Disclaimer: The contents of this blog present the opinions of the author only. The opinions expressed herein are not those of the Peace Corps, the United States government, or any other agency. If you have a problem with anything posted here, your problem is with me, and with no one else.

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Hello all,

Just to tell you all that I made it to ouagadougou just fine, going to

be in ouahigouya for training soon, Internet access may be limited.

Nicer than Afghanistan by far, roughly as poor though.

Stay safe,

René

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Hi all,

Composed this list to keep people informed. If you want to be removed

(or added, if this was forwarded from someone else) let me know.

Likewise, please do not reply with forwards, like jokes, "charity"

chain letters, etc.

Responding individually will be rare for the next few months of

training, which so far seems more worthwhile than my BA in psych.

I am here to be a Small Enterpsise Development advisor. The Burkinabé

people are really nice, unnervingly so. The country is also dirt

poor, but not depressing like Afghanistan, by far.

I'll post more later

René

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Hello all,

More details of what I'm up to. The country I'm in is Burkina Faso

(landlocked nation in west Africa). From my "civilianized" résumé

(mostly PSYOP) I got the job of small business advisor, or will be

once I swear in. Lot of training first, and I Don't have time for

this Internet stuff regularly.

They tested me in French, and I did well enough to start with Mooré

also. I have been adopted by a Burkinabé family. "Dad" is around my

age, speaks French, and has a wife and 6 year old daughter that is

learning French (speaks Mooré). They are all Muslim, except his mom,

who is Catholic, and speaks only Mooré. There are 67 other languages

in Burkina, and many ethnicities. Tolerance is #1 as far as religion

goes. The Burkinabé are quite possibly the friendliest people I have

ever known. And so much has happened in the last week that I just

don't know what more to say.

Stay safe, and send this email around to anyone interested,

René

-----------------------------------------

Now, as far as what's been going on...

On Saturday I helped start a credit and savings club. It was awfully

easy, I guess the hard part is finding motivated people with enough in

common to get the thing going. The Burkinabé organize easily and they

don't kid around with club rules. They seem pretty relaxed, with a

similar "in shah Allah" attitude that the Afghans have, but when it

comes to organizing and working with "le blanc", the motivation just

catches me off guard. Almost makes it feel like saving the world here

will be a breeze!

Sunday was chill day. We paid 1000CFA ($2) to swim in the pool of the

local hotel. It was wonderful. And I got sunburn. And I will go

swimming again next and every Sunday if I can (and wear my sunblock

from now on, because I do have to bike with a backpack everywhere).

Also, I made a toast to Jon Santos & SSG Owen. The shotglass I had

bought for Jon, and now keep for him, I left at home, but my mom

bought me one to bring over. Plastic baggies of whisky shots are

available in many shops (many beverages are sold that way). JW red is

also available pretty cheap, but I want to avoid bringing a bottle of anything into my mostly Muslim household.

Today Monday I visited a handicapped artisans association shop, named Bang N Tum (I forget what it means). One artisan was making aluminum pots (artisan in this culture is anyone who makes stuff). He made his molds out of dirt. Pounded the shape into it, poured in the metal, cooled it, voi la, a pot. A pretty facinating process, considering the limited resources. Another artisan made patiques, cloth dyed with designs in many colors. His hands were scarred with lye burns that reminded me of the movie 'Fight Club'. He used gloves when he showed us his dyeing process.

Impressions and so forth: I compare with Afghanistan a lot. Afghanistan was a war-scarred mix of pre-biblical and modern that just left a post-apocalyptic taste in my mouth. Burkina never got that built up, and it never got torn down. The Burkinabé are pretty proud of their recent history, since it has been relatively peaceful. So it's bizarre to watch TV here. Every local show has a family that looks as poor as my family, in a clay house that looks like my clay house. The commercials are really low budget. Marketing here could go a really long way. But most of the products peddled are worth like $0.20 anyway. Afghanistan was blown up connexes and mudhuts with vendors dressed like Joseph and Mary selling Cokes next to the remains of a Soviet tank. Africa is that same National Geographic topless woman with tribal scars on her face and the baby strapped to her back, pounding away at grain in a giant mortar, suddenly whipping out a cell phone that is beeping butchered Beethoven.More than one trainee has gotten up from the cybercafe, walked out into the searing heat, and goats, and vultures flying around like pidgeons, and asked "Someone tell me again, where the hell am I?"

