Alas, my dear friends, the time has come for me to bid you Adieu! (god bless you!) No, that wasn't a sneeze, that was French. (oh. sorry.) Anyway, it's true. The siren song of post-holiday clearances at JC Penny proved too hard to resist. The seat on Air France was beckoning, and who was I to refuse its call? I booked it, and now I'm bookin it. My last order of business in Ouaga before getting on the plane will be to treat my abused calloused feet to a pedicure. Tonight at midnight I'll be sipping champagne and watching Brokeback Mountain 35000 feet above Mali on my way back to civilization.

I made it quite a ways, wouldn't you say? A whole year and a half. Not bad, Philippe, not bad.

Thank you so much to all of you who were generous enough to me send care packages! (And for those of you who weren't, well, I guess I forgive you. This time.) You spiced up my life, literally. I wasn't even able to get through all of the wonderful spices, so I've left them in my PCV neighbor Imane's equally grateful and loving care.

To all the volunteers, thanks for making it worth it. I love you guys.

Thank you too for those of you who wrote to me to tell me how much you enjoyed my stories. You're the only reason I kept writing this shit down! Without your encouragement, I would have never had the satisfaction of sharing all my most gruesome and painful experiences with all of you. The promise that you would later live them vicariously was what got me through some of them in the first place.

Yes, I've been a bit quiet these past few months. Well, I had to save something for the book, didn't I? Does that make me a greedy capitalist pig? Well, I gotta feed myself somehow. There will be a book! If your 3rd cousin twice removed's boyfriend's stepdad is in publishing, let me know.

But really, my hiatus had less to do with moolah and more to do with laziness and not having enough hours on the computer to keep typing it all up.

Frankly, I was also a bit burnt out. I mean, how many times can one bitch about horrific transport experiences from hell? What's that? You want more? All right then. Here's one for the road:

GOLDEN SHOWERS

I've seen cows loaded on the roof. I've been crammed and smooshed, sat upon with an old guy's knee in my crotch. As many people on top as inside. I've seen the van loaded down with so many motos that the roof buckled and threatened to cave in. Man, I've been through some shitty ass transport in my day. Whenever you think you've seen it all, just when you consider yourself seasoned, whenever you think transport couldn't possibly get any worse... That's when Burkina really delivers.

The bush taxi heading to Ouaga showed up already packed, with 30-some goats tied to the roof. So far so good! I was waiting to get on along with the French and Peruvian ladies who live in Meguet, each of us with a bike and a pack. I wasn't worried that there wouldn't be room. There's always room.

The ladies got placed up front (the seat of honor, though I don't know if you can call it such when you're sharing half the middle seat jammed between the driver and a large Burkinabé man). I got into the back, and was mildly surprised that instead of a floor, the van's bottom was covered in--yes, more goats. So I kicked off my birks and buried my cracked feet into the warm live goat-fur rug. The problem with live goat-fur rugs is that they like to nip. Hell, I would too if I were bound up on the floor while people prodded me with feet as nasty as mine.

The granny sitting beside me just got a goat-piss shower from the roof and I caught some of the spray. And, so we go, bouncing merrily along the dirt road, inhaling dust, listening to the goats' eerie child-like screams, enjoying occasional golden showers from the goats up top, resting my feet on the squirming bodies on the bottom, all while squished between 3 women and a baby. And chickens! I forgot the chickens! Welcome to the next 4 hours of your life.

The goat on the roof pissed on granny again. And this time it kept pissing and pissing. There was no room to scoot over, and no way to close the window since the pane was missing (of course). But not even the people sitting next to closed windows were spared. Granny saw me laughing and so she started flinging piss at me, and that's when I just lost it. The situation was so far beyond annoying, leaping past pain, bounding past torture, and was just so ridiculous that I couldn't help but laugh. And laugh hard. I had tears streaming down my face, and granny and the rest of the 25 passengers were laughing at me for laughing.

Granny looked to the transport guy and held up her shirt and said, I'm not paying! Look at me, I'm covered in piss! I'm not paying! I buried my face and sat there laughing uncontrolably. Granny turned to me and said, You're going to sit here and I'm going to sit there! NO! NOOOO way, granny! I don't want to! I don't want to get pissed on by goats! The transporter turned and asked me, Is there health? Oh, there's health all right! Nothing but health! Granny over here might not agree, though!

I talked to my mom on the phone just before I got into this clown car. She told me, you know, you should be grateful to Peace Corps for giving you all these experiences. Yeah, yeah, ok mom. No, really! Even though it may not be working out, Peace Corps has let you have experiences that you would have otherwise never had. Be grateful.

And now, surrounded by goats and covered in their excrements, I suppose, in a weird masochistic sort of way, I am grateful for all of it.

You know, as much as people whine about it, these sorts of things just don't happen on the Greyhound. Or on Air France, for that matter. But I'm gonna ask for aisle seats just to be safe.

Peace out!

Love,

Philippe

July 28th marked my first year living in Burkina. I believe this milestone officially makes me an American African. I assume the identity with pride. I've had to sacrifice a lot to make it this far. One entire year without urinals (unless you count brick walls) without elevators or escalators, without tofu. Without my laptop or deodorant, and most painfully of all, without my hair gel. I have no idea what the Oscar movies were this year, or what blockbuster bonanzas are on the marquee this summer (aside from Star Wars), what last season's hot reality shows were, or whether Will has finally got himself a goddamn boyfriend. He's fictional, for chrissakes, and still his love life is more pathetic than mine. Please! A year without perpetual internet or constant electricity. No microwave, no washer, no toaster, no appliances of any kind. I had a cell phone, then it was stolen, then I had another, then it broke. It's only a depressing reminder that no one's calling, anyway. Surprisingly enough, I'm doing just fine without it all. Except for the lack of hairgel, food, gay men, toilets, air conditioning, working pens, beaches, and people to talk to, life is grand!

I thought this would be a good occasion for sentimentality, looking back on what exactly was going through my naive little head those first couple days in country.

First, though, let's examine what the hell I was thinking when I applied. I started the Peace Corps application online late one night in the fall 2003. In truth, I' here only as a result of a spontaneous decision to start the application while procrastinating a film paper due the next day. Afterwards I realized, oh shit, now I still have to do this stupid film paper, and then I'm getting sent to a tiny village in Africa for 2 years where I'll never get laid. That'll teach me to procrastinate! I've learned my lesson, I swear.

The application asks for a statement on what motivates you to join the Peace Corps. What DID motivate me to come here? I decided to take a looksy. And I quote:

[ahem] Before I get entrenched in a career, I'd like to challenge myself some more by living somewhere completely different from what I'm used to, roughing it a little, and working hard to make a positive influence in peoples' lives. [well, save the last bit, I'm certainly meeting my goals!] Humanity's biggest flaw at the moment is its inability to care for itself. [uh-oh... here it comes...] As advantaged Americans, it should be our duty to end war, poverty and disease for everyone, not limiting our efforts to within national borders. [and there it is. Translation: I want to save the world!] It's important to strive to balance the disequilibrium of opportunity, health, education, and stability in the world by giving a piece of ourselves to helping others. [Wow. I should be a politician. Except then those photos would surely get leaked....]

And I end quote. Flash forward 8 months.

It's an odd experience opening a package in the mail that will tell you where in the world you'll be spending the next two years of your life. Almost as odd as boarding a plane to that place. In June 2004 I eagerly opened the green Peace Corps invitation packet and there was my destiny staring at me in the face: Burkina Faso! I was overcome with giddiness. Knowing now exactly what was in store, that reaction seems a little irrational. Perhaps even insane. But it was exciting just to have a spot on the globe to point to, even though to me it was nothin more than that.

Tucked inside was an official letter of congratulations from GW: "Take this opportunity to build goodwill and to help lay the foundation for a more peaceful world." Uh... right. I will if you will, Dubya!

The package also came with a little brochure describing the country and our future job. It sounded like something out of Mission: Impossible. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: You'll be living in one of the poorest countries in the world, amongst its poorest people, fighting against the evils of AIDS, malaria, polio, and Guinea Worm. You'll be out in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign land with a foreign tongue. No running water. No electricity. Bats, mice and cockroaches might live in your house [an actual quote!]. You'll be forced to fend off marriage proposals on a daily basis [never imagined I'd see the day where I thought of proposals as a regular nuisance]. The variety of fruits and vegetables is somewhat limited, with only one fruit or vegetable often available during any given season [and do you know what that only fruit or vegetable is? Onions. For the past 4 months, nothing but onions. And I have to bike 30k to get them.] Public transport is slow and uncomfortable [the understatement of the century]. The pace of work and life is slower than what most Americans are accustomed to [or maybe THIS is the understatement of the century]. All of this while sweating you ass off in 100 degree weather [try 120!]. Can you do it? Are you tough enough? Are you brave enough? Are you good-looking enough?

Back then the answer was, Yeah! Bring it on! Watch your back Malaria! Philippe's gonna fuck you up and then go after your boyfriend AIDS! Let me at em! I can do it!

A year later I realize, no, actually, it's impossible. That would be why it's called Mission: Impossible. How could you not get that? I'm reminded of a headline from The Onion that a volunteer posted up in our hostel:

NEWLY FORMED PEACE CORPS TO RID YOUNG AMERICANS OF IDEALISTIC DELUSIONS

Reality is certainly humbling. But I don't at all regret taking the blue pill. Or was it the red pill? Whichever pill it was that brought me here. Before I came I had no concept of how much of the world lives. While Burkina might be on the extreme end in terms of poverty, I would guess that the majority of people on earth live in conditions more like those here than those in America.

But even living in the midst of it it's easy to lose sight of the reality. Too often I'm preoccupied with being annoyed at people. Whenever somebody goes off on their sob story, about how America's so rich, and Africa's so poor, and it's too hot, and life's not easy, I think, oh Jesus, not again. I'm living here right next door, and it's not easy for me either! It's just as hot in my hut! But I forget that I have something they don't. A plane ticket home. I forget that AIDS and malaria really do kill, that people have it tough, that they go hungry part of the year. They have hopes and dreams and ambitions--It's true, Africans are just like us!--but they have far fewer opportunities and much greater obstacles to fulfilling them.

So what can I offer? Pity for the poor Africans? No thanks, there's more than enough of that to go around. (Though I'll graciously accept pity for the plight of this poor PCV--send to Philippe Gosselin, PCV, CSPS de Zamsé, BP 34 Zorgho, Burkina Faso) What can I do? I still don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe all I can do is live alongside them for a while. Try to understand what their life is like. Give them my encouragement, for whatever it's worth.

The mission pamphlet concluded, "You will rarely see direct results of your work. But your presence alone is making a difference in the lives of those around you." God, I can only hope.

PHILIPPE’S DIARY[AH!]

So here it is: an exclusive look into Philippe's most intimate, salacious thoughts from one year ago. It begins on Air France, somewhere over Algeria...

28 July 2004

I keep wondering to myself, Why are these people going to Ouaga? I can't imagine that many of them are tourists, but most of them are white. I just never imagined anyone other than PCVs and host country natives would have any reason to go there...

[I've sinced learned that actually, 198,376 tourists visited Burkina in 2002. Of these, 55% were confused surfers who accidentally bought plane tickets to Ouagadougou instead of Honolulu; 30% were French sex tourists; 10% were victims of practical jokes (Oh, Burkina's got great jungle safaris!); 4% were masochists; and 1% were friends and relatives coming to visit PCVs (most of those for Chrissy).]

Kaya, 29 July 2004

Arriving may have been a mind trip, but waking up to Africa was something else entirely. Made it sink in, and I look around at everything in a strange sort of awe. Everything s new, and it's very refreshing to have no idea what to expect. The food, the money, the toilets, the people, the critters (geckos and oxen and goats... and who knows what insect freaks of nature we'll encounter). [oh, Philippe, you have no idea...]

The drive this morning from Ouaga gave us our first look at the people and the life here. We return their stares, because for now they're as much of a curiosity to us as we are to them. It helps to have a group to dissipate the attention--it might get tough absorbing it all by myself in a village. [oh, Philippe, you really have no idea...]

On the way from some place to another, I asked Courtney, a PCV helping out with training, So where is Kaya? She'd said that Kaya was one of the larger cities in Burkina. We walked along the dirt street, mostly empty except for the occational goat or ass or shanty along the sides. Oh, we're in Kaya, she said. [oh, Philippe... all looks, no world experience]

I thought I would be stressed out of my mind, but instead I'm just soaking it in, eagerly awaiting what comes next. [Patience, Philippe. The stressed out of your mind part comes next.]

Boussouma, 5 August 2004

Our only instructions were to "integrate with the family." I was all for it, of course, and went in with a positive mind, following my new host dad on his bike to my new home for 3 months. When we got there, they pulled up a chair and we sat in silence. The dad left after a few minutes, leaving me with his teenage son, who speaks a little French.

I tried to make conversation. I asked him how old he is (16), if he was in school (no), if he played sports (volleyball)... What else?? He didn't return the questions. I started to freak out. It was 9:30 am and I had time to kill til 2. I'd already run out of conversation. I hadn't been prepared for this! What the hell was I supposed to do? I didn't think I could take it. I'm not cut out to live in an African village! I can't handle it, especially not alone! This was within the first 20 minutes. I sat with Guillaume for a painful half hour then asked to take a nap.

There were so many formative firsts in Burkina: My first roach, my first scorpion, my first shit...

6 August 2004

My first time squatting on the latrine, worrying about my aim (after assuring myself there were no monster roaches in sight). I felt God there with me when it went straight down the hole. I'm beginning to see why they say this is the toughest job I'll ever love. Tough, but boy did I love being through with it. I've learned that PCVs love to talk about their poop, some more than others (ahem, Cassie). The color, the texture, viscosity, is all a subject of conversation. Not to mention the latrines themselves, and the process... Adjusting to the food here does some weird shit to one's digestive tract. For example, Cassie found it necessary to inform me that hers resembled the slimy sauce she ate with her To as if it simply passed through her unchanged. When I suggested she send in a MIF kit to test for parasites, she said she'd have no problems collecting a sample since she always misses anyway. This from a small, pretty, proper girl. What is it about PC service that makes people think it's ok to just plainly discuss the most unmentionable of bodily functions? Better to share with Philippe than to write home about it. [And then Philippe will write home about it later!]

It wasn't until after my first week that I saw the true extent of the wretched human conditions in Burkina:

7 August 2004

Music video hell. I accompanied my host brothers to the village TV on the side of the road. There were probably 50 young guys surrounding the 14" TV captively watching some of the most bland music videos I have ever seen. Maybe I was sent here to teach the Burkinabé about production values.

While I was watching, one guy came up to me and rescued me from my supreme (albeit amused) boredom by striking up a conversation in shaky English... He told me about his desire to go to America, where he could be rich, and escape the lack of opportunity here. He brought up my American guilt by asking if he could go back with me, or if I could help him. "I want an American boyfriend," he said several times. "Can you help me get an American boyfriend?" I was very amused by the wording, though I didn't point it out. I felt guilty that after 2 years I'll be going home, but they'll be stuck here in poverty with their shitty music videos. Perhaps I shouldn't tell them what they're missing.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

As of July 4, I'm the only gay male PCV remaining in Burkina. The only one who'll admit it, anyway... I notice the other boys stealing lustful sideways glances at me when their girlfriends aren't looking. Oh yes. In any case, on August 2nd, Air France will deliver us 50 new trainees, contributing to the Peace Corp’s continual cycle of renewal, flushing out its jaded cynics and replacing them with new batches of doe-eyed idealists.

This is the mother-load. The biggest incoming group of PCVs Burkina has ever seen. For all of us here--well, all 3 of us who are still single, anyway--there's only one thing on our minds. My mom says I should leave more up to the imagination in these posts, and so I will. Ok, ok, I will tell you that it involves Harry Potter Sex. I mean, Sex! ...No, wait, I can say it: Harry Potter SIX. I'm so desperate for Harry Potter SIX that I don't know what to do with myself. If there's nobody on that plane who can "give it to me," well, gee, I'll be screwed. Or, more accurately, I won't.

And even if there is, we're not supposed to solicit Harry Potter SIX from trainees, and after training they're stuck in village for 3 months, and if there's an even number of them they'll surely share it with each other before I even get a shot, and then you gotta factor in the chances of someone wanting to slip me the old "Oliver Wood" and me wanting to "play Quidditch" with that particular someone, and also that, as many cold bucket baths as I take, I still reek of desperation. Also I just plain stink. And they could all turn out to be lame-ass "Muggles." It's hopeless. Hear that, Love? Hopeless. I'm still not expecting you. Love... the biggest bitch of them all.

A TEST OF CHARACTER

Pretty much the only way to "Get the hell out of Dodge" (aka Zamsé) and make a decent living in this country is to win a job as a functionary, a government worker such as a nurse, a teacher, a police officer, etc. There is a tiny private sector, but it is overrun with nepotism. If you're not linked to someone high up through your dad's 3rd wife's uncle Amadou, then you're shit out of luck. A few lucky ones get jobs with rich development or aid organizations (like Peace Corps). But for the most part, the only viable way to get out of a life of farming in village is to get one of these aforementioned jobs through an annual national competition. The state provides full scholarships to the winners and then after their training assigns them to a post somewhere in the country. But the competition is ridiculous... For each slot available, there can be something like 300 applicants.

My language tutor Souleymane is one of those bright, modestly ambitious guys who just wasn't meant to live in village forever. He took exams for a couple different positions last year. The competition results were announced on the radio. Can you imagine the nerves? Like having your SAT scores announced on MTV. He heard his name and went all the way to Ouaga where he learned that SEVEN Souleymane Ouedraogos won competitions, and he wasn't one of them. So this year he's giving it his all to make it. He's taking 6 different exams, for nursing, teaching, accounting, etc. He wants to become a nurse, but he's gotta take whatever he can get. He bought the pricey study guides with all the practice questions, so I got to see what he's up against.

My God. Each exam is 2 hours long. They're all essentially the same, no matter what position you're trying for. A big section of abstract problems, like out of an IQ test. Find the pattern, predict the next number, which of these shapes does not belong, etc. And then a section of questions on general knowledge and current events. No easy shit like, Who is the President of the United States? No, no... More like "Who is the king of Cambodia?" Want to try some more?

1. Who was the first Chinese astronaut in space?

2. What is the Quebecois political party whose sole goal is the legalization of cannibis?

3. What is the biggest optical telescope in the world?

4. Who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2004?

5. What is the smallest capital city in the world?

6. The UN charter is composed of how many articles?

7. Who are the biggest alcohol consumers in the world?

8. The first film was projected in what year?

9. What is the process of sperm production called?

10. In Greek mythology, who is the god of forests?

Applicants are expected to know the answers to questions like these when they've never had access to TV, CNN, the Internet, textbooks, encyclopedias, libraries, or even books. All they've got is radio. Even Americans, who are constantly bombarded with all of these media would be hard pressed to compete in a test like this. Sure, exceptionally brilliant people like myself know off the top of their heads that the answers are 1. Yang Liwei, 2. Bloc Pot, 3. Keck One, 4. Elfriede Jelinek, 5. Thorshavn, 6. A hundred and eleven, 7. The Czechs (they beat the Russians and the Irish!), 8. 1895 (I was film major, after all), 9. Spermatogenesis, 10. Sylvan, and that the King of Cambodia is Norodom Sihamoni. But how the hell is the average person supposed to know? It might be a good way to pick out Jeopardy contestants, but to choose teachers? Nurses? Souleymane's a smart guy, but more importantly he's good with people. Does the test doesn't give a damn? Nope. Explains why all the functionaries I work with are pretentious smart-asses.

In addition to all this, the exams require an in-depth knowledge of Burkina facts and figures. I put my chin on Souley's shoulder and give him backrubs while he studies. (Uh, they make you smarter, I explain. But only if you're not wearing a shirt) I've picked up quite a few interesting Burina tidbits by doing this, like the number of tourists to the country cited above. Some more examples:

Cotton production makes up a whopping 31% of Burkina's GDP. The GDP per capita is around $300 USD (in the US it's more than $30,000). 45% of the people live under the poverty level, on $2 or less a day. The life expectancy in 1997 was 53.8 years. In 2001, 28% of the population was literate. 8% have electricity. There are more than 60 ethnolinguistic groups in the country, living and starving together in peace and harmony. 360,000 Burkinabé returned to the country following the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire--they all go there for work! Burkina produces between 50 and 60 thousand tons of onions a year. Indeed, that's all I eat. There's a good chance that Shea butter you pick up at Bath and Bodyworks originated here, since Burkina's the world's 3rd largest producer of shea nuts. Burkina was home to 782,891 dogs in 2003, and 24 million chickens. And finally, Burkina has 320 tourist sites--I assume these are all the places where you can get a cold beer.

Souley's not taking any chances with the competition this year, so he went and got his fortune told at the fêticheur... I don't know what this is in English. Fetishist isn't quite right. It’s something like an animist witch-doctor. You go tell this guy what it is you're after, and for 40 cents he'll tell you what you need to do to get it. Usually it's something like sacrificing a chicken. Souley tells me, "So I went, and instead of telling me to bring him a chicken, he told me I needed to sacrifice a sheep!"

--Whoa... A sheep! Isn't that a bit expensive?

**I know! I tried to negotiate with him, and make it a chicken, but he wouldn't budge! So I said fine. A sheep it is. But I don't know what I can do... I can't afford a sheep! I still need to pay my way in Ouaga.

--Couldn't you just forget it?

He gives me a look that says, you dumb-ass nassara!

**No I can't forget it! I need to win a competition!

--So you actually believe the guy? Aren't you muslim??

**Of course I believe him!

(everybody here, no matter what their nominal religion, still carries around some animist superstitions and beliefs.)

--Didn't you do a sacrifice for your exams last year?

**No, and look what happened!

By now the subtext was quite clear that he wanted me to help him buy the stupid sheep. It would surely upset the values of the Shave the Sheep Vegan Society at Wes, but it obviously meant a lot to him, and if helped boost his confidence... I agreed to give him an advance on his tutoring salary.

--Can you at least bring the meat home to your family to eat?

**No! Not even. Sometimes you can, but not with this guy. He keeps it for himself.

--Souley, I think you need to find yourself a new fêticheur.

**Yeah, you know what, I do. I'll look into it.

Don't tell him, but I've already decided to pay for his school if these competitions don't pan out. It wouldn't be for lack of effort or deserving. This guy needs a ticket out of village, and would make a fine nurse. And I mean Fiiiine! UNH! I have the money saved up somehow from my volunteer allowances. And if it can make a real difference in somebody's life, hell, I won't miss it a bit. Though a plane ticket to Paris would be awfully nice... And some time on the Mediterranean... Study your ass off, Souleymane, and let's pray this damn sheep sacrifice works!

