Actually, not quite yet... I’ve still got over $3000 to spend.

For those of you who contributed to the Life Skills project, you’ll be glad to know that by the end of June all of your money – if I do say so myself – will have been well-spent.

Here’s a rough summary of costs to give you an idea of how we organized this year-long project:

Training of trainers (November-December): $1700

Five-six months of classes and clubs: in-kind or free

Monitoring and follow-up: in-kind or free

Mid-term evaluation (April): $500

Final evaluation (June) including gifts of mentoring books and soccer balls for the Life Skills schools: $2800

Follow-up Project Design and Management training for school inspectors (July): $900

(Actually this last item is not your money but USAID funding)

Our final event will take place on June 29 and will involve not only all of the educators and tradesmen trained to teach Life Skills but also approximately two dozen representatives from NGOs or other international organizations that work in girls’ education and empowerment, HIV/AIDS, family planning or youth. Money originally budgeted to bolster classes and clubs (which turned out to be free) will now be used to host this large-scale event. We will invite local authorities and the press. There will be food and non-alcoholic drink. Most of all there will be lofty speeches and lots of extremely late-to-arrive important men.

Why organize such a protocol headache instead of just giving out LOTS of books and girls soccer balls as gifts? Sustainability. (Here’s hoping!) This workshop will be designed to showcase our “pilot program” before potential collaborators, donors and advocates. It will provide an opportunity for the people I have worked with to connect with other organizations with similar missions and interests.

The day will include presentations on our pilot project; a short peer-educator skit performed by students; two ice-breaker/ group challenges demonstrated by select apprentices; and the main event – a two hour debate (round table discussion?) on how Life Skills educators and attending organizations can collaborate.

I am excited about the project’s end and hoping hard that the event will be great. The people I’ve worked with are enthusiastic and generous but it is difficult to maintain motivation without some outside influence. They could teach Life Skills, or not. Frankly it’s easier to have a free period.

But if we get people talking, if Peace Corps gives this town volunteer replacements, if the trainers develop relationships with Population Services International, UNDP, Plan International and UNICEF… maybe this “pilot” education project will make a long-term dent.

The woman next door yells at her teenage sons. Her name is Olga. I call her "Mama". She owns my house and we occasionally sit and chat.

Last night Mama explained the latest ways her sons, daughter and family all drive her up the wall. The boys never listen; when she gets home from work all the dishes are dirty; the children lack humility; the daughter is too fat; and the cousins expect her to take care of the latest sick relative. I sometimes listen to her yelling and notice that she almost never calls each son's name less than twice. On the first times, I suppose they don't come.

Mama's husband died over a year ago after a long illness that robbed him of the abilities to talk and walk beyond a few steps for eleven years. She feels that she was robbed of what would have been the easiest years of her marriage. Mama is tired of illness and tired of men. She is tired of cooking for people and dealing with the attitudes of her teenagers. She is tired of working at the health clinic all day and wishes she could take a vacation to go anywhere but doesn't have the money.

Mama has a good job - hygiene assistant responsible for teaching the local population about environmental cleanliness, personal hygiene, family planning and heath maintenance. She is university educated. She can get by with a bit of English. But people have lost the respect they used to have for hygienists in her position. No one listens. She is grateful, nonetheless, for a job where she makes rounds in the community rather than sits tied to a desk. She is grateful to have at least one daughter who helps her at the house, begrudgingly, when she is home from university in Lomé. She is grateful for the grace of God. Like many Togolese, Mama is passionately Christian and proudly vocal about her beliefs in Jesus. We say grace each time before eating together and she tries to drag me off to church when I am not off to Lomé on a Sunday morning.

She gives me advice not realizing what my real Mama has long since known: I won't listen when I know I'm being told what to do. Even if she knew, it wouldn't stop her; the culture of unasked for advice is different here than in America. Advice comes free in West Africa. Mama tells me to enjoy the silence, the calm and the time alone in my life while I still can since one day I'll have "little Americans" running around, driving me crazy and refusing to be quiet or leave me alone. She seems to approve of my apparent senses of adventure and charity that have brought me all the way here to Togo. She would have liked to visit a place like America but knows that she will now never have the chance.

Mama's job is similar to mine in that she reaches out to people beyond her organization. She says the people in her household could use advice in leading lives that are healthy and sane since they're all so disobedient and unhelpful. She says I should enjoy my time alone now, go home, get married and have little Americans.

Things in this land of beans and rice are going well, at least for me. It has been a little over three months since the big training and so far my teachers are doing well! In April we will get together as a large group for the first time since November to conduct the second workshop – Mid-term Evaluation. There we will talk about Life Skills via exchanges on best practices; problems encountered; proposed solutions and techniques for behavior change.

On Thursday Togo had its presidential elections. Although we Peace Corps Volunteers are obligated to stay away from political gathers and advised to avoid gatherings of any kind during political times… I took a little spin on my bike the day of the elections and the day after to check out the mayhem. In fact, I saw nothing of interest on my mid-day rides (I should have gone first thing in the morning to catch the real voting action!) but I did take a moment to appreciate the feeling of calm before the storm.

Last time Togo held elections in 2005, violence ensued and hundreds of people were killed in protests and riots following the elections. This time around, so far, things have been relatively calm. There were allegedly grenades and guns shots on Saturday in one neighborhood of the capital but other than that we’ve heard next to nothing. So it appears that: this year’s free and unfair election will pass without serious bloodshed; the European Union election supervisors will declare the process non-transparent; nothing will change and everyone will move on.

Despite the political climate, my little world turns. I’ve been making rounds to the high schools to observe our educators teaching Life Skills. In every class, I say a few words, usually at the end of the lesson but sometimes in the beginning or middle too. After it is over, I have either a one-on-one or a small group meeting to give feedback.

In the French system feedback is generally more direct – much less praise and much more critique. The grading system is x/20 where a decent and passing grade is 12/20 and 10/20 is not good but also not failure. As an American can you imagine getting 60% on a test and thinking that this was decent? So needless to say, my feedback sessions are usually a pleasure for everyone. True to my American form I start with a heck of a lot of praise, I think that went very well… I appreciated that you did this… I’m glad that this came across like that… and by the time I get to the actual criticisms they are so buried in fluff that everyone walks away feeling great about the session!

I don’t know about the effectiveness of my technique but the bottom line is this: I can’t teach teachers how to teach. I try never to forget this. My role has been that of a catalyst, an organizer, a monitor and most importantly perhaps, a heartfelt support. I want these people to want to advance in this work. I want them to feel that they are making change, doing good and accomplishing their small part.

I also want them to quantify their work and figure out how to reach up – in a society where everything comes from the top to the bottom – and touch their superiors through periodic reporting and relevant facts. This is the hardest part. How do you measure behavior change? How do you quantify self confidence? Who is monitoring students’ ability to communicate? Who can evaluate their interactions in private groups? Relationship management and decision making skills are all about teaching these kids to own and shape their futures. There is no easy answer on how to measure all this although the ongoing discussion is vibrant.

Before I started my observation visits – I stopped by each class or group just to introduce myself. Invariably the principal or vice principal would give me a lofty and/or comical introduction…

Here we have Christina Sobiloff the representative for Peace Corps America!

Here we have the white woman I told you about, Life Sills project organisatrice!

Here we have Madame Christina, an American who can speak French!

Here we have Miss Christina, a beautiful woman … look at her kids!

Here we have an American, who will seduce you with her accent in French!

Here we have Sister Christina who is basically a nun!

You may be wondering how I was basically called a seductress and a nun all in the space of one week. I ask myself the same thing. But I recall the words of one of my primary counterparts after the director for the Girls’ Education and Empowerment program gave a speech: she’s seductive, he said, to describe how compelling was the delivery of her message. An American would not have used my counterpart’s word to describe the appeal of the presentation. Seduction and sex would have nothing to do with it. I’m also not sure that is exactly what he meant. But if the intelligent and dynamic director of my program seduces her audience, that’s exactly what I want to do too. Next time, I’ll hope it is with my words and not my accent.

Finally, I’ve tried to explain to the one high school principal who insists on calling me Sister Christina, that I am NOT a nun and there is no need to call me Sister. Nonetheless, he persists. At least in his school the boys aren’t shouting out that they love me, no, surely those young boys understand that I am eternally and faithfully married to God.

What’s the difference between a sick day in West Africa and one in the States?

Twelve colleagues, direct from the workplace, visiting you at home.

That’s right. On Monday I wasn’t feeling well so I called in sick to my morning meeting at the guild. A classic 12-hour stomach bug induced by expired lentils and too much moldy jam – yes embarrassing – but in retrospect, true.

So I lay on the couch, tried not to move, and hoped the electricity would hold out at least for the morning. Of course I should have seen it coming. I should have put on a bra; I should have washed my face and I should have brushed my teeth. But nausea is a great equalizer and the effort of moving from the bed to the couch was enough for the first hour of the morning. Pouring a glass of water to sip was about it for the second.

Of course, around sometime before noon the first two guests came a knocking.

I’m coming… uh yes, hi. How are you. How was the session this morning? Yes I don’t feel great but its fine. You are here to visit, how nice. At this point I sat down in the one weensy corner of shade, on the ground. Sooo, should I get you a chair. Yes? Right. Wait, you say there are more? POURQUOI??? (Out loud, whoops!)

So at this point the effort of standing back up and slipping through the approximately two feet of direct sunlight before heading inside toward the chairs, of course, induced vomiting. Lovely. Just in time for the guests. Two more arrived. Then four more again. Oh hello, how are you all. You came to visit. I’m fine. Really. Now I ran out of chairs and the second thing the president of the guild said to me upon arrival went something like, What?? But there is sunlight here? But… No shade. Where. How. We must go inside. HOW??

OK, fine. Grab the chairs and come in the house that’s fine. Then my counterpart who always graces me with French and never tries to befuddle me in local language goes for the traditional greeting of we are come to visit you, oh sick friend, to give you the encouragement, courage and human company necessary to heal, don’t worry, God will forever hold you in the palm of His magnanimous, beneficent hand so let us pray. And I’ll pray too right after I throw away that moldy jam those expired lentils.

And OK – maybe he didn’t say all this in Ewe and said something else more like Goodmorning. How did you wake up? How are things in your home? But I’ll hear what I want to when my usually wonderful counterpart refuses to communicate in a language that he speaks perfectly and that I understand. AND when, meanwhile, he is leading the troops in a tradition SOO far from AMERICAN that I want to ask all twelve people have you MET me? Who thought this was a GOOD idea?

And anyway, that first thing is totally what they WOULD have said if that had thought of it before hand…

People are very Christian here in Togo. First thing every day my host family listens to church from about 5:30 to 7:00 in the morning except on Sundays when they actually go there and afford me a precious few hours free of depressing, unharmonious chanting bleating from their staticky radio. On weekdays, if I’m still around the house, from about 7:00 onwards in the morning another neighbor takes over Christian radio duty and plays more depressing chants until the sun really starts to get hot.

Luckily I experienced it all yesterday morning when I had my sick day. Thankfully, by late afternoon I felt MUCH better. Well enough to make some margarine pasta and eat it so yeah!

That evening, after a boring day alone I decided to hang with the host family for a bit and maybe even try eating again. We got to talking about the family dog. His name, I recently learned, is Ideal. In six months I have never once touched this animal essentially living in my courtyard and dog lovers please don’t take this the wrong way. NO ONE touches this dog or most other dogs in Togo, Burkina, etc. unless the plan is to kick it or apparently… I’ll come back to that.

Well, one other time recently Mama and I got to talking about this dog and she explained to me that really, she loves the thing. He’s the perfect kind of dog because he does his rightful job of guarding the home and barking like crazy upon seeing any intruders (including me – the confusing white member of the family – often enough). We got to talking about him again last night while I recalled our last conversation about Ideal.

He smells. He is dirty and smells very bad but we can’t wash him because if we try to touch him he will bite.

Oh, well, you know. You’ll figure it out.

No he is too dirty I am thinking of getting rid of him.

But no, last time we talked you said he was a good dog! You love him, no?

Yes he is a good dog but he is too dirty now and I think I will sell him and get a new dog.

But who will buy someone’s old guard dog anyhow? Won’t they have the same problems as you?

No of course not, we will sell him to another ethnicity – there are some that will buy and eat dogs.

Aah. Ok. (pause) So why don’t you just eat him yourselves?

Our ethnicity does NOT eat dogs!

In the month of October, I asked for your help funding a project to train select educators/ tradesmen in Life Skills and launch youth clubs. And... you did it! Thanks to you, I was able to raise the full $5007 and, in the month of November, execute the trainings in Life Skills which constitute the first phase of the project! YOU ARE AWESOME. Thank you!!!

Also, the trainings went very well! Superintendents, high school principals, vice principals and select teachers from five school in and around Tsévié (my site) met for three days of training. We focused on techniques for teaching Life Skills and challenges for affecting behaviour change in youth; gender sensitivity and strategies for attending to the differing needs of boys and girls; men as partners and girl-friendly environments; actioning planning and project implementation/ evaluation.

Now each of the five high schools has launched Life Skills classes or clubs that will touch hundreds of students and affect the tenth grade curriculum for the rest of the school year...

One of my schools is out in the bush - it was founded just two years ago and to visit, I had to bike through somebody's cornfield on a path, at times, not much wider than a foot.

Another one of the high schools invited me to their weekly flag-raising ceremony. I got up soon after 5 am to be able get ready and bike there before 6:40 am. After the ceremony the principal asked me to say a few words before the entire student body. I asked how many students I was looking at - eleven hundred.

At one of the two schools in Tsévié, I went class to class to greet participating tenth grade students. When I asked how they liked their first lesson (which their teachers had given them earlier in the week) they whooped and hollered that it was EXCELLENTE! FANTASTIQUE! FORMIDABLE!

The second part of the project is at a local guild which unites various tradesmen and women - carpenters, electricians, photographers, tailors, hair dressers and blacksmiths, to name a few. Here, a group of five young adults who had already been trained in Life Skills at an annual Peace Corps summer camp, facilitated around 10 hours of training to a select group of tradesmen. Starting on January 11, these tradesmen will begin a rotation as teachers of a weekly class on Life Skills for their apprentices. At least 50 apprentices, if not more, should be present at any given weekly Life Skills session.

In Togo, youth who abandon their formal education can become apprentices and learn a trade. The education level of these apprentices, therefore, varies a lot. Some have almost completed high school, others never finished junior high or primary school. Since the French language level of many of these young people is very low, the lessons will be conducted in local language - Ewe.

I'll put up pictures of this stuff in my next post but for now let me say, again, THANK YOU.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

P.S. Did you check out our TV special with Sandre Lee? :) Life is unfair - I still haven't been able to watch it but why should I deny you a link? click here to laugh at the Sobiloffs

Hello all, just a reminder that anyone kind and cool enough to visit me in West Africa is invited to write a guest post for my blog. Voila, thus, a message from my loving bro who came to visit me in BF not once but TWICE! while he studied abroad in Ghana. Love you, Michael. And merci beaucoup!

I’ve been meaning to write an entry in my sister’s blog for months now, but as things go, it took me a while to finally buckle down and do it. But I’m glad I did.

I had the fortune of visiting Belehede with two of my friends during my five-month stay in Ghana. It was a weird feeling going to a place that I had been hearing about for nearly two years at that point. Before that, Belehede was kind of an abstraction to me—in the middle of nowhere, no electricity, no running water, Burkinabe, Christina.

I think that for most of us, such is our understanding of that part of the world. And yes, all those things are true. Christina was living almost literally in the middle of nowhere. She was living with the bare minimum, in a place where no one spoke English, where most people can’t read or write, where she was the only white face for miles. Throw your Western sensibilities out the window. It’s different.

But she’s managed to do it, right? And she’s staying in Western Africa for at least another year.

Why?

How?

Granted, she’s a wonderful person who is resilient, headstrong and determined, but how could someone live in a place that to most of us is so completely foreign and terrifying?

Everyone wonders is she in danger? Africa is place full of guerilla war, militaristic dictatorships, wild animals and savages. Turn on the news, and you’ll hear about widespread AIDS, violent protests, vicious tribalism, and female circumcision. In movies we see blood diamonds, genocide, and 2000 pound crocodiles. Right?

Well yeah, Africa has that stuff. But that’s the thing, Africa is not a monolith, or a one-headed beast. Africa is a continent comprised of 53 different countries, and countless more distinct cultures and traditions*. But you don’t hear the good things. You hear about the war, the famine, the disease, and justifiably, it freaks you out.

But that’s the thing.

My first time in Burkina Faso, I was sitting in a gorgeous outdoor garden in Ouagadougou, watching a live band play, eating and drinking with friends from Ghana, Burkina, and America. I was there with my Reporting Africa class, covering a bi-annual pan-African film festival in Ouaga. At that point, I had seen a lot of movies, toured around the city, and spent rare quality time with my sister. I couldn’t have been happier. So I called home.

I had figured something out at that point, that few Westerns have the good fortune to ever realize—our way of life here in America is just one of many. So, I assured my parents that living in Africa doesn’t require you to give up everything you have and know. It is different, absolutely, but that’s what ends up being so wonderful about it. Because in my experience, different doesn’t usually mean worse, but whether we are willing to admit it or not, I think that too many people assume that it does.

From early on, we are told that America is the greatest country in the world. We have freedom, we have a working government—we’re civilized, privileged, better. But how do you quantify good and bad? I don’t think you can or should, but we tend to act like the world is a binary place. Africa is poor. America is wealthy. Africa is wild. America is cultured. Africa is backwards. America is a template that all other countries should try to emulate.

I disagree. The reason that I was so happy during my time abroad was that Africa is different. There is something delightful about becoming African, so to speak. Things that seem like such a big deal here suddenly become less important. You slow down, and buy what you eat that day. You meet everyone. And though it may seem like a different world on the surface, there is so much that you aren’t seeing.

So, my point is that yes, she’s safe. Safer than you could probably imagine. And how is Christina able to spend so much time away from home? I think she’s of the attitude that anywhere is home if you have the capacity to love it. She’s made Burkina Faso and Togo her homes. For me, Ghana feels like home. I have friends there that I’ll know for a lifetime. The sights, the smells, the noises are all comforting and inviting to me. The people, though culturally and economically different from us, are essentially the same. The things I do with my friends in New York are more-or-less what I do with my friends in Ghana. We play music. We watch movies. We talk about girls and wingman for each other. We stay up an extra hour at 3 am after a long night of drinking, because at 4 we can get something to eat.

So you find your niche. I was surprised, studying at the University of Ghana to find that I liked the students in my drumming class more than those in my journalism class. What I’m hoping to convey is that I shouldn’t have been surprised. I can’t stand most of the journalism kids at NYU**, but I’ve always hung out with musicians. That’s what everyone in America should understand—that from afar, you’re rarely seeing the whole picture.