We have only had one female quit so far. She rarely talked to anyone,

and it is my understanding that she also chaptered out of the Army

BCT, and then also "quit" the airforce after a year. Everyone thought

leaving was the best thing for her. All who remain are in pretty good

spirits, despite the heat, the language barriers, and the diarrhea.

I'm fine now, thanks.

Some food is ok, the ñame is good. The rice just needs salt. The

omelet sandwiches are really nice.

Tô sucks. Tô tastes like what it sounds like. Tô is African grits,

with no flavor beyond that of boiled water, and it is served with a

baobab slime sauce. I finally got my family to stop serving it to me.

Salads have to be avoided, but they can be good if you want to brave

it.

Mephloquine Monday! I am on Mephloquine AKA Lariam, and at all times

it seems, someone near me has malaria. I am fairly certain that I

have the parasite in my system now, and that I will get malaria if I

miss a dose of Lariam. It seems like a common thing for volunteers to

get. I intend never to miss a dose of my beloved insanity inducing

malarial prophylaxis.

Many more fun things have happened so far, but I rarely have a chance

to stop and write anything down.

Further details for contact: My phone service provider is CelTel. I

am not charged for receiving calls or text messages. My time zone is

GMT 0, AKA London, AKA Zulu. If you want to call, please do so in the

evenings for me (mid afternoon and later for east coast US and PR is

fine). I hear calling cards for west Africa can be pretty cheap. I

have no clue what you have to dial to call me from the States, and I

am not responsible for any abuse you may suffer from your phone

service provider if you call me direct. I have not used Skype, but I

hear it works very well, and is one of the cheapest options.

Stay safe,

René

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Busy Busy

Since last time, I visited an HIV/AIDS support organization, AMMIE

(forget what it stands for). I don't know what to compare with, but I

was surprised by how well run this organization was. Stories from

members were all like "I was forced to marry this sick man, and after

he died his family rejected me, and my family treated me like crap,

and I got tested, and turned out HIV+, and my family rejected me too.

By the time I found out of this organization I was gravely ill, not to

mention completely infested with parasites. That was five years ago,

and as you can see, I'm fine now, thanks to AMMIE." Help and

treatment are not out of reach for even the poorest here it seems.

These organizations really seem to have their act together. One way

or another, we all will be working in some type of HIV/AIDS program,

be it awareness, condom distribution, etc.

We have had a lot of interesting classes, including cooking, and soon

they will teach us to make a mud stove. I want to learn how to make

that already, I want to upgrade the kitchen where I live, which

consists of exactly three rocks on the ground, with a fire burning in

the middle.

We visited a radio station today. Was kind of a trip down memory

lane. I will have my own 20 minutes on radio with my group in a week

or two. Our topic is diarrhea =) I'm happy that I will finally be

able to deliver my message myself in the target language.

Mooré class is good, I finally know what my granma has been telling me

all this time before I go out: "Wend na lebg laafi", "May God return

you safely". I have been neglecting a novel I'm supposed to be

reading for French class.

And now I have a class, so I might as well take my notes right here!

Information & Comunications Technology:

Local Cyber cafés - services provided: WWW access, data entry,

computer classes, Air Conditioning, some even have cold drinks for

sale.

Some have a limited interface, some give you full access to the OS.

Some are windows, some are Linux. If the place has no AC, then

workstations are prone to breaking down.

Costs are variable, 500F an hour here (about $1) but more expensive in

small villages, and cheaper in big cities.

Radio Stations - Voix Du Paysan - Focuses on the agricultural/farming

audience. People pay for ads like "I lost a cow, around the village

of X, it looks like so...". 8 people work full time, 24 part time.