THE STATE OF THE INNARDS

Philippe Gosselin here with your Peace Corps Burkina Faso 7-day Bowel-Watch Forecast, brought to you by Giardia. We start off the week on Monday with the usual light diarrhea. Look for conditions to worsen gradually overnight. Runny all of Tuesday with a 30% chance of leakage. Now we're keeping a close eye on this high pressure gas system that's coming in on Wednesday, and may bring with it painful indigestion and decreased appetite alternating throughout the day with pangs of starvation for a decent American meal. Or Chinese, or Mexican, or even Ethiopian. You'll want to be especially cautious on Thursday as the gas system moves down through the gut, potentially creating emergency conditions with explosive spurts and a much higher than usual 60% chance of missing the hole. Look for things to shift suddenly into Friday, which for now looks to bring with it the start of another long bout of constipation lasting throughout the weekend and likely well into next week.

Keep it tuned to RWO for further bowel updates and special alerts on extreme gastric conditions. Or get reports by SMS, or by logging on to our website. Or by phone, or by fax, or email. Or via post, pager, telegram or RSS feed. Or by biiga, by carrier pigeon, smoke signal, telepathic messaging, or prayer. Or remain blissfully unaware of the horrors that lie in store the next time you eat that sketchy street food. It's up to you.

A DISGRUNTLED POSTAL PATRON

When I first moved to Zamsé from my training village last October, I biked down to Zorgho to make friends with the good people of the local post office. I explained to them that I live 45km away, and that it would be difficult for me to come down every time I got a package, cuz I have but a bike to get me here, and a round-trip in a single day to pick up a package would just about kill me. My counterpart, the head nurse, rides into Zorgho regularly on his motorcycle. Would there be a way for him to pick up packages on my behalf? No. Not if they're addressed to you. Really? Nothing I can sign to give him permission? No. You understand that it's difficult for me to come all the way down here? Yes, we understand. Ok... What if I asked people to leave my name off the package, would that work? Yes, that could work. Great! ... And so I told y'all to send packages without my name. The packages would just come to me, and I would be happy.

One day, my counterpart got a package slip, saying a package had arrived from the USA. But they wouldn't give it to him. The nurse was going away and wouldn't be able to pick it up for another couple weeks. So the next time I was passing through Zorgho on my way to Ouaga, I went in and said, hey homies, wazzup! I got this here package slip, and that package there has got my name written all over it. No, it doesn't. Well, you're right, it doesn't actually have my name, like we agreed, but it's for me. You can't pick it up. Only the CSPS nurse can pick it up. Well, the nurse told me he tried and you wouldn't give it to him either! What gives? He didn't have an official stamp. Great. I'll tell him to bring it next time. But for now, since I'm here, and I just biked 45k, could I pick up my package please? It's not for you. Uh, yes, you see, that's my home address in the upper left corner. Helene Gosselin, that's my mom. She sent the package for me. But it doesn't have your name. No, you said I could leave off the name, and I wouldn't have any problems! We can't give it to you. It's my package! You KNOW it's mine! Yes, we know. So PLEASE JUST GIVE IT TO ME! I WANT MY PACKAGE FROM MY MOMMY. PLEASE, JUST GIVE IT TO ME. IT'S RIGHT THERE AND I'M RIGHT HERE AND I'LL JUST TAKE IT IF YOU DON'T MIND. It doesn't have your name on it. AAAAAAGH!

You would think, this being a third world country, that they could be a little lax about these things. Make life a little easier for a brother. But no. The folks at the Zorgho post are the tightest-assed tightasses I've ever encountered. As I walked out, fuming, throwing an inner tantrum, desperate for the boxed piece of home that was just on the other side of the counter, they called to me, Make sure the nurse comes back to pick it up soon! We don't want this thing lying around. There's no room.

On another occasion, I went to the Zorgho post with Imane. We biked from Imane's village and arrived at the post around 11:15. She had two packages to pick up (with her name, thankfully) and I wanted to mail a letter with some photos I was sending to my former host family. It took until 12:30 for me to get my stamps and Imane her packages. There were no other clients. There were two people working. I thought of tacking up a Bang Head Here poster to the wall. Sure, you have to go through paperwork and sign in triplicate and pay the fees, but seriously, folks... And when we finally left, they called out: Next time, could you get here a little earlier? Indeed, they had worked half an hour into their siesta.

Around this time I found out that Katy, another volunteer in our area, had made an arrangement for a courrier to pick up packages bearing her name from the post on her behalf. Interesting. Very very interesting. She gave me a copy of the procuration agreement she had signed and gotten officialized at the police. I took it and copied it, had my nurse sign, biked to Meguet, waited an hour at the police, paid the fee, got all the stamps, and then biked the rest of the way to Zorgho. I strolled into the post with a victorious, cocky, sweaty air. I gots a little sumthin for you folks. Perhaps you'd like to read it? I handed over the contract. The guy at the counter took it to the manager in the other room. Five minutes later, he comes back with the paper. This won't work. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was expecting something to go wrong, and I was ready to go off when it happened. WHAT? What do you MEAN this won't work? My friend did this exact same thing! I'm doing everything to make you people happy, and you keep giving me shit! No, sorry, this needs to be done on our official forms. And he handed me copies of the official form I needed to fill out and get stamped in order to have someone else pick up my packages. Um, I believe I asked you people for this a long time ago. Would have saved me a lot of trouble. No you didn't. YES I DID. I ASKED FOR IT QUITE SPECIFICALLY. Was it me you asked? No, it was some other guy, but-- You didn't ask. JESUS CHRIST!

@@@ Yes, Philippe?

I'm not generally an angry person. I never yell at people. But, Jesus, I can only take so much bullshit. What would you do in this situation?

@@@ I would bust out the French.

And so I did: VOUS FAITES TOUS POUR QUE LA VIE SOIT DIFFICILE! J'EN AI MAR DE CES MAUDITES CONNERIES! VOUS ETES DES VRAIS INCOMPETENTS! VOUS ME FAITES CHIER!!

But I'm a blubbering mess when I'm enraged, and wasn't able to get it out nearly as eloquently as Jesus might have. The guy chuckled, and told me to calm down, there were other customers. I took the new forms and huffed outside to my bike, but the guilt set in before I could flee, so I came back with my tail tucked between my legs and apologized for my outburst. ...Jesus told me to do it.

WHO SHIPPED MY CHEESE ECONOMY?

In spite of these difficulties (which I pray I’ve resolved), the mail in Burkina is actually quite reliable. The only problems seem to arise when West Africa isn't specified in the address. Most people, American postal clerks included, don't think Burkina Faso is a country. Recently I got a letter from Alpha Delt at Wesleyan (you didn't know I was a frat boy?) that was stamped MISSENT TO JAMAICA. Gee. Sure wish I'D been missent to Jamaica! But it found its way to me eventually.

Only once did I think a package had indeed been swallowed by the postal system. My parents sent it on January 13. It landed in my hands on July 11. Why did it take so long? The package was marked Economy Mail all over. I took a look at the customs form. Aha! It was my dad who sent it. That explains things. The postage cost an arm, but if he had just thrown in a leg I could have gotten it in 2 weeks instead of 6 months.

But no matter. It was in my hands. I was ecstatic. On top was the Thermarest I’d asked for. My back had gotten used to sleeping on my rock-hard cot by this point. Oh well. There was also food. So much food! And pictures of me from my college graduation over a year ago. DAMN, I looked good back then! I was jacked. It’s tough to stay that way when I’m eating for 300. Me and my 299 intestinal worms.

But the most exciting of all was the Parmesan Cheese. I was gonna eat me some CHEESE tonight!

It took me a while to admit to myself that the Parmesan cheese had gone bad.

--Philippe, I think it might be bad.

**No, no, it's fine!

--No, really, Philippe, smell it. It smells like blue cheese.

**Well, what's wrong with that?

--You hate blue cheese, it's disgusting!

**It's an acquired taste.

--Philippe, the color's not even right. It's brownish-yellow.

**Well, who knows, it's reduced fat, that's probably what it's supposed to look like. I'll just taste it, all right?

--Fine. Tastes disgusting, doesn't it?

**Well I don't know, I haven't had Parmesan in a while, maybe it's supposed to taste--

--WAKE UP, Philippe! Wake up and smell the rotten cheese!

** Cheese doesn't go bad! Least of all delicious fake processed reduced fat Kraft Parmesan! Maybe I just need a little more.

--No, Philippe!

**Yes, I want more!

--You'll ruin your meal!

**Spaghetti with CHEESE!!

--PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER MAN!

**MORE CHEEEEEESE CHEEESE SAY CHEESE! .......Oh god. You were right.

--I was right.

**Oh, god, this is nasty.

--What'd I say?

**A whole bottle of Parmesan cheese and it's BAD! For once I get cheese and it's ROTTEN! Oh god, no. No! NOooooho ho ho! Oh the humanity! I'll never be hungry again!!

...It was one of the saddest moments of my life. This is what happens when you send Reduced fat Kraft Parmesan cheese via Economy mail. THIS is what happens! The cheese goes around the world on a boat and when it finally reaches your self-sacrificing cheese-starved child in Africa it's gone BAD.

I ate the spaghetti anyway. I'll give the cheese to Imane. Maybe she won't notice.

You see, America is wonderful because you can have all kinds of cheese. Mozarella, swiss, American. It comes in all forms--sliced, powdered, individually wrapped. In chunks, in spray cans, in jars, or old-fashioned wheels. Cheese goes in sandwiches, in chips, in dips. Cottage, cream, parmesan! Spread it, spray it, melt it! On pizza, on pasta, on salad, on cracker! On bread and on soup and on fries and baked taters! Cheese is everywhere. And when it runs out... you just go buy more! Brie, munster, goat, soy! My fellow Americans, living in Burkina Faso, one learns what makes America great. Tonight, after one year away, I can tell you that the answer, my friend, is toilets. And KJ and Pepe, who, in my hour of need, sent me black gay erotica, which doesn't go bad, thank god. But most of all, it is great for its great abundance of CHEESE.

God Bless Cheese! And America. Goodnight!

--Philippe

All over the world, folks are marching down streets in spandex and feathers, waving rainbow banners and flags, making gratuitous public displays of same sex affection as they celebrate their Pride of being Gay. And Lesbian and Trans and Bi and Pan and Poly and A and Inter. Except here in the Faso. So I've been doing a little soul-searching, trying to sort through my feelings, discovering my inner child, cause that's what one does in Peace Corps. And my inner child is saying to me, DAMN, philippe, you need to get some asssss! It also came up with the following deep reflections on being gay in Burkina:

AN ABBREVIATED HISTORY OF PHILIPPE

I had a little dilemma when I landed in Burkina almost a year ago. Just after landing, in fact. I had this rainbow pin on my backpack. I'd placed it there when I was in the midst of coming out my freshman year of college four years prior, back when I was becoming a poster-child for gay pride. I was gay, and I wanted everyone to know about it, goddamn it! It was my time to come out and be proud and maybe finally find myself a boyfriend or two. Or three or four. I was gonna come out and get lots of love. I was 18, and my purity score was embarassingly high. I even went on MTV to spread the word that I, Philippe André Gosselin, am gay. [wild, spontaneous thundering applause, and a couple of cat-calls. Work it, honey!] That's not what I said on MTV, but that's the message that got out nevertheless. You'd be surprised how fast the word gets around once you go and say it on MTV.

So, my first semester at college, the modest rainbow ribbon got pinned to my backpack and it'd been there ever since, following me everywhere I went. Now I had landed in Africa, and was pulling out my backpack that had been neatly stowed under the seat in front of me with my tray-table in the upright and locked position and my seatback fully erect. And there was the rainbow. Shit... whaddoIdo, Toto, whaddoIdo? I couldn't just take it off. Well, I suppose I could, but what kind of a statement would that be making? Perhaps this hesitancy needs some explaining.

You see, if I learned one thing in my years amongst the hyper-politicized neo-hippie fascists at Wesleyan, it was that everything you do, whether you mean it or not, is a political statement. The way you dress, cut your hair, who you sleep with and how, who you talk with, who you meet with, the "political spaces" you create, the way you sneeze, tie your shoes, the way you do the things you do, it all implies a political statement of sorts. And you have to be oh so careful about the political statements you make. Thus, the intellectual discourse on campus went something like as follows:

"You offend me."

"No, YOU offend ME!

"No, you are offensive!"

"No, I am offended! And if you respond, that's also offensive!"

"Don't silence my voice!"

"Don't silence MY voice, you straightwhiteuppermiddleclassmalehegemonist OPPRESSOR!"

"Don't oppress me with your labels!"

"You think YOU'RE oppressed?!"

...etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

At Wesleyan I also learned that students at prestigious liberal arts schools are full of shit. So I guess that's two things.

But then why was I so troubled by the statement I'd be making by removing my pin after all these years? I was over those days of gay this, gay that, everything is gay gay gay! (or "queer queer queer" if you want to fit in at Wes) I'd let go of the cause to some extent (though my mom has taken it up in my place). Here I was, embarking on a journey that could be two years of my life... I knew I wasn't gonna be able to be out and proud in Burkina like I'd grown accustomed to since I started college. I knew I was making some sacrifices by coming here. But it was tough, thinking that I would be letting go of a part of me that had come to be as much of me as anything else. Could I really just put it away for two years?

Actually, that's not where the story begins. Why on earth did I end up joining the Peace Corps in the first place? Well, for starters, I'm a saint. That's a given. And joining the Peace Corps is just what saints do. But saints have needs too, you know. This saint first started feeling those needs around the tender, confused young age of 13. You see, back then I was feeling young, confused, and tender...

Ok, we're gonna skip all that and go straight to this summary of my past 10 years:

High school: Nothin. Get into gayest college possible.

Freshman year: Out of the closet and ready for love. Come 'n get me! ...nothin.

Sophomore year: Right then, I'll settle for hookups. Nothin. Well screw Wesleyan I'm going abroad! But first...

Summer in LA: Nothin. But smog. And horrible public transportation.

Fall abroad in Paris: Nothin.

Spring abroad in Madrid: Nothin.

Summer in New York: Nothin.

Senior year: Nothin. By this time I was starting to see a trend. A whole lot of Nothin can bring a saint down. Even a handsome ripped saint with the body of an adonis. What good is a body with nothing to rub it up against? Where did I go wrong? One night, while procrastinating a paper, the saint had a lightbulb go off over the glowing ring above his head. Everybody always says this sort of somethin somethin happens when you least expect it, and here I am looking in all the most obvious places! Going to a queer school (if there ever was one), doing summer internships in gay indie film, studying abroad in romantic capitals of Europe... Please! How cliché! Why don't I join the Peace Corps? I certainly won't expect it there, sweating in a mud hut doing saintly things somewhere in Africa. It'll set me up perfectly.

Pre-departure Summer in San Francisco: Ka-CHING! DING DING DING DING DING DING! Tika Tika Tika Tika Tika! (also, it was freezing)

But by this time, I'd already accepted the invitation to Peace Corps and had a one way plane ticket to Ouagadougou with my name on it. Leaving in 2 weeks. Paradise gained... paradise lost.

Lest I leave a less than honest impression, I'll admit that I wasn't entirely innocent before I reached San Francisco. And I must say I was very fortunate to have experienced all these places despite finding myself hard up in all of them. But folks have had better luck, too. I joked to myself, Sure, you're probably gonna have to be celibate for two years, but it can't be any worse than Wesleyan! One year later, I find myself eating those very words, because I've got nothing better to eat; furthermore, they were untrue. Oh, how very naive I once was.

DANCIN' IN THE MOONLIGHT

Within our first week of training we had a session detailing the risks of coming out in Burkina, or accidently outing other volunteers. It's a small country, word could get around. And since the country is heavily Christian and Muslim, the only logical thing to do if you discover a man prefers men is to ostracize and possibly beat him. I mean, what else is there to do? Go on with your life?

This said, nobody will ever suspect you to be anything but straight. People have heard of homosexuality before, but they assume it's something only freaky frenchmen do. It's perfectly acceptable for same sex buddies to walk around holding hands in public, cuddle and caress, and to do some heavy and obscene bumping and grinding on the dance floor. Just as long as you don't seem to enjoy it TOO much. On the other hand, for opposite sex couples to do the same in public is considered quite scandalous and inappropriate. Amen to that, I say! Keep the breeding in the bedroom, you perverts!

It's a little disconcerting at first to see two young men walking hand in hand through the market, or sitting with their hands on each other's thighs, or leaning a head on a shoulder, or making out in a corner. I find myself wondering, Where am I?? Ok, so there's no making out. But the rest is perfectly common. And how refreshing! Nobody could get away with that at home. Men have to keep a 5 foot radius between themselves and other men, watch how they dress and what music they listen to how they speak and be sure not to bleach their hair, or they set off a gay alarm. (*krchshshs* We have a suspected code Pink, please call for backup. Confirm that. Man with tight jeans and excessive hair gel listening to Christina. Designer underwear label showing. That's code pink, over. *krshschsch*) That's why it's so liberating to just come out and forget about all the bullshit. I feel sorry for the straight men in America, all the self-censoring they have to do lest they raise suspicions. Here you do anything, wear anything (or possibly nothing) and nobody blinks an eye. All that registers is: LOOK, A WHITIE!

One evening during training while I was living in a host family in Boussouma, I was hanging out with my host brothers and some of their neighborhood friends, sitting on a bench outside of the courtyard, by the millet field. The moon was shining, the millet stalks waving, and there was a crackling radio playing some slow jazz. My oldest host brother, around 19, is a tall handsome guy, and that night looked rather like Tiger Woods, wearing a baseball cap and a polo shirt tucked into khakis. Barefoot of course. He took the hand of one of the smaller more raggedly dressed neighbor boys and started to twirl him around to the music. They laughed as they twirled, and then they settled into each others arms into a swaying slow dance. The radio, the moon, the stars, the breeze, two boys just dancing out in the field as the rest of us sat and watched. I was mesmerized. I'll be damned if it wasn't the most romantic thing I've ever seen.

[pause for reflective sigh]

[deeper, slightly melancholy sigh]

[sharp, conclusive sigh]

It didn't matter that I didn't get a turn. Just watching was enough to fill this deep, longing hole in my... if only for a moment... I'm sorry, I can't go on. [blows nose into microphone] Can we turn the cameras off? Can we get someone to come fix my makeup?

THERE'S A TINY HETEROSEXUAL DEEP INSIDE EVERY ONE OF US BURSTING TO GET FREE

So began my rebirth as a straight man. Sometimes volunteers make up stories about a "certain someone" back home to stave off overzealous suitors or the inevitable questions that arise. But I wanted to retain at least a modicum of honesty, so arriving in village I began with a tactic of subtle evasion: ARE YOU MARRIED? No. WHY NOT? Cause I don't want to be. Look, a goat! WHY NOT? Cause I don't have a girlfriend. How bout this heat? WHY NOT? Jesus, I dunno... Women are too complicated! Sure is a hot one, huh?

Of course, such answers, like claiming you don't have a religion, just make no sense to the villagers. And so they nagged and nagged until I finally decided, ok, just say whatever it takes to satisfy them. I never bothered to make up a story, so I can never keep my answers straight. ...erm, consistent.

DON'T YOU WANT AN AFRICAN WIFE? I've already got a wife. YOU SAID YOU WERE A BACHELOR. Did I? Sometimes I forget... She's so very far away. SO YOU HAVE A WIFE IN AMERICA, WHY NOT A WIFE IN AFRICA TOO? She's a jealous jealous wife. SHE'LL NEVER KNOW. YOU HAVE NEEDS! Lord, don't I know it! HOW ABOUT A GIRLFRIEND? Already got one of those, too. You know Imane? WILL YOU MARRY MY DAUGHTER? Your daughter's 6. SO? You know what, you're right. Age is an arbitrary thing. I'll marry her after these other 4 girls that have been bestowed upon me.

When I went to visit my neighbor Imane's village in the beginning, we made a show of our separate sleeping arrangements. Imane actually does have a fiancé back home, and it would be no good if her villagers thought she was some kind of slut. Look, people! He's sleeping on the porch! But of course, deny as we might any romantic or physical involvement, people will assume what they want to assume. So now if somebody asks if there's anything between us, the answer is No, we're just fucking. What other reason could we have for seeing each other?

Unfortunately because I can't be open and honest, in village I feel like a horribly lame version of myself. When I can't make comments about hot guys or complain about not getting ass, what is there left to talk about? The weather? Goats? It just isn't any fun. Not to mention I'm one lonely and randy rabbit.

LUST HURTS

In a way though it's easier here. Sure, the desire is still there, unrequited as always, but I came without expecting to find anything or anyone. And how nice it is to have my expectations met, for once in my life! Whereas usually my thoughts have been along the lines of: This sucks! I can't believe I can't even find me a man in Paris! Now I simply think: This sucks! It's a subtle difference, but you see, finding a man here is beyond my control, and therefore I'm completely justified in whining incessantly while making no efforts to rectify the situation. There's simply nothing I can do. Which is actually quite a relief. Or possibly a releif. No, relief.

Ok, I admit that while I fully expected the gay scene in Burkina to be about as barren as the landscape, I secretly hoped Peace Corps would be teeming with progressive homosexual studs like myself. What young gay man wouldn't want to leave behind the gyms, the clothes, the clubs and the hair gel to come live in poverty in the remotest place on earth? Apparently not quite as many as I thought. Instead, I find myself in the company of a group of straightwhiteuppermiddleclassheterosexistmonogamist OPPRESSORS. But they're Ok once you get to know them.

These hopes dashed, I was no longer expecting love. (You hear that love? I'm not expecting you! Look at me, twiddling my thumbs, reading a book. I daresay, this is probably the moment in my life where I've expected you the least! ...) But nor did I expect to arrive in Africa and be consumed by lust! All we ever hear about Africa back home is genocide, famine, disease, poverty. Am I missing anything? Exotic wildlife. So of course, I imagined I'd be living amongst poverty-stricken, disease-ridden, war-torn starving folks. And elephants. Does the news ever mention that in addition to all these things, there are also hot men in Africa? Never. News flash! There are some seriously hot men in Africa! Not just because it's 110 degrees! And some of them even have damn nice teeth! This all came as quite a surprise to me. Perhaps the growing attraction is a natural part of acclimating to new people and surroundings. Or maybe it's due to a condition I've developed known as "desperation." I don't know. All I do know is when I go play shirts and skins soccer, my eyes aren't on the shirts. Nor are they on the ball. Rather they're glued to the many topless muscly torsos writhing and twisting and flexing under smooth black sweat-drenched skin glimmering by the light of the setting sun... And then I get hit in the face with the ball, which has happened enough times that I've taken to just sitting and watching with the people on the sidelines. Lust hurts, man. Ouch... Or as they say here, "WHYYYYYYY!"

