Today is the first day I am not a peace corps volunteer. I can't believe it, two years and three months are over. I'm no longer a volunteer. After a slew of paperwork, medical work, exit interviews, ceremonies and tears, I've finally come to the end of the road. I'm being dramatic but it's how I feel I need to express myself. Peace Corps is no walk in the park. It's taken a lot from me and given a lot in return. I've wanted to reflect on my last two years but it's still too near, and with several major trips back-to-back for the next month and a half I feel I have little time to really give it a go. This will be my last blog, I want to thank all my friends and avid readers of this blog for your support, I hope it's given you some insight to this crazy world we live in. It's been a place where I have had the chance to reflect and share my experiences with the cyber-world. Coming home will be hard, I know that and I dread it as much as I yearn for it.

My last days in village were filled with packing, saying goodbye, drinking too much tea with friends, and a village party for my departure.

It was last Saturday, my village came together to give speeches and dance, saying thanks and that they wish me a good trip home and that one day I will come back again to visit. They gave me baskets, eggs, onions and a certificate (Burkinabe are all about certificates). The women had me wear a belt of shells and go around to the men, throw a scarf on them, dance and then have them press coins onto my forehead. It was the marriage traditions they were having me go through though with no man on the other end. I gave a speech, and broke down in tears - I was overwhelmed by their commitment and love. Crying in Burkina Faso is a huge faux pas, not even women who are giving birth are allowed to cry - and if they do they are laughed at, so like I said crying is a no-no. However, I cried and once I started crying the old women, the chief and several other men began to tear up. That meant so much to me. After the ceremony, we took pictures, and planted a mango tree in my name.

Later that night, Josh and Jen (pcvs in the area) came and the village danced till is started raining. It was easily the most fun village dancing I've ever done. My village friends were crazy, they are amazing dancers, I don't understand how they move their bodies like that, let alone find the beat to the balophones.

It was Monday morning that I left Diarabakoko. My village family, the Sirimas and the Chief came with me and walked me to the road with all my stuff. We let two bush taxis go by before we actually stopped one to take me to Banfora. It was hard, I did not let myself cry. It wasn't until the third bush taxi that we pulled over that I began to fall apart. My friend Aicha, who was near the road came up and gave me a huge hug, and I melted into her arms. She kept telling me to stop crying, but it was too late, the flood gates has been released. And once I started the kids started crying, Nadja, my most beloved child of all the children in Diaraba collapsed to the ground - this image still brings tears to my eyes. Alima and Moussa gave gave me big hugs and the Chief came over and rest his head into my chest and wept. I got in and before I knew it I was flying through the palm tree and corn fields as Diarabakoko got smaller and smaller behind me.

Leaving Diarabakoko was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. My heart is there, and so is my home. I will never forget you Diarabakoko.

Peace to Diarabakoko and all those who hold my heart in their hands.

I know my blog has been pretty silent as of late. It’s not that I’ve stopped doing projects or am done with the peace corps (yet) – it’s that I have slowly been loosing motivation to keep this blog going as my close of service is close approaching. I haven’t wanted to write about my recent projects because there is so much else I’ve wanted to say that it has become overwhelming. So before I get into my pontifications of peace corps service and where I am emotionally I thought I would do a quick run down of my latest and last projects of my PCV career.

Village-wide Malaria Awareness CampaignI gave two major workshops to both women in my village and the students of the primary school on what is malaria, how one becomes infected, symptoms and prevention. The workshops ended with the women or students making “neem cream” which is an effective local concoction of neem leaves (local tree), shea butter and soap.

Women’s Assocation of Diarabakoko learned how to make liquid soap…

I biked 100k (62 miles) to Josh’s site with other PCVs to explore the wild ;). We saw old huts that used to be used to keep people safe from other tribes and slave-catcher-bad-guys as well as waterfalls and schisto filled rice patties :P

Girl’s CampI had the pleasure of bringing 8 girls from my village as well as one teacher to a camp that was put on by another volunteer in a village not far from my own. The girls learned general health, nutrition and hygiene, feminine hygiene, sexual education and how to plan for the future as well as how to make soap and neem cream. They also played soccer every day with some Burkinabe coaches. It was a great camp and ended at the Cascades (Burkina’s overly aggrandized tourist attraction).

Those were my last two main projects as a PCV and now I am faced with the inevitable end of my peace corps life. It was hard adjusting to living in Burkina, coming right out of college and jumping into what felt like another world. I’ve made it my own here, I have my friends in village whom I absolutely cherish with kids that I wish I could watch grow up. I have my volunteer friends whom I know will be life long because I have gone through so much with them – they have become a surrogate family to me. Sitting at night, under the stars with the moonlight (what my friend moussa calls “the village electricity”) casting silhouettes around the pointed village huts, I drink with my friends and realize how personal my friendships are with them, how important they have been and that I will most likely never have the chance again to share these moments with them. So I take them in like a good piece of dark chocolate – savoring every bite.