Think about it. Right now, you have many different perceptions of the African continent. Where did you get them from? Chances are, you can’t say specifically. The news, I guess. Movies, yeah. Africa might come up in a conversation. Christina’s blog, hopefully. For me that’s problematic. I was surprised that I liked the musicians more, because I hadn’t imagined that I could relate to Ghanaians the way I do to Americans. And why would I? Our perception of that part of the world is shaped pretty much entirely by things that we think we know, because nobody tells us otherwise.

But people are people, and people are what make places what they are. Christina is surrounded by wonderful people, and not just the other Peace Corps volunteers, or the Burkinabe who she worked directly with, but the vendors, the mothers, the children, whoever. We owe it to them to stop and reconsider what we know. And while it’s alarming to find out how much of what we know is wrong, it’s also a gift.

The happiest I’ve been in three and a half years of college was a period of five months in Ghana. That isn’t to say that I haven’t been happy in college, but I was really happy in Ghana. Leaving was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I’ll go back, hopefully many times over the course of my life, because I now understand the value of having a few homes. There is a lot standing in the way of the continent that I love so much, and it is up to us—those who are lucky enough to be exposed to the other side—to make sure that Africa is not forgotten. Because though we do not see the repercussions of centuries of rampant and violent imperialism day to day, those repercussions are vast. And the people that face them are not savages who don’t understand how to integrate into the civilized Western world. They are people. People who have gone to great lengths to take care of Christina and me. They are family, they are friends, they are you and me.

*Think of it this way. When referring to France, you say France. If you’re talking about anniversary of the Berlin wall falling, it’s in Germany. But how many times have you said something like “My friend/relative/coworker Christina is in Africa right now,” or “I donate money every month to children in Africa.” She’s in Burkina Faso or Togo, and those kids could be anywhere. It may seem like I’m splitting hairs, but that kind of language homogenizes Africans, making it easier for policy makers to distort our understanding of Africa, while robbing individual cultures of their identities. (I realize that throughout this post, I will repeatedly say “Africa” instead of naming a specific country. In those instances, I am either deliberately referring to Africa as a whole, or to “Africa” as we perceive it)

**I didn’t hate or even dislike the people in my journalism class in Ghana. I liked them a lot actually. But I found that I related to the musicians, dancers and actors more. The journalism folks were kind of nerdy.

America is too much.

I was home for the month of October and it was a fantastic trip. I was lucky to be able to see many friends and family, eat too much good food* and travel around to get the most out of every minute. Did anyone read that book – Eat, Pray, Love? I'm not recommending it. The themes of the book are: fretting, feasting, feeling and falling in love. Bleeeg. So I read this book probably a year ago and today am “fretting” and “feeling” confused: why can I relate to that stuff?

Because America is too much. I went home to America to do the following things: eat, drink, purchase and dress up. In that book this woman had a crisis and then took a year-long, three-part trip traveling to Italy (to indulge), India (to introspect) and then to Indones... well who cares? Here's how I'll sum it up: binge, purge, recover. Does that sound familiar to any of you girls? Any of you people in America? Have we not, as America women, not all gone through periods of such? WHY?

I went to Best Buy to get a cheap laptop and my camera fixed. There was only one problem with it – the screen was broken. When I asked the guy for help about fixing it I swear he did a double take – like he was stretching to the depths of his memory to recall the last time someone asked him such a question. -Did you buy the camera here? -I don't know. -Is it old? -No, I don't think so – it looked like new when I took it from my Dad two and a half years ago. -So its over a year old? You can't fix it. We don't carry any of those old parts. -So you cannot fix it even though it works like brand new except this one, isolated, broken part? -Well I could check with the geek gang for you...? You know where this story goes: it would cost just about as much if not more to fix the old camera as to buy a new one.

I DON'T WANT TO BUY A NEW CAMERA. I want to fix my OLD ONE. But I won't. Is this my fault?? That I'm eventually going to chuck an almost-perfectly good piece of electronic equipment simply because its a) cheaper to buy a new one, b) impossible to recycle it via Best Buy, c) complicated to figure out where the heck to bring it to and maybe not even worth it once I factor in the distance I'll have to drive, alone, in a gas-guzzling car borrowed from my parents to the end location? I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN AMERICA. I don't want these kinds of problems. When I'm in my parents' home, I am totally overwhelmed by the amount of STUFF. Why so much stuff? I want to change them – I want to help them purge and recover. Here, let me be in charge of collecting things for the Vietnam Vets (that's where my family donates old clothes and excess stuff). Mom, you don't need this and do you still want this? And this can't possibly fit you – let me help you with that. Of course, this is a never-ending process. I come home, metaphorically binge and purge – riding the familiar wave of American culture – then leave desperate to get back to my “normal” life. I yearn for my routine, my small house, my yoga mat...

Ever read Out of Africa? Well I do recommend this book about another woman who goes on long trip and never really comes back. Issak Dinesen, a bad-ass/ pioneering, British woman discovers where she really belongs in colonized Kenya and then stays for the rest of her life. Meryl Streep played her in the movie. Well I can gladly relate to this woman who came to love and understand a people and a place so different from her own. She learned the local language; she integrated. I have come to love Burkina and Togo in my own way too. In fact, I'd go as far to say that I couldn't be happier in my present situation. But a few months in Togo and I'll yearn for more comfort, more options, kickboxing classes and running routes...

West Africa is not enough.

Even last week – I got back and had to majorly readjust. What is it? What is it about all this? America is definitely too much. I left home sad to see myself go, once again, away from my loving family, and emotionally hungover from too much socializing, indulging and fun.

What is it about being in West Africa? Well, I miss things that smell sweet. I miss perfume and scented candles and body lotions that don't just attract dust, dirt, mosquitoes and insects. I miss impenetrable roofs and glass windows. I miss living without fear of accidentally sleeping with a cockroach. I miss indoor climate control and blankets. I miss warm and cold faucets, showers and machines that wash. I miss paved roads and concrete. I miss carpet and clean bare feet. I miss refrigeration. I miss seasons.

Why don't well-educated Togolese have offices with computers and the internet? Why hasn't an average Burkinabe ever read a book and never will? Why don't village girls go to school? Why is a woman second and a man first?

Why do Africans want to be fat? Why do Americans want to be thin? Why do I need makeup in America? And why is it not worth it in Burkina or Togo?

So where is best? Where is balanced and mixed and reasonable? Where can I walk with clean, bare feet; get my new-looking, old camera fixed; put on heals; take a yoga class; learn to dance; train modestly to run; pick up a local language while still using my English and French; get where I'm going on foot, bike or public transport; see a movie in a theater or go to a play; have a job with freedom and responsibility; cook good food with fresh ingredients or go out to eat; meet interesting people, see beautiful things and experience changing seasons?

Where is my oatmeal porridge not too hot and not too cold? Where is just right?

I don't know. In case you were wondering. I have absolutely no idea where I am going. In case you thought I did. But I like my natural hair color, people, and won't be changing it any time soon.

*You may or may not have heard that my family and I were filmed for an hour-long segment of a four-part TV special with Sandra Lee on holidays, homecomings, celebrations and family traditions. We were the heartwarming, homecoming part. So the first thing I did in America was change my clothes and put on makeup for the bright lights awaiting me at the departure gate of Kennedy airport. The first thing I did upon arrival to my house in New Jersey after open presents for the family was eat cheese, on camera.

I doubted my decision to do a third year in Togo. Why did I not just do it in the capital of Burkina? Ouagadougou is a cool city with great restaurants, a vibrant expat community, several movie theaters and a flowing rotation of fun volunteers/ people whom I already know... So I thought, as I sleepily watched the Togolese countryside roll by, WHY am I here?

Upon arrival to Togo's capital, Lomé, I felt a bit better. Peace Corps chauffeured me across town to catch the end of a beach party and a small group of volunteers took me out for a sloppy dinner of cheeseburgers and fries. Better...

I was struck during my first few weeks in Togo by the look of its infrastructure, as compared to Burkina. Togo has cement buildings, tourist hotels and abundant signs indicating former development projects. Burkina volunteers go to Togo on vacation to visit the beach, climb a mountain, chase butterflies and eat "awesome" street food.

But Peace Corps Volunteers love to compete about who's got it tough, tougher and the toughest. When I left Ouaga, Burkina volunteers wished me - good luck in paradise. When I arrived in Lomé, Togo volunteers stared at me - what are you doing here? Togo volunteers go to Ouaga for vacation.

In Togo the buildings are crumbling, the hotels are empty and the signs planted by the European Union are faded and old. There are noticeably more expats in Ouaga than in Lomé. In my first month in Togo I heard more stories about corruption and bribes than I witnessed in my first few months in Burkina. I was asked for a bribe when getting on the plane to America at the beginning of October. Où est mon cadeau?

Togo looks as if it was developing fast at some point, maybe 30 years ago... While traveling in Burkina I'd see expanses of mud houses and mud-brick walls sheltered with straw-thatched roofs. In Togo I see rocks and ruins speckled with trash. Discarded, black, plastic bags abound in BOTH country-sides. Maybe it is the relative abundance of rain in Togo that encourages people to avoid mud-houses. Or maybe there was money invested at some point that was not sustainable.

I heard recently that the seaport of Lomé is the deepest in West Africa. (Fact check?) As you know, Burkina Faso is landlocked and dependent on appropriate weather to sustain its agriculture-based economy. In September more than 150,000 Burkinabé (10% of the total population) were left homeless after the Ouaga-based floods.

But enough comparing mangoes to bananas and let's return to my initial concern upon arrival to Togo - WHY am I here? Well, I came to continue working to promote girls. Togo was the first Peace Corps country to launch the Girls' Education and Empowerment program in 1999. Burkina launched their program in 2005. In Burkina, my former village will be the first community to have had three consecutive girls' education volunteers working in their community. In Togo, I am living in a small city where I am the first full-time girls' education volunteer.*

In Togo I am reaching big - actually I am hoping to train an ambitious 82 resource people including superintendents, high school principals, vice principals and teachers to affect positive behavior change in youth via "Life Skills" lessons on safe and healthy living. These partners will launch youth clubs in five high schools and one guild aiming to directly reach almost 2,000 students or apprentices and indirectly affect the community at large. If you are interested in more information, post on the blog and I will send you an email. My counterparts and I have set a fundraising goal of $5,007 to execute this year-long, pilot project. If our work is successful, my Togolese counterparts hope to expand the project to more high schools in the region. If you are interested in contributing to this work - click here and know you are awesome.

So, to answer my question, I came to Togo to do the same kind of work but at a higher level. I came to attempt another year of Peace Corps work that was sustainable. The first goal of Peace Corps is to help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women. I know I made a positive impact on my community in Burkina Faso but how much of our work will they carry on without me? Very little to none. Here in Togo I am reaching big and aiming to train resource people to design, organize and implement their own project that they would sustain and scale up in the future if possible. Thinking bigger! Wish me luck.

* Volunteers from other sectors have lead girls-related activities in my site, Tsévié, as secondary projects. **Right now I am in America but in Tsévié I have access to the internet every day. Keep in touch and I will try my best to do the same on this blog.

Here is a difference between American and West African culture. The Togolese and Burkinabe are collectivist; they identify with groups, think in terms of families and define themselves in relation to others around them. Americans are individualist - me, Me, ME! What do I want to do with my life? What have I done to make you respect me? Or more importantly, maybe, what HAVEN'T I done to have your respect?

West Africans respect their elders, in general, and very old people, specifically. They respect people with "salary jobs" and those who supercede them in heirarchies. They respect government officials. They respect people with advanced educations.

As an individualist American, I think about what I want and what I do and don't mind. So first of all, I do mind being respected for the color of my skin. This is afforded at restaurants and shops, in cars and sometimes in the street and it is based on the assumption that "the white" has money (or power?) to spend.

I mind being respected because I am American, just a bit. How proud should I be for the positive image my country has apparently cultivated here? In these two former French colonies? I'm proud of my country for having a "Peace" Corps, I guess, but that's just one thing... Whites have money; Americans have money. Whites and Americans get respect. But I mind this because what have I done to earn it? My individualism is relentless. I want to know that I deserve what I've got because I've done something to get it. I want credit.

There's no I in CHRISTINA... oh wait... actually, there are two.

But here's where my thought process falls apart. I don't at all mind being respected for being a woman. Huh? Being white, being American, being a woman - I had nothing to do with any of this. I can't take any credit for the way these chips fell. But I want my womanly respect - and I can't quite feel that it has nothing to do with me.

Apart from this, why should I want respect? For being a hard worker? For having completed a university education? For being able to speak French? Hhmm. I can't say that I owe these things just to myself.

For being a firstborn? For having well-liked parents? For enjoying esteem from friends? Hhmm. Again.

I'm an American. I'm individualist. I don't want you to tell me what to do and I want to work to earn what I deserve and then, of course, to OWN it.

But there is something to thinking as a group. It may be worth admiting that every individual is defined by their interaction with and relation to the groups and the cultures surrounding them.

Don't respect me because I am white. Respect me because I manage my emotions.

Yovo? Yovo?

YOVO-YOVO-BONSOIR-CAVABIEN?-MERCIIIIIII....!!!

Don't respect me because I am American. Respect me because I would eat anything you put in front of me at least twice just to make you happy.

Green slime and sticky birdseed dough or to avec la sauce gumbo.

Don't respect my education, my sense of adventure, my ability to speak a second language - that's just the hand I was dealt and played.

J'aimerais bien parler avec vous pour ameliorer mon francais et mieux comprendre votre culture...

But do respect me as a woman. And I'll respect you as a man, or a woman or something else. We should all get one thing we care about most, shouldn't we? One identity card that trumps everything. Respect me because I'm me. Respect me because I am one of us.

I've moved! I left village, left Djibo, left Ouaga and finally left Burkina Faso. Where did I go? America? No!! Je suis allée au peitit Togo!

I am still a Peace Corps Volunteer promoting girls' education and empowerment but have now become a "third year volunteer" aka overly enthusiastic nutso who has elected to spend yet another year living on $8 a day, baths with a cup and bucket and semi-annual bouts of dysentery. So that's me - crazy Peace Corps VIP or loon depending on how you look at it - and I'll be around, blogging on West Africa through September 2010.

Here's my new contact info should you be awesome enough to use it:

Christina Sobiloff, PCV

Corps de la Paix

BP 3194, Lomé

TOGO, West Africa

cell phone: 001 228 974 36 25 (I can receive texts!)

À bientôt…

Let me start where I left off last time. Following the Ambassador's visit in December, the teachers wrote an ambitious requête or proposal for various donations to the school. They asked for: solar panels to light the classrooms at night; a computer (and electricity generator) to keep better school records; sports equipment to use in physical education with the kids; sound equipment to do theater and awareness raising activities with the community; books in French for students to read; and a partnership with an American school.

I emailed the Ambassador. She responded quickly and congratulated my community on their ambitious requests. She explained what the Embassy could and couldn't do to help: if we wanted to make a partnership with an American school or procure books in French we would have to do it on our own but for the other requests the Embassy could potentially help. She recommended that I meet with her Head Economics Officer to discuss grant options. Great.

Around this time I was also surprisingly busy: I had three fabulous friends come to visit from America and subsequently took an unexpected trip to the USA myself to see a sick grandparent. While I was home I visited the third grade classroom of my own elementary school friend who has now become "Miss Niland". I had the kids from Béléhédé write to her class once and when her class returned the favor they also sent over a large, bountiful package mostly full of books in French!! The efforts of these third grade children in Harrington Park have significantly touched the community in Béléhédé including the parents' associations, the teachers and the students themselves. These books are the foundation for -- and very first contributions to -- a school library which the community hopes to build in the future. THANK YOU.

When I met with the economics officer at the Embassy she advised applying for their "Pagne Grant". Pagnes are the patterned, brightly colored fabrics with which almost all Burkinabé clothes are made. Women wrap these cloths around their waists, busts, heads and backs where they serve as skirts, house dresses, towels, head coverings and baby-holders. Men get them made into booboos, pants, shirts and children's clothing. People twist money into their corners -- bundling in coins or bills with a strong knot -- and wrap their belongings in them when they travel. In theory people could use them to filter very dirty water by placing them over their canneries or clay pots where they cool their drinking water but I actually haven't seen anyone do that. So...

The Embassy got special pagnes printed with patterns that symbolize collaboration between Burkina Faso and the USA to give out to Burkinabé associations and Peace Corps Volunteers applying for small-medium grants. We applied for this grant requesting the equivalent of over 1,000,000 cfa ($2,000) to pay for solar panels, a computer, a generator, sound equipment and sports equipment. The Embassy decided to fund us for ALL of these requests excepting sports equipment since the Head Economics Officer herself gave me an in kind donation to walk away with after our interview. Nice!

Of course this process took a couple of months. On May 11 I picked up the pagnes and sent them off to arrive in village by May 13. There are 708 of them. Let me give you some perspective. To make a full, head to toe, long sleeves/ long skirt outfit it would take 2. If you are a baller and show up to a baptism with an above and beyond gift for the new mother you would give her 1. If you are a functionnaire and have a family you might decide to go ahead and spend the money to buy them in sets of 3. (That's how they are intended to be sold.)

From the beginning of the initiative I insisted that the people responsible for the project be women. I added (in truth) and then exaggerated (in my own interest) the fact that the Embassy prefers to grant money to female-driven associations. So we put the request in the name of our Association Meres Educatrices or the mothers' PTA. Later, the Embassy came to check out the association and met with a wider group of women from my village who were interested in the project. In the end they created a committee du gestion or a managing committee of 12 women to execute the sale of all 708 pagnes. The school director also selected one teacher to serve as the general project manager and overseer of funds. Together they opened an account in the village credit union.

Challenges: 6 of the pagnes were destroyed or went missing on transport. The Embassy gave enough pagnes to cover the costs of the equipment requested but not enough to cover unexpected costs like transporting them, etc. Rumors circulated in the village: one went that the pagnes were a gift intended to become school uniforms that the teachers had stolen and were now selling for profit.

Solutions: I called a meeting and invited the "whole community". Most people came 2-3 hours late (typical) but we had about 80 people. I told the "story" of all that had happened from the day of the Ambassador's visit on December 20 up until this very meeting six months later. I asked the project manager to give an account of the budget and all financial matters. We noted that from before the first pagne sale, the committee du gestion had decided to up the price of the pagnes by 250 cfa to cover unbugeted costs to be incurred throughout the project execution. I stressed that the people in attendance were responsible for informing their smaller communities - neighbors, families and friends about the history of this project.

The meeting dispelled rumors and testified to the fact that sales were off to a good start. We asked people to be patient and told them that this would take a long time to reach completion. At least 1/3 of the pagnes had already been sold by the day of the meeting but we noted that they probably wouldn't finish selling off until October or November following the harvest. That is the annual moment when Burkinabé start earning some money. Rainy season (during the summer months) is the time of the year when rural farmers are most broke.

I will be leaving Béléhédé on August 12 and Burkina Faso on August 21. I've learned that I'll have a replacement, his name is Charlie and he's going to be awesome! So I may give you more info about this initiative via him next year. As for myself... I was going to do a third year in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Unfortunately that fell through. But the good - great -- excellent (!) news is that I will still be doing a third year right next door to Burkina in TOGO.