FIRST CONTACT

After months and months of being heterosexual, I found my beautiful gay rainbow flower slowly, sadly wilting inside of me, with no Diana Ross to rejuvinate it. I needed to know I was not alone on this continent. So when I found myself on an unexpected extended medical leave in Dakar, I decided to do some snooping around. Senegal may not be the land of plenty, but like almost every other country in the world, it's got way more going for it than Burkina. Because Senegal, and Dakar in particular, is so much more developed, internet cafés are more popular and widespread and allow for gay folk to find their fellow family (not to mention fornicate). After some google forays, I sent off an e-mail to the head of Dakar's underground gay organization explaining who I was and how I was hoping to learn about the gay community here. Surely enough, he responded and we set up a rendez-vous for an informal chat. It wasn't til later that he told me he'd had to ask special permission from the board of the underground organization to meet up with me, an outsider, and share his story, with the hope that I could provide some help... I'd stumbled across some deep shit, man.

I arrived by taxi at the appointed hour and place. We were to meet at a busy intersection. I wasn't sure how I'd be able to pick this guy out, cause all I knew was that there was a good chance he'd be black. And in Dakar I wasn't the only whitie walking the streets. But I needn't have worried: The man had a flame brighter than the African sun. He had the lisp, the wrist, the swagger, the look. You work it, sistah! I was nervous and excited as he led me to a more private spot, a nondescript restaurant/bar/club down the street. This was my first contact with family in Africa...! I wanted to know all about it.

We were seated in a private corner. My contact--I'll call him "Deep Throat"--or better yet, Z--told me that the server was safe, aka in the loop, and the server sat in on parts of our conversation. We ordered beers and I asked away. Turns out the situation for gays in Senegal is much more precarious than in Burkina. The gay identity there is much more salient, and the government officially condemns it. Men in Dakar don't hold hands or bump and grind on the dance floor because of the possibility they'll be labeled. Gays have to be very careful how they meet up and be very discrete in their appearance, which I realized must make life awfully tough for guys with flamboyant traits like Z.

He formed the group about 5 years ago, with a goal of providing a social meeting space for gays in Dakar. They've since expanded their mission to include HIV/AIDS education for its members and political activism, trying to reverse government persecution and abolish a law forbidding homosexual relations. Since they're officially banned from meeting, it all takes place in secret, communicating through word of mouth, email and phone. It started out with 50 members, but now has over 1000, 400 of whom live in the capital. Z told me the membership includes gay men, bisexuals, and lesbians. Many of them are married, some are sex workers.

Because of his position as head of the organisation and his efforts to get support from various non-governmental organizations, he inadvertantly became something of a public figure in Senegal. A couple years ago, he was attacked and severely beaten by a group of people on the street. He went to the hospital, but they refused to treat him after they discovered his identity. He had to go into hiding and managed to escape to France for 6 months.

The law used to persecute gays, Article 219, was put in place by the French during colonial times, and it still exists in all of their former African colonies, though somehow not in Burkina. It's actively enforced in Senegal. Z gave me the example of two of his friends who were arrested on trumped up charges of public sex while they were sitting together in a park that had a reputation of being a cruising spot. The possible punishment is between 1 month and 2 years in prison, and they were both condemned to 2 years. They weren't even allowed to speak in their own defense at the tribunal. Z told me that nobody bothers to refute the judgements because the society's attitude is, "They're gays, they deserve it." Z's organization also helps its members who are AIDS patients find people who will agree to treat them, because they're often refused treatment at local hospitals or clinics. Even organizations like Amnesty International have offered nothing but sympathy for these injustices, claiming that if they help the gay community it would sully their relations with the government would harm their capacity for addressing other abuses. Other NGOs have refused help and funding for similar reasons. For instituting all this homophobic discrimination and persecution, we've got the Frogs to thank. DAMN THOSE DIRTY FRENCH AND THEIR TOAST!

Speaking of toast, by this point in the conversation the beer had reached my head, and I was feeling a little toasty. It was wonderful to finally be in the company of somebody I could relate to on a deeper level than the weather. I felt my supressed activist tendencies boiling back up, and I had saintly visions of myself taking these people under my wing, getting them condoms, books, funding for an office, helping them form a network with other gay groups in Africa, publish a website, educate the gay community about AIDS and STIs, get them treatment. Maybe I could even help a group in Burkina get on its feet. In Peace Corps I've gone between feelings of being mildly to completely useless. But now here was something I could be passionate about, working with people I have a connection to, who I care about, and who I can possibly help, somehow, and maybe get laid doing it... We've got a whole big family in Africa who are struggling to find their own sense of pride, and if only we could all get together and hold hands and sing Kumbaya, it would be so beautiful...

Then the server brought over the bill for the 2 beers, and that brought me out of my buzzed idealistic stupor awful quick. I'd invited Z, so of course I was paying. The bill was for $12. Two beers in Burkina cost about $2, and in Dakar it's normally only a little more. Maybe it doesn't sound like much, and to any other whitie in Dakar it wouldn't be, but $12 was my entire day's living allowance, and I still had taxis and food to pay for. This for a volunteer who's looking to help you? Z, perhaps noticing the look of shock on my face, said he'd already paid up a bit to ensure we wouldn't be disturbed, put he offered to put in $2 as I laid down a ten. We said goodbyes, and I left with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I realized, though, as I was going away, that this was just another hurdle Z and his group had to deal with, paying dearly for the privilege of being able to meet and speak openly without trouble.

Z told me he has a contact with Burkinabé doctor who was trying to establish a group in Ouaga. Unfortunately, my attempts to follow up with him have gone unanswered, and so, to this day, I'm left high and dry in Burkina.

AN INDECENT PROPOSAL

After returning from Senegal, I started wondering, is there really nothing I can do, no way to find these people? They've gotta be out there. Probably even in my village. I set my gay-dar on high alert, but didn't pick up anything. I did note some suspicious activity one day, when I spotted a group of three young guys taking turns showering in a cement brick shower out in the open near the clinic. The ones who weren't showering were hanging around, chatting, leaning against the shower wall, and, I dunno, man, it looked like the dudes were checking each other out as they took their turns getting nekkid! Unfortunately there was no way to go verify this nonchalantly.

One evening, around this time, I was chilling with Souleymane after he'd given me a Mooré lesson. We were sitting around, shooting the shit, staring off into space, casually nudging each other's arms. As you may already know, I'd developed a bit of a crush. Souleymane holds hands and gives affection along with all the other boys, but unfortunately, since I'm a Nassarra, I'm not generally included in these displays. (Nor have I ever been a participant in the dance-floor bumping and grinding. Well... unless you count that one drunken night down in the south...) Souley and I have graduated to an occasional hand on the knee, though, which I'm happy for. On this particular evening, we're sitting silently, I'm trying to detect signs of sexual tension, and then he blurts out, "Have you ever slept in a mud hut?" Umm, no... (my house is made of cement bricks and a tin roof--not technically a hut) "Well then you'll have to come over and we'll spend the night together some time." Well! Whoa there, Souley! Nobody's ever tried that pick up line on me before. Could this be the love connection I'd been waiting for? I mean, not at all expecting? I was skeptical of course, but amused by the possibility that his invitation was something more. And so were other parts of me.

As I got up to leave, my backpack carefully positioned in front of me, one of the wives in his family said something to me, which Souleymane translated. "She asked if you were going to stay the night and sleep with me. She'll feed us Tô." And then one of the dads asked, "Aren't you going to sleep here?" So his family was in on this too? I was a little taken aback, though this probably meant the whole thing was an innocent sleepover. But who knows? Maybe this sort of thing happens all the time. Maybe his family obviously saw the tension between us and thought, please! Just sleep with him already! It could happen. But I figured, well, the least I'll get out of the deal is some innocent cuddling. And I could sure use it. Anything more would be just a pleasant surprise. A very pleasant surprise.

Souley was building himself a new hut at the time, and it was still missing some things, like a door, so he said when it's finished he'd invite me over. It was finished a couple weeks later, and he took me on a tour. It wasn't a very long tour. But we sat on his bed, and he said, "See, my new hut is a little distanced from all the other ones. So we can have fun without being bothered by all the kids." HOLD UP THERE! What did he mean by "have fun"? Because where I come from, that would be a blatant come-on. But what do I know? I stuck to my policy of zero-expectations, but I was a little giddy thinking about it. And so were other parts of me. That backpack comes in handy.

Eventually, with a little prodding from myself (remember...? when you told me...?) the day came that he invited me to stay. We'd gone out into the bush for our Mooré lesson, out to a spot where the crocodiles are. We didn't spot any, but we took pictures and had perfectly romantic time of it. We went back to his family's courtyard, I watched the kids play while he bathed and walked around without his shirt. He cooked me beans, and we ate, and it got dark and we sat and talked. "So, do you want to sleep inside the hut, or outside on a mat?" Well... inside, of course! "Allright, in that case I'll sleep outside on the mat." I was too flummoxed to respond... WHAT? Aren't we at least gonna cuddle? Cuz dude, I really need to. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to it!

He brought me inside, lit a lamp as I stripped to my boxers, and asked if I needed anything, like a good host. Aren't you gonna come sleep inside?, I finally asked, trying not to sound terribly disappointed or forward or needy. "Why, are you scared?" Ummm... yeah. He laughed. "Don't be scared. I'll sleep outside until it gets cold and then I'll come in and we'll sleep together. Don't worry." Ok then. Was this a good sign? Maybe he was sleeping outside just for show, and then at the stroke of midnight he'd come inside and strip down and he would rock my world. Or at least hold me close. Ah.... I tried to fall asleep.

I got up a couple times in the night to pee. Midnight, he was fast asleep outside the door. I made as much noise as I could coming back, but he didn't stir. 2am, same. 4am, I was fast awake. Dude, it's gonna be dawn soon. Should I wake him up? Would that be obviously desperate? Well, I wasn't gonna get another chance, so I opened the door and called to him. Souley, aren't you gonna come inside? "Oh... yes, ok." He put away his mat, came in, and crashed on the bed fully dressed with his back to me. He was on the very edge, leaving a good 6 inches between us, and he stayed that way. NOOOOOOOOO!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Well, shit.

Souley was up with the sun 45 minutes later, along with the rest of the family. I got up and dressed after stewing in my disappointment a little while longer. "So how was the night?" Souley asked, smiling. Amazing, Souley, just Amazing. He asked if I wanted leftover beans for breakfast, but I declined. "You're gonna invite me over to your place one night, right?" Ha ha... Sure, souley! Let's see... Now it's way to hot to sleep inside, but I got this one-man tent... Of course we can both fit! Please, this is Africa! I'll take your clothes. All of them. Now you go ahead and crawl in. I'll just lube up and...slide right in on top! I'm sorry, there's really no other place to put my hand. Now, let's see... Put your arm here... move your leg around this way... slide my arm here... slip on this condom... and there we go! Comfy?

Would you believe a few days after our Night of More Nothin', I saw Souley all over a guy in the market. They were holding hands, leaning on wooden posts together, hands around the back... He even did the "ha ha ha, you said something funny and now I'm leaning in and touching your chest" move. Souleymane, you bitch! It didn't help that the guy was incredibly handsome and dressed better than me. I asked Souley the next day during our lesson who the guy was. Oh, just the son of the new chief. I've given him the cold shoulder ever since. But I still grab his knee sometimes.

And so, my gay life in burkina faso canned be summed up in a word: zip. Will it be so for yet another year? Will I manage to stay that long? Stay tuned.

Would you believe it, I just had a beer with a gay former volunteer who's returned after 2 years away to visit his Burkinabé lover. So there's hope after all... But I'm not expecting it. Nope. No siree.

Oh, I almost forgot. What about the pin? Well, I took it off just before we deplaned. And stuck it on the inside. Not that it would have made a difference, as I discovered. I could go marching down the street waving a huge rainbow flag with spandex rainbow shorts and glitter and pink feathers in my mohawk and NOBODY KNOWS I'M GAY painted across my chest and no one would have a clue. So maybe I will. My Ouagadougou Gay Pride for one.

HAPPY PRIDE!

Love,

Philippe

I'm freshly returned from my first trip to the far north, the Sahel desert region which makes Zamsé's sad landscape look like a lush tropical jungle. No big pretty dunes either... The land is even more utterly flat, its only distinguishing features a scattering of thorny bushes and trees. So why would I ever want to go there? Well, I'll tell you!

KILL THE WORM! ERADICATE! ELIMINATE! RAH RAH RAH!

I joined 6 other volunteers for a Guinea Worm week around Djibo. Guinea worm is something you get by drinking contaminated water. One or more thin white worms grow inside of you for a year til they're a yard long or so, and then they shoot out of your chest in a gory shower of blood. Ever seen Alien? Actually, the worm is a little less dramatic. It picks a part of your body, often the feet or hands, but it could be anywhere: genitals, boobs, even eyes. The emergence is a very slow painful process, taking a couple weeks. If at any time you stick the affected body part in water (say a pond) for some relief, it shoots out its eggs and contaminates the water thatother people to drink. Of course you could die if the exit wound gets infected, or, say, you've got 80 worms coming out of you at the same time. Oh yeah, and once you've gotten it there's nothing you can do but wait for them to come out. Sucks to be you.

The good news is that Guinea Worm is on the verge of being eradicated in Burkina Faso, thanks in part to the dedicated work of handsome gregarious studly PCVs like yours truly. In fact, I'll just claim all the credit for myself, thank you very much. Most of the cases left are in remote areas on the borders, and so we went up to 2 affected areas near Mali. We rode around in truckbeds all week, not on roads so much as sets of tire tracks in the sand, got dropped off in villages, each of the PCVs with a team of 3 or 4 local volunteers, and we walked from courtyard to courtyard, across vast distances in the beating desert sun, uphill both ways (even though it's flat!), and educated every single person about The Evil Worm and how to crush it! (with water filters, which we then distributed.)

Our job was to sit on our ass as the local volunteers did all the work--hey,we don't speak the language! It's tough, but somebody's gotta do it. Our official job was to manage the team, make sure the sensibilization sessions were thorough and effective, and supervise the distribution of filters. One of the first villages we worked in was a gold dig site, not so much a settled community as a jumbled collection of huts, with a somewhat rough-around-the-collar population. Sheer chaos. Hundreds of kids following us around everywhere. They didn't care what we were saying, they just wanted whatever we had to give out. People pushing and fighting, kids clawing over each other to get straw filters, which they quickly took apart and dragged on the ground behind them, like they do with all their toys. Fortunately I was there to impose order and save the day ("throw the filters and run!"). My contribution was to dash into the crowd, say my piece to the team ("remember to wash out the cup! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!") and flee until I was once again needed. I learned that sometimes in health work you can do nothing but try, and hope that something was accomplished.

The rest of the week went much better. People listened and learned, everybody got filters, and my team kicked some Guinea Worm ass! Watch out, worm! Go pick on somethin your own size!

YOUR TENT, MY FRIEND, IS BLOWING IN THE WIND

At night we stayed at the local clinic where we were based. We had to walk around with our headlamps vigilantly scanning the ground in front of us lest we step on a scorpion or get a 2-inch thorn in our foot. We had a number of close calls for both, but no puncture wounds or poisoning, dieu merci.

We set up our mosquito net tents outside. My one-man tent ("the taco") was the subject of much ridicule and cruel taunting from the other PCVs. Our first night, Jackie, who was helping coordinate the week, just stood and laughed for what had to be 20 minutes at my tent as it flailed helplessly in the slight breeze, as I tried to go to sleep. Ok, my tent is small. I admit it freely and without shame. There's barely room for my arms, let alone another person. In fact, it would be nearly impossible for another person to sleep in my tent without having sex with me (the others suggested I find a way to use this to my advantage). But it's not the size of the tent that matters, people! It's... other things!

We got a taste of the weather up north in the form of wind and sandstorms. These tended to blow away our tents when we weren't inside, and even sometimes when we were, which led to some wild chases across the desert.

While not making fun of me, chasing tents, or running from scorpions, Andy and Pei, the Asian Americans in our group, were busy convincing our burkinabe counterparts that Jackie Chan was their brother and Bruce Lee their uncle. Burkinabe only ever watch Kung Fu/martial arts action movies, and so Bruce and Jackie and Jet are the best known celebrities after Michael Jackson. And of course since they never see Asians in person, it's only too easy to convince them that they'd better not pick a fight with Andy or Pei, cause baby, they got some moves you don't want to experience first hand.

LAAFI LAAFI LAND

How's everybody doin tonight? Aw, come on, you can do better than that. I said, how is everybody doin tonight?! Is there health in the crowd this evening? Lemme hear you say LAAFI BEEME! Nothin but health? Lemme hear you say LAAFI BALA! I'd like to start off with a new number tonight. A little song I like to call Laafi Laafi Land... It goes a little somethin like this:

Everything is Laafi

In Laafi Laafi Land

And if you mention otherwise

You're likely to get banned!

Beneath of every baobab

Inside of every hut

You'll find a load of Laafi beeme

And nothing but!

Sure we got malaria

And the runs can make us blue

But to us it's all Laafi bala

By the way, how do you do?

I don't care if you're dying

Or if your mom's not well

You'd better tell me Laafi be

Or you can go straight... to... the... SaHELLLLL! Hey!

Thank you! Thank you ladies and gentlemen and folks in between! You're beautiful! I'll be here two years!

LAAFI LAAFI LAND: THE THEMEPARK

Yes, yes I can see it now. Laafi Laafi Land, Africa's first mega themepark, and that will be its theme song. It's mascot will be a loveable cartoon vulture with a squeaky voice. The park's main area will be the Mossi Kingdom, a family fantasy-land of millet mazes, donkey-cart rides, and lots and lots of hoes. We'll offer discounts to families with over 10 children, and a tops-optional dress policy will be popular with European and African women alike.

Later we can add the Lipicot Center, a futuristic space whose centerpiece will be a huge round mud hut containing a time-travelling ride. Recline on a cot and watch as two years of your life pass you by. Then, once we've racked up the cash, we can expand and create the Animal Kingdom, a zoo with a selection of Burkina's most fascinating and exotic wildlife, ranging from goats to sheep to donkeys to chickens. It's companion park could be the Insect Kingdom, with swarms of flies and mosquitos, and rides like Scorpion Encounter and Locust: Raiders of the Lost Crops. Then maybe add a waterpark, Marigot Madness (watch out for that schisto!)... the possibilities are endless, and the potential windfall for investors unimaginable. Any takers?

Truly, Burkina is a country ripe for investment. I already mentioned a while back the Burkinabe diet, which will trim you down with intestinal parasites while toning you up with work in the fields, and all the while not getting enough to eat. Shit, sweat and plow the pounds away! Another entrepreneurial possibility would be to open a chain of Sweatbox Yoga Spiritual Retreat Centers marketed to new agey american tourists. In trendy cities like Chicago and DC, yuppies flock to these places, rooms where they jack the thermostat up to 120 degrees and do yoga. But why bother with the heating bill? You could do Sweatbox Yoga anywhere just by stepping outside into the sauna that is Burkina. And what better way to find yourself, what could be a more spiritual experience, than sweating profusely in an African village?

Burkina is also well-poised to offer services to the fashion industry. Open any catalogue and you'll see loads of pre-faded, worn-looking, stone washed, frayed hemmed clothing. Americans are so damn lazy that they can't be bothered to wear-in their own wardrobe, so they spend millions of extra dollars buying clothes that have gone through these fancy machines and acid-wash vats that beat them, fade them and tear them. Instead, just send em to Burkina, where the unclad locals would be happy to wear them in and beat them up much more cheaply (and thoroughly!) before shipping them back off to Abercrombie and American Eagle. And while we're at it, why not have them take over the pesky chore of wearing in your new Birkenstocks as well?

I'M TOO SEXY FOR MY SHIRT

Actually, Africans probably already are wearing your clothing. If you've ever wondered what happens to all those old t-shirts you dump in the Goodwill bin, well, they end up here. Rumor has it that once a volunteer spotted a villager wearing his high school's class t-shirt with his name on the back. Volunteers love to dig through the piles of clothes in the market to find campy shirts from the 80s. But more interesting is seeing villagers walking around with t-shirts with slogans in English that they obviously don't understand. Some of my favorites:

--A guy wearing a D.A.R.E. to Keep Off Drugs! t-shirt, while his friend standing next to him wore one with a pot-leaf print.

--"One by one, the penguins steal my sanity" in bright red on a guy walking around ouaga.

--"Nuke a godless communist gay baby seal for Christ" on a guy hanging out at a cigarette stand in Koupela.

A couple of times I've seen other gay references on t-shirts... One of my village friends always wears a California Aids Ride tee with a large logo for the LA Gay and Lesbian center. Another volunteer apparently saw a singer on TV in a Burkinabe music video wearing a t-shirt reading "I can't even think straight!" Oh, if they only knew. Course, assuming that nobody can read the shirts backfired once for my neighbor Imane. She found a shirt in a market in ouaga boldly proclaiming "MASTURBATION IS NOT A CRIME". She had to snatch it up, of course, how could she pass? She wore it a couple times in village before coming to the realization that "masturbation" and "crime" are actually the same words in French.

When I first got here, I couldn't for the life of me remember who was who in village, because they've all got names like Issa and Issaka and Issouf, and, frankly, they all looked to same to me! (and I'm sure that now when I go home I won't be able to tell all those nassaras apart--I'm having a hard enough time with the 13 new volunteers!) I tried to remember them by their t-shirts, but then I thought to myself, wait, when they change their shirts, I'll be screwed! But after a couple of days, I realized that the shirts don't actually change from day to day, making it quite possible to remember people as Burger King guy or Pittsburgh Steelers chick.

It's not just what they're wearing, but how they're wearing it. The unaboob look is all the rage amongst my village women, who keep a single long breast hanging out of their Beckham jersey collars, sometimes with a small child attached. Even though I've pretty much seen it all, there are still those moments when I think Wow... that's just surreal. Like the time a woman came into the clinic wearing a fluorescent green mesh tanktop. She was exposing it all, which all the women do anyway, but the mesh tanktop made it look quite naughty and inappropriate to wear out in public. Of course then she whipped out a boob to feed to her baby and normalcy was restored.

FROM SURFERBOY TO PUNKASS

And speaking of looks, I've recently given up on letting nature take its course with my head. My hair grew, and it looked good when I could keep it wet and kempt, which was never. It also grew wild, with a number of small bug families taking up residence. And then the small bugs attracted the small brightly colored birds and their nests, which was cute, but the bird crap was just too much. I came to Ouaga and before the party for the newly sworn in volunteers I asked Chrissy to take clippers to my head. Shave it! And the hair was shorn, and then there was a mohawk, and it was good. Better than good, it was badasssss! Check out the before and after photoshoots:

http://photos.yahoo.com/pgosselin8

(where you'll find a folder of simmering "Glamour shots" as well as some new photos from Guinea Worm)

Then exercise your right and duty as an american and VOTE for your favorite at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/realworldouaga

and click on polls.