I’ve grown comfortable with the place. No, I cannot say that there haven’t been days that seem to stretch on forever, that every day has been energy filled and adventured packed – in fact, for the most part it’s been the opposite for me. My blog is incredibly misleading in that respect. I usually talk about my work and not so much about my day-to-day life.

I am ready to do something different, but I’m not ready to leave either. I’m used to and find comfort in going to bed when the sun sets, waking up at what people in the states might call the “crack of dawn” but which really is just when the sun rises. It feels natural so I go with it. I’m used to sleeping on my cot with my very “regal” mosquito net (it’s like a canopy bed!) and hearing George meow “mornin’” to me. I’m at ease on my porch in the mornings eating the same thing I always eat – oatmeal (with powdered whole milk, sugar, cinnamon and peanut butter) or going to my neighbor’s … what would you call it?... thatch roofed café (?) (possibly a misnomer) for café au lait and bread. The rest of my day is usually up to me how productive I want to be and it depends on the seasons too I guess – with cultivation season upon us the days are pretty silent as everyone is out in the fields.

I like my village. Its quaint, it’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s peaceful and covered in palm, mango and shea trees. I am so fond of the people here, their easy and forgiving outlooks on life that it’s easy to want to stay. But then I remember those days (more numerous than I would like to admit) where I sit around and do nothing – because there is nothing to do. You can’t make a village do ANYTHING you can only nudge them and they can only take so much of that – which leaves a lot of time on a volunteer’s hands. Heck, I took up knitting again and have read more books than I ever have in my entire life combined up to peace corps. But that’s also something I’ve valued since coming here, I’ve had the chance to step out of my own culture and see it from someone on the outside looking in. It’s easier to see how my values have been shaped by my culture and that not everything is as black and white as I once thought (though this is a different blog though entirely).

Suffice it to say, I love that I’ve been given the opportunity to do and witness/experience/etc. life in Burkina Faso, but I’m ready for my next experience. I’m ready to be uncomfortable for awhile and find my next path/adventure/destiny/etc. but I will always ALWAYS have what I’ve learned here and what and whom I’ve loved here in my back pocket. I may not have ever heard of Burkina Faso before I joined the Peace Corps but I imagine it has singularly changed me more than any other experience ever has and quiet possibly ever will.

Peace.

Before I had left for South Africa I had applied for and received a grant to celebrate 8 Mars (or March 8th - Women's Day) with my village. Unfortunately I was unable to return to my village by March 8 and so had to postpone the party to April 17th. The women had told me that they didn't even dance on 8 Mars but instead decided to wait for me to come home to village before they would celebrate. It was such a huge honor for me to hear that when I returned to village I can't even explain how much that meant to me. I spent a week or so of running around with my head cut off preparing to get everything ready for the party (authorizations, invitations to big deal people, rice sacks, microphones,etc.). 11 or so volunteers were expected to attend the event as well but Peace Corps Burkina put us on "Standfast" the day before the event meaning that volunteers could not travel anywhere including my event. Which ended up being a blessing in disguise - the day of the event was stressful and having 11 other PCVs there would have been hectic to say the least.

Things never seem to go exactly as planned, especially in Burkina but everything turned out great in the end. The event was three hours late which was frustrating because not everyone involved was prepared and in the end the microphone and technician never showed up and it was too hot to use the community courtyard/arena for the day time activities. Ca va aller.

We started off the day with traditional music and the women dancing as we waited for more people to show up. Once everyone from village was there and ready to celebrate we started off with a theater performance that I had worked on with the primary school kids in village. It emphasized the importance of educating girls and how that positively impacts a community. "Educate a girl, educate a nation." A common quote and one that has been used by the current president of Burkina Faso. The kids did a great job and it was great to see them speaking in their own local language because at school they are only allowed to speak in French.

The village loved the theater perfomance... I have to say I was really impressed with the students myself. They were a lot of fun to work with. After that we had a family planning session. My counterpart and I tag-teamed and explained the different types of contraception and the pros to practicing family planning.

Walking around with the family planning picture book. Ardjuma showing a happy family who has practiced family planning The last group activity planned for the day was a "gender roles race" where we had a team of 5 men against a team of 5 women. The men had to run with a bucket on their head, a baby (pillow) on their back and a broom while the women had a radio and a tea kettle. They had to race holding these items... it was a fun way of looking at the difference between men and women and their gender roles in village. We discussed after the race was over (though even after explaining to them over and over again they did not know when to stop trading off the items and running down the course - they would have gone on for a while had I not stopped them) how much more work women have to do in village compared to men and how we should start considering how to divide up the work.