Check it out...I can't wait to go! TOGO

TO BE CONTINUED...

P.S. My camera is broken since January so no more pictures until October. : (

I've come a long way.

When I first arrived in Burkina I had a lot of trouble sleeping. Why? Well, lots of reasons: heat, sickness, goats, baby goats, prayer-calls, cows, cockroaches, sheep, sheets, roof noises (thatched = creepy crunching and random rustling; tin = thunderous thumping and screechy scurrying) lumpy beds, hungry bed-bugs, itchy bug-bites, heat rash, and well, STRESS! So, ultimately, lack of sleep was my biggest challenge during training.

I distinctly remember the first time I cracked: It was about three weeks in and I had just fallen ill with the ameoba (although we wouldn't know it for another two weeks) and I hadn't slept for two nights. So when one friend asked me if I was feeling ok (why was he ALWAYS asking how I feel?!) I snapped: I'm freaking* FINE! -- now picture Jesse Spano from "Saved by the Bell" on the episode where she gets hooked on methamphetamines -- I'm just... soo... TIRED... sob... choke... oohh waa ha huh...

But let me rewind a bit first. Did I ever tell you about my first night in host village?

The way I remember it: when it was a reasonably late enough to go to sleep my host sister showed me to bed and shut the door. In retrospect: showed me how the door shut.

I left the door shut because clearly that was what I was supposed to do. In retrospect: NO ONE in Burkina ever sleeps inside unless it is raining. And with the door shut? Ha!

They gave me two sheets and a pillow so clearly I tucked my sheets, my mosquito net and myself into bed with sheet no. 2 draped over me. Because that's what sheets are for! In retrospect: what's with me and sheets? was I suicidal that night? or was it so genuinely hot that my brain had gone dead?

The rest of the night was a feverish bluuurr...I was losing water fast and those damn sheets were soaking wet. I kept sitting up to drink water from my nalgene until I actually had to go refill the thing. I slipped in and out of lucidity but did I ever really sleep? Then suddenly at about 11 pm or closer to midnight the wailing began.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOHHHHHAAAAAAAhhhhhh... wwaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaOOOOOOoohhhaaaaAAAAAAaaahhhhh..... WAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOWWAAAAAOOOOWWAAAAAOOOOOOOWAAAAAaaaaahhhh....

I sat straight up in bed.

AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEOOOOOOO AAAAIIIEEEEE AIIEE AIIEEEeee aaaaaaahhh... AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEOOOOOOO AAAAIIIEEEEE AIIEE AIIEEEeee aaaaaaahhh...AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEOOOOOOO AAAAIIIEEEEE AIIEE AIIEEEeee aaaaaaahhh...

I even pulled the soaking sheet up to my neck. What the ....?

OOOOOOWWWHHHOOOOOAAAAOOOOOOOWWWWOOOOWWOOOW....

Then the voices starting getting closer... and louder if possible... and they were moving... wait a minute... I lept up to check the windows... (careful to illuminate my 6 foot path with a powerful flashlight)... and the voices were... OMG ... running in circles around my hut!!! AAH!!

So I started to recall my research on Burkina Faso. What do I know about traditions in this country? They are Muslim, Christian and what was it - 30% Animist? Wait, did I not read somewhere that most everyone, despite their claimed religion, is an animist at heart? Could the family Tall be wailing about...ME? They are running in circles around my hut... Could this be some kind of freaky African welcoming blessing or worse - OMG - a curse??? Or maybe its a purifying ritual? But WAIT, OK -- maybe it is just an unrelated-to-me nightly household ritual. Oh God I hope not.

What do I do? Should I go outside? Should I call out something? Should I offer to participate and run the wailing circles alongside? What's culturally appropriate? No, I'm not moving. This is too wild. I've already had my door shut. But WHAT IS THIS??

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I ran to my door which simultaneously flung open to reveal my host sister's wild, wailing face.

FAUT-PAS-AVOIR-PEUR-QUELQU'UN-EST-MORT!which means: YOU-MUSN'T-HAVE-FEAR-SOMEONE-IS-DEAD!and she slammed the door in my face. Needless to say I did not sleep much that night though I did learn the next day that the person they thought had died actually hadn't. What did I do that next morning? Who knows, I probably just went around to shake hands with everyone just like they taught me to- Good morning. How did you sleep? And your family? Your courtyard? Peace only! Peace throughout the night. Ha.

Now where do I go from here? Why didn't I write this story when it happened? I think I was a bit lost for words at the time... heck, maybe I thought it was a hallucination? It wasn't. But my sleeping troubles didn't end there. I tried staying inside with the door open, I tried moving outside into my tent with Yaneth's yoga mat, we even moved the mattress outside from time to time and hung my mosquito net from the straw hangar above. But nonetheless:

Princess Christina

I was first inspired to write this post 21 months ago after successfully (!) sleeping one night on a cement floor. The only thing between me and anything that crawled the night or lurked within the cracks of this flithy floor was a cheap woven plastic mat and a thin pagne draped over me (still with a sheet (!) man, old habits die hard/my mother would be proud.) The theme of the post was to be how very far I had come in six short months to realizing sleep under the most uncomfortable conditions. I slept on a concrete floor!Princess Christina six months later.

At the time I felt had come to the absolute pinnacle of tough-girl sleeping. But the thing about Peace Corps is that you are always exceeding your own expectations. Where I have slept since then: on a mattress on the floor of my house; on mattresses on the floors of other people's houses; on a mattress on the floor of my porch; on my yoga mat on the floor of my house; on my yoga mat on the floor of my porch; alone outside on my cot; alone outside in a tent on a silver of a mattress, on a yoga mat and on the ground; and ON TRANSPORT.

So lets fast forward to just the other day - I was in my house sleeping on a thin mattress on the cot when I awoke to utter darkness and a bit too much heat. I went outside to pee only to discover that the crescent moon had set and the May stars were as visible as they EVER could be. It was also cooler outside than inside and I decided to get a thick blanket to throw over a thin mattress to put down on my termite-ridden, collapsed and rotten, wooden lounge-bed. Yes. This sorry excuse for a piece of furniture has live the past two years outside in the elements since I value it that much. Once, when I had a Burkinabe guest, I absolutely marveled that he could lay a thin mattress on this dilapidated, disgusting ol' thing; cover it with a mosquito net and simply fall asleep! But I too took that final step just the other day. First, I adjusted the thing's position so as to see the greatest portion of the sky and then when I laid down - exhausted, cooler and more comfortable in the starry breeze than inside my house - I remember: I never EVER thought I could fall asleep on this!

So I looked up at the stars, reflected on my progress, imagined finally writing this blog post and I never fell asleep. Later I got up and moved back inside where the original cot was waiting for me and I was glad to still think of myself as the Princess and the Pea. I was glad to know I haven't made all my progress yet. The next night I did sleep on that makeshift bed. So what is next? I have my aspirations and dreams...

HAHAHA... JUST KIDDING!! Here's what I'm really going for:

And I lived happily ever after...

* I didn't say "freaking".

Need more credit for your phone card?

just send a kid

Suddenly have guests but no sugar for the tea?

just send a kid

Want to talk to your counterpart but can't find him?

just send a kid

For a year and a half I didn't have cell phone service in village. Every time my mother would call, someone would pick up the phone and babble away in local language.

Hadjara? Hadjaraaaa? I want to speak to Hadjaraaa!? my mom would yell into the receiver in the mean time until the call-recipient finally hung up. She'd always wait and call back in 10 or 15 minutes because by that time they would have sent a kid.

During this same period, whenever someone wanted to find me for any reason - from asking me a question to informing me that the school inspector had come - they'd send a kid.

If anyone ever wants to give you something - like prepared food or freshly harvested crops - they invariably send it with a kid.

Water?

send a kid

Sand?

send a kid

Cigarettes? Hot coals? Machete?

send a kid

I was in a car in the States in January, explaining this system to my mother, when it occurred to me that at any given daytime moment in rural Burkina Faso there must be something like 20% of the child-teenage population running petty errands for adults.

Burkina Faso has one of the worst adult literacy rates in the world: about 12%. Out-of-school youth abound in small villages and so do men who drink (and purchase the materials for) tea more than once a day as well as women who buy bullion cubes one by one each time they cook a meal among other things. Everybody really does pay (or not pay) everything as they go. Potential errands are endless. So sure enough, when you look around, the to-and-fro flow of youth circulating on bikes; walking with small change; carrying plates, plastic bags, sticks, motorcycle parts, cultivating tools, animals, calabashes, babies, other small children, chickens, cakes, mangos, hay...

Just to have tea, for example, one needs the following supplies: tea leaves, sugar, water, one-two little teapots, a plate, one-three shot glasses, burning coals or wood, a fournier (where you put the burning coals or wood), mint - if available, peanuts - if one has the money and the list goes on if you consider such things as guests! One might need to send a kid to invite other relevant men to the tea party!

Women have plenty of kid-errands to orchestrate as well. Take this baby while I go away, fetch me water from the pump, carry this wedding-rice to my cousins’ across-town, go buy me some fried dough to feed my baby, go sell this fried dough I prepared (so I can buy something for my baby), bring Hadjara the plate she lent us yesterday or bring back this baby to its mother wherever she may be. It is not at all uncommon to see a child not even twice the height of an infant carrying such an infant on her back.

Just send a kid is something I have come to take completely for granted. I had to stop to think don't we do this in the States? When I get home and meet your 6 year old for the first time, you wouldn't mind if I sent him down the road to buy me a new chapstick, would you? Its not like I'm sending him for cigarettes...* oh wait. People can't do that chez nous. You couldn't even send your 15 year old for liquor or smokes. Would you have your 8 year old start the living-room fire on Christmas? Here the 1st-6th grade students supervise schoolyard bush fires where students collect and burn all the school courtyard rainy season growth and weeds. You wouldn't mind if I interrupted your 11 year old girl's homework time to have her prepare a simple meal for the family? I guess I can't. I guess if I want to speak to my neighbors down the road I can't pick up a child who I do not know on the street and ask him to deliver a verbal message or a written note. Of course a child in the States wouldn't refuse to do something, would he?

While I was home I visited a friend's third grade classroom. Her students were insatiably curious and it was great. Every littlest bit of information I provided was met with ten new questions. I felt like I couldn't talk fast enough to give them all the knowledge they wanted... Pictures and demonstrations helped. Yet when I got to the point where I described children's roles - their utter and non-negotiable submission - in Burkinabe society, the students were shocked into disbelief. You mean, a child has to do ANYTHING an adult tells them to do? Even if its not their parent? Even if they don't know the person? Even if they are busy doing something else? Even if they don't WANT to?

Yes. I explained that, in reality here, young people need to do anything anyone older tells them to do because that's just the way things work in Burkina Faso. I discussed with the students how Burkinabe children are expected to address adults. They should never look adults in the eyes when greeting them. They should never offer their hands to be shook. They should never even speak, actually, until spoken to. They should never offer their opinions and they may never ever refuse what they are told to do. Burkinabe students should address all teachers and minor authorities by approaching the adult, crossing their arms over their chests, putting their heads down, averting their eyes and mumbling preferably inaudible bonjours before shuffling away. The students were incredulous that some kids don't go to school; that many men have multiple wives; that chores can sometimes be so consuming so as to leave no time for play or even school; that children aren't paid for work; that in Burkinabe society, men rule.

These are things I've come to take for granted. Need anything? Just send a kid. So don't hold it against me if I come home and start bossing your little ones all around town. They'll listen, of course? I'm sure I'll be fine when re-entering the United States... I won't treat your boy like he's West African. But, if I tell him to do something, well of course, he'll never say no.

Will he?

*I don't smoke, fyi. I wanted to use this example though because I always see little kids running to buy men cigarettes.

By the end of November, we had stopped drawing. I had gotten so little support from the teachers -- whom I had originally envisioned as partners on this project -- that I decided to schedule the painting of the map during the school vacation. In between working a volunteer training at the beginning of December and my plans for vacation at the end of the month. I had ten days in village to get this done.

The challenge would be to mobilize the community quickly and thoroughly enough to finish painting. I called the parents to the school to "correct" their children's work. There were still a lot of mistakes on the sketch and it was actually only about 80% done. I wanted them to get acquainted with the drawing instructions and confirm that they too could understand how the process worked. I wanted to create group leaders for the day(s) when we decided to paint. I wound up trying to meet with parents 3 or 4 times at the beginning of the week and actually succeeding once. We got some good work done and at least 5 parents demonstrated a solid understanding of the process. Of course one of these parents left town the next day and missed all the rest of the work...

I was leaving on Tuesday. It was Thursday and we hadn't starting painting yet. I was praying that my "group leaders" would show up the next afternoon as promised... but after spending almost sketching this map, the outlook was frankly not good that we'd finish painting in just a few days. On Thursday evening around 5pm, I took a jog out to "the hill" where I could get cell phone service. I wanted to check my messages. Just before heading home I decided to send a quick hello to my neighbor, David.

Hey David! What's up? You planning to head to Djibo this week...? He called immediately upon receiving my message. Christina, the American Ambassador is coming to mine and your village. - WHAT!? WHEN? I haven't heard this... - Normally, the day after tomorrow. She's definitely stopping by my village then, but if you haven't heard anything then... I don't know. - She is coming to your place on Saturday? And mine too most likely? $#@!.

The next morning, Friday, I got up early to start making phone calls to confirm this. Nobody had any answers until I finally got a hold of the PC Burkina Country Director, himself. Doug, is it true? Is Ambassador Jackson coming to visit me tomorrow? - Yes. And I will be with her in a hour so I will call you then and you can talk to her directly, yourself. So finally I spoke to the Ambassador herself and explained that my community was about to finish a project that she, in fact, funded. I asked id she'd be willing to paint the US in a ceremony the next day and she agreed, of course.

Now its about 10:30am the day before the American Ambassador is coming to visit and I'm the only one that currently knows about it. So I did something I don't normally do - I got on my bike and rode around village. The American Ambassador is coming! Yes, the number one American in Burkina Faso is coming to visit Belehede tomorrow (!) so come to the school tonight! We must WELCOME her by painting HER map!!!

Hehe. So this was really just pure dumb luck. The Ambassador is coming and suddenly parents are motivated to come the school and get to work. We started painting that night (Friday) and then all planned to get to the school first thing the next morning to wait for the Ambassador and in the mean time, paint. I got on my soap box too - The Ambassador is a WOMAN. And I AM a WOMAN here to promote girls' education. SO, you all better NOT send 200 men and just 10 women to the ceremony tomorrow. You tell your wives, daughters, sisters and girls to COME OUT tomorrow morning!

Like I said, I was soo lucky... Probably 50 people wound up cycling through as painters while I shouted out orders naming countries and dictating what color went where. Women definitely showed up in mass and all in all we probably had around 200 spectators while we worked and waited. However, one notably cool thing happened during this time but I'll give a little bit of background info first...

The president of the Committee for Village Development had been helping a lot since the night before. In and of itself this was nice because he is an important figure in the village. But I was feeling a bit of reservation about the fact that he and two or three other men had painted so much when I had been hoping to incorporate more women and girls. The men here are more confident and practiced at advocating for themselves. When the president finished painting one country he immediately demanded my attention and made sure he got another assignment right away. The women, on the other hand, needed to be pushed to paint. Even when they were eager for a new country assignment, they would generally wait to be noticed rather than push to be heard.

All in all I was grateful for the eager enthusiasm of the president and a handful of other men but had felt some regret about the women's relative reservation. By Saturday morning, however, I had so much on my plate that I couldn't worry about it anymore. So I didn't. But here is the really cool thing: after getting started that morning, when we really got into it and started to draw the crowd... the president took charge of the situation. He was just as aggressive as the night before if not more so in demanding colors and countries to go with them... But I realized that he had stopped painting himself. He had created a line -- a constantly renewing line of woman who had not had an opportunity to paint. Bring me women! Who needs to paint? And every order I gave him went directly to them, translated to local language.

The Ambassador showed up with her husband. We made short speeches - myself, the parents' associations' presidents, two village reps and the Ambassador herself. She painted the US. She painted her home state of Wyoming and invited me to paint New Jersey.* The villagers offered her presents - some memories of Belehede - which were fresh with wet paint. Ambassador Jackson, be careful with-that-calabash-itsgotWETpaint!! Phew. haha...

In the end we finished almost all of it that day. What was left a few people worked on over the next two days (Sunday and Monday) and my counterpart even did some touch up work while I was on vacation for Christmas. All we had left to do when I left was label the countries, paint Burkina and add symbols for Peace Corps and Belehede. We decided that all that could wait until the moment when we would construct a hangar to protect the map from sun and rain. But we planned to do this at the end of the school year - finally I gained the teachers support. For the first time since I met him, the new school director addressed me by my local name, Hadjara. He had laughed when I had first told him the name saying, oh that does not stick. So he insisted on on calling me Christine no matter how many times I corrected him.

Following the big day the director and other teachers got together to write a request for supplies from the Embassy. They came up with an ambitious and impressive request for six major things: solar panels for the school to light the classrooms at night and hold study halls; a computer (plus generator) for the school to keep better, more complete records; sound equipment to do theater and awareness-raising meetings on the importance of girls' education; sports equipment including a volleyball net and balls to teach girls volleyball in school; books in French to start a school library and a partnership with an American school. Following this request was the first time the school director spoke to me with respect adding, we are counting on you.

So a few days after the map was essentially done I had a new challenge in my hands... how to raise approximately 1,000,000 cfa ($2,000 US).

To be continued...

*So this map includes all the countries of the world plus Wyoming, New Jersey and Belehede.

The other day I stopped by the maternité or in other words the place where women go to have babies. Five women had given birth on this day and four were already resting. The room where women rest after childbirth has five mattresses and three bed frames. The extra two mattresses go on the floor and don't have mosquito nets, unfortunately. The extra floor space in this room quickly gets filled with sitting mats brought by women relatives who sit around with the new mothers for the duration of their stay.

This facility serves the whole of Béléhédé plus its satellite villages, and lets stay that should be about 4000 people. However, the families who live 8, 10 and 15k away generally don't send women to the maternité to give birth. So, at any given time there is at least one new mother, one new baby, and three female relatives in this room. More often, there are five new mothers, five new babies and fifteen female relatives in this "resting" room. Recently the midwife helped deliver ten babies in one day/night with 10 different mothers.

Additionally, visitors are more than welcome. When I visit the new mothers, for example, I am encouraged to touch and/ or hold all the new babies. Obviously there are no incubators here. There are no mouth covers or doctor scrubs either. Out back, women cook over a wood fire to feed the new mothers and the diet consists of millet toh with sauce, as usual, and corn or millet flour porridge.

I walked out this on this particular day after politely declining to touch the newborns. I saw the fifth women who had just given birth (on the way) sitting on the floor waiting for the midwife to finish up with the baby. The midwife unceremoniously invited me into the room along with my friend Poitiba while she was at work. I was inches away as she tied the umbilical cord into a knot and snipped. The women laughed at me, she has never seen this before? Ha, look at her face!