Not that your vote makes a difference, of course, unless it comes with bribes. The mohawk feels so much better in this infernal heat. And the new punk 'do comes with a phat new 'tude. Whatchou lookin' at, kid? You gotta problem wid dis shit? No, you can't have the damn nalgene! Ok, so the attitude is pretty much the same, but my head will never be. I'll let you know what the village thinks.

Peace out, yo.

--Philippe

The arrival of the first rains means it's springtime in Burkina, if you can call it that after the 115 degree heat that preceded it. Unfortunately, the humidity that comes with the otherwise cooling rains means that the sweat runs down in even bigger gobs. If I manage to dry off during the night, I'm up n soakin by 9am. The Burkinabe sauna has become the Burkinabe steamroom. Burkina Faso: the never-ending Spa. Don't forget your sweat-rag!

The herders are happy for the rain, since it means more abundant food and water for all the animals. But for the vast majority of the villagers, rain means it's time to buckle down and work their asses off cultivating for the next 4 months so that they can grow enough to feed themselves for the coming year. Unfortunately, they don't harvest until October, and the stores of millet from last year's poor harvest are already running low (especially in the north, which got hit by the locusts), so for a lot of folks that means cutting back to one or two meals a day during their time of huge physical exertion. Yikes. Still, everyone is eagerly anticipating the rains' arrival in full force. In addition to incessantly pointing out how hot it is, the standard conversation now continues, So you think it's gonna rain? When's it gonna rain? How bout those clouds over there, do you reckon it's rain? Sure would be nice if it rained, cause, damn, it's hot.

THE HORDE OF THE FLIES

The arrival of springtime also brings with it the arrival of new life, new life that contents itself with crawling up my legs and buzzing around my head at every moment of the day. In truth, the flies here are almost as bad as the children! As soon as the sun peaks up at 5:30 am, I wake (alone, alas...) to the grating bzzzzzz of the flies hurtling themselves at my one-man screen tent, and then, when I emerge from my protective cocoon, hurtling themselves at me, like crazy insatiable fans. Philiiiiiiippe, you so sexxzzzzzzy! Weeeee wanna touch your abbbzzzzzzzzz! Can I give you a kizzzz? No? How bout now? No? How bout now? How bout now? We lovezzzz you!! Kizz? No? Pleeeeezzzzzz? [WHACK] OOO! Careful, you frizzzky!

Damnit flies, learn how to take a hint! It's not myself I'm trying to slap over and over again! I'll autograph whatever, just leave me alone! Please, I beg you!

The flies don't understand, simple souls that they are, their only drive in life to be near my radiant beauty. They land on my nose, I swat, they land on my nose, I slap, they land on my nose, I smack, they land on my ear, I pound, they land on my other ear, I punch, they fly up my nose... So on and so on, so that by the time I'm getting ready for lunch I'm thouroughly bruised and battered, with a black eye and bleeding from my nostril and gums. Have I killed any? Not a one. They're impossible to kill. I've tried kung fu, jujitsu, judo, karate, tae-kwon-do, boxing, bitch-slapping, etc, but the flies are well versed in the art of evasion maneuvers, putting my superior streetfighting skills to shame.

Naazzzzzzarra's getting sweaty! Oooo, we likezzzz sweat!

And then, to add insult to my self-inflicted injury, a randy pair of flies, unbridled in their fanatacism, lands on my perspiring forhead for a quickie. Why God, why? Why do such horrible creatures exist?

~~~BECAUSE, MY SON, IF THERE WERE NO FLIES, WHAT COULD THE SPIDERS EAT?

God, is that really you?

~~~OF COURSE, MY SON, WHO ELSE? I'M NO LARIAM HALLUCINATION! [hearty laughter]

Ok... but then why spiders?

~~~OH, I DUNNO, FOR THE BIRDS TO EAT...

Why don't they just eat grass or something? And while I'm asking, why the mosquitos? Why would you ever even think to come up with them?

~~~WELL, BECAUSE... BECAUSE--JESUS!