Soon after the race was over the rice and sauce was ready for lunch (100KG of rice) and we sat down to eat in the shade but not before the chief of the village made me dance with him.

The women's association president Kateshi making lunch...

CDV (community development volunteer), village chief and myself dancing

After lunch we had a repose and then some soccer and dancing later that night.

The morning after the newly formed women's assocation of Diarabakoko and I took a family picture.

I guess you could say that it's never too late to celebrate women. I had a great time (though a little stressful) celebrating International Women's Day in my village.

Well, that 's all for now.

peace.

Me + motorcycle = + 6 weeks in Pretoria, South Africa

So what did I end up doing in Pretoria, South Africa?

Other than loving the pain meds I was on after the surgery - I met some really awesome peace corps med evacs from all over Africa (Swaziland, Botswana, Cameroon, Zambia, Rwanda, Namibia, Uganda, South Africa, etc.) and made some really good friends. They were there for all sorts of reasons, unknown stomach issues, root canals, back problems, head injuries – we were truly in the land of misfit toys. I can’t say it didn’t make life interesting every time we heard we were getting a new volunteer it was exciting because it added one more to our party but at the same time volunteers were always leaving to go back to their sites.

Some of the other pcvs, me and some giraffes :)

I write Pretoria, South Africa and not just South Africa because I was only in Pretoria and with no way of leaving it (kind of like a little prison). I did not got to Cape Town or Durban or any of the major national reserves because I couldn't. So I guess I feel like I can't really say I've been to SA because I wasn't able to travel around.

Two weeks after surgery, physical therapy became the daily routine along with walking to malls and restaurants to grab a bite of delicious food or watch a movie at the movie theaters. It felt like America but it wasn’t. And for the most part I didn’t want to be there. I was in the nicest neighborhood I’ve ever been in with mansions on all sides and I stayed at the nicest bed and breakfast I’ve ever stayed at call “The Rose.” Every morning I got to choose from French toast, eggs and toast or an amazing omelet, not to mention the granola, fruit salad and juice. It was nice but like I said I didn’t want to be there, I just wanted to go home to my village in Burkina Faso and be with my friends. But you can’t always get what you want and so I tried to be thankful for being so well cared for.

Our APCMO (peace corps doc) was awesome and turned into a great friend – we shared some major interests like rock climbing, backpacking and photography. He has literally been all over the world working with doctors without borders, living in third world countries (he was in Sri Lanka when the tsunami hit) etc. He took us on hiking trips on the weekends to see animals in the surrounding parks not far from where we were. I saw lots of zebra, giraffes, a baboon, impala and other deer-like animals and even stalked some wildebeests with other pcvs.

Bush whacking Doctor Cedric Yoshimoto snapping away :)

Some friends and I also went to a rugby game (one of the big players of the game also went to my physical therapist – which I thought was pretty neat). We saw the Pretoria Bulls get knocked around by the Austrialian Highlanders. It was fun, I got my face painted in order to be “bien integre” (aka well integrated something most volunteers in peace corps go for ) and blend in with the masses. I found I really enjoy watching rugby, though I don’t completely understand the strategies yet I found it was much more interesting than American football.

Pretoria Bull Fans even though they failed that night :P

The last week I was there some new volunteers and I went to the Ukutula Lion Refuge to hang out with some baby lions. We got to feed them milk, pick them up and play with them. They are amazingly cuddly! We also had a chance to visit the bigger lions which I found to be terrifying… and I even petted a cheetah which I also found terrifying. I don’t think I like being so near big cats. It's obvious they could kill you in seconds. Hungry baby lions!

Absolutely terrified

All in all SA was fun but I’m glad to be back in my village with my friends. This Sunday we are going to be partying it up Women’s Day style!

PEACE!

left-handed drawing practice with pcv friends :)

Malnutrition in Burkina Faso is a wide spread problem due to the lack of food available, money being tight and the general lack of nutritional education and good practices in relation to newborns. This problem is also readily apparent within my own village - I'm amazed there aren't more deaths in my village due to malnutrition. Women often feed their babies water or tea during their first 6 months which tricks the baby into thinking they are full and therefore missing out on their mother's milk or it gives them diarrhea which can be deadly at that age. When they do feed them food after that period it is mostly watered down tô (corn jello-y mush) with very little nutritional content. I feel like it is safe to say malnutrition in pandemic in Burkina Faso and probably in most west African countries.

Due to this need in my village I decided to take a stab at educating the mothers on proper nutrition. So January I ran a 12 day nutrition model with women in my village. Rachel, a fellow PCV and friend came down to help out with the first day of weighing the prospective babies and giving the information sessions to the chosen mothers.