When the new mother got up there was blood on the concrete floor outside the room where she had been sitting. The midwife passed off the baby to the relative. We left the mother and the midwife alone to do their post-birth exam. We saw that a rooster had sauntered into the waiting area and was heading straight for the resting room. He had relieved himself on the floor at the entrance to the clinic. No more than one or two minutes had passed when I saw the new mother leaving the midwife to go take her place on a mat just as the rooster wandered in towards the new mothers, new babies and all the lady relatives. Meanwhile Poitiba swept the rooster crap across the entrance-way and out the door.

Nobody but me seemed to mind the rooster.

I started this project in September. The objective was to create a space for, then draw, then paint, then label a map of the entire world on some public space in Belehede. When I pitched the idea to the parents, they loved it and gave their full support (see 1st & 2nd photos). We decided to use the outside school wall (see 2nd photo) and make the map 4 x 2 meters, (i.e. big).

I suggested that we could fund it - I would pay for the base paints and colors while the parents would pay for cement, sand and labor. They easily agreed. Later, I applied at the last minute for a grant from the American Embassy and got it, so that was great.

My original idea was to work closely with the teachers. Last year we had 6, this year there are 7 with only two returning. The new director let me explain the project to the group in October at the beginning of the school year. In this meeting I was hoping to get ideas on how to involve as many students as possible. I wanted to create a tentative schedule. I wanted creative feedback on how to make this work.

I explained that the best case scenario would be if we worked intensively with kids from grades 6 to 4 while somehow involving the three younger classes as well...

They asked questions about kids making mistakes - I explained that we would draw in pencil. They talked amongst themselves while I was taking - I alternatively paused and waited or intensified my voice and hand gestures. They wanted to wait and see how things went - I wanted feedback on the tentative plan: to have the 6th/5th grades draw and the 4th/ 3rds paint.

Well, by the end of the meeting we had decided that I would start working with the 6th graders at an unspecified time, one day, of the next week. On verra -we'll see. The new director (and the others teachers) make it pretty clear that students were NOT going to be able to do this. Are you a map maker? the director asked me. Otherwise, he was incredulous that the kids could/ should/ would be made to do this. You, band of good-for-nothings! - I've observed - is the director's favorite way to address the kids.

I had printed off a handbook from the Peace Corps website. Anyone could do this project in their own home if they wanted to since the directions are actually that straightforward and simple. All you would need is a ruler, a pencil and some paints. After creating the cement rectangle and painting it several times until it was light blue like the ocean - my counterpart and I draw a grid with 56 squares across and 28 down. Then we divided the rectangle again into 18 big sections. Section one, for example, starts with square 1-1 and goes to square 1-10 across and 1-12 down. One page in the handbook corresponds to section one and from there you see what needs to be drawn in square 3-8 or square 4-12, for example.

As the project moved along very slowly throughout the second half of October and into November I would come to the school early every morning to work with a different group of 6th grade students (about 65 total). They would usually show up at some point before classes so we were able to work pretty much every day. Still, they had a very hard time grasping the concepts. They did not intuitively understand the grid. They also had trouble scaling images up. I had to explain a few things everyday: the picture on the wall is bigger than the picture on the paper so every shape you draw needs to be bigger than the shape you're copying. Look at where the line starts. Is it the upper left-hand corner, the upper-right, the lower-right/left, or in one of the middles? Look at each square as if it were divided in four sections - in which section are you supposed to draw the shape?

Some kids weren't able to grasp any of the concepts - locating squares on the grid, copying lines and shapes, scaling up from the smaller images, connecting forms from one section to another, even moving from drawing in one square to drawing in another. Some kids couldn't even seem to make a shape. Others, though, eventually got the gist. They could be left to draw and make mistakes for a few minutes before I came over to check and correct them. One student, however, rose above all the others and frankly saved the never-ending "day". He was not from the village but actually the brother of the 1st grade teacher and therefore a very well-educated "city-kid". Sanou and his sister come from Bobo-Dialassou, the second largest and arguably most developed city in Burkina Faso. This child wound up drawing most (if not all) of Africa as well as much of South America. He was truly the only student who really understand how to draw the map and I told him he could come anytime he wanted to. Is it unbelievable that there wasn't even one village kid educated enough to honestly get it?

In any case, as I mentioned, progress was SLOW. Before we had finished even one continent, a teacher or the director would ask a question like, oh so you're not done yet? or, oh so you didn't work this morning? There was one day about a month after we had started when I picked up a pencil and took over for a few minutes. I drew a few lines myself to get the section done quickly. The director saw me and asked oh, so now its you who draws everything?

I worked exclusively with the 6th grade for the first month because they are the oldest school kids and for goodness sake there are 65 of them with only a handful understanding the process of drawing! When we finally got about 70% drawn (more than a month into working everyday on it) I felt I could move on to another grade. Even if we draw two squares every day of the next week, at this point we could feasibly and move onto the painting phase. Enough is enough!

The 5th grade has about 100 kids. We decided I would call one or two groups of 10 kids everyday for about a week. Every student would get one chance (and one only!) to participate. If she did not volunteer to draw something, too bad. If he did not show up, too late. Otherwise, since I did not expect much progress at this point, I also planned to do some quick geography lessons. What is this a picture of? Where is Africa? How many continents are there? Which ways are north, south, east and west? Most kids did not recognize the world map. Most could not point out Africa. Many couldn't name north, south, east and west. Some knew north in respect to Belehede (its that way!) but could not translate it to a map even if I explained, south is the opposite of north (that way and that way!) and on the map this is north so which way is south? Some of the biggest deficiencies in education here are the abilities to think critically and creatively. Many kids had trouble realizing that the picture in my right hand and the picture in my left were one in the same: a world map.

At this phase, there were not many surprises. Some of the 5th graders did indeed succeed in drawing something. That was great. But most just got a quick lesson. Others never showed up. But the biggest change for me was that at every session, the 5th grade teacher showed up. For the first time in over a month I finally had a Burkinabe educator at my side filling in the gaps of my lesson or my explications in French. While I had had the school director mentioning the shortcomings of my project periodically over the last two months - you are going to have to go over everything again; you'll have to make the lines darker; you must correct all those mistakes - finally one teacher was participating.

I decided to end the drawing phase with the 5th grade and wait until the school (and the teachers) went on break to start the painting of the map. Honestly, they had had two months of chances to "buy in" to the project: to make productive suggestions, to offer their students or class time, or to participate. The kind support of the one teacher cast into relief the apathy of the others. So I left village to celebrate Thanksgiving and announced to the parents and the community: Get ready because when I get back you and I, the old and the young, the women and the men and the kids will PAINT!

To be continued...

Volunteers love American candy. 

Ask a Burkina PCV to find M&Ms and he'll name the very aisle in the ex-pat supermarket that supplies them. If they are out of stock? He can probably also give a short list of American friends who stock up on sweets or at least tend to receive bountiful packages...*

So, when Reeses Pieces Peanut Butter Cups suddenly hit the Burkina Faso market, word got out - fast. It was sometime in October or November that these delectable turned out in gas stations and other stocked-up convenience shops. For these special imported goods one can expect to pay anywhere between two to six dollars. (We make $8 a day, just as a reference point, which many of us will happily spend on some fancy chocolate.) Naturally I wanted in on the sweet, nutty action... I can't believe it! how much do they cost? I said to my friend. 100 cfa!

That's about 20 cents. 

Funny how just before 31 million pounds of peanut butter and paste gets recalled, the  Burkinabe get the privilege of their first Reeses Peanut Butter Cup taste.

List of Tainted Peanut Butter Items Points to Complexity of Food Production

* I'll prove it - Caleb, Liz, Me, Mac... see!? 

OK, from now on I'm going to blog with photos IN my posts...

Here are the old ones in case anyone misses them now that they're gone.

Harassment.

Where are you going? Where are you coming from? What are you doing? Where are you from?

Will you be my friend? Will you be my correspondent? Let's keep in contact. Let's exchange ideas. Let's exchange information.

What, no hello? What, no good morning? What, you don't even greet me? What, you don't stop to shake my hand? What, you just leave, like that?

Stop your bike. Stop right there. Stop. Hey. Come here. Hey, HEY come here. PSST. PSSSSSSST. White lady! White man! White men!

My friend! My darling! My auntie! My love!

Hello! Hello... HELLO! I am GREETING YOU!

These are things that usually men but also women will shout at you from any distance - simultaneously with other "friends" or one by one - as you move through the streets of Ouaga, Bobo, or any city in Burkina Faso. It doesn't matter if you are alone or with someone else, if you are turning left at a traffic light through three lanes of multi-vehicle traffic, if you are looking up, sideways, or straight ahead... People will touch you, grab your hand or arm, move slightly in your way while you're moving on a bike... They will pull their motorcycle up alongside you or stop on the side of the road. They will run across the street to hail you. They will waggle their arms like fous.*

And this list does not even take into account those who have a reason to be yelling at you - those who are trying to sell you something, trying to get you into their cab, trying to pull you over to look at their pagnes or their silver jewelry, to buy their tomatoes or sesame cakes... It also excludes the men who are trying to marry you, who want a white woman, who want you to bring them to the States...

It excludes kids incessantly asking for gifts and or money. You don't have a gift for me? You don't have a gift for me? You don't have a gift for me? Or kids calling out white man, ca va!? Even when you're a white woman. It excludes those not-rare-enough adults asking for gifts and/ or money as they go about their daily chores (particularly in touristy spots).

Let me be clear, there is no escaping it. And sometimes you want to rip your hair from its roots. But don't worry about me, you know that I know that the people here are great. (Heck, I am currently trying set up a third year!) Just not when... you're biking through downtown Ouaga during rush hour in the middle of the day's heat with a bag on your back, a man chasing after your bike, a moto sidling up beside you, a woman yelling at you across the street and a man screaming to know what aren't you greeting me?!

P.S. This blog message only applies if you are white.**

*A fou is a crazy person. Plural: fous.

**White is label used here to identify anyone who appears to be from Europe, America or anywhere else besides Africa. Light skinned Africans, rich Africans or African-Americans also risk being labeled white.

Happy New Year! I posting this update from Lome, Togo where I will be on vacation with friends for the next few days. About two hours ago, I got off an awesome (NOT) sixteen hour bus ride on which I could not sit back on my seat without one of the two guys next to me leaning forward. I haven't sleep very much at all in the past week as I've been biking, hiking, traveling and site- seeing with a fantastic group of PCV and non-PCV friends. Buddies Julie, Megan and Sean made the long trip from America to West Africa just to see Burkina, Togo, Ghana and me. :) Thanks, friends!

Read on only if you're interested in a general update about the past few months...

July/August/September

A family of American missionaries returned to Belehede. Yes, returned. I knew that a family had lived there for a time, a few years ago... but the details were fuzzy. Now I know that three American children actually grew up in my village! Their parents worked to promote literacy and translate the Bible into Koranfe throughout the 1990s. Upon arrival, they built a house in Belehede - including tables, chairs, beds, solar panel electricity, a refrigerator, a stove, an oven... - and lived in it full time for years!They are great and I've learned a lot from them since they returned to Burkina to live full-time in Ouaga.

I gave up on Fulfulde. To be honest, I had stopped trying around April but it was hard to admit defeat. The people in my village are Korumba. They speak Fulfulde but their native tounge is Koranfe and they work hard to preserve and protect their (dying) language. Once I met the Belehede missionary father - who has devoted his life work to God and Koranfe - I finally made the decision to switch. I started getting tutoring in Koranfe at the end of September and so far I'm really happy about it.

I finished up the rainy season English club with an optional oral exam on the vocabulary we covered. I hope to do this club again next year but with a stronger focus on junior high and high school kids who are back home on school break. Kids learn English from junior high onward in Burkina.

I also started to work on the Peace Corps World Map Project. In September I got support from the local parents association to paint a map of the world on the outside school wall. We informed all appropriate members of the community and agreed to split the costs. Afterwards, I was able to raise money from the American Embassy to fund the entire project and can now reimburse my community members who paid for cement.

October/November/December

In October we cemented the outside school wall with a rectangle of 4 by 2 meters. After the start of school around mid-month, I began working with 6th grade students everyday to draw the map of the world. Eventually, I had 5th grade students draw some too.

In November we finished the pencil outline of the world.

I left site for a good chunk of time to celebrate Thanksgiving with a fun group of volunteers gathered chez my friend Yaneth in Dori, to assist with another training in Ouaga and to attend the Volunteer Action Committee meetings. I also starting looking into the possibility of extending my service for a third year.

Upon returning to site in December, I had 10 days to organize the painting of the World before I would leave for Christmas vacation. Upon arrival I worked to mobilize the community to paint the world map. I wanted a combination of women, men, girls and boys working side by side and in the end I got it. But I was very lucky - the American Ambassador paid us a visit the second day of painting the map. Without going into all the details right now, this attracted at least 50 participants (painters) and over 200 spectators to a World Map Painting/ American Embassador event! The Ambassador herself painted the majority of the United States including her home state of Wyoming. She also invited me to add my home so this map of the world will have all the major countries of the world, the village of Belehede, Burkina Faso, the state of Wyoming and the state of New Jersey. Ha!

Christmas was great here and I hope your holidays were festive and lovely too. I promise the few next posts will be stories... so I'll go ahead and start reflecting/ thinking now....

A bientot...

9 December 2008

Happy holidays! Friends and family, I hope you are all well... and enjoying the season! In Burkina, the Harmattan winds are starting to blow and the nights are growing cold. Yes. I sleep with long sleeves and a blanket! :) The Muslim fête of Tabaski (Eid al-Adha) is happening now... or yesterday... or the day before depending on your village. According to Wikipedia, this religious festival commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God. Muslims families therefore sacrifice a goat or sheep. My friends here call it "la fête du mouton" or "the goat party". Unfortunately I wasn't in village on Tabaski to share my friends' goats. However, I did made to the chicken party in September...

The Chicken Party

The Muslim holiday Eid ul-Fitr marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Muslim families in Burkina Faso celebrate by killing and cooking chickens. Men kill, women cook. In fact, if a women kills a chicken in Burkina, by tradition she must name her child chicken. Meanwhile if a man cooks... well its hard to imagine that. So in Burkina, always, greetings are super-important. On holidays like these people tour around their village greeting all of their family and friends to wish them a happy holiday. This process takes so long it actually lasts a couple of days. Additionally, the holiday has no fixed date - it depends on when your Imam sees the crescent moon marking the end of the holy month. This year, for example, Ouaga celebrated on September 30, Djibo on October 1 and Béléhédé on October 2.

In Béléhédé, men celebrate with their "groupe" or circle of close friends. This could be anywhere from 10 to 20 people. Each group gets together at a selected house around noon where a meal of oily chicken and greasy rice or toh will be prepared and waiting. Their will also be zoom-koum, the local festive drink made of millet, sugar, tamarind water and sometimes ginger or other sweet aromas. When its time to get started, everyone rinses their hands in the same bucket of water, squats down in a circle around the food and starts eating with their right hand. (By the way, that's not special for the holiday, its just regular community eating practice.) Then everyone rises their hands off in the same bucket and drinks zoom-koum from the same one or two cups. (This is also regular practice.) But then... everyone gets up and moves on to the next house to do the same thing. Oh yes.

So, on the day of this party I did just what I described with a group of male friends 15 times in a row. Ha! Where were the women during this period? According to the men they were with their own groupes tucked away in other people's houses. During this whole noon-time tour of chicken-dishes in village, I saw and greeted men galore as they performed the same ritual but only a handful of dispersed women. Later that evening I went to greet my friend Poitiba and confirmed that, indeed, after they cook all morning and drop off the meals at selected houses, the women get together in someone's courtyard to celebrate with their own groupes but don’t parade around village like the men (and me apparently).

The kids also have stuff to do. Like the men and women, the kids dress up and get together with their groupes. Boys and girls alike tour around the village wishing adults a happy holiday with a special Ramadan greeting - it sounds something like Allah barka – but basically means trick-or-treat. The adults give them money or as a substitute, sweets.

Last year, I celebrated Ramadan in my village, sort of… but not really because I wasn’t with a groupe. This year, on the other hand, I was so happy to have my own groupe – an authentic experience (!) if we forget my gender for a moment…

So I dove right in to all the traditional festivities (and too much chicken) doing just-like-they-do…

I threw hand-sanitizer and caution to the wind (both figuratively) as I enjoyed breaking the Muslims' fast with friends…

That night I was exhausted, in a good way!

Two days later I was exhausted, and reeeally sick. I had contracted tonsillitis. Can someone remind me to bring along soap next time I want an authentic experience?

At the opening ceremony for our girls' camp in Béléhédé I announced to everyone present - girls and parents - that at the end of the week, the girls would perform theater. I could hardly believe I managed to say it. I had worked with some of these girls before. I had had an idea of what was coming when David led the first session of the week - every question was met with silence.

Yet, this was expected. When we managed to coax them into speaking, they hid mouths and ducked heads under arms; they bent over double onto desks, twisted up towards the ceiling, and looked down at the floor. But this too, was expected.

When we did an artistic warm-up almost every girl drew the same three things. -Draw something to represent yourself... -I drew a fish, cow, or chicken because I like fish, meat, or eggs... We praised the few who were different. But this shortage of creativity was expected too.

When we had the girls make collages with magazines pictures and present their work, they repeated the same things, I chose this girl because she is pretty... I chose this girl because she is nice. Again we rewarded those who presented something new, I chose this woman because she has courage or because she is a fighter... I chose this baby because I want one too.

For our first theater session, however, I had no expectations. Uhh, I really wanted it to work.

I prepared an activity in which each girl would get a card with an emotion written on it that she would portray without speaking. We divided into two groups - David and Sara worked with one while my village friend Poitiba and I worked with another. As it turned out, the girls' level of French was so low that they needed one-on-one definitions of every word. After giving definitions, we organized the groups into two circles and had each girl step forward to express her emotion... joy, anger, surprise, depression, love, jealousy, boredom... There were no wrong answers or pantomimes, and after everyone had gone, the facilitators switched groups. Now Poitiba and I worked with new girls and the same emotions. At the end of the activity I brought everyone together and had the some of the best pantomime for us all. Yea, nice...

For the second theater session, once again, I did not have expectations. I planned to discuss, what is theater? and potential themes. This would not take 2 hours though, for sure. Finally I planned my warm-up activity at the last possible minute. I had been worrying, what the heck am I suppose to do with girls that won't look you in the eyes; that never speak above a whisper!? We divided into Ones and Twos and sat in pairs. Look into your partner's eyes and listen to my voice. I gave the Ones and Twos one line each: "je suis une fille intelligente" and "je suis une fille forte," respectively. They repeated their lines loudly, softly, quickly; with anger, with fatigue, with happiness. The Ones looked at the ceiling while the Twos tried to maintain eye contact. The Ones shouted while the Twos whispered. Ok...

Sara and I also did a short skit on what you shouldn't do when performing theater using the same lines as the Ones and the Twos. I spoke too quietly, she spoke too fast, I covered my mouth with my hand, she turned her back to the audience, I interrupted her, she body blocked me, I looked up at the ceiling, she looked into her shoulder and down at the floor, she forgot her line and I corrected her, I forgot mine and then told the audience that we should start over.