(@@@ YES, GOD?)

~~~NO, I WASN'T TALKING TO YOU! LISTEN, KID, I'VE GOT WAY MORE IMPORTANT CRAP TO DEAL WITH. I'VE GOT WARS, FAMINE, AIDS, ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION, REPUBLICANS, AND WHEN I'M THROUGH WITH ALL OF THOSE I'VE GOT JENNIFER ANISTON'S BROKEN HEART TO MEND. I HAVE NO TIME TO LISTEN TO YOU WHINE ABOUT SOMETHING SO INCONSEQUENTIAL! HOW DID YOU EVEN GET THROUGH? I'LL HAVE TO FIRE MY SCREENERS, GODDAMNIT. DON'T YOU GIVE ME THAT DIRTY LOOK, JESUS! I CAN USE MY OWN NAME IN VAIN! [click]

Jesus Christ, God's got quite the temper!

@@@ YES, HE DOES SOMETIMES. DON'T WORRY, PHILIPPE, HE'LL GET OVER IT. AND IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL ANY BETTER, I THINK FLIES REALLY SUCK TOO.

Thank you, Jesus. You can tune back out now.

@@@ ROCK ON.

Flies and mosquitos aren't the only things blooming in Zamsé, of course. The past few nights in village I've had several dramatic encounters with other members of the insect kingdom, all ending in murder. One night I went to reach for the door to my hut when my headlamp came across a large black spider right beside it. As soon as the light hit it it sprinted away. I frantically tried to follow it with my light, but I lost the dark blob somewhere on the porch. Shit. Do I just let it go? NO! If I let it go, it will be back! It'll be back and it'll make babies! It's the ones that get away that breed! I must kill it! I looked all around the table where I'd been sitting reading. Not there. And then it ran up on top of the table. I cringed all over. As soon as my light hit it, though, it jumped off the table and made a dash for it. I whipped a flipflop off of my foot and dashed after it, hopping on one foot around my courtyard, waving the flipflop in my hand. For some reason, my adrenaline told me this was the best course of action. I smacked the ground twice and missed before finally hitting it.

The very next night, I saw another similar spider as I came through my gate into my courtyard. I freaked out again, of course, but this time just stepped on it rather than going through all the acrobatics. Now, I've heard other Burkina Volunteers talk about these spiders called Scorpion Carriers that are up to 6 inches long, very fast, and supposedly harmless, but you try sleeping with one of them wandering around your hut! I've never seen one. These spiders weren't big enough to be Scorpion Carriers, and besides, Scorpion Carriers have nothing to do with scorpions, but for some reason I had the urge to shine my headlamp up on my mudbrick wall and there I saw...

Awww, HELL no!

No. No way. No. You are NOT a scorpion. There is NOT a scorpion sitting on my wall.

I went on like that for a good 2 minutes, but then it dawned on me that actually, there was a scorpion sitting on my wall. What to do? Think, think! No way was I gonna try and kill it with my flipflop... I decided to face the scorpion like man. You stay put Mr. Scorpion, I'm just gonna go right inside and get my little can of insecticide spray. Would insecticide work on scorpions? We were about to find out. I gave it a good long spray. The scorpion's tail unfurled. It just sat there. Are you dead?

The scorpion answered my question, and I shrieked like a 4 year old african village girl whose never seen a nassara before, as it ran off behind the wall. Jesus Christ, what now? Jesus wasn't listening. Or maybe he was just chuckling to himself. Run! Let it go! The scorpion deserves a chance at life! No, you coward! You can't let it go! Look, over there! A big stick! I grabbed the stick and went around the wall. Fighting my instinct to flee the scene and run for a biiga-child to help, I gave the scorpion a good whack. I gave it more good whacks. It was finished. I dropped the stick to the ground and stared at my hands. The hands of a murderer. What have I done?? I went and ate my leftovers.

So now when I sit outside, I'm consumed with paranoia. When will the next one appear? What will it be? HOLY SHIT, what's that crawling up my neck??! Oh. That would be my overgrown hair. I've decided I'm gonna order a bee-suit and wear it all the time. It's just safer that way.

RAISIN' THE ROOF

Every once in a while, I like to get up off my wicker throne, go out into the village to mingle with the commonfolk, observe their quaint ways of life, and vaccinate them. In May we once again had a four day vaccination spree in all our satellite villages, with 7 teams of 2 going house to house to house giving out oral polio vaccine and vitamin A to all kids under 5. That's hundreds and hundreds of children. My job was just to keep count. Some highlights:

*A woman wearing Penn State Volleyball camp t-shirt

*An old grandma with an impressive pair of pecs underneath a saggy set of boobs.

*A freshly killed goat getting skinned, and gettingits feet and head chopped off. A ha! So that's why I'm a vegetarian! Well, all the animals here are free-range, so at least it had a chance at a fulfilling, liberated life of bleating and chewing cud before it was slaughtered.

*A man with elephantitis. It's a condition caused by a parasite spread by, why yes, bites from a certain species of fly! With longterm exposure it causes an appendage to swell up to huge size. Sometimes it's an arm, sometimes it's a leg, and sometimes, as was the case with this guy, who had very large unsightly bulge in his pants, it's the balls. Ouch.

*Two weavers working on homemade looms. Very neat.

*Boobs and more boobs.

*Screaming children, though thankfully not so many this time.

*A runner. Sometimes the children kick and scream and spit the vaccine out, but this time, a girl decided to run. Her mom ran after her, but of course the girl was faster. She got a good 2 football fields away, running back and forth along the horizon. Eventually one of her older brothers caught up with her on his bike and held her down while she was vaccinated. That girl was determined, I gotta give it to her.

*A roof-raising. A family took advantage of our sinewy presence to put a heavy straw roof on top of a new round mud brick hut. Everybody gathered round, we lifted it above our heads and slid it into place on the hut. Truly, it takes a Peace Corps Volunteer to raise a roof.

MOORÉ 102

Every time I call home it seems my parents are asking me how my language is progressing, and I feel guilty and inept, cause honestly it's not. After 7 months in village, I should be able to say more than Laafi Laafi Laafi, health health health. And sure, I am making some progress, though not terribly substantial. I did end up hiring a Mooré tutor, Souleymane, the guy I mentioned a while back. He's around my age, and one of the few good French speakers in village, but didn't have the money to finish up school. The arrangement is working out fine, he'll hopefully use some of the money to take the competitive exams you have to pass to get any government job, like nursing--basically his only possible ticket out of Zamsé. So anyway, it´s his fault I'm not really learning anything.

He puts effort into planning the lessons, but really, it all goes to waste. When I come over for a lesson, most of the time he's hanging out shirtless. Can he be bothered to put one on? No. We sit next to each other on a delapidated wooden schoolbench, and I spend the whole time concentrating on nonchalant ways to rub elbows and nudge knees. I nod and say uh huh uh huh while staring at his chest. I'll lean over to look at his notebook, and sometimes he'll lean over me to check if I'm copying correctly. I'm sorry, but it's just not fair to expect me to learn anything under these conditions.

What have I learned in my Mooré lessons? Black is beautiful! The blacker the better! Amiina! It would be a sin to ask him to cover up that body, so I'm making due. Since we're also working on forming an AIDS discussion/condom demonstration group together, I've had to ask him about certain essential vocabulary, like the word "penis": YOORE. (Mooré is prounounced like spanish, with the double vowels held longer). Learning this word, combined with what I've already learned, has significantly increased my conversational possibilities. Ahem:

FO YOORE YAA BEDRE BI BANOGO?

Is your penis big or small?

FO DAT N GUESSE MAM YOORE BII?

Do you want to see my penis?

WILIG MAM FO YOORE.

Show me your penis. (Mooré has no word for "please")

I was awfully happy with myself, until I realized that the word for "name" is YUURE. That's an awfully subtle difference. Well, shit. I've probably been going around village introducing myself saying,

Good afternoon. My penis is Philippe. What's your penis?

When we learn a language we only figure out after the fact that we've been making complete asses of ourselves. Back towards the end of training while I was getting to leave my host family, I'd packed up all my belongings in a big trunk. I was gonna have trouble carrying it all the way to the road, and when my host mom saw me, she immediately called over my host brother, 10 years old and half my size, and she put it on his head so he could carry it for me. This was both impressive and quite humbling. I had just started Mooré, so I told his mom:

A TARA PAGA! A TARA PAGA WUSGO!

Wanting to say: He's got strength! He's got lots of strength!

Usually my host mom laughed and encouraged me when I learned to say something new, but this time just smiled politely, obviously confused. That's odd. When we got to the road, I helped the kid get the trunk off his head, and I told him

FO TARA PAGA! You've got strength!

He seemed equally unimpressed by my attempt at speaking Mooré. Fine, whatever, I won't even try!

Ten minutes later I kicked myself realizing the word for Strength is PANGA, not PAGA. PAGA means "wife." He's got a lot of wives! Great.

People have been telling me I've gotta get some potassium to cook with my beans so that they cook faster and don't make you as gassy. I heard that the old ladies selling leaves and okra and tobacco under the big tree in the marché usually have some, so I went to ask for it. I thought that the word for potassium was ZHUIIM. But the word for potassium is actually ZHUAYM. ZHUIIM is the word for blood.

Good afternoon! How's the family? The work? There's Health? Good. I'm looking for Blood.

--What?

Blood. I want blood.

(What does he want?)

--He wants blood.

Yes, you know, blood, to put with beans.

--You want beans?

No, not beans, blood!

--There isn't any... Check over there.

There's no blood?

[Luckily here Isaaka strolls over and asks what I'm looking for.]

--He wants blood?

**No, he doesn't want blood, potassium!

--Ooooohh, potassium! say the 7 women who are now listening in.

Right, that's what I said, blood!

Turns out there wasn't any potassium either.

Course I'm not the only one who makes linguistic flubs. I found a copy of the 2nd Harry Potter in French in the volunteer library, so I brought it back for Souleymane to read, since he only has 2 novels which he reads over and over again, and I was interested to see what he thought of this one. He just started, but he's keeping notes as he goes along, so I asked him to tell me what he had so far.

Harry Potter's a magician, and he's going to school, but at home he's not liked because he lives with Muggles (Moldus in French) which are non-magic people. He's not allowed to use magic outside of school because he's underage, and every night he holds a big cigarette in his hand--

--Wait, a cigarette?

Yes, he smokes a cigarette...

--What? I don't think so... do you mean a wand?

No, I read it, Harry Potter is a smoker!

Well, I think I would have noticed that, but what did I know? Maybe the French version was adapted to make it more culturally relevant. Souleymane looked up the passage in question. Turns out he misread cicatrice (scar) for cigarette. He he he... Oh Souleymane.

AND speaking of the 2nd Harry Potter, not one person has responded to point out the Burkinabe reference, and therefore, no one will be receiving my undying admiration. Tough. If anyone's curious, Book 2, Chapter 9, page 141, the self absorbed phony Lockhart mentions:

*** ". . . I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadogou," said Lockhart, "a series of attacks, the full story's in my autobiography, I was able to provide the townsfolk with various amulets, which cleared the matter up at once ...... The photographs of Lockhart on the walls were all nodding in agreement as he talked. One of them had forgotten to remove his hair net. ***

Ouagadougou is misspelled, but there's really only one place he could be talkin' about. I am in that place called Ouagadougou. Funny, isn't it?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go fight the forces of evil! ...where did I put that spandex?

Love,

Philippe

PS: You can put my name on any packages you send, and my counterpart should be able to pick it up for me at the post in Zorgho.

Philippe Gosselin

CSPS de Zamsé

BP 34 Zorgho

Burkina Faso

It's hot. Yaa tulgo. Yaa tulg wusgo! En tout cas, il fait chaud. Yup, it's a hot one. Damn, it's really hot.

Thus has been the sum total of my verbal communication for the past month and a half, because really, actually, it's hot. And for some reason, we all feel the need, even the villagers, to point it out, multiple times to every person we see: It's hot. Amen to that! You be speakin the truth sistah! Tell it like it is!

I spend the hours between 10am and 4pm sitting in the shade on my porch, my eyes glazed, my mouth hanging open, moaning softly to myself as the sweat beads trickle down my forhead, down my prominent dignified french-canadian nose, over my pouty kissable lips, down my strong jaw, down every part of my sinewy rippled torso, down through the crevaces of each abdominal of my 6-pack... twitching and slapping myself every few seconds to shoo the flies, which usually turn out to be yet more beads of sweat or stray strands of hair. Really, can insanity be far off?

Occasionally a light breeze will help me cool off, which feels especially nice when I'm entirely drenched, except when it's a hot desert breeze that stings my eyes.

In the evening, I brush the dried salt off of my forehead into my soup, and I journal about how hot it was that day. I drag my cot outside, cause sleepin in is out of the question, and stick my one-man mosquito net on top (most volunteers have roomier 2-man mosquito tents, but I'm just not that optimistic). And I lay down inside, sweating, though not quite as much as during the day, and I pray for a breeze so I can fall asleep. Or I point a twig at the sky and shout VENTILIARUM! which usually works. (Yes, I started Harry Potter last week, and I'm now on book four). If I do fall asleep, I wake at 6 am to a burst of heat as the sun climbs in the sky.

The animals are also suffering. My dog lies on the floor, her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth onto the floor into a puddle of drool, panting at 80 mph for the better part of the day. Sometimes her doggy friends will come over and lay down and drool on the floor beside her. I went to visit Imane, to chat about the weather. She has a scrawny little overly-affectionate roach-eating black cat with a big hernia in her side that she inherited from the previous volunteer. She had her mouth hanging open, breathing heavily--the cat, that is, not Imane--and I do believe that's the first time I've seen a cat panting. Only in Africa!

And the villagers are quick to point out that the heat, life in Africa, it's not easy! Because, well, it's not, and therefore it should be pointed out in every conversation at least once. And when I think about how not easy it is, about the heat, and the lack of burritos and gay men, and that somewhere out there there's a cool paradise with an abundance of both burritos and easy gay men called Castro Street, then a year and 6 months to go starts feeling like an awfully long time. But I've got this huge stack of 50 books waiting to be read, a bunch of care package food and spices waiting to be devoured (and for which I'm terribly grateful!)... and it would be a shame to leave when I've still got a motherload of complaints to air and you, my loyal, devoted, faithful readers clamoring to hear them. So until I do run out of all of the above, I'll stick around. And the latter in particular could take a while. So lets get to it, eh?

MORE ADVENTURES ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT, or THE LITTLE PIGGY THAT COULD

Coming back from our recent trip to the prettier, greener, cooler south, my friend Katy and I had to pick a bus line to bring us back to Ouaga. No, bush taxis aren't the only option for transport. We've also got big tall busses, of the Greyhound variety, with luggage stowed underneath and stairs going up to the seats on top. The bus lines aren't up to Greyhound's exceptional standards of comfort, so they squeeze 5 seats to a row instead of 4, but it still beats taking a crammed bush taxi any day... one would think!

[cue ominous music]

Since Bobo-Dioulasso is the 2nd biggest city in Burkina (no, I don't know how they come up with these names) there are lots of buslines that make the 5 hour trip on the paved road to Ouaga. For an extra $2, TSR had an airconditioned bus leaving at 2 oclock. Also, if you stay on the bus after the 1st stop in Ouaga, the bus continues on to the 2nd station, which happens to be right next to the Peace Corps hostel. No dealing with taxis or biking through Ouaga's chaos, a nice air-conditioned trip through this hot-season inferno... Sold!

We got to the TSR station around noon, and I stood in line to buy tickets while Katy watched the bikes and bags. The sun was beating down as I waited, but the woman behind the ticket window took her sweet-ass time. Even without a computer, how it could take so long to sell a bus ticket I could not understand, but 20 minutes later the line in front of me had dwindled down from 6 and it was my turn.

Two tickets for the 2 oclock bus!

*It's sold out.

What? But surely there's room...

We heard that the more expensive air-conditioned bus was hardly ever full, but oh well, there was another bus leaving at 3 minus the AC. I spent the last of my cash buying the tickets.

What about the bikes? I asked.

*That's somebody else.

Of course, but who?

Of course it couldn't be simple, where we could buy the bike tickets along with ours, I knew that. You order a drink at a street restaurant and the waitress says, Whoa, whoa there buddy, that's not my job! Ask the drink lady when she idles around. The ticket window lady told me to ask one of the bagage handlers in the blue jackets. And so I went off, looking for blue jackets, around and around I went, until finally I realize that there aren't any. We needed to get the bike business cleared away to make sure they saved room for them on the bus... Unlike the bushtaxis, they can't just throw em up on top along with the goats and your mother.

I handed Katy our tickets and she asked if there was anything she could do, as she stood sweating and applying sunscreen. No, no, I'll take care of it.

I got back in the ticket line and waited my turn again. The ticket lady didn't sympathize that there was no one to ask about the bikes, so I stormed off, muttering to myself profusely. This is @$&@#$@bullsh#$... haven't you ever heard of @#$!@ customer service you #$@%&@#%@$? Now I'd learned in dealing with these situations that I just gotta muster up all my patience and keep my cool, but the sun sure weren't helpin none. I ambled back over to Katy, who'd stripped down to a bikini and was working on her tan to the bemusement of the ogling muslim men feigning shock. Actually she was fully dressed and having about as much sweaty fun as I was. She asked, Is there anything I can do to-- No! I'll handle it!

Behind her was something that looked like it could be an office, so I walked in to inquire about the baggage people. The blue jackets, a girl said. There are none! The girl came out of the office to take a look. Do you believe me now? She pointed me to another room next door, which was supposedly the baggage office. I climbed over the bags and waiting passengers in the packed hangar and looked inside the door. Inside were indeed 3 guys in blue jackets. Sound asleep. EEERRRGGH!! Must I really wake them up? Umm... excuse me? No, I can't. I climbed back over the bags and people to Katie, exasperated and flabbergasted and friggin hot, what with my wet shirt clinging to my impressive pectorals, the sweat dripping down my tight round butt, down my thick hairy thighs, etc etc. WHAT... IS... WRONG... WITH... THESE PEOPLE??? THIS CONTINENT??? DO THEY NOT CARE? HAVE THEY NEVER HEARD OF CUSTOMER SERVICE?? RAAAAHHRRR!! GAAAAAAHHH!!! I kicked my bike just because. Katy wasn't able to respond to my queries to my satisfaction, but thank god she was there to take charge, cause she's got more balls for these kinds of situations than I do.

Somehow, after a couple minutes, she got a guy with a roll of tape to come over and tag our bikes. He started to walk away, so I ran after him.

Hold it! Where do we pay to load the bikes?

*That's not me.

Right, of course not, but who? And where should we put them?

Rather than respond, he chose to walk away, just like that. But fine, we tried. The bikes were marked. Let's go find us some cool beverages and shade, shall we?

[intermission]

We came back around 2:30 to get ready for the 3 oclock bus. There were actually 2 busses waiting with hoardes of people and bags surrounding them. Were we late? Turns out that because it was the end of a holiday, they'd called up an old reserve bus to fill the extra demand. The first was already loaded and ready to go, so Katy and I hurried to get our bikes and bags through the chaos and loaded onto the second one.

We found our friend from earlier, Mr. Unhelpful. After asking him twice what to do with the bikes, I grabbed and asked, which worked better. He told us to wait with them there and they'd take care of it. We waited, and I could see the seats on the bus filling up, so I told Katy that one of us had better go save our seats. She took charge, and said You go get seats, I'll take care of the bikes and bags. Are you sure? I asked, meaning Yes, please do that, thank you! I got on the bus and scrambled to save us two seats, difficult when they were almost all being saved for other people. I could see our stuff out the window, and Katy ran off to find someone to help. After a couple minutes, she reappeared under my window, slightly frazzled.

There's no room for the bikes!

*Of course there's room, this is Africa, there's always room!

They keep telling me there's no room!

*Just keep trying! I shouted.

Katy ran off again as I slumped in my seat. Oh my god... this trip just wasn't worth it. I can't take the stress!

A gray-haired guy in a blue jacket holding a wrench showed up and wheeled Katie's bike to the other side. FINALLY, they're loading the bikes. Sigh of relief. When the gray-haired guy came back around and walked past the rest of the stuff, I shouted out to him

The other bike! You have to load the other bike!

*What? You mean this is yours too?

Yes, the bike and the big black bag!

*There's no room!

Yes there's room! You must try!

Next thing I knew, my large black hiking pack was coming through my window. There's no room for the bike! he shouted. Your friend will have to take the next bus at 6!

There's gotta be room! Try! I felt bad for yelling at the guy, cause he WAS trying, and he was the only person from this station who'd wanted to help us at all. He shook his head and said sorry. Oh no... The next bus was in 3 hours, and wouldn't get to Ouaga til 11. Katy came back around, her long blond hair standing on end.

Where's my bike??

*They loaded it...

I'll have to see if they can change my ticket for the next bus... I guess I'll just take your bike with me.

*Can't you try--

I tried, they can't. I'm gonna go see if they can change my ticket!

*WAIT!

I felt terrible. I should be a gentleman and offer to let her take this bus. It was her bike on board, after all... But the thought of waiting another three hours in that purgatory... I need my ticket! I shouted. She handed it to me and went back out of sight. Oh... Karma will make me pay, I thought. I supposed it wasn't a good time to also ask her if she could loan me $10, as I was broke.

The driver placed a guy in the seat next to me, the last unoccupied one on the bus. But--but--that's for my friend! I whimpered to myself, dejected. Before I could see if Katy had gotten everything straightened out, the bus was lurching out of the station. Shit shit shit shit shit. Could this get any worse?

[ominous music refrain with hint of danger]

I fidgeted in my seat, shooting a dirty look at the guy who was sitting in Katy's spot next to me, though he was kinda cute. Skinny, but cute. I could go for him, I supposed. Oh, Katy! Damn it all. I tried to read, but I couldn't concentrate. I needed to chill out. I was on my way, there was nothing I could do. I opened the window and sat with the breeze in my face, watching the scenery pass as we left Bobo behind. I needed to sleep, I decided.

The thing that makes sleeping on the bus between Bobo and Ouaga difficult, besides the normal difficulties of sleeping on a bus, craning your neck every which way, and the potholes, is that the bus blares its horn every 20 seconds or so to signal the donkey carts and bicycles and motos and people and cows to get outa the way, cause the breaks don't work. I was desperately tired, but the sleep didn't come. Not with the HOOOOOOOOOOOOONK coming through the window. Two hours later, as the sun was getting low, I was on the cusp, ready to finally pass out, having been hypnotized by the endless HOOOOOOOONK HOOOOOOOONK HOOOOOOOONK HOOOOOOO--CLUNK! Whoa! Apparently something... someone? didn't get out of the way in time.

The bus chugged and slowed, pulling over to the side of the road, I assumed to go check on whatever had been hit. Word got around that it had been a pig. And when everybody started getting off the bus, I learned that they hadn't stopped out of concern for the poor animal, but because by giving its life, that little piggy had brought our goliath 50 ton bus to its figurative knees.

Oh well. It'd give me a chance to stretch my legs and piss on a bush. Since I had no idea what was going on, I figured it would be a good chance to bury the hatchet with my seat mate and make friends, so that he could tell me. After about half an hour of waiting around, watching a group of men hover around the engine, my informant told me that word had it TSR was sending a replacement bus from Bobo. You're kidding! It's really that bad? A replacement bus would take at least 2 hours to drive from Bobo, then we'd have to transfer all our stuff over... Ugh, what a mess! Well Katy, looks like we may be getting into Ouaga around the same time after all!

Since this was gonna take a while, I took a seat by the road next to my skinny, semi-cute friend, a Molecular Bio student at Burkina's one and only university who spoke french a mile a minute. He offered me some palm wine, the alcoholic beverage of choice in the south, what with all its palm trees. They tap the tree at night and collect it in the morning, and it ferments naturally as the day progresses. I accepted to take a sip. Instead, he filled my entire nalgene with the stuff. It was easily one of the nastiest beverages I've encountered in my life, but I couldn't exactly tell him that since he'd just given me a liter of it. He asked if I liked it, and I told him it was... interesting... tastes a bit like sulfur, like rotten eggs, wouldn't you say? I forced myself to drink, and anyway, I needed a drink.

We sat, and so did everyone, watching as the sun set, and as the busses from the lines we should have taken passed us by.

[entr'acte]

Now pitch black outside, word had gotten around (because no one was actually telling the crowd what was going on) that the people working on the bus were going into the town a mile or so up the road to find a welder, and a replacement part had been sent on the next bus from Bobo. What the hell was going on? Wasn't the replacement bus due sometime soon? Skinny-boy told me it was gonna be a while longer and suggested that we take a walk to the town ourselves to get food and water. The walk took a good 20 minutes, and we came upon a fairly bustling town that had built itself up with boutiques and restos along the road, like all the towns on this route. I wanted to buy myself a plastic bag of water, since I couldn't afford anything else, but my friend insisted on buying me an expensive bottle instead, worrying that I might get sick from something else, and he was a molecular bio major after all. Listen, buddy, if anything's gonna make me sick it's this shit you gave me, I wanted to say, still sipping my nalgene of palm wine, my stomach indeed protesting, masochist that I am. But I graciously accepted his gift, as I had no other choice.

We walked the long walk back. It was getting close to 8, and Katy's bus would be passing by sometime soon. I wanted to be there when it did, so I could find her and shout that, Hey, I'm stranded here, don't expect me to be back in Ouaga when you arrive! The TSR bus containing Katy and her bike finally did arrive, pulling over further along the road. I ran up to the bus, but it took off as soon as I reached the spot, so that the other stranded passengers couldn't storm it.

The latest press release circulated through the crowd. Apparently our replacement bus had just left Bobo. WHAT? It was supposed to have left 3 hours ago! Now it won't be here til after 10, and we won't get into Ouaga til 1. Oy. Well, it was a good thing my black bag wan't locked underneath the bus. I climbed aboard and pulled out a pillow. I took it back to my spot by the side of the road, and I lay down and stared up at the stars. Ah, the stars. Huh. This whole mess was almost funny.

[bathroom break]

I managed to doze a bit inspite of lying on gravel with traffic zooming behind me. I woke up from the tentative sleep and checked my watch. 10pm. The men were no longer working on the bus. The natives were getting restless. They were demanding an answer. And the answer was, the bus just left Bobo! Obviously you're lying, they all pointed out, since the bus had previously just left Bobo at 5 and 7 and 9. Were they gonna let us stay stranded out here all night? How about a refund? The bus guy laughed. Ha ha ha. What? What's the problem? he seemed to say.

RWO April 28 2005

THE LITTLE PIGGY THAT COULD

I tossed some bothersome rocks out from under my back and lay back down and fall back asleep. Round midnight the kinda cute guy stirred me. The bus lights were on, and people were getting back on board. We're leaving? We're really leaving? It was true. Wow. We're leaving. I gathered my pillow and got on the bus. The bus started up, and we got back on the road. We were moving. Moving at 20 mph, but moving. Since it was midnight, the road was empty and it was thankfully no longer necessary to honk everyone off the road. The bus stopped in the town we had visited earlier for 20 minutes to fetch some water to pour in the busted radiator. And then we moved again.

Unfortunately now that I was back on the bus, I couldn't fall back to sleep. I pulled out my headlamp and my current book, A Million Little Pieces, a true autobiographical story of a 23 y/o guy who'd been an alcoholic and drug addict since 14. He wakes up from a blackout with a punctured cheek, his teeth all busted, his body gone to waste, and decides to go into rehab. I was at the part near the beginning where he goes to a dentist, and has to undergo a double-root canal without any anaesthetics, which he describes in excruciating detail over 10 pages. I really need to get better reading material for transport.

