mainly run by Burkinabe…so. Yeah.  That dang American system.)    

Me:  Since school is ending and I’ll be busy with camp HEERE this week, is it possible to get the 16 mille (i.e. $32 USD) for the 4 students’ transport today?

Director: No.  We can’t do that.  16 mille.  That’s too much.  You never said we had to pay.

Me: Umm, yes it’s 16 mille and every school is providing the transport costs for the students that were selected to represent their village at Camp.  Last week you said it would be fine.

D: No, I never said that.  I don’t anything about this money….

M: Well, I believe I mentioned it several times and—

D: Nope, this is the first time.

M: Uh, okay.  I’m sorry.  But it was also in all the letters you received.

D:  No, it wasn’t.  I didn’t get an information letter until this one you’re showing me today.

M: …..?.....

D:  This is not good.  What kind of system is this?  You invite kids to camp, say it’s free, and then make them pay for their own transport!?!  I don’t understand your American system.

M:  Well actually, it IS free for the students.  It’s just the transport that Camp doesn’t provide, and that’s why it must come from the school itself.  Paying for their transport is also a way of showing that you support them and want them to represent our school at camp, learn new things, and come back and share those experiences with the rest of the community here.

D:  No.  The kids will have to pay themselves this year.  We don’t have that kind of money.  This year was very difficult.  We had lots of visitors and regional supervisors come to observe, and each time I had to take them to Grilled Fish Place and buy them fish and at least 2 beers.  That’s not cheap!  And now the pump is broken.  No money.  At the end of the year all the money is gone.  You should have had camp at the beginning of the year, then we’d have given you money.  But not now.   There’s no money left.  Tell the kids to pay for it themselves….or you can just pay for them.  Okay?  You can do that; you have money.

M:  Well unfortunately that’s not possible.  If the school doesn’t provide the transport, then the school doesn’t get to send kids.  I guess I’ll just have to tell Peace Corps that Lanfiera Middle School will NOT be sending students after all.  Thank you for your time.  ***escape out of the office and go home and cry in my 110 degree house***

So not only was finishing report cards impossible before camp, but then this bomb was dropped on me too.  I didn’t have the heart to tell my 4 students that they’re no longer going to camp, nor did I have the time to search out other transport financing options or possible community members who could donate.   So, as of now, 4 kids are still going from Lanfiera, and yes, I will probably be paying for it myself, and I will lie and tell them their money was provided by their community.   Oh well, it’s only 16 mille.  I can spare it.  That’s like four pizzas in Ouaga.  Oh god, that’s like FOUR whole pizzas!

But the frustration doesn’t stop here.  Oh no.  It continues.  One of the girls I picked for camp GLOW comes to my house the next morning while I’m packing things up for Camp HEERE, and she’s crying.  She tells me she can no longer go to camp.  Why?  Because she needs to go to Cote d’Ivoire for the summer to work.  If she doesn’t work, she can’t pay for her school fees the next year.  Her parents said that if I and/or Peace Corps will give her the money for school next year (like a scholarship), then she can go to camp with me.  But if we can’t give her a scholarship, then she can’t go to camp.  I didn’t know what to say.  This girl, Haoua (prounounced Ah-wah), is awesome and my best student.  She’s just really quiet.  But that’s okay.  But I couldn’t promise her her school fees for the next year, even though they are only about 30 mille total ($60 USD).  Besides, if anyone else found out (Peace Corps or Burkinabe), I’d be screwed.  Not a good situation to be in.   Everyone would start asking me for money.  So, the only thing to do was tell her that it was her own choice, and if going to camp meant not having money for school, then she probably shouldn’t go to camp.  A year of education is much more important than a week at camp.  I had a back-up girl in mind, but still.  I really had wanted Haoua to go.

Oh, and those cumulative pre/post-tests?   Well, most kids improved, but not by very much, and a significant chunk of kids actually received lower scores.  Not sure what to make of that.  Either the kids seriously did not learn a thing all year (fail on my part), they learned but quickly forgot (fail on my part and their part), or they tried to spite me and purposefully not do well on the test (fail on their part…or success, depending on how you look at it). 

And this post is getting way too long, so I’ll stop here.  But check out my next post, where I’ll (hopefully) write about the awesomeness and success of Camp HEERE and my adventures with my friend Sarah Jensen, who came to visit me from May 27 – June 12. 

**Also, if you think I sound angry/unhappy now, imagine what I was like when it was actually happening.  I’ve now had about a month to cool off and “reflect” upon these situations.  Ha.