We then discussed what you should and shouldn't do in theater and finally brainstormed potential themes. At the end they divided into three groups to choose themes and begin working on the final theater pieces. By the end of the session each group had chosen a theme and some had even started picking characters. Whoa, sweet.

Day Three. Omigod. Today they would start fleshing out characters, plots, morals of the stories, lines... Should I have them write? Do they need to pick their characters first or create the storyline? What are they saying in local language!? Should I force them to speak in French? I don't know if we are making progress. Shouldn't we write something down? How are they gonna do this? Every time I ask a question they don't say anything! Do they even understand me!? What are they saying!!?

Let me tell you. Day three, day four, day five...then they requested a day six and a day seven to get in more practice. At the closing ceremony they performed two theater pieces on "Girls' Education" and one on "Burkina Faso, Our Native Country".

They. Did. It.

And they are funny! Our girls have comedic timing! The room was full by the time the presentations started; by the end it was overflowing with fathers, mothers, neighbors, and children. She remembered to speak loudly! Look, she's walking like a crab so as not to turn her back to the audience!! Aw.. They are not body-blocking each other! Finally this group has picked up their pace! I watched the old men in the room smile at their girls, laugh with them, and applaud. Elizabeth really looks like a teacher! Katherine really acts like a dad! Fatimata's gestures are so expressive and the audience loves it! I wished I had it on video, I wished I was taking pictures but the other volunteers were not there to help me with the closing and my backpack was buried (stupidly!) in the back corner of the room. Some part of me wanted to get to my bag but most of me was totally engrossed - squatting in front of the stage, gesturing to remind the girls of this and that, giggling alternatively at the actors and the audience, and well, smiling.

It went so well. I was full with happiness walking home afterwards. I could have cried for the relief of it all and the regret of not taking any pictures, but as I approached my courtyard door - ha - the students of my Friday evening English club were waiting for me. -Hello. -Hello. -How are you? -I'm fine thank you, and you? -I'm fine too. -And your family? -No problem! Teaching English to my friends kept me focused, wound me down, and helped me not cry.

The community saw a real transformation in these girls and talked a lot about it afterwards. I kinda knew what I was getting into organizing a camp for twenty-five painfully shy and sheltered village girls... I was expecting copied drawings, covered mouths, and silence after questions. But twenty-five Pygmalions exceeded ALL my expectations.

There are many beautiful birds in Province Soum. I see them in and around my village and along the road when I am biking. My favorite one is dark and metallic with a long, purple tail. They often land on my courtyard wall - I've never gotten close but have always wanted to.

The other day I was visiting the village "majeur" or director of the health center. A majeur is not a doctor but the closest thing to it outside of Burkina's largest cities. We were sitting and chatting under a large, leafy tree when something caught his attention. He got up, went inside his house, and came back out with (some version of) a shotgun. He had seen that "black bird" and wanted it to give to the children. I've seen kids (boys) in Burkina catch and kill pigeons presumably to pluck, cook, and eat them later. At least that's what they'll tell you. Usually though, I'm pretty sure they catch and kill, then just play with the dead birds until they get sick of them. You know, kinda like when little American girls have "tea parties" with their dolls... it's pretend because the dolls aren't alive and there is never actually any tea. Well this game is pretend too since the birds are dead and there's never an actual roast or any eating...um, just the torture and the killing and then the playing with dead birds.

Well. The majeur shot once and I saw my bird fall. Just that morning I had been admiring one from afar thinking to myself one day I've got to get close enough for a picture... He had hit it in the heart. The kids weren't even around, and it was the middle of the day so he could have easily been called back to work and forgotten all about the "gift". He handed it to me alive, now dying in my hands. It was warm, soft, and beautiful. I gave it back to him before I thought it was dead. When he put it down and had to go check on a sick person I sat and got my close look. The feathers were indeed dark, metallic purple mixed with a bit of midnight blue. The head and underside of the body were all a striking black on the surface but upon inspection I found the hidden feathers were increasingly lighter shades of gray. In fact all the plumage which would never be exposed to the sunlight was not colored and shimmering like the exterior feathers but faded like an old man or woman's aging hairs. The underside of the dark head feathers were light grey. They underside of the of the long purple/blue tail was black and where the feather crossed over one another the upward-facing but hidden parts had remained (or turned?) black too. Its wings folded in and out easily, gracefully. I suppose that would be the case with any newly lifeless bird but I had never held one before.

I got my close look. I was glad I was there when he killed it because I know he will never kill a bird for no reason again if he thinks I'm near. I got my close look and I got to touch that beautiful thing and feel it dying in my hands. But I didn't get my picture, which is good. Now that's still something I've got to get close enough for.

June was a transition month. School ended, the fonctionnaires moved out, the community waited for rain, and once it had come, they went to the fields to work. July was a busy month! And August is shaping up to be very busy too... So I hope you are all enjoying the summer in the USA, and elsewhere. I'm thinking of you! Thank you for checking out my blog.

June

School officially ends on June 15 but, in reality, slows down to a stop one or two months before that. In April the teachers complained that it was too hot to teach, in May they claimed that the school-year was over. By the middle of May the teachers and students had thrown in the towel. I left village around May 24 for a "Training of Trainers" in Ouahigouya. When I came back at the beginning of June, all the teachers had left. The school director stayed to coordinate the end-of-elementary school exam on June 10-12. This year Belehede was selected to become a testing center. The village was very proud to be hosting the exam. Out of the 15 of our students who took this exam, however, only 6 passed. Only 1 of the 6 is a girl. That means that the 5 girls and 10 boys who failed the exam will either drop out of school or repeat 6th grade. Some of them have already repeated this grade or another one. The 6 students who passed the exam may or may not go on to junior high school. This depends on many things: whether or not the student's family has relatives in a town with a junior high school - the closest schools are 40, 50, and 70 kilometers away; whether or not the family can afford to pay the school fees and the costs of transportation for the child; whether or not the patriarch is actually committed to sending this child on for more school, etc. I'll let you know what happens with these children.

With all the teachers gone, the summer in Belehede is a different place. Volleyball transitioned from an all-fonctionnaire to an all-villager game and then ended for the year. Once it begins raining, Burkinabe farmers spend ALL day, every day working the fields. High noon in Belehede at the beginning of the rainy season (before everything becomes really green) is like the Wild, Wild West after the gold ran out. Completely deserted. Man, woman, and child are all out in the fields tilling land, pulling up old growth and weeds, planting seeds, carrying food out to family members, supervising work animals, fetching water, etc.

Basically, some people left town, and all the rest started getting really busy. Luckily I already had a lot planned for myself: 2 weeks of working at Pre-Service Training in July, 3 weeks of girls' camps in July and August, VAC* meetings in July and September, and the swearing-in ceremony of the new volunteers at the end of August. I also had a few guests (fellow volunteers) in June which was really fun. We made cookies, village pizza, goat stew, tuna burgers; traded stories; slept outside under the stars... all lined up on thin mattresses on my porch... anyway it was a nice couple of days with my June guests.

I started one new project upon the request of some enthusiastic village friends: Friday night English club. So far so good, we've had 6 meetings with about 15 people each time. Before the first meeting I told my guy friends that I would start this English club on this condition: "You bring a notebook, a pen, and a women." I told them I was not interested in starting any dudes-only activities, obviously, so I sent them out to find interested, motivated femmes. We've got at least 5, so, not bad.

July

At the beginning of July, I spent two weeks in Ouahigouya working as a Peace Corps Volunteer Facilitator, (PCVF). A new group of trainees arrived in country on June 11 and settled into the same training city and host villages as we did one year ago. It was great meeting these people. They are an enthusiastic and fun group. It was also great to facilitate and finally be one among the experienced volunteers. Still, I tried not to tell them this is how it is because every volunteer's experience is honestly so different. As PCVFs we shared experiences, answered questions, and of course, facilitated technical training sessions. "How to incorporate theater and radio broadcast into your service," "How to start a girls' club," or "How to use Participatory Analysis for Community Action, (PACA)" are some examples of GEE technical training topics. We also sat in on medical, security, and cross-cultural sessions to share what we cook in village, how we deal with stress and harassment, and what we've learned through our cross-cultural experiences.

On July 4th, the trainees threw a kick-@$ party with great food and traditional Burkinabe music. We ate, danced, and celebrated American Independence. The downside to the fantastic meal was that more than half of the trainees subsequently got really sick. Ha! Since about 30 people helped prepare the food...who knows what did it? Bottom line, they all got better and no one quit. No harm done! ;)

I spent one night with my former host family in Komsiliga which was wonderful. It had been one full year since I had seen them or been reminded of their immense warmth and uniqueness as a family. Upon my arrival, every female member of the family, including the very old grandmother, came literally running up to me to throw her arms around me and say hello, welcome back. I saw baby Megan. Do you all remember how I named a baby? Well, I really, really did. Megan Tall is on the child's birth certificate and they all call the baby by her American (Irish-American) name. Megan McSherry and Meaghan Griffith you are the namesakes for a beautiful girl! She is healthy, sweet as anything, not afraid of white people, lovable, and beautiful like her mother. My camera was not working at the time but the trainee staying with the family this time around took pictures and promised to send them to me.

The next two weeks were a whirlwind. I collaborated with two other volunteers to host the first two of three one-week girls' camps we're organizing this summer. The first camp was in Belehede with 25 girls. The second was in Tongomayel (David's site) with 16. We organized three major blocks of activity per day: 8:00-10:00 for life skills training; 10:30-12:15 for theater; and 3:00-5:00 for sports, music, or art. In Belehede, the girls arrived at 7:30 for a half hour of warm-ups/ organizing for the day and went home for lunch but we gave them a snack during the morning break. For both camps we held opening and closing ceremonies with the parents at the beginning and end of the week. In between the ceremonies were 5 full days of activities that were scheduled as described above. In Belehede we wound up adding two more mornings of theater practice, at the request of the girls, before their final performances in front of their parents at the closing ceremony. Before each individual activity we also tried to incorporate an icebreaker or warm-up to keep it interesting.

Basically, this project was awesome. It was by far and away my favorite initiative as a Peace Corps Volunteer so far. We talked about self-esteem and assertiveness, role models, HIV/AIDS, and income generating activities. We introduced the girls to kickboxing and yoga, had them create collages from magazine cutouts, and taught them a little bit about music with the help of a guitar and battery-operated keyboard. But best of all - from my perspective - was our experience with theater. These girls who started the week loathe to raise their heads above their desks from beneath their arms and hands to answer a question... created, practiced, perfected, and performed three mini-plays. Then they showed up to the closing and actually performed before their parents and neighbors! It was almost unbelievable... to see them have comedic timing, remember not to turn their backs to the audience, speak loud and clear enough for the audience to hear, support and help each other get it right, engage completely in their productions... It was awesome. For now, I will leave it at that. This is just an update, in any case. Next time I blog though, I will tell a story with less information and more detail.

August

Finally, in August, I am here in Ouaga finishing up my Mid-Service Conference. We have been here for over a year! As you can see, things are still going very well. But I love, love, hearing from you so thank you for commenting on the blog, emailing, mailing, and calling me. You guys are so great.

Miss you all and hope to hear from you soon. Much love....

*Volunteer Action Committee

Greetings everyone! Here's an overview of the last few months. Please note that I just made THREE NEW POSTS. The other two can be found, below.

March

Following International Women's day on March 8, I had the happy privilege to meet up with my real family without ever leaving the continent! My mother, father, and brother met me in Morocco where we had a wonderful family vacation. Morocco was beautiful and fascinating. I especially appreciated my family's reaction to their first "call to prayer" at four in the morning in Fez: they were terrified. The sound was (honestly) haunting - as if there were hundreds of voices crying from every direction - from muethins at mosques all over the city using megaphones, loudspeakers, or just powerful voices. A muethin is a Muslim man who calls from a mosque five times a day to remind his community to come out and pray. At four in the morning he chants "God is great. Praying is better than sleeping."

So, at this point I have un-regrettably used a majority of my vacation days. I am saving the rest for future visitors (hint, hint) and I can't wait to host those of you who have said that you'll come! ;)

I have no plans to return the United States until my service is done.

I spent the end of March mostly easing back into village life after a relatively lengthy vacation. The teachers had been on break around the same time but were not yet back when I returned so I found it difficult to get much done when many people were not around. At this time I was still waiting to organize action steps regarding the needs cited by the population.

April/May

In April we officially said goodbye to the group of volunteers in our sectors who came to Burkina one year before us. They had their "COS" conference or their "Close Of Service". Of course, most of them are not leaving until July or August which is good because we really like most of them and don't want them to go. But I guess it's just the circle of life now, isn't it? Each time a group "COSes" we throw a big party in Ouaga to celebrate. This group's theme was "beach OR superheroes" and the day was full of fun, group-friendly activities like sector vs. sector kickball, brunch, pool time, trivia, flip cup, etc. Girls' Education came in dead last in most of the day's events. So much for Empowerment. :|

We also had our first VAC (Volunteer Action Committee) meeting with the new Peace Corps Burkina Director, Doug Teschner. From his first day in the office, Doug has been enthusiastically getting to know every Burkina volunteer. His efforts are impressive and appreciated. The meetings went well and it looks like PC Burkina is heading in a good, new direction with improved communication between volunteers and the PC “bureau” (office).

My fabulously-fit running partners abandoned me after only one month of training. :( Apparently, running in cheap plastic sandals wasn't working out for Issiaka. Otherwise both he and Djibilirou had to start building and repairing houses anyway before the cultivating season. So I am back to running occasionally and slowly while cursing myself for not being more disciplined or in generally better shape.

I lost all the music on my ipod through some it-could-only-happen-to-me glitch that involved me plugging the device into a wall and then discovering that then all my music was gone. I did not have music for about four months. Seriously. Anyway, thank goodness I just got it fixed by a tech-savvy friend and finally I'm listening away! Phew! How did I do it? No music for four months...

I have begun to help the equivalent of sixth grade students study for their end-of-elementary school exam. If they do not pass this exam on June 10th, they CANNOT continue on the junior high. Therefore, I have been playing Jeopardy with them once or twice a week and generally encouraging them to take studying seriously. I ask you to hope, cross your fingers, and pray that most of these kids pass this June 10th exam because it is NOT a give-in. I suspect there is one child in the class who still does not actually know how to read. Whenever I asked him to read something off the board, all of his classmates chimed in to tell him every single word. So it's either that or the kid needs glasses...

I have also started facilitating life skills discussions on communication, decision-making, and relationships in a French literacy classroom. My village has three literacy programs - one in Koranfe, another in Koranfe and French, and a third less established one in Fulfulde. The French literacy program was just started this year but already seems to be successful. The sponsoring organization actually provides money to pay the students. This is great because it encourages the students and helps to account for their missed money-making opportunities while in the classroom.

My girls club has come to an end but volunteers in my region are planning to organize three girls camps during the summer. One will be in Béléhédé, one in David's Tongomayel, and another in our provincial capital, Djibo. It should be fun.

The majority of the "village needs" continue to be unaddressed. I am definitely finding it difficult to mobilize the community to take concrete actions. However, I had one small success regarding the community's desire for a second primary school. We took the necessary first step - a formal request to the regional director of primary education. Following protocol, I personally delivered the request to the school inspector. That way, I was able to articulate how much the community prioritizes education. I was able to explain that among all the needs they cited during my "Needs Analysis" activity, the top two were related to education. The earliest we could get a second primary school would be the school year of 2009-2010 but do not get your hopes up, people.

Finally, volleyball. This is going great because we still play most nights. It's competitive and fun. No women play except me but I have temporarily come to terms with this. On the court, players have no choice but to treat me as an equal. Only two of us in the group have played off of Béléhédé's makeshift court. Its me and the men - barefoot in dirty, thorny, sand with large branches for posts and a ripped up, sagging net. Every night they separate me from the other experienced player. They organize the game around us. We alternate as the first two picks because neither always wins but it's almost always our match. We joke around and call other players "the pro", "the solid old man", "the attacker", and "the expert". They never call me “the pro”. They also never call me “the woman”. One day during a discussion the men admitted to me that they think of my like a "boy" (garcon) - you know – almost one of them. Is it for fear of the better word? It is a complement to be thought of like a garcon…

The fact is, I've never even heard them refer to me as a woman on the court. They use other descriptives for players like "the old man", "the Dogon", "the Peul", "the young one", "the teachers", "the short/tall one", "the counselor", "the solid one". So, sometimes I call myself "the woman". Sometimes I go out-of-my-way to remind them. But the effort falls on deaf ears: the men are not really ready to share the court.

Hello everyone! Once again, it’s been almost three months since my last post. Time flies!

Well, I love Burkina Faso. Not hopelessly, or overwhelmingly, or unconditionally or anything like that. It's not like I won't want to come home when it’s all done. I will! But I do love it here right now. I love Peace Corps service. Maybe this is interesting - for me, being a Peace Corps Volunteer is like having two present and active lives. My third life is the life at home in America. Yes, here in Burkina I live two separate and not quite equal lives. Most of the time (when you're not hearing from me) I am in or around my village removed from electricity, running water, toilets, cold drinks, bananas, vegetables, and most other fruits. (Although right now Béléhédé has mangos and guavas!) I present myself differently; I wear different clothes, I speak adjusted French and some local language. I've got my friends and my habits which include sitting around drinking small shot glasses of foamy, strong, green tea with sugar; working on local language in a (honestly) filthy, fly-ridden mud hut on a worn, ripped-up straw mat; playing volleyball most nights barefoot in dirty, (sometimes punishing) sand; interacting with some school children and all their teachers; and often walking around village trying to track down meetings that never happened or information that is somehow, perpetually just a bit further away. I eat with someone's family almost every day and sometimes twice a day. In people's courtyards we are surrounded by chickens, goats, sheep, guinea fowl, sometimes ducks or even bunnies, and always children. I respond to a local name, or several names to foreign ears, although I know that they are all the same thing. I use my right hand for everything. I often use only my hand to eat.

When I'm with Americans, it’s different. We dress in pants and tank tops. We complain in English (whereas Burkinabé complain in French, n'est ce pas?) We do not say hello to EVERY single person along the road or in the street. We do not stop to shake hands with strangers or even greet each individual friend when we enter a room. We do not invite strangers to eat. We drink beer, we hug, and we touch. We talk on our cell phones for extended periods of time and we receive enormous, gratuitous packages. We laugh, a lot. We talk about where we want to travel, next. The Peace Corps community is vibrant, mostly young, fresh... Sometimes, with some special friends, you can mix your two lives as a Peace Corps Volunteer. When you are integrated into your community, sometimes you'll act similarly when you are out of it. But in Ouaga with other Americans you are compelled to make a choice. Some volunteers won't ever invite you or strangers to eat; some won't greet people on the street. This is the city, for goodness sake. The other white people don't do that. Volunteers in a group speak ENGLISH. There's no two ways about that. Unless, of course, you're with an American who doesn't speak English as a first language… My friends Yaneth and Kim are Columbian-American. One even received her citizenship just before joining Peace Corps. Volunteers like these learn the host country culture AND the American culture all at once! I'm personally learning more about Americans, in this diverse but very American group, than ever before.