Range of 100Km, sometimes broadcasts all the way to Mali. Software

used is Sony Soundforge. Government gives them a grant every year

(but this year they forgot to put in the paperwork and are not getting

any money) they also make money from advertising. They have a lot of

programming for educating and informing the audience, such as proper

farming practices, HIV/AIDS, female genital mutilation (which is still

done here, and is a leading cause of HIV infection).

They are really open to ideas, and had no problems making room for us

to go and talk one day on the air about diarrhea.

ICT activities I can try: getting more merchants to use phones,

establishing new cybercafés, [me personally, I want to look into

getting local artwork merchants to sell wares online]

Costs of a computer: More than double what one costs in the US.

Mainly due to high import taxes, since most people bringing in a lot

of computers are rich and/or foreign (which in this country, are

invariably also rich). Internet costs are a little crazy too: FasoNet

is 17700F a month, for dialup access, and add to that around 1200F a

minute(!) for a phone connection.

A cyber café is much more reasonable than Internet at home.

We will be getting a guide to computers in French, so I can say stuff

like "Double click the icon there". People learn variably here.

People with cell phones will have an easier time learning how to use a

computer it seems.

And I just got my "Trainee Directed Activities" notebook back. I have

to turn that in every week, with responses to a bunch of questions I

have to ask my family about their lives & businesses (dad has an art

craft store, mom sells sugared peanuts and coco au lait).

tick tock tick tock

like two days have passed and I still have not sent this out, so I'll

just make this email longer:

I also had an impressive class on agriculture in Africa from an

American PhD student that just happened to be in the area. Chances

are high that I will also work in Agrobusiness in one way or another.

I had an interview to help determine my placement in the country to

work. Basically, the information and communication tech stuff is what

grabbed my attention the most, and that is in the bigger cities. But,

I always stress that I don't mind working with whatever. I am more at

home with the ICT stuff, but I may discover I have a knack for

agribusines, or putting together credit and savings clubs, or doing

any of the things I am learning. And while I did pack optimistically

(regarding electricity) I can live without it. There are places I can

go to charge my laptops (yeah, I brought two, and other volunteers are

jealous. Apparently not a bad move here at all) near every village.

So I still don't know where I will be placed. There are people

requesting to be placed out in the boonies as far from light polution

as possible, and there are people who want to live like urban

princesses. And the Peace Corps is going to try to make everyone as

happy as possible. Let's see how that goes.

Mooré class yesterday was silly. We learned to count stuff, and

money, and that is not the same. Nu is five. Like, five chairs or

whatever. But it is also 25 Francs. Basically, multiply by five when

talking about money. So we need dictionaries and calculators to speak

this ancient tribal language. Class gave me a headache, saying 1337

Francs in Mooré is hard enough, doing the math to say it in French

about wore me out. And I may have to teach accounting in this

country... In Mooré (or Fulfulde, or Jula, or something else...)

Another day. Went to the marché (market) to buy stuff for our cooking

class. We made fajitas and banana bread. While at the marché I drank

zom koom (millet water beverage) and I checked on the progress of a

shirt and pants I'm getting made.

Also had a meeting with my savings and credit club, which I helped

start a while back. We also have a project for an income generating

activity, and we offered our idea (5 dried spice mix, popular kind of

thing here) to the group, and see if they feel like carrying it out.

If they end up making money, then all is good with us. I also plan

on making those nifty fly catchers I saw in Qatar, this country needs

them, and if a Burkinabé can make money making them, all the better.

And I had two encounters with locals who needed my English ability to

leave Burkina for work and school (one to the US, another to the

Netherlands).

And I was hit on by at least three women in various locations. I

haggled over the price of one of them with her brother in Mooré. She

cracked up when I said "barse, barse" (too much, lower the price for

me). I think he was saying he was giving her away for free.

And our cooking teacher (French Canadian) told us about how she never

expected to marry someone from West Africa, but did, and has been here

for 11 years.

;-)

And I think that is it for now, more later.

Stay safe,

René

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We finally know where we are going to be working for the next two years.