Unable to read, I lapsed in and out of restless sleep. The bus was moving at a donkey's pace, stopping every half hour to find more water and pour it in and fix it up for the next half hour. On and on. 3:30, 4:30, 5:30... The sun was rising up over the horizon when we finally pulled into the first bus station on the outskirts of Ouagadougou at 6:00 am. My friend was also going to stay on until the second station, but he got out to make sure his stuff stayed on. I stayed put and asked him to make sure Katy's green bike stayed on as well. I stayed put for a little while by myself on the bus before he came and told me that the bus wasn't going on to the second station after all. We were on the complete opposite side of the city from the hostel. I deplore biking in Ouaga. The only reason I took this damned bus was so I could get dropped off near my house. I cursed incoherently under my breath. A plague on TSR! Incompetent #@$@%! I #@$@#@$ want a #$@#$@ refund #$@$@@#^&#!

I bid farewell to my skinny somewhat handsome friend that I could be interested in in the right circumstances, and only if he did the work of making the moves, put the front wheel on Katie's bike, strapped my heavy pack to my back, swallowed my nerves and pulled out into the swelling traffic. I biked the entire way across the city of Ouaga in rush hour on a bike built for a person a foot shorter than me (sorry Katy), strung out and stressed and groggy. I asked for directions from the other bikers while stopped at lights. I arrived at the hostel around 7. I had time to shower before we had to leave to catch an 8 oclock bush taxi back to our villages (Katy lives along the same road towards Zorgho but closer to Ouaga). I wondered where you were! said Katy casually. It's a long story, I said. I was ready to tell her, but she didn't ask. She did lend me $10 to get home, however.

[the pause before the epilogue with the moral of the story]

The bush taxi home, as always, offered yet another new transport experience. I'd never seen them fit 5 grown men onto a single bench, since it's already a snug fit with 4, but alas, they did, and I was there in the middle of it. I was sitting on the end of the bench in the front row of passenger seats, the one that faces the extra row facing backwards, with the knee-crotch-knee-crotch configuration. Before taking off, they put a young firm-bunned man next to me. Since there wasn't room next to me, they put him there anyway and then slammed the sliding door on him so he would fit somehow. Half his hard ass was on my thigh, the other over the gap by the door. Of course the only place for me to put my arm was around his shoulder. What would happen if this door slid open while we're moving? I wondered to myself. Surely enough, as we rounded a bend, the sliding door, which was only being held shut by a strap of rubber, slid open. I immediately grabbed tight hold of the firm-bunned man. I saved his life that day. Actually, he was holding on fine himself, and I just groped him gratuitously. Hey, I take it any way I can get it. All this goes to show that getting from one place to another in Burkina never ceases to be an adventure.

[cue Indiana Jones action adventure theme]

Fin.

I had planned as always to include more, but since that turned into an epic and a half, instead I'll promise that my next email will be short in coming, and will be even more jam-packed with nail-biting hair-pulling teeth-clenching FrustrAction (tm). Incidentally, my undying admiration will go out to the first person who points out the Burkina reference in Harry Potter #2.*

And with that I return to the hazards that await me in the urban jungles of Burkina. I'm Philippe Gosselin. You stay classy, Ouagadougou.

Love,

Philippe

*Undying admiration not redeemable for goods or services; expires after 3 months unless renewed by another act worthy of my undying admiration.

Lots has happened since my return from Senegal last month. First off was In-Service Training, which reunited our entire training group for 4 days in Ouaga. Then was the huge FESPACO film festival, which I'll talk more about next time. I came back to Ouaga this week for more training, and just 2 nights ago the latest group of stagiaires, 15 of them, 9 girls, 6 guys, coming to work as Education volunteers, touched ground in Burkina Faso.

The intrigue we felt at having new volunteers arrive in country bordered on pathetic. Word has it that in previous years, volunteers have chosen their future husbands and wives from the photos of the newbies before they even arrived, then graciously offered to help with that person's luggage at the airport. We didn't go that far, but there was some strong curiousity over the fresh meat that was coming to join us for 2 years. Of course they themselves will also feel the same way next year. We made cookies and posters to go greet them at the airport.

We applauded as they stepped outside, waving our signs and hooting, which had been a special touch for me when I'd arrived in country. What I didn't know was that as I walked out of the airport, all those people cheering were really rating my looks and checking out my ass. We easily outnumbered them, some of us gathering around and engaging in small talk, while the rest stayed back and stared at the new Nassaras, judging them and weighing our chances, while we devoured the cookies that had been baked for them. We appreciate the cookies way more than the newbies at this point anyway.

I expect to get regular reports on the new stagiares from the volunteers working training. We will hear everything.

Now I've had some complaints about the amount of foul language in my newsletters. Namely from my mom, and my friend Lena, who says that because of my dirty mouth she can't share my letters with her 6th grade French class in Albany. Now I'll have you know that aside from the subject line, my last Valentine's email had NO cussing, except I guess hell and damn, which you can hear in PG movies. My parents get annoyed when I swear in English, but for some reason they get a big kick out of when I swear in French. So in this email, I'll limit my profanity to French. I must warn you that the Quebec swearing I learned from my parents and uncles growing up is based on religious blasphemy. Hopefully this will also be educational for Lena's kids.

ENFER ON WHEELS

Lots of people assume that Peace Corps Service is like the army, in that once you sign up, you're stuck there til the 2 years are up. But this isn't the case. No, if you give the word that you're ready to leave, you're on a plane home within a week. Of course there are lots of stigmas attached to leaving early, some self-imposed, and your terminating status is different than if you stay to the end and complete your service. Still, a plane ticket home is always just a phone call away.

On bad days, the option is sitting there, calling you like a siren from the back of your mind: Warm baths, burritos, gay men...! But you know that soon the feeling will pass (hopefully) and the rollercoaster will continue on its way.

Only once have I been so completely flustered that I was ready to throw in the towel right then and there. Never have I been more tempted to make that phone call and call it quits than on one particular ride in a Bush Taxi. This is a bunch of MARDE, HOSTIE CALICE, I can't put up with it, CA ME FAIT CHIER, I'm LE MISERABLE, I'm going home, PUTAIN!

It started out like any other ride in a Bush taxi. I was going back to Zamse from Ouaga. I'd skipped the early morning transport that goes to Meguet, Imane's village, but the transport's to Zorgho leave regularly, so I was gonna get off there and bike the 45 or so km to my village hopefully before the sun set at 6pm. That meant getting to Zorgho by 3 or 3:30 at the very latest. It was quarter to 1 when I got to the gare. No problem.

Right away I was surrounded by bush taxi drivers trying to get my business. Since there's only one car a day going to Meguet, usually there's no choice, but the cars leave regularly for Zorgho and the transporters try to snag you before the others, already taking your bike and packs before you've had a chance to negotiate. I pretty much always let them put me where they will. It's all the same to me.

Since I had a time restraint, I was sure to ask when the car was leaving. The answer is always "Tout de suite!" Right away! Of course I expected this, but I only asked to justify my getting angry and telling them off later should the need arise. Not that it would do any good. To drive the point home, I told them I needed to be in Zorgho by 3. No problem!

I considered myself somewhat acculturated by this point, so I knew that "Tout de suite!" generally means around half an hour. So we should leave by 1:30, which would work out fine. People were already loading up, which was a good sign, so I got in to save a seat in the rear by the window. Beside me were two women, one with a kid on her lap.

The bush taxi is your typical white van. The windshield is invariably smashed, the doors held shut by rubber straps, and often you can see the road through the holes in the floor. Anything and everything can be loaded into a bush taxi. The bikes and motos go on top along with the sacks of grain, the furniture, the larger livestock, and the passengers who don't fit inside. This makes the vehicle what some theoretical physicists have come to call "top-heavy" and "flip-prone". Yes, in addition to being one of the unpleasant experiences in Burkina, bush taxis are also the most dangerous.

It was now 1:45, and I began to get agitated. We needed to leave now, but the transporters were still milling around outside. Meanwhile, I'd been sitting in the car 45 minutes ready to leave at any moment and it was sweltering. I began to fidget and clench my teeth.

2:15, still parked. Two of the large, air-conditioned busses have come and gone on their way down the main road through Zorgho. I'd only gotten on the bush taxi cause I'd assumed it would leave much earlier. I'm getting ticked off EN TABARNAK. We're gonna get there late, the suns gonna set and I'll be FOUTU. I whimpered something to the driver. He was, needless to say, unsympathetic.

The thing about bush taxis is they WON'T LEAVE until there's absolutely no room left in or on the vehicle. It was at this point the man with the briefcase motioned to me to scoot over on the bench. There really wasn't much room to scoot without overlapping the women to my side. I mean, I can only make my hips so small. I protested, but the man told me "It's 4 to a bench!" Does this kid not count? I countered. Apparently not, was his understood response as he climbed through the window and squished me against the woman and child. My knees were pushed together, and I now had negative elbow room. MAUDIT MARDE.

I've been in many impressive contorted positions while riding for hours in a bush taxi. Behind the driver's row of seats is a seat facing backwards, to maximize passengers. Once I got stuck in this row. Of course we sit facing the people in the first row facing forwards, and we have no extra legroom to share. The passengers actually have to negotiate whose knee goes into whose crotch. Remember this next time you're complaining about coach class.

Another time I was lucky and got invited to sit in the front, beside the driver, with another guy sitting to my right. Peace Corps says it's safer to sit safely padded between people in the back, but I don't want to do that to myself every time. I'm happy to have some space. My happiness was short-lived, however, cause soon we stopped to let another guy into the front seat. There was a gap between my spot and the drivers seat where the gear shift was and I was pushed to the edge. Finally the new guy got off, only to let on an even larger man a few minutes later. He seemed apologetic as I was forced even further into the gap. Now my leg was literally on the gear shift

half my CUL off the seat. The big guy leaned forward so I could put my arm behind him. To change gears, the driver had to jam the stick into the bottom of my thigh. This would normally drive me crazy, but for some reason I got a kick out of it. Maybe cause the driver was kinda attractive. Still, I wanted to tell him to speed up into 5th or slow down into 3rd, cause 4th gear isn't workin for me.

Back to the story: Fifteen interminable minutes later, the car lurched into motion. Thank GOD. I counted the people in the car, just to humor myself. 22. We're jammed. Only 2 hours, I tell myself.

We're on the road. Five minutes later, we stop for gas. The driver chats with his buddies. After another 5 minutes on the road we stop again, the driver does some shopping, and load 3 more passengers. The pain is unbearable. I begin to lose sensation in my legs. My COUILLES are killing me. I'm beginning to develop Tourettes.

And so it goes, starting and stopping, going at a snail's pace all the way to Zorgho, as I try to control my seething rage at this backward country with its backward people, wondering how in ENFER I'm going to get back to village tonight. Why am I busting my CUL to help these people? No, this is it, I'm done. I'm going home. Except for the moment I'm stuck on this PUTAIN DE bush taxi.

I remembered that the Zen book mentioned it's during these most challenging of times that it's most important to practice. Take in the sensations without reacting to them. Let the sounds and feelings and smell and sweat wash over you. Just be.

Breath in. Breath out.

....MARDE, that Zen lady must be high on crack.

Desperate for another way to escape, I open my book, always an essential item to carry on transport. The problem is I was reading 1984 at the time, and I'd reached the part in which what's his face gets tortured in the Ministry of Love for 40 pages. NOOOOOO! The Agony!

We arrived in Zorgho at 5pm. I was in an apoplectic coma. My feet had long since fallen asleep, and now back on the ground were shooting sharp pangs up my legs. The kids at the stop swarmed my bike, playing with the bell and the gears, trying to help tie my pack to the bike. I told the little BATARDS to get away. I tied it myself with some difficulty and went off to race the sun. I wasn't gonna make it all the way to my village, but perhaps I could get to Imane's, which was down the same road but only 25 km from Zorgho.

I ignored the calls of NASSARA! and TOUBABOU! I ignored everybody on the road. My only objective was to beat the sun. Well, 6pm came and went, and darkness settled, and I kept biking. I got to Imane's at 6:30. She was surprised to see me, showing up unexpected after dark. She fed me and listened to me bitch, and somehow everything was already much better.

SINGIN' IN THE BUSH

Those of you whom I've ever chauffered know that I have a habit of singing along with whatever song comes out of the radio. I go all out when I'm alone, belting at the top of my lungs. something about the private enclosed space of the car is conducive to it. Wouldn't you know, so is biking alone for 15 or 40km through the middle of the African bush! I stupidly didn't bring along any music (for which I've gotten shocked looks from other PCVs) but fortunately I have a wide repertoire constantly playing on the radio in my head. When the voices go away, that is. Anything from Britney, to Christina, to Avril, to Madonna, to Backstreet boys, boys 2 men, N'sync, South Park the Movie and every high school musical I've been in (something like 12).

I belt freely and carelessly as I ride, trying to get just the right vibratto, and sometimes I go on bike rides just to sing. So what if some goatherd boys happen to overhear? There's something profoundly liberating about knowing that whatever you do, people will still think you're a freak.

One Saturday evening as I was riding back from a visit to Imane, I happened to be singing a classic from The Artist Formerly Known as Cat Stevens:

ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT AND I AIN'T GOT NOBODY

NA NA NA NA NA AND I CAN'T GET LAID

AND A DA DA DA DA I GOT NO ONE TO TALK TO

I'M IN AN AWFUL STATE

wHOOOAAAAAA--

My voice cut out and I started gagging. I felt it moving in my throat. No longer breathing, I breaked and pulled to the side of the road, and hacked and gagged and choked until finally, into my hand in a puddle of saliva, I spit out a large fly.

Perhaps this was Somebody's way of telling me to shut up. I hummed the rest of the way. I don't know if the fly made it.

WE'RE HAVING A HEAT WAVE

Winter's long gone! It's the hot season now. Want to see the forecast of how much I'll be suffering?

http://www.weather.com/activities/travel/businesstraveler/weather/tenday.html?locid=UVXX0001

Happy St. Patty's!

Love,

Philippe

It's that day again, the day where the rest of us are reminded how alone--how very alone--we are. I wouldn't have even remembered, I never know what day it is here, had Google not posted a horribly tacky valentines day version of its site banner.

Love is in the air in Peace Corps Burkina. Probably 2/3 of my training class have steady playmates, either other volunteers or lovies from home. And, you know, I'm an open-minded, non-judgemental kind of guy. Do whatever you want in the privacy of your hut. Indeed, some of them are my very good friends, but what I can't understand is why these HETEROSEXUALS insist on FLAUNTING it in my FACE! ...not that I'm bitter, or anything.

Today, they will do special things for one another, sharing a coconut before retiring to their conjugal straw mattresses. The long-distancers will receive a special phone call, and procede to make gushing baby noises at each other for an hour. Why should these gaudy rituals be limited to the happily coupled amongst us? I'm reclaiming V-day, reclaiming my right as a forsaken bachelor, an uncaught catch, as one who can look but not touch, one who must apply sunscreen to his own back, resulting in burns the shape of california... my god-given right to make weepy, inane expressions of Love. To imaginary people.

Ahem:

Dakar, Valentine's Day, 2005

My dearest love,

Yes, I'm still stuck in this city for one final week, and it tears me apart to be away from you on this special day. I went for a walk on a vast, spectacular, isolated beach the other day. But it all seemed so dreary without you. What is the point of beauty if there's no one to share it with? Even the most spectacular scenery seems like a festering hell-hole when you're not there. Especially when I turn around to see 10 men pissing all over it.

Almost as a reflection of my longing, aching soul, the usually steadfast sun has hidden itself behind overcast clouds for the past several days. It even rained last night. Tears from heaven, lamenting that we should be forced to have our hands off of each other for like a minute. I mean, come on! The rain made everything smell like raw sewage. God, I miss you.

Of course this has ruined my plans to go to the beach every day. Perhaps for the better. I know how you detest when my eyes wander to other men, but I swear, when I stare at those firm round black buttocks packaged in spandex on the beach, I think only of you!

In Dakar I've met volunteers from Mali, the Gambia, Cape Verde and Benin as well as Senegal. None of them even approach your level of hotness. When can we be together again? When can we once again make out and grope, or whatever?

During those few moments when I haven't been paralyzed by my thoughts and love for you, I've managed to put together an album of my photos for you to view online. It's my hope that your seeing them will bring us closer together, even though we're separated by like way too many kilometers. Just go to http://photos.yahoo.com/pgosselin8

Maybe soon you can send me some of yourself, perhaps naughty? My love for you is like a thin flame burning beneath my skin, but hell, it needs rekindling sometimes.

I don't know how I managed, but I also built yet another virtual monument to our love, to preserve all our deep, meaningful correspondance. It's called a blog. I call it a Blog d'amour: http://realworldouaga.blogspot.com

Now I will go shed my salty tears into Lac Rose as I dream of holding you close to me.

Ooooooh, I need you! I miss you! Goo goo gaa gaa!

Eternally yours,

Philippe

Greetings from balmy... Dakar!

Yes, for the past several days I've been rediscovering the wonder of civilization during a surprise trip to Senegal.

I'd just gotten back to Zamsé on a Tuesday evening after a week of Bike-a-Thon. Thursday morning I got up, did some yoga, made some oatmeal, and sat procrastinating as usual before heading to the clinic when the white Peace Corps jeep showed up outside my door. Odd for them to show up unnanounced, and the driver was alone... I went out to greet him, and he told me he'd been sent to bring me back to Ouaga. My God, grandma's dead! He handed me an ominous Peace Corps envelope with my name on it, and I tore it open, anxious and shaky. It was from the PC nurse in Ouaga, telling me that I was being med-evac'ed to Dakar that weekend to consult with a specialist. Pack enough clothes for a week, and don't forget your passport! I looked at the driver, confused. But, but, but... Ok!

26 hours later, on January 28, my 6th month anniversary of stepping foot on Burkinabe soil, I found myself back where it all began: the Ouagadougou International Airport. The airport has two departure gates. Really they're just two doors next to each other labled Gate 1 and Gate 2, and they both go to the bus outside waiting to take you to the plane on the tarmac, so it doesn't matter which one you go out of. Looking around, I noticed I was hideously underdressed. The locals who are rich enough to fly break out their formal wear for air-travel. But whatever, Peace Corps Volunteers have a slovenly hippie image to uphold.

Soon I was aboard a Fokker jet on an Air Burkina flight to Dakar via Bamako. I'd been curious what an Air Burkina flight would be like after suffering through many other Burkinabe forms of transportation (to be detailed in the next issue), but never thought I'd get to experience one first-hand. Aside from the African murals on the divider walls, it looked like any other plane I'd been on. I was surprised: no live goats or chickens, enough space for both my elbows and knees, no one squatting in the aisles... Add to this complimentary newspapers, wine and an actual meal. Scary that USAir could take a few pointers from Air Burkina, official carrier of the third poorest country in the world.

So, for the past week, aside from some doctors appointments (I'm doing fine, no need to worry), I've been busy exploring Dakar, walking all along the beautiful coast (of which there is a lot to walk along, as Dakar is on a peninsula), boating to islands, swimming in a pink salt lake that's impossible to drown in and a luxurious pool at the American Club, licking ice-cream cones... Today, for example, I sat under a little palm tree on a gorgeous secluded white-sand beach, watching French military men swim and toss around a rugby ball. (by the way, y'all aren't still buried in snow now, are you?)

If I had visited Dakar before Ouagadougou, I might have noticed the garbage, the chaos, but now I see the cleanliness, the order! Dakar is everything Ouaga wishes it could be, and everything you need in a city: it's got pavement, occasional sidewalks, ice cream, mexican-themed restaurants blaring Celine Dion, and big buff black men doing calisthenics in speedos on the beach. Yes, it's truly a city--walking around, you can imagine yourself in a run-down yet bustling Eastern European capital, or the streets of New York. Of course some areas are as nice as anything you'd find in Europe. Visiting Dakar has given me some new perspectives and insights into why exactly

OUAGA SUCKS

The Lonely Planet guide for West Africa states:

Ouagadougou is one of the cultural centers of West Africa... It has a relaxed atmosphere... It's a relatively compact city that is easy to get around on foot, and the streets are well signed.

Whoever wrote this has obviously never been to Ouagadougou.

The city is a sprawling, disorganized mess, a real-life game of Frogger. You can't cross a street without your life flashing before your eyes. There are multiple lanes of insane traffic to cross, of all different speeds: You've got your donkey carts, your bicycles, your motos, your cars and trucks, and once you get past all of them you've got to face the traffic coming the other way. There is never a lapse, so you just have to step out in the street and hope for the best, all the while sucking in heaps of disgusting smog and dust. Of course sidewalks are non-existent. In their place are open sewer ditches to hop across.

Navigating on bike is only slightly less harrowing. The cars and motos like to pass within inches of your legs, and god forbid you ever have to make a left turn. You stick out your left arm and pray that you don't get mowed over. So far that's worked for me. You still breathe dirty exhaust, and the stress of a 15 minute ride to the center of town takes a day off of your life.

The only decent way to get around town is by the green taxis. They're communal, so you scooch in next to the other clientelle, but only if you find one that's heading towards your destination. This is easy if you're in large groups, cause the driver will kick out the current client in favor of a bigger profit. We've been known to cram upto 8 passengers into the 5-seat taxis. If you're alone, good luck. Of course, the prices are never fixed, so you have to negotiate with the drivers who often try to rip off the nassaras.

Having said all this, there's nothing to see or do in Ouaga anyway. There's the Marina Market grocery store for stocking up for village, the post office/bank for taking out African francs, and there's the American Embassy lab for dropping off stool samples. That's about it. Oh sure, there are some pretty areas in the city, but they're all private, and safely cordonned off from the dirt and disorder by large fences.

The biggest shame of all is that Ouaga, indeed all of Burkina, has no place for the men to show off their amazing bodies. If nothing else, Dakar has always got the beach.

Of course, the FESPACO film festival is coming up at the end of February. It's the Cannes of African film, taking place every two years. Supposedly this is when Ouaga pulls out all the stops and shows what it's made of. I'll give Ouaga another chance to win me over, but I'm keeping my expectations low.

MY BODY BEAUTIFUL

I know that many of you look to my example for fashion guidance and are dying to find out about my latest look. What colors are you wearing? How do you do your hair? Beard, piercings, jewelery? Tell us, Philippe, so that we may strive to be more like you, if only in appearance!

Well, who am I to refuse?

I've decided to take a "hands-off" approach to my appearance, in order to allow my natural rugged beauty to shine through. I did without a mirror all throughout training, and the few ponds here are too muddy for me to stare at my reflection. I can't express what a relief it was to not be reminded every single day how good looking I am. I only succumbed and got myself a mirror before going to Zamsé because I found it difficult to shave and floss without one. So now I do look at myself once, sometimes twice a month.

During training, I went through an experimental phase, trying out a number of unique facial hair configurations. I arrived with the gay mustache and goatee. After our first 10-day stint in village, I tried out some chops connecting to my mustache. Then I tried the mustache with the ends drooping down past my jawline, then chin-scruff only. By far the hottest, though, was the one I wore for our swear-in ceremony, the one that was broadcast nationally on Burkinabé TV, when the mustache came off, leaving me with a sexy Amish beard. For now, though, I've gone back to my trademark look, Scruffy Philippe.

Those of you who never ceased to torment me for the pallor of my skin, going so far as to call it "clear" and shilding your eyes from the whitness when the shirt came off, will be happy to know that I'm now sporting a wicked African tan. Unfortunately it tends to come off when I shower.

My typical outfit comprises of cargo pants, rolled up to capri length to facilitate bike-riding, along with a tasteful yet vibrant button-down t-shirt, untucked always, slightly stained from bleach accidents, but I prefer to call it "art." What with all the poop-matter that gets on my hands, I thought it wise to forgo the contacts and instead exclusively wear a sophisticated pair of steel square-rimmed glasses. On my feet are always my birks. I wore shoes my first day in Burkina and never again. Probably the least useful thing I packed.

But Philippe! What's underneath??

--well, wouldn't you like to know!

As for my hair--yes, it's grown in, and let me tell you, it's... a fucking mess. Ok, you want the truth? Can you handle the truth? I've never looked this much like a dirty unkempt slop of a film major in my life. Not even while I was one. I have to cover my ratty hair with a cap at all times. Without hair gel to tame it, it's a lost cause, rioting on my head in every direction but down. Hair gel in village--and for that matter, deodorant--what's the point? I wanted to see if it could work long, but it'll get shaved come the hot season. You hear that, fuckers? Shaved! Maybe I'll dred them first, just to see them taste of the suffering they've caused me. Then of course they'll retaliate by abandoning ship when I turn 30. Or worse, migrating to my back.

Oh, it's hard, not being as hot as I once was, seeing my beauty waste away. Hard, I tell you! What makes it harder is being surrounded by all these hot black men. I never thought I'd have body issues coming to Africa, but damn! One look at the smooth glistening muscled bodies around me, and it's just no comparison with my pale hairy ass. I put in many an hour at the gym back home, and was rather happy with my six-pack. Ok, my four-pack, but who's counting? It's a much sought-after rarity in the States, bestowed only upon a privileged few. Then I came and discovered that here, they come standard.

And it's not just the men that are jacked. Move over Venus and Serena! I've seen topless grannies plowing the fields with bigger arms than me. It was quite humbling, and somewhat disheartening. Surely working in the fields does a body good.

I've conspired with some fellow volunteer entrepreneurs to market a new Burkinabé weightloss program in the US. We'd fly the participants to Burkina. The parasites and diarrhea would make them shed the pounds, while they'd buff up by working in the fields all day. I'm sure people would pay thousands.

All this helpless staring at hot men makes me feel like an old lech. But hell, I get stared at enough in village, so I guess I should also get my fill.

NASSARA: ADVENTURES OF THE WHITE APE

I get a lot of attention in village. It's quite a bit like being a celebrity, minus all the obvious perks--sure, technically, I have a big, gated house, but people barge through the gate and stare over the wall. I don't have limitless $$$, though everybody assumes otherwise. No celebrity incest, or any carnal action for that matter, no irresponsible boozing and drugging, no fancy car, and no jacuzzi. All I get are eyes on me wherever I go, and when I go (to the latrine). And they're not starstruck, adoring eyes, admiring my handsome face. No, Quasimodal would get the same looks of odd curiousity if he walked through the market.

They look at me because:

A: I'm white

B: I'm queer, in the 50's sense

C: I'm loaded, supposedly

It's hard to know whether attention is genuine interest or sheerly because of my skin, or because they want to get something out of me. Walking around Dakar, you can usually assume the latter, but I still feel like an asshole for ignoring people who try to get my attention... What if they really do want to get to know the real me??

In village, it's often a combination. The other day a new kid came to greet me, then asked for a magazine, then a ball, then some batteries, then some money... Listen kid, come say hello but don't just come to my house asking for everything you see! It's not something he would do with any other neighbor, it would be rude and inappropriate, but I'm exempt from these social norms cause I'm white.