Well the point is, I guess, that sometimes, I think about my two faces. In village - here are some of the things my community thinks - Adjara is sporty and likes to do sports. For example she runs and plays volleyball. She is not married (or is she?). She does not have children but wants them one day. She wants a husband one day too (for those who really "know" me!) Adjara likes to debate. She does not speak "our language." Adjara does not drink or go out at night. She can dance well but we have only seen her do it once or twice. She comes from America and is therefore rich. She is white - our white person. She likes children and gives them empty bottles, cans, or cartons at her house. She is here to help girls and maybe women. She smiles a lot and likes to travel in and out of village. She is not Muslim but also does not go to church. She does not believe in genies. (Actually only the teachers know that and they are still trying to convince me of the facts of black magic.) She walks around village but when she leaves she rides a bike. She is courageuse (courageous) because she came all the way to Africa from America with no one and moved into the bush and lives alone. I haven't heard them say it yet but they probably think I am crazy too.

Peace Corps Volunteers are crazy. And they are diverse. They come from all over the country and from all different backgrounds, orientations, age groups, religions, and experiences. African-American volunteers in Burkina are called "white person". Latino-Americans experience the same thing. Asian-Americans are called Bruce Lee and Chinese. Married women are called by their husband's first or last name. Homosexual volunteers are advised not to reveal their sexuality to any locals lest they endanger their safety and security. Outside of Peace Corps meetings, I have never heard any Burkinabé even breach the subject of homosexuality. They do not believe it even exists.

This was supposed to be an "update post" but it turned into a tangent about my lifestyles. I will type an update tomorrow. To finish this up though, for now, I'll tell you what I did today and what I did days ago. Today and yesterday I ordered food to the transit house, ate a salad and humus and beer out last night, I watched part of a movie, and sat and sleep in front of standing fans on a real bed, drank water from a freezer that had turned to ice. A few days ago, I held a life skills discussion on assertiveness in a French/Koranfe literacy class; I ate rice with beans and oil sauce; I played volleyball with a bunch of men whose single or multiple wives were home cooking for them while breast-feeding their babies; I walked around village fanning myself with a ever-present hand fan (it's my third arm), and fleeing from brutal sun; I drank warm water; I went to bed not long after the sun. Right now in front of me seven friends are sitting in front of a standing fan and a laptop, on a couch, watching The Office. We just got wireless internet in our Ouagadougou transit house. I can smell someone cooking something in the kitchen. I can see two other people reading an American gossip magazine and Newsweek respectively. I am personally listening to Lauren Hill, Norah Jones, the Cranberries, and Radiohead on my ipod after about 4 or 5 months without music (seriously) because the ipod temporarily broke. This is borrowed music since all mine got erased. A few days ago I would have listened to the BBC news on my (broken) shortwave radio. Often I listen to World Have Your Say and Focus on Africa while cooking or sometimes doing yoga.

The food in the kitchen was popcorn and thankfully, most volunteers do share.

As promised, my great friend/ X-mas host/ Komsiliga-baby namesake Megan has written up a summary of her trip to Burkina Faso. Thank you Megan and Andy for this and for your fabulous visit!

Visit to Burkina Faso

We left Ghana for Burkina Faso on an STC bus on the 21st of January, 2008 and did not arrive until about 24 hours later. It was a long and tiring ride from Accra to Ouagadougou. We were met at the STC station in Ouaga the morning of January 22nd by our sweet and caring host Christina and that is when the adventure began.

Our first ride in a BF car was in a Ouaga taxi (all green in color) which took us to Hotel Del Wende where we were to pass the night. Christina (our host, tour guide, translator and everything in between) then took us to a restaurant where we had one of the popular foods in BF, couscous. It was delicious. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped to purchase some fruit from some women on the street. However, the minute we indicated any interest in buying anything, we found ourselves surrounded by vendors crowding, shoving food in our faces, and shouting at us in French to buy their goods. Andy and I were completely overwhelmed as we couldn’t even comprehend what was being shouted at us and Christina, being assaulted in every direction and simultaneously trying to translate the French being spoken to Andy and I as well as our responses in English to the women, grew understandably and increasingly frazzled. This situation (which must have looked quite hilarious to any of the other “le blanche” walking the streets) finally culminated in Christina and I busting out in uncontrollable, unstoppable laughter at the insanity of it all while Andy in the meantime, continued to fight off his salesman. The funniest part of the whole situation and what finally caused the breakdown was when Christina translated what one particular woman had been shouting all along. While shoving an orange up to the faces of both Christina and I (while another one thrust strawberries to our mouths), the woman repetitively called out the phrase “jolie comme toi! jolie comme toi!”. When Christina told me the phrase means “pretty like you” and I pictured my face being compared to a beautiful, bright, plump orange, I felt both flattered and ridiculous. The thought, combined with the persistence of the women in the Ouaga side-parking lot market, made all three of us laugh and to purchase not only several of the “pretty like us” oranges but also a bunch of the deliciously sweet strawberries the other woman had insisted on us sampling.

The next day took us to Djibo. It was the market day or the “marché”. It was a great sight to see. We combed the market and got some few items for our next few meals at X’s place in Béléhédé. Later, in the dusty heat of the afternoon, after purchasing our transport “tickets”, the driver called out that it was time to go. To our amazement (and Christina’s nonchalantly, on-the-phone-with-her-parents un-noticing of the whole scene), hordes of Burkinabe rapidly and nimbly scaled the back and sides of the oversized and overstuffed lorry (aka tractor trailer truck) that we intended to ride. Now, for those of you who are only used to seeing the calmly passing and horn-tooting tractor trailers on highways in the US, let me explain to you just how this particular truck differed. Not only were the seats in the cab filled (the only actual seats on the whole rig) but the whole of the back of the truck was also filled top to bottom with goods. This left the roof of the truck, guarded on all sides by a short fence such as one you might find typically on the ground to keep say, goats or some other small farm animal, contained at a petting zoo. But even atop the truck, no “seats” were to be found. For while people rushed to fit themselves and any belongings, babies, bikes in any open crack or crevice, the workers continued to load ginormous sacks of rice and other grains, thereby crushing people’s toes as they (oh wait, that was us), as we hesitantly and desperately searched for a place to exist. Since none was to be found (thanks to Christina taking her sweet ol’ time, which later we realized was no accident but in fact genius strategy, even the smallest openings of space had been filled), we stood there wide-eyed and a bit intimidated as people shouted at us in god knows how many languages to move, get off their stuff, stop pushing, stop staring at their babies, exposed breasts, etc. (at least that is what I imagine they were shouting at us). However, luckily, our guide and hero X-tina had made this trip before, many times by now. She would not be intimidated or held back. Shouting right back at all the pushy, jabbering Burkinabe, she crawled, pushed, and basically swam her way to a miniscule open space towards the front of the truck. Following her lead, I plopped myself right down on a big sack of something and struggled to keep the large woman pushing up against me from squashing our tomatoes into paste. Andy, on the other hand, being the too-kind-for-his-own-good kinda guy that he is, kept letting latecomers nudge him out of any space he had managed to gain until finally he was dangling from the top of the little fence thing with no space even to stick a toe. He was joined in the back there by another Burkinabe, perhaps one of the loaders, who midway through the ride decided to completely duck out and ride instead hanging from the back. The man’s dark skin matched his red shirt by the time we disembarked due to the at-least-inch-thick coating of red dust all over him.

After the truck had finally been loaded and the last of the latecomers had shoved their way on top of somebody (see the genius part now?), the truck pulled out of the marketplace only to stop about hundred feet later to let the street vendors do their thing. From her tiny hole in the middle of the truck, Christina expertly maneuvered a transaction that resulted in all three of us sampling some of the sweetest, coldest, freshest, and best yogurt I have ever tasted. This topped off our good mood as our ride officially began. Andy and I, still in shock over the way we were being transported, had a case of that unstoppable laughter again. Christina, unfazed by it all, sat back and enjoyed the ride. However, part-way into the ride, we realized that we could shout back and forth across the truck to each other without a single soul understanding a word we said. It was the first time I had been in such a situation. I felt like one of those haughty Asian women in a nail salon, always smugly commenting on the shabbiness of a customer’s toes before politely turning back to you to inquire what color polish you desired. Needless to say, everyone else stared at us in wonder, curious to know what was being said. At this point, the baby boy of the outspoken woman riding next to/on top of my legs started pissing. Since this woman lacked the double-durability and ultra-absorption of a Huggies disposable diaper and had instead donned her child with part of a cloth she wore (which she quickly pulled away, by the way, when the kid started to go), the pudgy woman and I were soaked. Fortunately for me, it only got my leg. The other woman’s shirt was soaked all down her back. Though the woman showed no remorse and didn’t look as if she was bout to start apologizing, I quickly smiled at her and let out a laugh to let her know it was no big deal (much to the anger of the large woman). Andy, in the meantime, had made a new friend in the passenger riding beside him and was conducting English lessons up above my head.

Shortly after this incident, Christina called out to ask me what it was she was leaning against (as she had no way of turning around to see for herself). “Is it a person or a thing?” she asked. “Well,” I said as I struggled to get in a position to see what lay behind her, “it appears to be a sword. Yep, a sword.” Well of course we couldn’t let the moment pass without capturing it on camera so X politely asked the fellow behind her if she could see his sword. Seconds later, the man whipped out (of the box with the photograph of it) a fancy, shiny, silver, old-school warrior sword. Hence, the photo below of X-tina happily brandishing the sword to the amusement of our fellow passengers. Needless to say, we had, what Andy so rightly termed “the best ride ever”.

“Welcome to Béléhédé” was what everyone seemed to be saying when they saw us. The people are so friendly and welcoming. And guess who was waiting for us at Christina’s- David. He had come to keep us company. The next few days saw us visiting friends of Christina including Valerie, a teacher at the school who spoke some English, and her cousin Coco. With Alou, Christina’s counterpart in Béléhédé, we toured some of the farms and spied a crocodile sunbathing on an island in the middle of the barrage (lake). Everyone we passed stopped to exchange friendly greetings and welcome us to Béléhédé. After all we were friends of Ajarah, “the one who is loved.” One woman was so happy to see us she asked Christina to tell us that as much as we love Béléhédé, Béléhédé loves us more.

The following day took us to Dori where Yaneth is stationed. In Dori, we spent two nights hanging out with other PCVs and visited the marché, which is much bigger than in Djibo. Andy’s proudest moment came when he got to sit on a donkey, something he had wanted to do since the first day he saw one being used as a means of transportation in Djibo.

Bani was our next stop from Dori. We left early in the morning after a breakfast of “pain” aka bread and sweetened condensed milk (mmmmm!) to visit this small town which seems to have a mosque for every day of the week. In total, eight (I believe) mosques sit atop the surrounding hills, facing, unlike all other mosques aimed at Mecca, the center of the town. The mosques, while appearing ancient but actually only 30 or so years old, were built entirely with mud and sticks. The view of Bani and the surrounding desert from these hills was spectacular.

By the time we finished our mosque tours, it was time for us to leave our Peace Corps friends, including X-tina, for Ouaga, our final stop in BF before we left for Ghana the next day. Andy and I both laughed nervously as we joked about how we were going to survive the rest of the way without knowing any French. However, our gracious host was happy to write down for us everything we would need to say throughout the remainder of our stay. The note highlighted key exchanges and phrases such as “how much does it cost?” and “does this have meat in it?”. Without it, we would have been lost, I’m sure. It was so funny but we made it. We got to the hotel, our starting point from days earlier, where we had dinner and passed the night. The next morning passed uneventfully as the hotel manager helped secure us a ride to the bus station. We thought we had done pretty well and were very satisfied with our trip. We were recounting some of the funny stories when suddenly our bus toppled over the side of the road. We were hanging at full tilt off the road, ready to roll down the hill at any minute. Everyone on the bus panicked, scrambling out of the windows and doors to exit the bus. I thought it was very funny while of course Andy took up the job of worrying about our safety. We managed to get off the bus after which the driver was able to pull the bus safely back onto the road. And that is how we left the glorious, dry-as-ashes country of Burkina Faso.

Our days in BF were over sooner than we expected. Guess it was because we had such fun and wished to stay longer. That is why we would love to visit Burkina again next winter because our host was so great, took such good care of us, and there is still so much more that we would like to see! Merci beaucoup to Christina and all her friends!!!

Below, you'll find a typical conversation between me and any of my neighbour's children. Once I step outside of my courtyard, they yell and wave from across the street, down the road, a few houses over... "ça va ?" means "how's it going" in French but here is it used as both the question and the response: how's it going? Its goes! The children in my area are enthusiastic wavers. Its pretty cute. They wave and cry out to greet me from far away and then just keep greeting and waving until I am completely out of sight.

-Adjara!! Adjara!! Adjara!! Ça va?

-Bonjour les enfants... Oui, ça va bien.

-Ça va bien!

-Oui, ça va.

-Ça va.

-Merci beaucoup.

-Ca va.

-Merci beaucoup.

-Merci beaucoup.

-Ok, aurevoir, à plus, bye-bye....

-Ça va..

- ...

-Adjara!! Adjara!! Adjara!! Ca va!!??

The children in my area know by experience with me that they should speak in French. With adults I make the effort to greet them in their language, whatever that may be. With children or young girls/boys, I make the effort to greet them in French, because in theory that is what they should be learning. Of course, many of my village children are not in school because they are too young or because they have dropped out. But I always make the effort to speak to them in French as an example of the importance of learning that language.

It's been three months!

Thank you for your letters, packages, blog comments*, and well wishes (that mom and dad always pass on). Everything is still going great here in Burkina Faso but it has sure been a while since my last post! Well, a lot has happened since December 21st, so before I tell any special stories I'll give a brief (yea right have we met?) timeline of events:

December/January

Awesome trip to Ghana. We traveled for two weeks in a group of 11 volunteers passing through Accra, Tackorati, Cape Coast, Elmina, and the rainforest. We spent Christmas and several days on the eastern beach of Ada Foah in the good hands of exceedingly gracious hosts: my American friend Megan and her Ghanaian friend Andy. We also spent several days including New Years Eve on the western beach of Busua at a really cute and cheap beach resort. We spent one night in Kumasi which has the biggest market in West Africa (wow) and one night on the edge of the rainforest in order to do a sunrise canopy walk. Fabulous trip!

When I came back, unfortunately, I learned that my cat Soumbala was dead. Somebody killed him while I was gone but nobody will tell me who did it. This was sad. And it also, ironically, coincided with the arrival of a package from my aunt and uncle which included two thoughtful toys of catnip. Sorry, Aunt Margie. :( Soumbala, RIP.

Since I last mentioned Early Terminations of Volunteers - at least two or three more quit prior to or during December. My training group started with 29, now there are 18 left.

January

I mentioned many posts ago that I was elected to represent the GEE volunteers from my training group on the Volunteer Action Committee (VAC). VAC members serve as liaisons between the volunteers and the Peace Corps Office. In January we had our last meetings with the former country director (CD) Marily Knieriemen. The next meetings will be in April and the new CD -- a former forestry volunteer and New Hampshire state legislator -- seems great!

Our friends from Ghana paid us a visit! I hosted American Megan and Ghanaian Andy for a much too brief Burkina trip. But even though they were not in country very long, I showed them Sahel sand and Burkina transport! It was really awesome hosting these friends and getting to show them (and show them off in!) my village. Since they came to visit me, I've invited them to write a blog post (if they are interested). SO, if any of you decide to visit me and Burkina in our splendor, I'll invite you to write a post too.

January/February/March

Volleyball in village continues... and we play almost every night! This is SO fun and I am so grateful to have started up this group. Unfortunately there aren't any women except me. At first one woman fonctionnaire/teacher joined us - she had the time to play because a female cousin lives with her to help take care of her son and cook. But Valerie decided to give up because she wasn't good, and wasn't in very good shape. Despite the fact that women here lead physically demanding lives, they do not have the habit of playing sports. If a woman didn't make it through a decent amount of school, she would never have played any organized game. Even when the men and I play volleyball in the evenings, the women are home preparing to cook. The men have said, if their wives started to come they'd have to hit them for not being home to cook. Is this slightly with tongue in cheek? Maybe. In any case, the women who could find the time to play, like my teacher friend, are often overweight because being big here means you are "healthy," doing "well," and "comfortable" in your life.

My girls' club continues... and this is going very well. The girls especially love to do yoga and dance. We have run, danced, drawn, talked about our dreams, gotten to know each other a bit and next on the agenda is an intro lesson in kickboxing!

February

I started doing community-mobilizing work. Peace Corps asks that you organize at least one formal activity to identify resources and/or needs in your community. The framework is called PACA - Participatory Analysis for Community Action. This toolkit includes the following activities: the creation of a community map identifying resources and highlighting the most important, most frequented, and most loved areas in the community; a seasonal calendar tracking life throughout the year and identifying seasonal variations in work, weather, sickness, income, free time, and cultural commitments; a schedule of daily activities listing what exactly one does from morning to night; and finally a needs assessment to identify and prioritize what things could make the community better, which are actionable, and how.

I am very happy to report that I completed all of these activities with my community! The first three we worked on apart -- that is, I had three meetings with the men to complete a community map, a seasonal calendar, and a daily activities schedule; and I had three meetings with the women to create the same things. We did the final needs assessment in one big group and it went great. I had the women present their work to the men and the men present to the women. I also took the opportunity to give a presentation on myself and why I am here, working in their community. Finally, I asked the men and the women to come prepared with a long list of "what could make their community better" and a short list of five most important needs. We took the five needs of the women and the five needs of the men and created a matrix for pairwise comparison. That means we compared every need to every other need and voted between the two which one was more important. What's more important - a secondary school or a second elementary school? A secondary school. What's more important - a secondary school or a more beds in the maternity? A secondary school. And so on. In the end we were able to look at the votes that each need received and see that how they prioritized the eight we discussed.

Following the needs assessment, we met again to work on action plans. Now, the needs have been parceled out to appropriate committees (mostly already existing in the community) and each group has identified a series of "first steps". At the action planning meeting I took the opportunity to give a repeat presentation of my role in the community responding to some questions and concerns I had heard that week.

I think we have laid solid groundwork for working together in the future and I am very pleased with how all of this organizing went. By now many villagers should have a clear understanding of my role. In the future, we will need to discuss which specific problems (related to the eight priority needs) are most feasible to address.

I had a Valentines Day party. My American neighbors came to the homestead bearing chocolates and love. David even biked up with a cock over his handbars. We tied "Frank" up in my courtyard until we ate him for lunch and generally had a blast.