During my placement interview I requested a medium sized town, in the

south, electricity would be nice but not required. But I can be

flexible about all that, I could do something I already know, or

something totally new, like microfinance related stuff. I'm sure I'd

get the hang of whatever is thrown at me. And I can and I'm willing to

work in a structured environment.

I got Ouagadougou (formerly spelled Wagadugu, pronounced wagadoogoo),

capital of Burkina Faso.

Three of us will be working here. The other 35 are scattered accross

the country, in towns and villages of all sizes.

One volunteer in Ouaga will be working with artisans associations,

another with children's services of some kind. I will work with an

NGO, A.SU.DE.C (Africa's Sustainable Development Council). They do

stuff all accross the board - from health services, to agriculture

training, to microfinance - but emphasis seems to be on educating the

population about all that is available for them to do to improve their

situation in a self-sustaining way.

Among other things I don't know yet (which may become the bulk of my

work) I will also be doing website maintenance, and helping write

success stories about the stuff they do (ring any bells, anyone?).

We all went to Ouaga to find this stuff out, and I was lucky to be

able to visit my site right away. My office will be down the street

from the Peace Corps office.

Drawbacks: Pullution is nasty. Like Afghanistan, but with a little

more diesel fumes.

Everything is more expensive.

Crime is higher than in a smaller town. On our first night out in

Ouaga, a few hours after we were warned about the assortment of

thieves that roam the streets, a purse snatcher did his thing in the

cab I was sitting in, grabbing a trainees purse and dashing for it,

but only to get stomped by three volunteers that were standing outside

(they tripped him and stood on his back until police came. A local

punched him in the scuffle, and odds are the police beat the crap out

of the thief afterwards). The trainee lost none of her cash, but was

pretty rattled by the whole thing.

Details of ... protocol to note so far: If a thief is stopped, stolen

items dropped on the floor will not be touched by anyone (but the

owner). In a bar, a bottle will not be opened if whoever is going to

drink it is not watching it get opened.

A lot of Lebanese and European expats in the city. I can actually buy

a hookah and all related items at the supermarket. And there is a

regular Burkinabé market where I can shop for the ingredients I will

cook with. And there is a Vietnamese family in the city as well

(their story was one of great hardship, starting at the Ivory Coast

during the Vietnam war, and ending here in Burkina in a very

successful restaurant) And they have recao (cilantro) growing in

their front yard, which they imported from Vietnam. They got

Burkinabé citizenship just last year.

I will be paid more for being in the city, but probably not enough for

me to be able to afford to eat Indian, Lebanese, Vietnamese, Mexican,

or whatever every day. Pho here is not as cheap as it is in the

States.

I got back to Ouahigouya yesterday. I will continue to study here for

another month, then I will swear in, go on a study period to my site,

then return here to get more technical training, for a few weeks, then

back to Ouaga.

More later,

René

------------------------------------------

Hi all,

I'll just pick something random to start with:

The Burkinabé like to look good. Well, to a westerner good would be

subjective.

The Burkinabé like to wear bright, colorful, new-looking clothing.

They typically dress better than the average westerner for everyday

work or walks through town. Women that do not spend time or money on

their hair, wrap it in colorful headdress that matches their clothes.

The most basic garment is the pagne, usually just a piece of cloth

with a colorful pattern. In its most basic form, the pagne is used as

a skirt by women, simply wrapped around the waist and folded down a

little at the top to keep it in place. Female volunteers have been

wearing these from the start. Both men and women will have garments

made from pagnes. It is interesting to note that few patterns, if

any, are gender exclusive. Male volunteers are already having shirts

and pants made. My set cost around $8.25 (fabric and tailoring) and I

have only worn it on a couple of occasions. I will most likely wear

it for the swearing in ceremony. No female volunteers have worn any

pagne dresses yet.

Burkina Faso was rated by some big international body (UN

something-or-other I think) as being the 3rd poorest country in the

world (Afghanistan was number one, I think). Someone mentioned to me

recently, that his exellency Blaise Compaoré, president du Faso, now

on his third term, which is one more than the constitution here

allows, is one of the world's richest presidents. He has already

paved way to running a fourth time, thanks to the supreme court.