Often I wonder how much different it must be for the black volunteers. They still get attention for B and C, and they still get called Nassara, but at least they don't stick out like a flamingo in a lion's den, or carry the aire of a mysterious white ape. Of course I've heard that they also get a lot less help because of it. Truth be told, the attention isn't all bad. Being an American and being white does put me in a position of respect here, and if that gets people to pay attention and helps me do my work, so be it.

A THING MORE VAIN THAN EVEN I

Perhaps the only thing in village that gets more attention than me is my bike. No, I don't get a fancy car, but my bike is pretty damn nice. I still remember the day we got our bikes like it was yesterday, like it was christmas, but it was 6 months ago and it was July. We'd been in Burkina for nearly a week, weary from walking the long dirt path between the training sites and the hotel, when one day we arrived for training and 28 sparkling new mountain bikes sat awaiting their new owners, whose names were indicated on little wooden tags dangling from the handle bars. We knew we'd be issued bikes, but it being Peace corps, I'd expected them to be well worn pieces of crap. No, they were beautiful, and riding down the dirt streets, the flies smacking against our faces rather than buzzing around them, that was a feeling of freedom.

In the months to follow, I grew to resent this bike more than anything on earth. Every time I load the bike on transport, I must preempt their inquiries, saying Yes, it's nice, no, you can't have it! I can't count the number of times I've arrived in someone's courtyard or parked at the market, and the boys, even the men, just crowd around it. This has ignited in me pangs of jealousy. Look, people! Nassara came to visit, not the bike! Come on! It's a bike! Get over it! Hey, Wooo, look at me, white ape here!

And then I swear that next time I'll come on foot. It's not like they haven't seen a multispeed before, though they are uncommon. They admire it because:

A: It's sleek silver and black

B: The nice gear changers

C: A bell

D: Front shocks. These are what really gets them.

I swear, by now this bike must have a goddamn ego the size of a cow. Nobody wants ME that badly. It's become so self-absorbed that often it even forgets to switch gears when I ask it to. So I stop on the side of the road, kick it around, show it who's boss. But the heart of a bike isn't faithful like a dog's. It wouldn't hesitate to sidle up in between someone else's legs. (if it did, though, everyone in a 25k radius would know it belongs to Nassara). And so, like myself, I prefer to keep it nicely coated in dust and mud to stave off the attention and give it a healthy dose of humility.

MY HOPELESS EFFORT TO GET AN ASS AS FIRM AS THEIRS

A couple weeks ago I joined 15 volunteers and a handful of Burkinabés on a 300k weeklong bike trip down south near the Ghanaian border for Bike-a-Thon, during which we rode 30-55km per day, stopping in one or two villages along the way and leading AIDS awareness discussions and doing condom demonstrations. I now feel perfectly comfortable waving around a large wooden dildo in front of large crowds of people (I guess I should put this on my resume). We segregated by gender and age, mostly because women won't speak up and ask questions if they're amongst men. So I mostly led discussions with young men and kids. The kids especially asked some interesting questions:

If my brother comes back from Cote d'Ivoire, and he caught AIDS, and he has a bleeding wound, and he sleeps on a bed and bleeds on the sheets, and then I sleep in the bed with the bloody sheets, and I have a wound, will I get AIDS?

--um... maybe you should wash the sheets?

What if I'm fighting with somebody and I bite him and it bleeds, will I get AIDS?

--um... maybe you shouldn't bite people?

(this response was deemed unrealistic by the kids)

Then there were those guys who insisted upon conspiracy theories, that AIDS is spread by corporations in order to get people to buy condoms, or better, they put the virus in the condoms. How do you respond? Your skepticism of capitalism is in the right place, but I'm not here to spread AIDS. Really. But some people just couldn't be reasoned with.

It was difficult, because everything needed to be translated, and outside of the Mossi plateau where I live, people speak many different languages, and people in some villages can't even communicate with each other. In those villages we needed to find people to translate between French and Mooré and Bisa, or another language, and the lag killed any sense of real discussion. And it's hard to know if we're making a difference, having any kind of impact on the people by coming into the villages and telling them, trust us! This is the truth! Buy condoms! But still I felt good about it. This was one of the first times I've felt I was actually accomplishing something here and doing my job. At the very least we got people talking with each other about the taboo subject, which is always good.

We had a nice gift to help keep us motivated throughout the week. The mom of a volunteer who teaches at an elementary school had her students write us inspirational messages taped to PowerBars. Since it's a parochial school, some of the messages were religious in nature:

You are a follower of Jesus!

God is proud of you!

Keep going!

Don't ever give up!

Even one person can make a difference!

Almost there!

Jesus loves you!

One particularly lewd volunteer, Chris, suggested that we pervert the messages by adding "in bed" to the end of each one like Chinese fortune cookies. This kept us amused throughout the week.

As part of my ongoing efforts to make The Real World Ouagadougou Bigger and Better than Ever!, I'll be announcing a new surprise sometime this week.

For now I'm off to a Superbowl party at a house with a bunch of US Marines, aptly named the "Marine House." My eyes probably won't be on the TV.

Peace out,

Philippe

Ciao from Ouagadougou!

I'm a little worse for wear after ringing in the New Year with a wild Cancun Spring Break 2005 Beach Party, minus the beach, but here I am once more, diligently filling you in on the word from

the bush. I'm nearing the end of my first 3 months in village and the first 6 in Burkina. Seen the third world, lived in a hut, eaten the To, bleeted with the goats, sunbathed with the lizards, and been known simply as "the white guy." All right, so what's next? Oh, right. More of the above. A year and 9 months more. Shit. Sure, coming here sounded like a big adventure. And it has

been, I must admit. But the novelty wears off, and then you realize you gotta LIVE here. The reality of my life in Zamse is frankly quite banal...:

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A NASSARA

4:45 am- Stirred from slumber by the amoebas. Can it wait til...? No. It definitely can't. Must brave the roaches in the latrine.

4:47 am- Pull up my shorts. --Hold it... Not done yet!

4:50 am- Kick dog out of bed. Crash.

6:00 am- Sun rises

6:01 am- Dog's sleeping pills wear off. Stop licking me, dog. Let me sleep, damnit! Stop chewing the desk! Fine, I'm up.

6:15 am- Record my dream about chinese buffet.

6:30 am- Summon the energy to do yoga out of my illustrated guide from the library in Ouaga like a good peace corps volunteer.

7:00 am- Dog is napping.

7:15 am- Dress, sunscreen, pop a doxy to stave off the malaria, feed and water dog, fill my water bottles, put out my evening shower bucket to warm in the sun, pack my backpack, munch on some crunchy kudakuda peanutballs.

8:15 am- Am I forgetting something?

8:20 am- Oh... brush teeth.

8:30 am- Maybe I should go to the clinic.

9:00 am- I really should go to the clinic.

9:30 am- Listen, if I don't go to the clinic and put my water in the freezer, it won't be cold for lunch.

9:32 am- Out the door.

9:33 am- Greet women sitting outside waiting for their prenatal consultations. Stick my water in the freezer as if it's not the main reason I'm going there. Take my seat inside as my counterpart

nurse consults the women. I understand nothing.

9:34-10:00 am- Stare at wall.

10:01 am- Work up motivation to ask a question. My counterpart takes this as an invitation to complain about his job, how he hasn't slept or eaten since yesterday cause there was a woman giving birth and a kid in the hospital, and he's got his monthly reports to do yet, and he's all by himself, and, en tout cas, c'est pas facile!

10:22 am- He finishes responding, poor guy, but I still don't know how much it costs to give birth in the maternity. Motivation lost. Pile of old Newsweeks from former volunteer beckons. How about I read instead?

11:00 am- As I'm busy working, my 14 y/o helper girl Sophie arrives to clean dishes, fetch water and wash the clothes should I need it. She gets a slightly generous 7 or 8 dollars a month. Jealous? Oh,right... You just have the "electricity" do it.

12:00 pm- Look at that! Time for lunch. I sneak my reward out of the freezer and head home to make a meal that will feed me again at dinner.

12:45 pm- Devour my sumptuous spaghetti con tomato paste y agua on the porch. Damn, I'm good!

1:12 pm- Resent the dog as she eats my last few bites.

1:15-4:00 pm- To read, perchance to nap...

4:00 pm- If it's a marche day (every third), bike over and stock up on kudakuda for me and the dog. Long for a plump tomato.

4:20 pm- He he he...

(i'm kidding.)

4:22 pm- What to do...? I know, read!

5:38 pm- Grab solar-lukewarmed bucket of water, strip nekkid, and dump it on my head as the sky turns pink. Feels AMAZING. Bucket- showers are quite the unexpected pleasure. You must try it.

6:00 pm- Sun sets. Stomach rumbles. Must feed the amoebas! But then Isaaka, my 14 year old village buddy, comes over to chat. Every night. I appreciate it, but I feel guilty eating in front of him.

All the village kids, actually. So I wait...

7:00 pm- Slap that spaghetti on the gas stove, snag some more ice water from the clinic, eat on the porch under the stars as I relax with a crossword. I've been forced to limit myself to one a day. Two max. Must ration.

7:24 pm- Sleepy sleepy... But I want to listen to the news. I suppose I could read until

8:00 pm- News headlines on the BBC shortwave.

8:20 pm- Slip into bed. Quality time with right hand.

8:30 pm- I'm out like a log.

8:31 pm- Dog sneaks into bed.

MOORE 101

(the language, not Michael)

Now I realized a little while ago that all this reading, as engrossing as it may be, won't get me nowhere in village. So I've started making a point of dropping everything at 4:15 every day and

biking over to a random courtyard to greet and visit, whether I have the urge to or not, cause I usually don't. Apparently it's not the neighbors' job to welcome the newcomers here, but rather the newcomer's job to go out and make himself welcome. I didn't make the rules, so I don't feel bad as I barge in and wait to be offered a seat. The more awkward part is barging into somebody's home without speaking their language. But I've got the greetings down. Ready?

As you enter, they say: Welcome!

If you're a guy, you respond: Chief!

If you're a girl, you emit a shrill AAAIEEEEE!

Depending on the level of formality and respect, you crouch down a certain degree, then grasp hands. (always the right, the left is the poop hand--fish grips are ok!)

Now you're faced with a rapid-fire barrage of questions to which the only appropriate answer, no matter how much your day is sucking, is Health!

-How's the afternoon?

Health!

-And your work?

There's Health!

-And your family?

Only Health!

-They're good?

They're good!

-MmmmFAAAAAAAA! (whatever that means)

They stop talking and release your hand. Ok, are we done? No! They grab it again.

-How was your sleep?

Health!

-How did you wake?

Just Health!

-How are the whities?

There's Health!

-And the people from your homeland? They're good?

They're good!

-MmmmFAAAAAAAA....

They let go of the hand. ...is that it? Wait for it... One more round! Now they start a new barrage, not of questions, but of benedictions, to which you must reply Amen!

-May God continue your good health!

Amen!

-May we thank God for your visit!

Amen!

-May God give you a good day!

AmenAmenAmen!

The tricky part is knowing when to stop saying Health! and start with the Amen! If you mess it up they'll laugh at you and you'll look like a total fool. (But there's no pressure, really, because

you already do).

Repeat with all members of the courtyard.

I don't even do it the right way, cause you're not supposed to wait for the questions to be posed and answer them individually, but say everything overlapping, mixing questions and Healths, so it sounds like a mumbled mess. I'm working on it.

After this little exchange, I've exhausted most of my Moore, save some phrases I've learned out of necessity:

I don't have a wife.

I already have a wife at home.

I don't want a wife.

They're my wives. (point to nearest Nassaras)

Now that that's out of the way, all there is left to do is sit there and stare at each other. It used to be incredibly awkward, but since I've been here, my capacity for sitting and staring at people without speaking has increased exponentially. So, it turns out this 4:15 pm chunk of the day isn't so painful after all, and I've even started to enjoy it. Once, I don't know how, a group of wives who speak no french actually chatted me up for over an hour. Then they gave me some peanuts. Score! It was a good day.

LIKE A NEWLY CROWNED MISS AMERICA

No, it's not all bad. And to prove it, here's a selection of things that have brought me to the verge of joyful tears recently:

* On my very first 4:15 greeting outing, finding, hidden in a house not 70 meters away from mine, a group of guys, speaking FRENCH! Reading a French Burkinabe newspaper. Playing scrabble--in French! Turns out they're local elementary school teachers, in my backyard no less! Thank you Jesus! People to talk to! They whoop my ass at Scrabble.

* We were in the middle of another weeklong series of vaccination sprees in all our satellite villages. This time, in addition to the oral polio vaccines, they were also giving measles shots. So now the children were screaming in horror at the needles, as well as the mere sight of me. Surround-sound shrieking children all day for 7 days. Someone was testing me. Fortunately I brought a book. Anyhow, one day while we were waiting for the rest of the team, I start chatting with my vaccination partner Souleman, who happens to speak very good french. He tells me about how he's finished most of his high school, but wasn't able to complete his BAC and go on to because his family ran out of money. (I ask him how much it would cost, out of curiousity. $60, about).

I tell him about the hard time I'm having doing any work, since I'm supposed to be talking to people, interviewing villagers about health issues, etc, but nobody speaks french, and for the

moment, I can only tell them that I don't want I wife. He says, well, since I aint got anything else to do, I'd be happy to go around with you and translate. ...Really? You would do that for me? You mean I might actually be able to DO something here? I nearly break down in sobs of relief

and kiss his feet. Later on, something strikes me. Peace Corps provides a hefty $20/month budget for hiring a language tutor. I need help with my Moore... My friend Soule needs the money... He's easy on the eyes from both the front and back... Sweet, sweet blessings of providence! Could it work? Stay tuned...

Two other things that brought tears to my eye:

* While biking through another village 10km away, my riding partner points to something on our left... Oh, my God, it's a LAND FORMATION! A little cliff, maybe 20 feet high and 40 long. It used

to be a mountain, he said, but it got up and flew away. Well, of course. It was probably lonely. But finally, finally, I find something that's not flat!

* As I was strolling around the marché, I turn a corner and--Holy Shit! Onions!! I haven't seen any fresh veggies in the marché since the pathetic little tomatos disappeared over a month ago. And here, big, voluptuous onions! I snatch them up and dab my eyes with a hanky. To think that in the States I would always gripe, What do you MEAN the strawberry pie is "seasonal"??

(I also cry later that night as I chop one up for my curried pasta, but for a different reason altogether)

OK, just one more, before I nauseate you all:

* Picking up my first two care packages and a couple cards in time for my birthday. It meant a lot to me. Not the stuff so much as knowing that folks back home support my efforts. When the kids are

staring and all I can do is stare back, it's not always easy to know if it's really worth it. But you guys... It got me RIGHT HERE. All right, I'll stop! (cheese and granola)

Q: HOW DO YOU ADMINISTER BIRTHDAY SPANKINGS IN BURKINA?

A: What's a birthday?

I didn't want my 23rd birthday (dec 10, sag) to go by completely unrecognized, so I floated the news to a few people. First, I asked Isaaka what people normally do to celebrate in Zamse. "Yes... no..." That's how the kids reply when they're confused. Maybe I was using the wrong word. I asked him what day he was born. "1984?" No, Isaaka, that's the year, and besides, you're not 20. I try for a couple more minutes, but to no avail. Not only doesn't he know when his birthday is, he also doesn't know what it is. No use in telling him that mine's tomorrow now, is there? Turns out many people don't know their birthdays, or even the years, which makes it a little tough to celebrate.

On my birthday, I tried again, with the pharmacist. You know, it's my birthday today! "Oh." Allright, fine, I give up.

Forget it, it's not a big deal. Just another typical day in village. Fortunately, my PC neighbor Imane had other things in mind. She showed up in the evening with a huge bag of vegetables, which we cooked for dinner, and ate lamplight along with a cucumber vinaigrette and mac and CHEESE and a chilled beer while being seranaded by her bjork CD. It was delicious. During dinner, one of

my acquaintances stopped by, and asked "Why didn't you tell us it was it was your birthday?" Excuse me?? Turns out that among the faction of burkinabe that do celebrate birthdays, the rule is for the birthday-boy to throw his own party and treat all his friends. Well, now I know. But you know what? I like Imane's way better.

The desert is some more of my famous ice cream in coffee, chocolate and peach varieties. After dinner I'm treated to a facial with no less than 3 different exfoliants. We wrap out the evening playing rummy with my Colt Studio Hairy Chested Men playing cards (the kids get such a kick out

of them!). It was fun times. No birthday spanks, though. I'll be collecting them when I get back to the States. With interest.

It's time to wrap it up! I never finish up what I plan to say. But no worries, I'll be back in Ouaga later this month when I take off on Bike-a-Thon, a weeklong cross-country AIDS awareness bike trip. It sounds awesome, I'm very excité for it, and I'll tell you all about it in the next letter!

I promise this is the LAST TIME I'll mention packages,* but just so you know what's up: When the French colonized Burkina under a different name many years ago, they left behind their fondness for bureaucracy as a substitute for reason. Thus, even though you write CSPS de Zamsé on the envelope, and they know who I am, and they know my situation, the folks at the post will let only me pick it up in Zorgho, so that I can sign in 6 different places and have an ID check and retinal scan. I can go pick it up, and I'm happy to, but it's 40km each way and very difficult to do in single day on bike.

SO... If you send a package, please just leave my name off of it. This way my counterpart will be able to pick it up for me, since he's got a moto and passes through Zorgho all the time. The address is:

CSPS de Zamsé

B.P. 34

Zorgho

Burkina Faso

For regular letters, you can go ahead and put my name, it'll come straight to me. (and I promise to write back) That's all! Thanks!

HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Love,

Philippe

*maybe...

Greetings America!

So November 2nd, huh? What were you thinking? Here's a sneak peak at your next 4 State of the Unions:

Terror, terrorists, terrorism, war, evil, "nucular," defeat, enemies, WAR IS PEACE, terror!, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! civilization's most sacred institution! just look at that stunning job recovery! we will prevail!

What you will not hear: Osama, WMDs--whoops!, deficit, we might as well try diplomacy in North Korea cause they ain't got no oil!

Anyway, I'm in Ouaga once more, exceptionally allowed to leave village to celebrate Thanksgiving. The American embassy here hosts a big Thanksgiving potluck at the ambassador's house. The hungry,

dirty Peace corps volunteers have a bad reputation for showing up empty handed and chowing down vast quantities of the missionaries' contribution. But I at least brought brownies. Well, I helped make them. Actually, I just bought the egg. But I certainly did my part to consume the goods. Two heaving platefuls, and then back again for desert. I need the reserves of fat for my return to village.

Meanwhile, the west african cycle of seasons continues on its merry way, from rain, to heat, and now to dust. The Harmattan wind is blowing through, bringing with it chapped lips, cracked feet, and stuffy noses. You can taste the dust in the air, but hell, I'll take it! At least it's cool and possible to sleep at night. It's also harvest time, which means party time in village.

Speaking of which...

WELCOME TO ZAMSE

A month ago I moved into Zamsé. Zamsé has a population of about 2500, though you'd never guess it looking around, since everyone is spread out over several kilometers, living amongst their

fields. Zamsé is probably best defined by what it doesn't have: water, electricity, phones within 15km, police, gendarmes, local government, fruits and vegetables, a gay bar (or even beer for that

matter), and hills. Now, if you're gonna be living in an African village for 2 years, it may as well be a pretty African village. So, during our site placement interviews, I asked for some place with greenery and scenery. But instead, I got yellowery and flattery. Erm, flatness. Dude, this place is flat. So flat that I wrote a little diddy about it. Wanna hear it?

They asked me what I'd like best

I didn't mean it, they guessed

The scenery's nil

Not one single hill

Flat as Paris Hilton's chest

I can't say that the place is ugly. Slightly desolate, perhaps. But it bears a slight resemblance to our romantic visions of the African savannah--if you squint your eyes a little bit, switch the tall waving millet for tall waving grasses, the donkeys for dingoes, and the goats for gazelles, and ignore the cock-a-doodle-doos. And hey, if I'm desperate for a hill, I can always bike 10k. JEALOUS?

I'd also be lying if I said I lived in a hut. I actually have a pretty nice pad, way bigger than I need. It used to be the old maternity/delivery ward (guess that explains all the blood on the

walls!) but they built a bigger, better one next door, so for the past 4 years it's served as a home for PCVs, and will for the next 2. I've got a big bedroom/living room, a kitchen, a home gym (oh yes!), and a spare room that for now I'm dubbing the play room. High ceilings and a tin roof, an open covered porch in one corner, all wrapped up in striking cubist architecture. It's a mansion really, and I feel a little guilty having it all to myself. But not too

guilty.

SO WHAT AM I DOING HERE??

To tell you the truth, I often wonder this myself. But if it's a job description you're after, I'm happy to give it a shot. Burkina has a centralized health system, and at the bottom of the

hierarchy are 1500ish village health clinics, which are staffed by a state-employed nurses, and depending on their size, other personnel like assistant nurses, midwives, etc. Each clinic covers an area of 8-15 or so surrounding villages in a radius of 10k, and are in principle managed by village representatives. Health volunteers in Burkina are posted to one of these clinics, charged with the mission of improving the quality of life in the village and surrounding area. Vague enough for you? We're not allowed to treat people, but focus instead mostly on preventative health care. This includes stuff like improving the management of the clinic, educating the population about various health issues (sanitation, malaria, STIs,HIV/AIDS, nutrition, etc) and more touchy social issues (forced marriages, female genital mutilation, family planning, etc), motivating community groups, and being all-around cheerleaders for community health. Really its up to us to decide what the priorities are in our villages and figure out how to tackle them. The idea is

for the work to be sustainable, so it gets carried on after you leave, like putting together a theater group that does AIDS-themed performances, etc. And we can take on whatever side projects we so desire. It's really unstructured, which has its benefits, but means feeling quite useless for the first couple months... or longer?

As for my village, we've got only one nurse for a population of 10,000, so he's consulting by day, delivering babies by night; instead of cleaning, the janitor gives the shots and assists with

minor surgery; and the management committee doesn't really manage, cause they're illiterate, and don't speak french. Oh boy.

Before thanksgiving, we went on a 4-day 6-team vaccination spree to all our surrounding villages, biking from courtyard to courtyard to administer an oral polio vaccine and vitamin A to all

the screaming children under 5 years old. I tagged along, rising at the ungodly hour of 5:30am, and biking between 10 and 22k to get to the villages, and then back when we were done. All in all, I probably saw 100 courtyards and 400 kids.

Some highlights:

*Innumerable children bursting into tears and dogs growling upon seeing my freakish white skin.

*I was offered two wives. (one 8 years old and the other 3)

*The biggest bellybutton I've ever seen. For some reason kids here get major outies that stick out an inch or 2 from their bellies and then shrink when they get older. But this one kid's bellybutton was HUGE--a good 6 inches. It was like half a yam sticking out of his stomach. I was impressed.

*All kinds of boobs. Well, mostly the kind resembling tube socks that droop down to the bellybutton. It's a little awkward shaking hands with topless grannies. Hey I'm all for women's lib. It just takes some getting used to.

CURRENTLY SERVING INTESTINAL PARASITE #: 3

Please take a number.

PEACE CORPS: Your poop will never be the same.

THERE ARE PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS STARVING IN AFRICA

Just think about that next time you leave food on your plate. Before leaving for village, I did some shopping at the big expensive western grocery store in Ouaga, Marina Market. In a brilliant use of foresight, all I bothered getting were big jars of mayo and mustard, figuring I'd easily get what I needed once in village. Now in village, seeking out one by one the four necessities

of life (food, cold water, shelter, and getting laid). Now, health volunteers are in luck for the cold water, cause we get to sneak our nalgene bottles into the freezer of the gas-powered fridge used to store vaccine vials. With this matter settled, I went to our one and only boutique, which, in terms of the first necessity, sells only spaghetti and rice. So, the first day I cooked up some spaghetti with mustard on my gas stove. The second day I had rice with mustard. The third day I decided to mix it up a bit and have spaghetti and rice. There was a crusty bottle of hot sauce 2 years expired left behind by my predecessor, so I added a dash of that. On the fourth day I got desperate and had rice with mayo. Not bad, really, if you're starving.

By the end of the first week, I was ready to go to my neighbors begging for To. When I did a little tour of the village, riding around visiting a bunch of courtyards, they must have seen

the hunger in my eyes, because they all sent me off with peanuts. Is that all I'm worth to you people? I thought. Hey, I'll take it! I came back with enough peanuts to fill a very large bowl.

Unfortunately, it took as many calories to shell a peanut as I gained from eating it.

I used the last of my wasting muscles to ride to Imane, my PCV neighbor 15k to the south. She lives in a veritable metropolis, cause her boutique carries canned peas, cous cous, powdered milk and tomato paste! I dropped a wad of cash, quickly becoming a preferred customer. I returned to village with a backpack full of goods. Not only that, but my helper, Sophie, took my all-natural organic peanuts and transformed them into all-natural organic peanut butter! Finally, the proof I'd been seeking that there is a God, and a benevolent one at that.

I've since managed to diversify my repertoire considerably. The real feasts happen when Imane comes to visit, stuff like pasta topped with a rich garlic ginger eggplant peanut-butter sauce, and, in a stroke of genius on my part, ICE CREAM. (full fat powdered milk, sugar, stick in the freezer and voila!) It turned out a little more like milk shake goo, but let me go on the record as saying it was delicious and I am amazing. Mix in a little peanut butter... Brilliant. In fact, I've discovered the only thing that doesn't quite go with peanut butter is tomato paste. Yet another life lesson from the Peace Corps.

I swear, I'll be such a junk food junkie by the time I get home. Bring on the cheez-its and the ho-ho's! Meanwhile, don't be surprised if I come back from Africa with a new set of love-handles.

MY WAR ON MICE

I spent my entire weeklong site visit cleaning up my place. It was filthy, but at least when I got back in 6 weeks, I'd be moving into a nice clean home. Six weeks later, when the Peace Corps van dropped me off at my new home, nature had reclaimed what it considered its own. Everything was covered in a fresh coat of dust. I had 20 or so lizards in my bedroom, a massive ant colony in the kitchen, and a cozy nest of a dozen mice hidden in a wooden door in my gym.

Fortunately, I had no time for a breakdown, because a bunch of village guys had showed up to greet me and move in my stuff. They grabbed brooms, swept up a storm, and then proceeded to use them to

whack the lizards and mice. My bleeding heart had pangs of guilt, and I had half a mind to tell them, "you don't need to kill them, just set them free!" and the other half saying "ok, kill them." I kept quiet.

The next two weeks, I continued to clean, and clean, and goddamnit if I didn't need to just keep cleaning some more. I went through housewife syndrome, depressed that the cleaning would never

end. Any of you who saw my dorm room in its natural state will know that I'm not a clean-freak by any stretch. But even I have my limits.

Evidently, the arrival massacre hadn't been complete. Every day, I would rise to find a new collection of mouse pellets all around my kitchen. What's worse, they were digging into my food, my precious food! I picked out the pellets and ate it of course, still insulted by their lack of consideration. I put up with this for a couple weeks, but they grew brave, poking their heads out and clattering the pots and pans as soon as I stepped out to eat dinner.

Eventually I said enough. The mice have to die. My weapon: poison. Cowardly, I thought, but I can't bring myself to whack them with a broom. Nor do I have the agility. But I can make damn good poisoned cous-cous. They'll die feasting. The next morning, I cleared out 5 dead mice from the floor and dropped them down my latrine, ready to get on with a pellet-free cuisine. Curiously, though, over the next couple of days, all my cooking began to smell more and more like rotting mouse. It turns out my metal kitchen table was constructed in such a way as to allow a mouse to easily crawl in and die, and also make it nearly impossible to said rotting mouse out. I tried banging it out, I tried plugging up the holes, but the eerie stench remained, and I sensed a deep defeat. I simply cannot win.