I started running most mornings at 8am with two (buff/ripped/perfectly-in-shape) village guys. This is hilarious because they showed up at my place one night to ask me if I could "train them". What? Excuse me? Train you? In what? "Adjara, we want you to train us -- to coach us..." Huh? You mean you want me to train you in running?... Great! I had them show up the next morning and we did my first ever loop in Africa - they took me like thirty minutes out into the God-(and the villagers)-only-knows-where-we-are bush. Train them! HA! These guys cultivate fields of grain BY HAND for a living. I hope you all see the humor in this.

March

International Women's Day... March 8th is International Women's Day and a national holiday in Burkina Faso. This is a day I have been hearing about since I arrived in village -- "Adjara, what are we going to do for the 8 mars?! Last year the men cooked and the women made tea!" Indeed there was a lot of pressure for this day to be a success. The fonctionnaire women in village organized themselves, pooled their money, and bought a bunch of food to cook. They also all bought this year's 8 mars fabric and got tailor-made matching outfits. (See my photo to the right.) I participated in their party. But I also organized at the village level.

At all my community mobilizing meetings I reminded the women to come up with ideas for the 8 mars. I told them I could offer suggestions on what we should do... but that it would mean more if it they decided themselves what the village should do for their day. In the end they wanted to do traditional dances and watch a film. I threw in the idea of girls playing soccer. Early in the morning I dressed up and set out into the village to congratulate groups of women on International Women's Day. I prepared a little speech in Fulfulde with the help of my good friends Dramane and Poitiba and I delivered it over and over to groups of 5 to 20 women gathered to pound millet.

After spending the rest of the morning cooking with the fonctionnaries, we ate a very late lunch. By the time it was ready, the village women were gathered at the school to start their dancing. After I shoveled down some quick rice, I went out to the villagers, delivered another word to the group in Fulfulfe before we finally started to dance. While this was going on, eventually, my male teacher friends finished their food and took the initiative to organize the soccer game I had scheduled. Dramane took charge as the referee for the game - girls against boys. In the first half, which was 20 minutes, the girls scored a goal. Once the second half got going, however, Dramane decided to stop the game after just 5 minutes. That way, the boys would not have the chance to score a goal and the girls would win on International Women's Day!

By the end of the traditional dancing, my volleyball buddies had organized themselves and started to play - all men. But they were waiting for me to finish dancing so I could play on the women's team. We played 5 women plus one man (the real volleyball player) against a team of men. With me and Dramane on the same team, of course we - the women - won. I found out later that some people have never seen a volleyball game in their lives. They had also certainly never seem women play and win. Finally, after allowing time for the women to go home and cook for their families, I rented out the one color TV in village to show two DVDs to everyone. One was a female Burkinabe singer/ dancer that all the women apparently love, while the other was a female Malian. At least 200 people showed up to the show that night. The day was a huge success and I was certainly totally elated/ exhausted.

Most of all though, at the end of 8 mars, I was touched by all the apparent levels of support. I was struck by the leadership of my male friends. For me, much of the day, espcially the afternoon of events, turned out to be a whirlwind. If I were left to handle everything by myself, the girls soccer game might not have gotten started, or I might have tried to insist that it was a fair match up -- only girls versus girls! Additionally, I would have refused to let a man play on the woman's volleyball team and/ or insisted that the women start playing by themselves without me while I handled other stuff.

But instead what happened was that the men who have the habit of supporting me -- my teacher friend Dramane and my school Director for two examples -- took charge and initiated a proper soccer game, and then even rigged it in our favor! On the volleyball court, all my male buddies insisted that they wait for me for the game to start because there acutally aren't any women who know how to play. The first ball of the game Dramane received and passed to me asking for it back so he could slam it and get the point. I passed it to a women who never played volleyball before in her life and she missed. Even if my instincts were to try to make everything equal, equal, equal... the fact is that they are not.

And Dramane said, "Christina, NO." The next time I gave him the ball. In the midst of a crazy day I put my faith in a trusted friend and he was right on the 8 mars. The two of us played for the whole team and we won, the women won, the village won - they saw women succeed on International Women's Day. That's what counts.

So', happy women's day, everyone. And if you are a woman reading this blog, just like me, you have a lot of reasons to be grateful.

*I realize that some of you have not been able to post comments on this blog. I have now changed my settings so that anyone should be able to post a comment. Please let me know if you have any difficulties with this by contacting me through email. Thanks!

Bonjour/soir! I am now over six months into my Peace Corps service and just loving all of it. Things are moving along - I am integrating, making friends, starting to visualize my future work... Allow me to gush just for a moment.

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer, at this point in my life, is just the coolest job, ever. Admittedly, I am high off the holiday season and all the great times I have been spending out of site with my American friends. But I am loving being in site too...

We've started a volleyball team that has been playing in front of the school in the evening until the sun goes down. One fonctionnaire, a teacher in village, played volleyball for years up to the national level in BF. The first time he and I got together to hit the ball around, we were both shocked. You can play! And it's the perfect marriage of skills - I'm a setter, he's a hitter. Now we are training other adults in village to play, thus creating a regular group.

I am also spending time almost every day sitting and working in village, with women. In a previous post I mentioned my Koranfe-speaking Fulfulde tutor who has been introducing me to village life. Well, Poitiba and I have stopped language class for the moment (I want to buckle down and study before I go back to vocabulary instruction) but lately I have benefited from her simply as a connection to the villageoise! I'll show up, for example, in the morning to say hi. Then we will gather with other women outside her courtyard to pound millet, corn, and nuts. Every time I join the women, I pound at least a little bit. Sometimes I help clean or prepare beans or other grains and foodstuff. The women don't speak French but Poitiba, as a rare exception, can translate most things if I ask. There are also young, out-of-school girls who haven't yet lost their French. With or without translation though, I am finding that communication is constant. Whether we are silent, gesturing, or speaking in our own mother tongues, at the bottom line, we are sharing physical work. It's just not hard to spend hours on end in the company of these women sharing tasks, food, and work.

I am also loving the challenges. Heck, that's what I came here for! Some of you may have heard me say that following university graduation, I wanted to do something hard. Well, living in Burkina is not that easy but it is also, honestly, not that hard. There are so many diverse (and daily) challenges that you are constantly experiencing both failure and success. I love this dichotomy. I love to succeed. Yet, is there no better motivation than complete non-success? failure? blunder? misadventure? loss? The language issue is a good example. As I struggle to make local language progress, I am succeeding in communicating my intent. Most people I deal with now understand that I want to speak Fulfulde.

I have worked to set my own precedent. And it is a pleasure to demonstrate that all Americans are not the same, and for that matter neither are all "whites". At the beginning, it felt like all my predecessors' friends and acquaintances approached me, visited me, even accosted me with news of and obligations for our "friendship". You will come visit me. You will teach me English. We are friends, I met you once. You will do this for me. I will show you how to properly do that. But you met me - you do not remember my name? You know me and I know you because you waved while you were passing by riding your bike once.

I actually enjoy the process of making my own friends; my own personal connections. Many of those initial people have finally backed off. I am glad for this and grateful to have also met so many enthusiastic and encouraging people so far. I have enjoyed watching the changes in people's behavior - they are no longer greeting Sara when I walk down the road or into the market, they are instead adapting to interacting with me, a different individual. As time goes on, village feels only calmer and more comfortable. So, I am grateful to have done much of the hard work that I have already done.

I will start a girls' sports club in January. Eventually, it will be open to the equivalent of girls in grades 5 and 6. But I will work with the older girls first to train them as leaders for the group.

I am also going to start holding once-a-week English classes for the teachers and a few other fonctionnaires. Fonctionnaires are people who work for the government and are therefore much better educated than the average Joe, or should I say Moussa. We will work on improving conversational skills.

Finally, there is a long way to go to define the new white woman in town, and I am only just starting to tempt my real work... but I actually do love an uphill battle.

21 December 2007

Happy holidays everyone!! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying quality time with family and friends. Here in West Africa, the holiday season has been great!

A few weeks ago I spent a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend with about 20 other volunteers. We gathered at our friends' Jill and Markus' place to feast and party for two days straight. Memorable moments include: Adlai slaughtering a pig, Mac slaughtering a turkey, and David playing guitar next to a raging bonfire Thanksgiving night.* We prepared salad, falafel, mashed potatoes, chicken, and some kind of apple cobbler dish. The night before the slaughter/ feast Markus made impressive spicy-tuna sushi and we broke out a few cases (really, crates) of Burkina's standard beer. The cheapest brand is called "Brakina" or "Sobbibra"and each bottle is twice the size of a standard American beer. After spending the day preparing a slow-cook, 18-bean soup for Thanksgiving night, I made the mistake of letting my soup sit unguarded in the kitchen. Someone tasted it and word got around it was good. Eventually, sneaky party-goers (meaning all of them) ate the whole thing that very night! I was ineffective against the crazed masses - I could do nothing to protect my soup!

Halloween was a low key but nonetheless fun experience. I showed up unannounced to Mac's place that night demanding something sweet. Graciously, he gave me precious dried pineapple chunks from America and I told him trick or treat!

Two days ago Burkina Faso shut down in honor of the Muslim holiday Tabaski which happens about 40 days following the end of Ramadan. Unfortunately I was not in village to celebrate with my Burkinabe friends. Instead I came to Ouaga to prepare for my own December holiday, Christmas. Next year I will surely spend Tabaski with my friends and neighbors, though, dressed in traditional Burkinabe clothing, passing out small money to kids for the fete, and eating fresh lamb and goat meat!

Finally, Christmas is just around the corner! We expect this and New Years to be two more fabulous holidays. Every remaining member of my Peace Corps training group, minus three people, are heading to Ghana for about the next 14 days. We rented an entire bus to ourselves which we'll be hopping on for 24 hours to Accra. Amazingly, ten of us will get to spend Christmas together on the beach at the house of one of my best friends from college in the States. Megan McSherry has landed a kick-butt volunteer job for four months on the coast. She's living in Ghana and tracking gigantic sea turtles at the mouth of the Upper Volta River for 4 months!

Finally, at this point I am the only person with even some Jewish blood among my Peace Corps friends. Therefore, there has been little talk of Hannukah. Many Burkinabe have never heard of Judaism. I did receive one cute email from my little brother. Thanks, Michael! And Happy Hannukah, Sobiloffs!

*All captured on video and available upon request.

I just made FIVE new posts (not including this one). Kindly, see below. I apologize for the delay!

Two more are coming soon from November 8 and November 12. If I get the chance I will put them up tomorrow.

My apologies that I do not have the energy to write up a general update here and now. But suffice it to say - all is well! And, thank you so much for being such supportive family, friends, and readers!

Much love,

Christina

27 November 2007

It has taken me a full two months to get the word out to my defiant villagers: I AM LEARNING FULFULDE. Allow me to backtrack a little and explain.

If you have been following my blog, you may have noted that once I arrived in country I began learning Fulfulde: the language spoken by the nomadic Peuhl (Fr.) or Fulani (En.) people throughout the North of Burkina Faso. Well, despite the fact that I live in an almost entirely Peuhl region of the country (including Djibo), the people of my village, Béléhédé, are almost entirely Fulsi or Koromba. They speak Koronfe.

Honestly, this situation was extremely discouraging at first. I consulted with several people including Béléhédé's former volunteer (Sara), my school director, and Peace Corps. The consensus was that it was best to learn Fulfulde because, no matter what, all people in this region can speak that language. When I first got to village I was content to catch up with my solitude, read, clean, organize, cook, and settle in. But once I started leaving my house I realized that everyone seemed to believe that they obviously knew me, that we were already buddies, and that I would invariably greet them in their local language as if we were just old friends.

They expected of me what they perceived of Sara. Well, by the beginning of October, every time I left the house I went emotionally armed to battle one more day of my private war.

I would address a passer-by in Fulfulde. Or if I knew they spoke it well enough, French. Honestly, every single person would answer in Koranfe. I don't speak Koranfe. I am learning Fulfulde (said in French). Mi jangan Fulfulde (in Fulfulde). Every day someone would tell me I NEED to speak Koranfe; I MUST speak Koranfe; SARA spoke KORANFE; Sara spoke it REALLY well. I tried different tactics over time:

Strategy #1: Go with your gut.

Plan to face it another day. I took a leave of absence from learning and/or practicing any language that wasn't English. During this time I got by on my French and limited local language skills. I was gathering my strength and firming up my resolve.

Strategy #2: Get into it.

I started telling people what my deal was - I am learning Fulfulde, not Koranfe. On the one hand, I know laid useful groundwork for life in village by highlighting one major difference between myself and the former volunteer. This strategy was upfront and honest. I am strong, right? Good for me telling it like it is! Well, Strategy #2 also SUCKED. Every time I left my house I was getting into another fight. Big surprise - people don't like it when you tell them you are not interested in their language. Sigh.

Strategy #3: Defiance!

Oh my, I was very frustrated, things only seemed to be getting worse on the local language front. Not only was I fighting the not-good fight every day but I wasn't making ANY progress at all in local Fulfulde because at the end of the day I was emotionally exhausted. I ignored the people who relentlessly addressed me in Koranfe even when they looked me in the face. I felt - you KNOW I don't know what you are saying. I answered everyone in the little Fulfulde I could still muster.

Strategy #4: Acceptance

Finally, I think this is where I am at. But it is possible for me to be here because it seems to be where the villagers are "at" as well. We've reached a middle ground. I have relaxed and let my guard down. I am going with the flow and avoiding the trap of justifying myself to any and every person who passes me on the road. I've got a good two or three phrases down in Koranfe and everything else can at the least be muddled through with polite gestures and some French. I have a language tutor who is actually Fulsi (Koranfe-speaking) but is graciously instructing me in Fulfulde. She is also helping me integrate into the village. I finally have buy-in and acceptance from a few, kind, village friends.

So, the lesson is...

What is the lesson? Should I have had acceptance from the get go? Should one always just go with the flow? Actually, I don't think so. My first few months in village have been great but really frustrating at times too. Sometimes, I utterly did not want to leave my house. But I don't think I would change a thing. This is better than just getting what I wanted - I think I can see the top of the first hill.

10 November 2007For the past month or so, I have observed classes at the village school. There are 440 children in 6 grades with 6 teachers and 6 classrooms. The teachers are 3 men (including the director) and 3 women. The school was built by an NGO a few years ago and is therefore relatively new and very nice. The teachers instruct on all subjects, including phys ed, and classes run from 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning to 5:00 at night with a break in the morning and a three hour break for lunch.

Nonetheless, this elementary school system is very different from anything I have known. The largest class, let's call them fourth graders, numbers at almost 100 students in one packed classroom. The smallest class, only two years ahead of this one, has dwindled to 17 students. This reflects the fact that elementary students often repeat grades and drop out. In my sixth grade there are 6 girls and 11 boys.

It is even harder for these kids to move on to junior high than it is for them to reach sixth grade. In order to attend junior high, children must first pass an end-of-the-year exam. If they do not pass, they repeat sixth grade or drop out. If the child passes the exam, the father must find housing for the upcoming school year. The closest junior highs and high schools are 40 and 50 kilometers away. For fear of bad behavior among other things, it is unlikely for a village father to send his child, especially his daughter, on for more school.

When students read aloud in class, they identically sound as if they are chanting or singing. It makes me wonder if that's not how they learned to pray. The kids are not quick. They have trouble making simple connections. In the fifth grade class, for example, the students were doing a fill-in-the-blank exercise with only four blanks and four choices. But many students missed the objective; some students used the words from the instructions, like fill-in while others did not fill in anything at all.

When the teacher or any adult walks into the room, the kids all stand. When a teacher walks by them outside of class, they bow with their arms crossed and their arms their elbows bent out - think cross between pre-teen angst and I Dream of Genie. Bonjour, madame is barely audible. In fact, often the bonjours can't be heard at all as students mumble and hussle to bow inconspicuously behind teachers' backs.

To speak in the classrooms the kids raise their hands, snap, and cry moi, Monsieur, moi! When they speak they stand up but often double over their desks and sometimes wrap their arm(s) around their head and neck while squirming and mumbling. Girls are painfully shy and often silent in the classroom setting. Corporal punishment is illegal but the not-so-tacit understanding is that it happens everywhere, anyway. If you don't hit the kids, they will never listen and never pay you respect.

School was suppose to start on October 1st, nationwide. In major cities , it certainly did. In my village, the start date may as well have been in November. The first day that more than 10 kids arrived on the premises was October 22nd and the teachers probably started new lessons in earnest around November 1st. Children were too busy, prior, helping their families with the harvest. At this time of year, working hands are indispensable. Plus, there were weeds four feet high covering all the space in front of the school. Classes could not start until the children cleared this space. Otherwise, they would be in danger of bites from snakes.

19 October 2007

This village has about 3000 residents and draws a crowd of probably 2000 people on the big 21-day marché*. On October 15, I realized that I was literally the only white person in a 2000-person market. Not only was I the only white person in Béléhédé's market that day, but also the only non-African. This market is a completely local phenomenon; there would be no reason for anyone to come if they didn't live within 50kilometers. When I thought it out, I realized I could say with almost complete certainty that I was the only non-black, non-West African person within at least a 22K radius, and excepting my friend David in Tongomayel, make that 40K. Within 22K I would also be by far the most educated; probably the only person to have ever been in a plane; certainly the only person never to have experienced extreme poverty within my extended family; probably the only one to have ever been to a movie theater or an amusement park; and certainly the only individual with a gmail address.

Just some perspective.

*Béléhédé, my village, has a market every three days and each Monday. When these two markets collide every 21 days, there is a BIG market - le vingt-et-un marché.

17 October 2007

I went for a run yesterday around 9am. It was a real treat to be listening to a great song on my ipod which is filled with a random sampling of my brother's music. I only get a chance to charge the device every two weeks on average, so far, so when I heard to kids calling behind me, I ignored them. Well they were still there when I looked back a minute later and even after greeting them, they carried on behind me.

My plan was to run a little more than 2K to the hill with intermittent phone service. If I was lucky, I'd be able to check my text messages. When I got to the top of hill, I turned off my headset and looked back. Two kids were climbing up right behind me. After another minute or two I had six panting, 8-11 year-old girls (my neighbors) next to me while I turned on my phone.

Of course I couldn't get service. I held my arm up high and stood on my toes. I walked to the left, the girls walked to the left. I walked to backwards, forwards, and to the right; they followed back, forth, to the right.

So much for my plan. But since I had gathered a following, I figured I'd give the girls their money's worth. I let them off to get a drink of water*, lined them up double arms distance, and gave them a quick introduction to boxing.

Then I told the girls I would be going home so they picked up their flip flops and we ran back to village together. We were all keeping a similar, modest pace - me in my running sneakers and the girls on their bare-foot, 10 year-old feet.

*Actually it was stagnant, dirty water collected in a small pool on the rock hill but I know I couldn't stop villagers from drinking this even if I tried. Plus, considering the fact that these kids would be running behind me no matter what, I preferred that they hydrate.

5 October, 2007

Last night I had an unwelcome visitor.