Pagnes and t-shirts with his face and party logo are very, very

popular. And the Burkinabé all laugh, some a little nervously like my

host father, when asked who killed the previous president (plus a

journalist and a singer who criticized Blaise). "Nobody knows!" they

say, with the exact same intonation and eye rolling as if they had

asked me to "Guess who!"

At least the people here are not really hungry. Malnutrition here is

merely due to ignorance. In the city where I am in, one can see a

child here or there with the classic Care commercial distended

bellies, or ladies with goiters, like my host grandmother. (After my

first informal sensibilisation, my family here is now adding iodized

salt to all of her meals.)

Kids here unfortunately, are typically fed crap. They often get only

leftovers and/or plain rice or tô (water and grain-flour "cream" not

unlike grits, and most often also made with corn, but sometimes millet

or sorghum.) [I got to try gourmet igname/yam/ñame tô, which is not

bad at all, and much healthier.] As a result of a protein and vitamin

deficient diet, kids often show signs of malnutrition. Beans,

peanuts, tomatoes, and a great variety of other foods like these grow

in every garden. Most health volunteers have as much of a background

in that as I do in business. Truly, what the Burkinabé need is just

someone with knowledge to walk around and teach them common sense and

dispel ignorance.

The word they use for this is sensibilisation. I have taken part in

at least two official ones: One over the radio, and one at my house.

The one over the radio was fun. I finally got to do what they never

let me do in Afghanistan: Sing to the target audience about diarrhea.

I also spoke as "village woman #2". All in French. I will supposedly

get audio files of this, which already played on the air. When I get

them, I will pass them on to you for your enjoyment, and benefit.

Remember, pour eviter la diarrhée, lave tes mains!

My other sensibilisation was about mud stoves. You all saw the

pictures of the kitchen at my house. The mud stove is basically a

more efficient version. A wall built around the fire to concentrate

heat, protect against wind, and overall reduce wood consumption (which

my family buys). So this morning I was helping mix 4 parts clay, with

one part water, one part hay, and one part manure. Yes! Join the Peace

Corps today, and you too can play with poo!

At least they are washing their hands before handling food pretty much

every time I take notice (remember, no running water, and they eat

everything with their hands) and meat is cooked fully everywhere here

(unlike in Rumania, where I never got a fully cooked piece of chicken

anywhere). Flies are a problem, and I am working on recreating some

nifty fly catchers I saw in Qatar. If I succeed in making them work,

I will pitch the idea to local vendors to make and sell (I can't

profit, of course).

The vast majority of goods for sale here seems to be made here, or

somewhere not too far here in West Africa. There are many notable

imports, like Laughing Cow cheese, and Guinness (Guinness Malta is

also available). Local beer is pretty good, and it is spoiling me:

Twice the size of an American beer, more alcoholic, and only a dollar.

Can't afford to get wasted, of course (and after drinking a bottle of

"sangría" that tasted like fruity Mannischewitz, plus a couple of

beers, I am going to watch what I put into my system from now on...

and if you must ask why I drank that, the simple answer: it was cold).

The weather is getting cooler. Roughly 80° in my room right now. My

host parents are now dressing up at night, with jackets even.

Occasionally a Burkinabé will don a puffy winter jacket if the

temperature dips to like 83° during the day. My family is convinced

that they can never visit Europe because the cold will kill them

immediately.

Stuff runs out. My mother in Puerto Rico once commented how people on

Vieques island will work only enough to make the little bit of money

necessary to get by, then close shop for the rest of the week.

Laziness like that is not very different here. More remarkable

however, is when stuff simply "runs out". On more than one occasion,

I have had to get up and walk to another restaurant, because they "ran

out of food" at the very beginning of lunch hour. In many cases, I

believe this really means that the chef ate lunch early, and is now in

'repos' or siesta (The Burkinabé enjoy a 3 hour lunch break, and some

do not bother to go back to work afterwards.)