MY WAR ON SCORPION 2000

Back home we call them pincher bugs. They're small ugly little things with pinchers on their butts. When I asked my village friend what they were called, I heard Scorpion deux mille. I think,

wow, that's an odd name for a bug, but I like it. What he actually said was Scorpion de mille, millet scorpions, little jerks that come out along with the millet harvest. But I preferred to call them Scorpion 2000s. Who knew they came in such large numbers?

Those Scorpion 2000s like to go everywhere. Underneath lids, inside books, inside clothing, and, the ultimate sin, inside my mosquito netted fortress. I did spot checks before going to bed

every night, finding numerous under my pillows, on the nets, everywhere. That's not a way to get my sympathy. I crushed them all without remorse. During the night I'd feel a little tickle on

my leg. Is that a trickle of sweat? I grope for my glasses and my flashlight. It's a Scorpion 2000 crawling up my leg. Unlike the ugly beastly roaches, these things don't even try to avoid you. I

scrambled awake 3 more times that night with more on my chest and arms.

Where were they coming from? I had no idea. Somewhere on the ceiling. The next night I tucked in my netting extra carefully. I killed 20 around the room before going to bed. Every 30 seconds I

heard one dropping into the room beside my bed--plip! plip!-- and I scrambled to crush it from within my mosquito net. I stayed awake for 2 hours, crushing more than I could count. But I got them all... Finally there was a lull. IS THERE NO ONE ELSE? IS THERE NO ONE ELSE?! Good. Finally I could sleep. ...plip! plip!

LIFE IN A FISHBOWL: MY WAR ON CHILDREN

The volunteers during training told us to resist the urge to throw rocks at the kids in village, and I laughed. I would be buddies with the village kids, hang out with them, hear their stories, teach them neat things about the world, and wouldn't that be great.

Now my house has a nice little covered porch area with some reclining chairs and beside it a hammock that the previous volunteer left behind. Surrounding this corner of my house is a mud brick wall enclosing my courtyard that has worn down to about 3 and a half feet, and on one side a wide open gap serving as the entrance.

During my first lonely week, children would come through the gap, shake my hand, and take a seat on the chair or the hammock or the floor, or just stand around the table I keep outside. Company!

They didn't talk to me, but that's cool, we're hangin out, we're chillin. And chillin. And we're still chillin, and they're talking about me, but that's ok. And now I wonder if they're ever gonna

leave. And so I sat, reading, or doing whatever I was doing before the visitors arrived, now trying to ignore their presence, the fact that they were staring at me and wondering what they were saying about me. Eventually they'll leave, I think. Eventually they do.

Then they began coming at rather inopportune hours. As I revelled in fantasy dream-land, I'd hear a congregation forming on my porch, the shuffling of chairs, and then some clapping and

some "kwa kwa kwa!"s to announce their presence. What the hell do they want? It's fucking 6 am. The sun is barely showing. If I ignore them, they'll go away. Five Kwa kwa kwa!s later, I give in,

gt up, put on some clothes. I open the door to a couple of kids. I shake their extended hands. Yes? You're here because? Do you know it's early? We stare at each other a minute. Well I hate to be rude, but I was sleeping... More stares. I guiltily shut the door on them and hop back into bed. Eventually I hear them leave.

And then, later in the day, there would be more. They'd touch my bike. No, you can't have it. No, you can't ride it. Please don't change the... Look, just leave it alone. No, you can't have my nalgene. No, I don't have money. No, you can't have my book... Listen, I've got nothing to give you! Fine, water.

They'd all drink water, saying "Blah blah blah nassara blah blah Nassara..." I'd get hungry, waiting for them to leave so I wouldn't feel guilty eating my lunch of spaghetti, rice and mayo in front of all of them. Listen, kids, I'm gonna make my lunch, so... Stares. So I'd appreciate it if... Soon I came to appreciate that Burkinabe children can't take a hint. Nor do they understand the concepts of "Privacy" "peace and quite" "personal space" "alone time" "why are you here" or "what are you looking at?" This is no time for politesse. Feeling like an asshole, I tell them, ok, time to go. You have to leave. Get out of here. They stare at me a minute while I wonder if they understood anything, then slowly file out.

I go inside and make lunch, and 10 minutes later, come out to see that they're back, and their numbers have doubled. I get worked up. I told you to get out, so go! Yibe! Scram! They laugh at me, and begin mocking my French. This I don't appreciate. I point out the mocker and tell him to leave first. They don't get it. They go out, giggling. And they stand outside my wall, staring in at me, still mocking me and laughing at my struggle. It's at this point that I find myself fantasizing about throwing a rock at them. I lose it. I scream "ALLEZ!" at the top of my lungs, and they jump, then go on their merry way. I lock myself in my room, ashamed at my temper. I drop in bed. For the next 20 minutes, I hear the kids repeating my scream, and laughing in the distance.

My first project as a PCV will be to build a moat. In the meantime, I order a large straw gate to fill that gap in my wall. It hasn't helped. This means war.

COMMUNITY INTEGRATION

Oh, it's goin great!

MAN'S BEST FRIEND, FRIED: MY WAR ON PUPPY

The volunteer-compiled Peace Corps Burkina Faso cookbook has a section on how to slaughter and prepare animals to eat, like lizards, rabbits, and of course chicken. When I read the part about

how to slaughter a dog, I laughed. (as in, ha ha, my god, what kind of sick bastard would want to do such a thing? (as it turns out, my predecessor in Zamsé for one)). And then I went and got a puppy.

The PCV hostel in Ouaga has a library of books left by volunteers and free for the taking. I stocked up big-time before heading to village, using up baggage space that might have more

intelligently be used for food. One book that caught my eye was How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With. I'd considered getting a puppy, so I picked it up and brought it along.

One fine market day in village, I was strolling through the market, eyeing the impressive lack of vegetables. As I rounded one corner, there was sitting an adorable little puppy, beckoning me to

come pet it, and so I did. Almost immediately, a lady sitting nearby selling rice asked me if I wanted to buy it. A crowd formed around us. Is the Nassara going to buy a puppy? A translator stepped forward. Are you serious? I asked. Of course she was. I hadn't prepared myself to get a dog so soon, and I was sure I hadn't thought it through (shots? spaying? feeding?) but geeze, I already had the book! And so I bought her for 50 cents. (I've been chastized numerous times since that I should have only payed 10) I carried her through the marché, the wide dumb grin of a new

parent on my face. She was so well-behaved as I rode her home, her head sticking out of my backpack. Once chez moi I whipped out the camera and got photo-happy. Me, a dad. And what a good little puppy she was.

The first night, she crapped and pissed on my floor, chewed on my glasses, my chairs, my mosquito net, my pillow, my rug, my books, my birks, and my ear, and when she wasn't busy chewing she

howled and whined. Shit. This was such a mistake. I didn't sleep much that night. Or the next two. Or even now.

Soon enough, though, I had her crapping outside, and she even followed me to pee at night. Her whining waned. But never did she stop chewing. It's not as if she's deprived of things to chew.

There's a whole world to chew on outside the house. But somehow that's just not satisfying for her. She insists on chewing my sandles, my clothes, my furniture, my bags. And she knows what NO

means, oh, she knows. She just does it to taunt me, to test me. At night I'll hear a crunch crunch and I'll wake up, shout NO! and shine the flashlight on her. She'll flash me her little puppy dog

eyes, I'll roll over, close my eyes, and then more crunch crunch crunch. When I've had enough of this game, I'll put her outside and listen to her cry for an hour. Back inside, chew chew chew. For the love of god, dog, just stop! My sleepless nights made me even crankier than usual... and, although I'm vegetarian, pondered if I would make an exception. Every minute of the day I have to tell her NO! and she listens, for a couple seconds. Eventually, she'll give in, and, in a fit of frustration, start chewing on her foot instead. Or mine.

She also loves to eat cow shit. I tried telling her not to, that that's kind of gross, but I gave up. She'll eat cow shit if she wants to, and if I try to stop her, she'll just want it more.

She even brings cow pies home to eat. Several times she's vomited (her favorite place to vomit being on the rug, as opposed to the cement floor). She eats it all back up immediately, thankfully, but I wondered what the dark spots were in her vomit, and discovered they

were pebbles! Lots of them. Damn, dog, maybe that's why you're vomiting! Still, she goes around eating rocks, and yet again I'm helpless. Is this a common behavior for dogs, or is she just very

special?

I'm terribly indecisive, so it took the help of another volunteer to name her Soyaka, which in Moore means "crossroads," which, appropriately, happens to be my favorite film in recent

memory. But the name's not sticking for whatever reason, so I might switch it to Kipare, meaning chili pepper. Or I'll just change it every couple weeks, and give her an identity complex. I'm sorry pup, I read the book, I'm doing my best.

Are children this difficult?

Oh, right.

MY CHRISTMAS WISHLIST

*Barbed wire

*electric fencing (solar powered)

*mace

*small munitions

If you send any of these items, you should note that if possible it's best to send in a padded envelope rather than a box if possible (otherwise I have to bike 40k to pick it up at the post and pay a small fee--which I'm totally willing to do). Also, it turns out regular Air Mail is faster and more reliable than Global Priority.

Oh... and some ritalin for the pup. Thanks. =)

ONLY 23 MONTHS TO GO, folks. All this futile warmongering makes me wonder if I'll really come back from this a better person. I'm feeling a bit like a crotchety old Scrooge--I've never wanted to

throw rocks at malnourished kids before, after all. Or ruthlessly kill mice or eat dogs. If I make it through, it will be with a patience made of steel.

Happy Thanksgiving!

--Philippe

Greetings from Ouagadougou!

You're lookin at a brand spakin new Peace Corps Volunteer. Last

week, after 11 weeks of training, we swore in at the US Embassy, at

the ambassador's posh digs. All of the trainees got traditional

Burkinabe outfits tailored, so we were all a wild mix of bright

colors. Someone described it as "prom on acid."

After the ceremony, which was covered by the national media,

we hopped across the street to the embassy's American Rec Center,

which boasts a pool as well as burgers, burritos, onion rings,

milkshakes, air conditioning, movies. A slice of heaven right here

on earth. In fact, we spent the entire week in a nice air

conditioned hotel, eating delicious real food and enjoying each

other's company.

Now that we've tasted paradise, however, it's getting ripped

right out from under us. The new title marginally increases or

level of respect, but it also means it's time to go to our sites

around the country and begin our work. We're banished to our

villages for three months, during which time we will commune with

the people until we finally emerge from our cocoons and spread our

beautiful integrated wings... Wish me luck.

ME AGAINST THE AMOEBAS

I'm sad to report that my health streak has finally come to a bitter

end. It was probably a karmic punishment for all the gloating I did

about my iron intestinal tract, or the result of a vast conspiracy

amongst the other trainees to contaminate my food. In any case, I

was

to my knowledge, the last of the trainees to succumb to the Big D,

making it all the way to week 9 with healthy bowels, shattering

previous records.

Our wonderfully blunt medical caretaker Daynese informed me

that I had caught the Bad Guy, the little amoeba that could, the one

that causes amoebic dysentary. "This is the one that kills people."

She also reminded me to watch what I'm eating and drinking, cause

like

all the other flow-inducing parasites, it's caused by fecal

contamination. Believe me, I would avoid the poop in my food if I

could. But the poop is everywhere. It's just what happens when you

commune with animals and the earth.

It makes it tougher to down the food knowing you're playing a

game of Russian Roulette. One night you're eating Tô with snot

sauce

and BLAM! Giardia. Shake a hundred kids' hands in a day, POW!

Shigella.

Eat with a fork washed in poopy water and WHAMO! Blastocytosis. Yes,

eating in this country is an adventure sport.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING...

Yes, there is pole-dancing in Africa.

MY LOVE LIFE

...

HOW I CAME TO WAGE WAR AGAINST THE ROACHES

Part I of an ongoing series on members of the insect kingdom and how

they suck

Prologue

I was the kind of guy who couldn't harm a fly. But living in Africa

changes a man. It all began on the ninth day of the eighth month of

the two thousand and fourth year of Our Lord, my first night in my

host

family. I've previously stated my distaste for the toilet situation

here. But if you've gotta shit in a hole, it might as well be a nice

hole. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised when I found that my

new

latrine was clean, deep (so it doesn't smell and you can't see the

swarming maggots (it takes about 3 seconds for poo to hit the bottom

(David Jay, can you do the physics and tell me how deep that is?

(correcting for the speed of sound, of course)))) with a cement

cover,

chest high mud walls and even a decent view!

Chapter I

That night I went back, flashlight in hand, ready to pee

before going

to bed. As I lifted the cover, roaches poured out from underneath

and scattered everywhere. Big, fat hideous roaches, we're talking 3

inches long, large enough to see their ugly little heads and eyes

staring back at you. I swung around with my flashlight to see that I

was surrounded on all sides. They sat there, waving their antennae

guarding their precious hole. I fled. Maybe I screamed. I don't

recall.

I decided to hold it. I went back into my hut to sleep, and

lo and behold, the brutes had also laid claim to my home. Three of

them, on my walls! I barely escaped with my life. My host brother

asked what was wrong. I told him. "Yes, but they're harmless," he

had the gusto to reply! What the hell does you know?! You don't

understand what I'm going through! Just do something, anything,

please!

He went and got some insecticide spray and fumigated my hut.

I'm sure it was more harmful to my lungs than to the roaches, since

those monsters can survive nuclear fallout. Still, I was solaced,

and took comfort from the mosquito netting I tucked in carefully

around my bed. At least can't get through that... Or can they???

Chapter II

For the next several nights I would dread inevitably having

to pee after nightfall. I would spend a good few minutes every time

psyching myself up to go. Every time, rather than just going in and

doing my thing, I felt compelled to scope out the surroundings with

the flashlight, and they would always be there. Sitting, watching,

waving. I tried leaving the cover off, peeing from afar--it was

just a mess. And yet, I peed.

Meanwhile, back in the hut, I learned to do a thorough search

of the quarters before turning in. One night, I spotted a lone

roach sitting on my wall. Ok, I thought. You damn roaches have

given me more anxiety than anything else in this country. I'm gonna

have to get used to you eventually. I'm here to grow as a human

being. It's time to make peace with the roach. Be one with the

roach. You just sit there and be, and I'll just slip under my

mosquito net and sleep.

Chapter III

Much like every night, inspite of the netting, I did my usual

paranoid search of my sheets before hopping in. Under the pillows,

along the sides. I lifted the top sheet. Much to my sheer horror,

one of THEM was sitting there at the foot of my bed. My skin

crawled. My safe haven had been breeched. Thankfully the beast had

perished in its quest. I flung it to the floor, shuddering. I

looked back at its brother on the wall. That's it, motherfucker.

I've had enough. That was the last straw. Prepare to die.

I whipped out the insecticide and sprayed it good and long.

It started to skittle around nervously. What happened next was

something straight out of a bad Lariam hallucination. The spawn of

satan spread its wretched wings and FLEW. Right past me. It landed

somewhere. I searched frantically. It scuttled over my foot. I

hadn't wanted to squish it, but the shoe was coming out. (They

don't serve any other purpose here, it's sandles all the time.) I

squirmed and it it as hard as I could. It chrunched. I hit it some

more. And then some more. And again. You checked into the wrong

motel, bastard! You're ant food now! You can die! All of you!

Eradicate! Eradicate! Eradicate!

So began the war.

Epilogue

As for the latrine, well, I still go there during the day.

At night, I step out and water the crops. At first I was worried

what my host family would think. Then I realized that, hell, they

think I'm a weirdo anyway.

Late one night, I heard chrunching sounds eminating from the

latrine area. My flashlight revealed a scorpion chewing off the

head of one of my adversaries, grasped in its claws. Now that's just

disgusting. But you, scorpion, are an ally. Just don't get any

ideas about crawling into my bed.

MISCOMMUNICATIONS

When you go to a foreign country, you can be sure you'll make

many a communication flub and cultural faux pas. Peace Corps

Burkina Faso is no exception. In fact, the Chief of our training

village of Boussouma allegedly sacrificed a number of animals to

protect our foolish selves from precisely this eventuality.

The most common for the new french speakers is the use of the

word "excité." While this may appear like the word "excited," in

French it means horny or turned on. And so, the new trainees get

off the plane and go around telling the training staff how "tres

excité" they are. During the host family adoption ceremony in

one

of the training village, attended by all the family's and town

leaders, the trainee speaker made note of how very sexually aroused

they were to be arriving in the village.

Soon, all of us began to speak franglais, simply because it

makes more sense to us to blend the languages together, and all the

trainees (stagiares) are on the same page. (ie, After I'm

affectéd,

my objectif will be to sensibilize the villageois about palu.) Once

I was speaking to another stagiare after we were offered a shower

and asked her, "Imane, are you gonna go douche?"

Another stagiare in my village fell quite ill one night while

in her host family. Only the father was there, and he only spoke

Mooré. She flipped frantically through her Mooré notebook,

and then

told him with urgency, "I need a midwife!"

One of the girls in Boussouma would shrug her shoulders when

she didn't understand what her host mothers were telling her, or

when a kid in her courtyard would cry when he saw her (her mom liked

to joke to the kid that the nasara was there to eat him). Whereas to

us a shrug means "I don't know," here it's more along the lines

of "I don't give a shit."

Sometimes non-verbal communications can hit the mark better

than anything else, however. On her third night with her host

family, while eating, Trinelle suddenly puked involuntarily on her

host father's leg. Not only did the family never again serve her To,

but they also placed a bucket by the dinner table for the next

week. Maybe I should have taken this approach to express my opinion

of the fish powder that my host mom went out of her way to put in all

my food.

COMING OUT IN THE PEACE CORPS IS HARD TO DO

If you're a Republican! Nobody gives a shit that I'm gay.

There are, however, rumors going around about right-wingers in our

midst. And, believe it or not, some have even outed themselves.

They're people too... I guess.

Some of us believe that the Peace Corps is actually a deep-

rooted right-wing conspiracy to round up all of the bright,

motivated, idealistic progressives in America and ship them off to

the most remote places in the world.

Now I hate to get political. But consider this. Peace

Corp's annual budget is something along the lines of $350 million.

This to send thousands of Americans out into the world to live with

local people, share their culture and work with them towards

sustainable development. Compare this to any other government

expenditure (say, the $80some billion to blow up iraq) and you'll

see that it's actually taxpayer money fairly well spent. Now Bush

publicly recognized the value of Peace Corps and advocated doubling

its size over the next few years, and then soon after slashed its

budget. Thanks, Bush. Now I can't get AC in my hut!!

As you head to the polls on 2 november, take a moment to

think of me, sweating my ass off in a hut in Africa, and ask

yourself: could this have been avoided? Thank you.

PLEASE SEND ME STUFF

Many of you have written to ask what you can do to support

development work abroad. The answer is: send me stuff. You can

send anything with the following exceptions:

*Peanuts

*Millet

If you'd like more specifics, since I'll be starting to cook my own

food, it'd be great to have spices, sauce mixes, etc. anything that

can be made by just adding water. I'll happily read anything you

send. I'll have a lot of time to devote to developing myself as a

human being, so if you send me Contortionism for Dummies, by the end

of two years I'll certainly be able to wrap my legs around my

head. Want me to learn the accordion? Ship one over along with

Accordion for Dummies and it will happen. You get the idea. Photos

are always good, and fun to share with the people.

My new address is:

Philippe Gosselin, PCV

s/c CSPS de Zamsé

Districte Medical de Zorgho

BP 34 Zorgho

Burkina Faso

(West Africa)

Anything sent to the old address will still get to me, but may take

me longer to get to.

Really, beyond stuff, I'm happy just to hear from you. Again, I must

include a caveat. Here's an example of what NOT to write:

"Robert and I came back from Cleveland last night. It was a

very nice

weekend. We stayed at the Residence Inn ... There was a

fully equipped kitchen with pots/pans and dishes, stove, microwave,

dishwasher.... there were 2 queen size beds, a dining table with 4

chairs, a

working desk, a full size sofa and stuffed chair, 3 steps to go up in

the bathroom; the

ceilings were at least 12 feet high with windows from floor to

ceilings... it

was huge! It even included a full buffet

breakfast, including: eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, bagels..., make

your own

wafles, real oatmeal, fresh fruit salad, yogourts, assorted fruits. I

hope I am

not torturing you with this..."

Mom... That's just cruel.

All right, off I go to my village, in a matter of hours. I will try

sneak to email at some point during my 3 months of exile, but from

here on out the opportunities will be fewer and farther between.

I wish you all the best!

Love,

Philippe

Hey folks!

Welcome to my inaugural Real World Ouagadougou email! I had wanted

to get this up and running sooner, but since they don't see the value

of "free time" in Peace corps training, I haven't been able to. I'm

already halfway through my 12 weeks of training, and I've just come

back from a weeklong visit to my future site, a village about 140 km

east of ouaga with around 2500 people... and not much else. I'm sure

I'll have plenty to say about that in a later email. For now I'll

try to cover the major aspects of where I'm livin. Like:

WHERE THE HELL IS BURKINA FASO?

Good question! It's landlocked, situated between Ghana, Cote

d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Benin and Togo. Don't know where any of those

are either? Then I cant really help you. Burkina is about the size

of Colorado, and has a population around 13 million. Ouagadougou is

the capital, and the other major city is Bobo-Dioulasso, in the

south. Interesting tidbit: The UN publishes an annual ranking of

countries called the Human Development Index, based on their wealth,

development, health care, quality of life, etc etc. This year Canada

topped the list, followed by Sweden and Norway, and the US at 4th or

so. Out of 177 countries, Burkina came in at 175. That means this

place is POOR. (The two countries in last place were Niger and good

ol Sierra Leone)

THE WEATHER

It's hot, man. There's no AC. Today it was hovering around 100.

It's not pleasant to go to bed and wake up sweating. We're in the

rainy season, which cools things down a bit, so we're generally

grateful when it rains (as are the 90% of the population who survive

on subsistence farming; if it doesn't rain now, they don't eat

later). Just as we're starting to feel refreshed, and the

temperature drops below 80, the Burkinabe (Ber-KEE-na-bay) locals

start to shiver and break out their winter jackets. Talk about thin

blood! There's also a hot season... That'll arrive in April. Wish

me luck.

THE FOOD

Carbs and oil. Lots and lots of carbs and oil. No atkins here. We

get a lot of rice, sometimes spaghetti or couscous, all doused in

oil. But the national dish in Burkina is called To. Let me tell you

a little bit about To. To might best be described as a cross between

Cream of Wheat and Tofu. You scoop it up out of a communal pot, roll

it up into a ball, and dip it into a slimy green "snot sauce" made of

okra, baobob leaves and MSG. My host family prepares To for me every

night for dinner. MMMmmm. To is made from millet, the national

crop, better known back home as birdseed. The millet grain is

pounded for hours, stripped of its nutrients, and then boiled until

it's transformed into the succulent gelatinous dish, that tastes

rather like nothing. Would it not be easier for them to cook Indian

food? This I wonder.

THE LANGUAGE

With my amazing french, I must be getting along just fine, hmm? Not

so fast. French here is only spoken by the people who've been

through at least elementary school... so guess what. Outside of the

cities, not many people speak it, least of all women, and especially

not in a village of 2500. During my site visit, I nodded a lot and

came up with a number of variations on mmm hmm. I had a deaf and mute

guy come by my hut (nicer than you imagine) to greet me. For half an

hour. He made a lot of broad gestures, which didn't make any sense

to me, and I wondered what I was supposed to do with him. But later

I realized, my conversation with him was about as good as any of my

attempts at communication with others! At least he couldn't hear me

slaughtering his language.

There are a good 50 or so native regional languages here.

I'm learning the main one, Mooré. Some facts about Mooré:

It's the

only language (in my knowledge) in which you can say that the sky is

green and the trees are blue without raising an eyebrow. There's a

serious lack of words to describe colors, and mass confusion as to

which is which. A guy walked by in a purple shirt, and we asked 2

local guys what color it was in Mooré. One said it was red, the

other guy said green. Maybe they're all just colorblind. There are,

however, 3 verbs for "to chew" (depending on what exactly it is

you're masticating) and 3 or so each for aunt and uncle (depending on

whose side of the family and whether it's your parent's older or

younger sibling--but if it's your dad's older brother, you just call

him dad, cause that's how the familial chain of command works).

People here also have an annoying habit of stating the

obvious. They'll tell you something, and you'll look around for

someone who speaks french to translate, and it'll be something

like: "you came to the market!" or "you drank water!" Yes, yes I did.

MY CELEBRITY

I'm white. People like to point this out all the time. One of the

first words we learned in Mooré was Nasara, which means Whitey.

As I

bike around my village, I hear lots of "Whitey! what's up?" "How's

it goin whitey?" Or just a mob of children darting in front of my

bike screaming "NAAASAAARAAAAAAAA!" and trying to shake my hand.

Many a time I'll hear the familiar shout, and glance around to see

where it's coming from, and it'll be a little kid waving to me from a

couple hundred yards away. It's slightly disconcerting the first

time a little girls face lights up when you ride by, and smiling

shouts "Nasara, bonjour!" while squatting over a puddle of urine on

the side of the cowpath.

Now, it's flattering to get all this attention and get little

kids lining up the shake my hand everywhere I go. I'll try not to

let it go to my head. But it's not easy being a rockstar (shed a

tear of pity for me). I'm luckier than the 4 gals in my training

village who live in polygamous family units with 20 or so kids

hanging around. They get audiences crowding around as they write in

diaries or take a trip to the latrine ("you went to the bathroom!")

DEEP THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

There sure are a lot of black people in Africa!

WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU IN THE BROCHURE

Peace Corps Burkina Faso is #1! in africa for cases of diarrhea

amongst volunteers. My training group of 28 experienced this first

hand on our 3rd night in country, when just about everyone was

getting in line for the communal bathrooms, puking out of both ends,

after contracting food poisioning... and the runs have just continued

since then! At the very least it's been a bonding experience, to the

point which we feel quite comfortable talking candidly about our

poop. Out of our entire training group, I think I'm the only one

who'se yet to come down with some horrible invasive intestinal

parasite (knock on wood!) Not bad for 6 weeks in Africa. I just

keep wondering when my stomach will give out.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY LAST POINT

Living here for 6 weeks has certainly given me a new perspective on

what's truly important in life: Toilets. The food I can handle, the

heat I can cope with, but damn. I miss the toilets. None of this

aiming for a hole in the ground crap for me. I miss all of you, of

course. but I really miss the toilets. Luxury is a raised flushing

toilet (with a seat) and a copy of Entertainment Weekly.

So by this point I'm sure you're all wondering, when can I come

visit?? I can't get guests until after at least 3 months in my

village. That means, plan your trips starting in February!

I've got lots more to talk about... So you'll just have to wait to

hear about Sex and the Village and Burkinabe Watch. And maybe

something about just what I'm supposed to be doing here! I'm always

happy to hear from you. Seriously. (And I heard a rumor going

around that I can't receive care packages, but that's simply not

true.) Let me know what's goin on at home, cuz I'm a little out of

the loop.

Take care!

--Philippe