First I heard a nearby flapping sound which woke me up. In gauging nighttime terrors and threats I think in terms of the worst possible thing. So I thought, at least this sounds bigger than a cockroach... Second, I simultaneously grab my glasses (to the left) and my flashlight/ weapon (to the right). Third, I wield my light and assess the situation. Ah ha! I was right, it is not a cockroach! But... Oh-My-God... it is flying, bigger than my hand, and INSIDE my mosquito net! I dive out of bed to the right breaking the seal of the tucked-in net and run screaming and slapping myself into the living room.

It was a bat.

I examined the net for holes or entry points. That night I found nothing out-of-the ordinary, no rips or tears, and decided to leave the bat trapped. I'll ask someone for help in the morning. So I pitched my tent and slept under the stars. When I woke up at 5:30 (as usual) the bat was gone, there were no holes in my net, and my creepy bed-mate had left no trace.

What do you think, should I start sleeping with a wooden stake?

Finally, finally I had that moment. The other day I finally felt it - I have arrived.

Funny, I had been in Burkina for over three months. I had watched my friends experience moments of their own. I had heard countless versions of this in Africa, this is crazy, what am I doing?, where are we? Many of my friends had already reported profound moments when they were looking at the stars the fileds, the markets, the animals, and suddenly thought, felt, realized - I am here.

So, here is mine. Simple.

I was on typical, terrible Burkina transport. We had gotten to the station before 1pm to catch the camion (truck) leaving at 2. It left around 3:30. I bought our tickets by crawling under the vehicle itself (seriously) where the guy running the service was escaping the midday sun with friends. We waited at first in the middle of the road (no seats and/or standing room at the "station" which is in reality the smack-dab-middle of the market on market day). The once-a-week market in Djibo draws villagers and visitors from the region within 100K of radius of the city. The truck is being loaded to the brim and over for 3 or 4 hours with sacks of rice, flour, corn, and millet; and also mattresses, bags, buckets, bikes, sifters, and fish. And oh yea, on top, people.

So ultimately, maybe five people wind up sitting in the cab of the truck. Everyone else - which could be 30, 40, 50 people - litterally climbs up the side of the truck* and sits on the stuff. The truck is probably 10 feet deep. I climbed the truck by putting my first foot on on the wheel, my second foot on the lower ridge between the cab and the cargo. Then I took a third step somewhere higher and finished with a graceful (ha!) shimmy/hoist.

When we leave there isn't even enough room for someone to WALK down the middle of the market-on-market-day-street. Somehow people just move or something as the 8 or 12-wheel truck starts to go. We stop at the outskirt of the city two minutes later. We pick up more stuff and passengers as women float around the perimeter of the truck with platters or fried dough, fried fish, nuts, cold drinks, and gateux balanced expertly on their heads. If you want to buy something, you snap or hiss, you drop money down, they toss your food up, and you hope for the best!

We get five minutes out of the city and we know it is going to rain. They stop the truck. The guys break out a tarp and start trying to get it up above us. They are rubbing the smelly, filthy heavy truck-tarp over mine and my friend's heads etc. I am sitting alternatively on a mattress, a stack of buckets, my vegetable-filled backpack, the bar on the top of truck, or a rice sack filled with pointy, uncomfortable who-knows-what.

They tell us to move. We have no where to go. The filthy tarp once again gets rubbed all over my head and eventually strapped down next to me. I am essentially spearing my section up to create breathing room with a crooked neck and stubborn head.

Its raining. We wait. It slows up. We start moving again. We cross a 100 meter section of the road completely submerged in at least a foot of water.** We get a flat tire. Its dark and I can't see or breathe under this tarp. I can only smell - fish, flour, rice, exhaust, human bodies - and hear - Fulfulde, Moore, Koranfe, maybe Dogon, and French. Thankfully they need to move the tarp to get to the tire changing equipment as well as the spare tire. In fact the spare tire is underneath all 10 feet of the piled-up stuff right in the middle of truck. An hour or so later, they fix the flat. Thankfully it has stopped raining and the have also removed the tarp.

We're on the road again for another 20K. It has gotten dark. Then we are stopped by the armed police. The officer mounts the truck with his rifle slung to his back and proceeds to check every single passenger's identification card except us. He chastises the guys running the truck about putting their foreigners on the back of the truck with everyone else. What does that say about Burkina? This is how you represent our country and treat our guests? He tells them that next time we should be put in the cab of the truck.

So I got home 40K later, at 8:00pm, in the dark. But as far as I'm concerned here is the point:

To get what I "need", I've got to make this same trip every week. Sure I can bike the 40K in the morning or the day before. But if I am transporting anything large I'll have to jump on this since it is the only way to travel to my village on a Wednesday and Wednesday is the BEST day for transport during the week. (Wow, right?) But forget about me - I got bumped, rained on, smothered, stabbed in the butt (by metal on a bucket), chastised by the armed police, and thrown fried dough (the good thing!) - but the Burkinabe vendors living in village really MUST make this trip every week. And they really MUST deal with this stuff in the same way that you/me/we take the orange line subway in DC, Paris, or New York. Or hop in our cars to go to the supermarket or bagel store in New Jersey.

So, long story short, this trip struck me. Then I did it again the next week. And it wasn't even a bush taxi.

Post Script: I found out one week later that my friend and fellow traveller this day, Mac, did NOT arrive in his village 50K away that night. The truck got another flat tire, he spent the night practically sleeping in a Burkinabe man's lap, and arrived at 3:00PM the next day. Here's a link to his blog.

*We did not use a ladder although sometimes there is one attached to the truck.

**We have discovered that in Burkina they do not build bridges. Honestly. Where there is a lake or barrage they rather lay concrete down at a lower level than the water so it flows constantly over it. I don't know what to call these structures. How about reverse bridges since they go down instead of up?

I am now a volunteer!!! HOORAY!

Things have been going great, but let me get down to business first. Updated information follows:

We swore in on August 24th. It was awesome, a beautiful ceremony with great speakers and entertainment. Five trainee-turning-volunteers gave speeches in local languages and that was really great. There was a traditional band/ dance group which played/ danced as we arrived, in the middle of the ceremony, and when we ate. Everyone got traditional Burkinabe outfits tailor made for the occasion. I wore a green and blue top and long skirt. The ceremony was in Ouahigouya and we traveled directly from it to Ouagadougou, the capital. Our time in Ouaga was great - we celebrated our new status as volunteers and enjoyed some last moments together for potentially a long time.

I have not had access to the internet since the second to last week in August. There is no cell phone service in my site. To check my text messages on my phone I have to walk or bike 2K to climb a hill which might or might not work. So far, two out of four or five trips to the hill worked. If I want to make an outgoing call. I can use a telecenter (landline) phone right next to my house. My regional capital is a great city 40K away, Djibo, which I have biked to twice. I am hoping to do this once every week around market day (Wednesday). Unfortunately there is virtually NO internet access. Although there is an alleged cyber-cafe, I have not seen it open and functioning yet. This means updates on the blog will be far-between.

Today I am in Ouagadougou, the capitol, which I will visit from time to time. I am here on Peace Corps business because I was elected as a new volunteer representative to the administration. I had remarkable timing getting this job since Ron Tschetter, the Director of Peace Corps, visited Burkina this week! Apparently it is the first time a Peace Corps Director has visited the country in longer than any of our administration can remember. Yesterday afternoon we met and had lunch with the Director and last night we attended an cocktail hour at the US Ambassador's house! Glamour stops here and will not appear again on this blog for the next two years.

My house is great, big, and private but I had a LOT of cleaning to do and am still working out how I am going to battle the constant termites, mosquitoes, crickets, and roaches that plague mine (and I think most) volunteer sites. I have no electricity or running water, obviously. My house, though, is much different than my previous hut. I have a tin roof, supported by rotting wood beems. There are three rooms: kitchen, bedroom, and living room which is twice the size of the two former. I have a large courtyard with a metal door. I also have a hangar under which I will sit and entertain outside. The house has large cracks in most of the walls and needs a lot of work. Nonetheless, this living sitution is a HUGE step up from my previous, straw and mud hut. There is actually cement in sight. lol.

Otherwise, my moral has been very good! Happily I have great PC neighbors near and within the region of my site. When I was just starting to stay inside a little too much, my 50K away friend Mac suprised me and showed up at my site! Its great having guests with whom you can explore the village, chat, doo crossword puzzles, decompress, and cook. I am discovering that most people in my village speak Koranfe, a completely new local language. However, I will continue to study Fulfulde as it is the most prevalent language in the region. Also the former volunteer at my site recommened I study that because "everyone understands Fulfulde". Still, I am already getting significant pressure from villagers who speak to me in Koranfe even when they can also communicate in Fulfulde or French. The former volunteer learned this language and it appears that I will continue to be reminded of that fact for a while.

The one very sad bit of news is that two more awesome, awesome GEE volunteers left Burkina and decided to go home. Beth and Katherine, I know you did what is best for you but we miss you! Hugs and kisses and good luck. We were 29, now we are 22. GEE was 12/29, now we are 7/22.

Well, that seems like a decent amount of information for now. My next post will be a story about transport in Burkina, which I am discovering to be a crazy crapshoot absolutely no matter what. Thank you for reading my blog and contributing such awesome and encouraging posts. I miss you guys and send my love.

Christina

Six days ago - that is last Friday - my Burkinabé sister gave birth. Chez les Peulhs*, babies are named seven days later at their Muslim baptism. It is the father who chooses, naturally, and he does not generally consult his wife(s), as far as I can tell. Sometimes, though, the father discusses potential names with his male friends.

So, the new dad here is my host brother and you won't even believe it - he said that the name is up to me. "Adjara, it is you who will name the baby. Not me." Are you serious? Well I need a few days to think about it! I don't know Muslim names... "You will choose an American name! Take the name of one of your closest friends."

Anyway, I consulted the mother and ran a few names by her to see what she could pronounce. Long story short, I just named my first baby about three days ago and it's official by, like, the end of tonight. Welcome to the world, Megan Tall.

*Peulh is the French word and Fulani is the English one for the ethnic group that speaks Fulfuldé.

It is 2:00 pm in Burkina and people are already saying bonsoir. Although this literally translates to good evening, people start replacing bonjour (good day) around the end of lunch. Despite the sun, by 3:00 pm, it is definitively le soir.

And now some news...

I am STILL a TRAINEE and NOT a volunteer. Ug. Swear-in is set for the 24th and at this point we are counting down the days. On the one hand we have been really lucky to have had a great group of trainers and lots of really useful/ interesting theoretical and practical sessions. On the other hand, sometimes I feel like I am in junior high since our schedule is packed and we are constantly told what to do.

On a positive note about training though, we had a great practical exercise this past Thursday. All GEE* trainees facilitated one half- hour session each at "Model School". C'est à dire: two trainees were assigned to each class and while one taught, the other observed. I was the one trainee who got paired with a current volunteer and we did not prepare our sessions collaboratively before hand. I had no clue what type of Life Skill** she would discuss.

Naturally, I prepared an un-hot topic. This would be my first class - I certainly wasn't going to talk about AIDS! I prepared a simple metaphor and a dicussion about decision-making. Well, when we got to Model School the classroom was packed and the students were huge. As it turned out, we had a class of 100 16-20 year olds and current volunteer Sara was scheduled to go first.

I sat down in the back of the room to observe the session and wouldn't you guess, Sara led an 35- minute brainstorming session on how to turn down sex. What should you say if your boyfriend/ girlfriend says, 'If you love me you'll have sex with me'? Now break up into groups and come up with responses. So, much to my dismay this first session was anwhere from rowdy to border-line hysterical, controversial, and clearly hot. I sat tapping my nervous foot and gearing up from the corner of the room - it would be hard to imagine a more intimidating start.

But the sesssion went great. I introduced myself and took a moment to let the kids notice that I was coming at this from a different direction. I explained that we would move on from the discussion about relationships to one on decision-making and why we behave the way that we do. I told them to imagine this sitution: it is hot. (Not hard for Burkinabé students to imagine.) It is really hot and you are in front of a pool -- or better yet a lake. There is no shade and this lake is the only way for you to cool off so you decide to go in. Then I had the students choose one corner of the room (and had them all move). One corner was for the jumpers - those who decide to jump right in the lake, one for waders - those who get in the water petit à petit, one for the testers - those who dip a toe or finger in before deciding, and the last corner for the delayers - those who would wait on the side and observe first what all the others would do.

After everyone settled in the discussion went great. At first I had one student from each group explain her/his choice. Then I asked if they would always be in the same group no matter what the decision. Do you always make choices the same way? They seemed to think that they would stay in their groups. Then I gave this example to the jumpers: if your father introduced you to someone, would you right away become their friend? The jumpers decided that they would not jump into this situtation -- that they couldn't fully trust this instant friend. Then I gave this example to the delayers: if your teacher asked the question, 'what color is this ruler'? (I held up a yellow ruler.) Would you wait to see what your classmates would do or would you go ahead and answer the easy question?

So in the end we had a great (albeit brief) discussion about the way we make the choices that we do. The students made the connection that we make simple choices easily and difficult choices with much more thought. They decided that a decision merits time when it could affect one's future. So I brought the discussion back to sex and we came full circle after my not-hot examples. Consequences of teenage sex include: unwanted pregnancy and dropping out of school, getting STDs, and especially getting AIDS - basically jumping into lake water that might destroy the future for you. Whew. It is hot in here?

*Girls' Education and Empowerment

**Life Skills is the broad category in which all our topics fit. We have a manuel (actual two) on how to facilitate Life Skills sessions where you discuss communication skills, peer pressure, health, self-esteem, etc.

Hello all. I do wish I had access to the internet more often. It is frustrating to be so busy all the time (and/or sick) that you can not communicate with your friends and family when you really, really want to. Once I begin my service in Béléhédé (yes, that is my site!!!), I should have a lot more free time than during this grueling training period.

Well... don't get too excited yet. Indeed I will have lots of "unstructured" time, especially during my first three months. But I will also be 40 kilometers away from a bad internet connection that supposedly costs so much that it's "not even worth it". I do have a cell phone! For those who are interested, you can buy a reasonably priced phone card and call me sometime!* But still don't get excited yet. There is no cell phone service in beautiful Béléhédé so I'll be biking, running, or walking to the top of a hill 2 kilometers away to receive or make any phone calls. But I can receive texts! (on the hill...)

Now with eight (ooh just added another fifteen) minutes left on my internet connection before another training session - sigh - I will just highlight a few notable moments:

I have been sick for the past three weeks. Actually I have felt good for four days in a row now (so exactly three weeks from this past Friday) and all I can say is UGH. I'll spare you the details which are exhausting just to think about. But I will say - it started with a four day unidentified fever of like 102F (yes I was still attending classes and training sessions) and it ended with the death of an amoeba by the marvel of modern medicine!

We lost another two GREAT trainees who decided to go home. Jaime and Chris were one of our two married couples and I am really going to miss them. Now we are 24. Every time someone else leaves it gets harder to say goodbye.

Nonetheless, as a group we have pretty good morale and relatively positive attitudes. At this point, everyone is ready and waiting to finish up training and move to their sites. Over the past two weeks we all had the opportunity to visit our sites (or at least our regions) and meet our Burkinabé counterparts.

My site is in the north, in the Soum province which is part of the Sahel region. (Remember - where desert meets savannah?) Well now I have two minutes left and that is just not enough so I'll put this off until next time. Suffice it to say that I will have access to vegetables most of the year round and there is a lake. what!?

*If you are so inclined/awesome and would like to give me a ring, shoot an email and I'll send you my digits. Also, Mom has the number.

The second* time it stormed I had visitors. Two of my secondary education friends who live in the city decided to try out a night of village life. The other trainees in my village (three at the time) also had visitors so we gathered in a group of about 10 at a my friend Yaneth's house.

The Burkinabé had known that it would rain. We promised that we would get back in time. Yaneth's home is technically next to mine and in the daylight you can theoretically see it across the peanut/millet/corn fields. Anyway, I had a general idea of where it was when I took my two buddies tramping off into the darkness and we got there just fine.

Yaneth's extended Burkinabé family gave us a very warm welcome. They set up mats for us to sit on and more mats so they could sit next to us. Eventually the two groups chatted separately in their respective languages as everyone enjoyed the fine night.

After only a half hour my friends noticed that the children (girls) behind us were calling me.** They were telling me that "the rain had come". Well, clearly it hadn't since I was still DRY. So I acknowledged the girls and kept on chatting.

A few minutes later they were calling me again, "Adjara, regards la pluie est venue". I looked where they were pointing and could not see a darn thing. Throughout the evening we had been watching the other part of the sky light up in silent flashes. It appeared to us that nothing had changed.

Finally, the young girls insisted that we go home. "Faut partir, maintenant. La pluie est venue." We said our goodbyes and began walking off into the dark. Thankfully both of my friends brought flashlights but we could still only see a few feet ahead. After a few minutes they noticed someone calling me. Why is it that everyone else notices when someone is talking to me? "Adjara, à droite!" They were telling us to go right. So, we started to veer a little bit more to the right.

"A droite, Adjara, à droite!!" So we veered a little more. Eventually the girls must have been a football field away monitoring our two dinky headlamps bob off into the wrong direction in the night... "A DROITE, ADJARA! FAUT ALLER A DROITE!" OK! We finally turned right.

Ten or fifteen minutes after leaving Yaneth's we arrived home and entered my hut. We dropped our things, thanked goodness and started to laugh. Of course, right then, it began to rain.

*Could have been the second time... but also could have been the third or fourth?

**Just a note: they were only a few feet behind us but Burkinabé girls (and children in general) tend to speak softly. Sometimes it takes a moment to notice when they are talking to you.

Since I have been in Burkina, we have had say, somewhere between 3-6 storms. It is the rainy season now when many Burkinabé depend on the sky to open up and allow them to cultivate their fields.

The first storm was at night. I was sleeping* in my round, thatched-roof hut during one of our first nights in village. I was woken up by the wind slamming my tin door at against the frame repeatedly. The first time I think I screamed... after I shut and locked the door a voice cried through the one of my two windows - faut-pas avoir peur! or don't be afraid.

The next thing that happened was probably that I started to cough. There was dust everywhere! Was this a sandstorm? Do I live in the dessert? Instinctively I wrapped one of my two bed sheets around my head like a head scarf. I left my eyes exposed so I could try to see something (ha). Another voice screamed through the other one of my two windows - faut fermer la porte! or shut the door. (Didn't I already do this?)

The other sounds that followed were the usual (though not yet usual to me at the time) -- goats, donkeys, cows, bulls, chickens, guinea fowls, and cocks. The next thing to come was, of course, the rain. Well this was the best sound of all. I discovered that when it rains outside, it also rains inside a little bit too. It was raining on my bed. I scrunched over. People were outside maybe running around? Or just talking? Or maybe passing from here to there -- there is a lot to do when it rains.

This particular storm didn't last very long. When it was over there were voices at the door of my hut, people were calling my name... I opened the door and used my flashlight.** Well the family came pouring in, within minutes I had 15 people in my hut fawning all over me laughing and discussing the storm. There was an inch of dust on everything.

*At least I think I was sleeping. Am I ever sleeping here?

**I think I remember using my flashlight but if it was as early as my second night in village, I did not yet have a working flashlight to complement my kerosene lamp.