Locally made stuff is often crappy. I spent a good ten minutes trying

to cut a toenail yesterday with a nail clipper I bought here. I gave

up. I bought a 'Much Bazooka' power adapter and extension cord here.

It fell from a height of two feet. It no longer works. My 'Super

Force' fan is working well still, I pray it survives transport to

Ouagadougou.

On the 22nd I move back to ECLA (Être comme les autres, some kind of

local NGO that works with everybody, kind of like ASUDEC that I will

be working with), where our training is based here in Ouahigouya. We

stayed there for a couple of nights before moving in with our host

families. I believe we will go to ECLA, swear in, then travel to our

sites for our étude period of two months, then back here for a few

more weeks of training, then back to our sites. I have to find out

how this is affecting our term of service, since we are swearing in a

little earlier. One thing I really like about the Peace Corps is that

we have an absurdly small amount of money, so great care is taken to

eliminate bullshit and make sure our training is relevant, and our

trainers and schedule are very flexible, and dependant on our

feedback. If the US Government gave the Peace Corps a

visible fraction of the money the Army gets, we would pretty much

automatically lose freedom and flexibility with our funds.

Oh well.

It seems paradoxical. I do feel as well taken care of as when I was

with the Army; if a volunteer gets sick, the treatment and handling is

the same (one criterium for selecting a work and training site is that

there has to be a field or something that makes a medevac possible),

and they take care to make sure I get fed three meals a day. And if I

request any kind of medical item, I will get it (including a packet of

orange flavored Gatorade, interestingly enough. Hydration is

important, and I request these daily). And they move all my stuff to

my site for me, so buying my furniture here in training is

recommended. But how am I getting to my site?

By BUS!

The volunteers working in the bush have it worse. A group of health

trainees were in a bush taxi van when it tipped over. None of the

trainees were hurt, and we all enjoyed hearing their story about the

lady that got out of the bus first, after stepping on peoples heads to

get out of a window, only to pop her head back in to demand that

someone hand her her phone.

I haven't had so much exitement... I tumbled off my bike once when a

car nearly hit me, and I spent a couple of hours the other day fixing

my first flat tire. After patching seven holes, I was given a new

tube. Thorns are the biking PCVs' mortal enemy. Well, not really

mortal, but health PCVs already living in village are sick of fixing

flats. My family quickly grabbed my flat and refashioned it into a

water hose for the metal drum that they wheel to the local well for

water. Pretty much nothing goes to waste here, and we fat, rich

westerners have to watch what we do with our garbage. Female

volunteers have already seen kids running around with tampon

applicators in their mouths.

I have to bring my laptop to the cybercafé and continue to download

Ouagadougou in Google earth.

I ate caterpillars last night. It is a delicacy in the southwest here.

I don't need to eat them again.

I have not received any physical mail yet, though to my understanding,

some is on the way. It's taking its sweet time.

And an ATM ate my card, just because. I won't be able to ask any bank

about it for a while though, not until I get back to Ouaga. I did not

feel like asking the guard about it at the time (Actually stands at

the ready with a shotgun while you are standing on his red tiles

getting your money).

I hate automation sometimes.

But I got paid $118 for the next two weeks today, so all is good =D

More later,

René

------------------------------------------

Notes:

To call me: dial direct 011 226 76 18 50 77, but calling cards are way

cheaper. 226 is the country code, and everything after it is my

personal cell phone number.

To mail me: AIR MAIL

Rene A. Prieto Polymeris

Corps De La Paix Americain

01 BP 6031 Ouagadougou 01

Burkina Faso (West Africa)

(Air Mail or better only, anything sent surface mail will never arrive)

To get added to this mailing list if someone forwarded this to you:

Just let me know -

To get removed from this mailing list: same

To reply, ask questions, or communicate in general: Same. Due to my

current salary of $3 a day, I can't afford the $1 per hour Internet

very often, and the connection is slow, so I may answer questions in

the general mail rather than reply individually, but I am always

looking forward to reading your messages. I'm sure when I get to my

site, I will be able to respond and mail more individually.