Diane and Kaba weighing babies and learning how to run future nutrition models.

Baby weighings were pretty eye-opening, the age range was 6months to a year and then after they were reduced to those ages we used an arm band that you wrap around the upper part of the arm to measure how malnourished they were - almost all 12 babies chosen were in the 'severelly malnurished' red zone with others being in the yellow, aka 'moderately malnurished' and one healthy baby was chosen in the green zone to act as a positive deviant in the group to help support and guide the other mothers. While weighing the babies, Rachel (who is much more experienced) noticed a baby who did not struggle at all when being placed in the UNICEF weighing apparatus - not a good sign. Rachel pulled me aside and said that that baby needed to be hospitalized immediately or we were going to lose her - but this is another story for another time - but just to make it short I did take the mother and child to a malnourishment clinic in our regional capital.

Once the babies were recorded in a log the mothers were told to come every morning to our village health clinic where I, with the assistance of Diane and Kaba (women chosen to help me run the workshops) taught the mothers how to prepare nutritional porridge using the materials available in village. For example, to teach them how to measure we used mini tomato cans as consistent measuring cups and focused on making porridge supplemented with peanuts, fish and sorghum. I also taught them about moringa and used the powdered moringa leaves in most of the porridge recipes.

... of mice and men go array." (John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men). I felt like this quote is ever so relevant to my life as it currently stands...

In January I was busy, busy, busy. I finished my world map for the primary school, started a women's association, ran a 12 day nutrition model, applied and received a grant to celebrate women's day in my village, learned how to build latrines with two counterparts from village - and then I broke my arm. Which really just threw a wrench to all my projects at site. If i can get the doctors to give me a copy of my broken and dislocated arm Ill write a more detailed blog but just to quickly sum up what happen... I was hit by a motorcycle which broke two bones in my arm, dislocating one, I was flown to South Africa for emergency surgery and am now here till I heal up a do some occupational therapy...

So since I have plenty of time here I thought I might as well put up some pictures and go into detail about my projects that are on hold for the moment.

I finally finished the world map , it ended up being 7x3.5 meters which is the equivalent of 23'x11.5' feet. Notice the two metal containers that I had to scramble up just to paint.

It's finally finished!

Students pointing out Burkina Faso.

This project ended up taking 3 months but it was well worth the time I put in, I was encouraged to continue by the common questions I would get from students, villagers and teachers alike, "Is this a map of Burkina?" "Where is Africa on this map... where is BF on this map?" "All the countries in the world are on this map?" and so on... so this map will hopefully be here long after I leave and will continue to educate the village for generations to come.

I was also able to start a women's association in my village that allows the women to make money and be somewhat more in control of their own lives. The chief of my village sent word around village that all the women were invited to be apart of the new "Association des Femmes de Diarabakoko." 45 women came out for the first meeting, it was hot, loud, long and very productive. Having the support of the chief helped legitimize its creation. They chose office positions such as president, vice pres, secretary, etc.. decided the motivation for the association which is to make money through hard and liquid soap and anti-mosquito cream and maybe other things down the road. Some of the women from the association gather together on my porch early morning to cut soap.

Within 3 minutes after the soap has been cut all the soap is divided up and the women hord it like gold... its cheaper than soap in village and all the money goes right back into the association so it's a win-win money maker.

Well typing with one hand is tiring, more to come soon...

Peace and love from South Africa. Leslie.

Happy Holidays! Happy New Year! I hope all is well with those that are reading this! I just want to make a quick blog of my adventures for the holidays. For my 24th birthday and New Years 4 other PVCs and I went to Mali. It was awesome to say the least, except for the transport anyways ( it took 18hours to get there and 25hours on the way back - that and sleeping on the side of the road during the middle of the night for 6 hours because the bus broke down are my only complaints).

So much dust in the bush taxi - couldnt even breath.

Dogon Country is just north of Burkina Faso and is definitely an anomaly-geographically speaking. Out of nowhere are these huge 500 feet cliffs that rise out of the dry desert landscape. I've tried to do some research online as to how these limestone cliffs came into being but there isn't much research out there on the cliffs or the strange houses that can be found 250 feet from the cliff base. But I did find was pretty interesting...

Dogon dwellings at the base of the cliff

The Tellem (pygmies) first came to the cliffs around 500AD and made the impossible cliff dwellings to protect themselves from animals and other tribes. In the 11th century the Dogon people came and on seeing the cliff dwellings thought that the Tellem where either magic or could fly. And I have to say that I agree because there is just no way they could have got up there, I feel like they had to be insane rock climbers.. or yea, they flew up there.

Now, on hiking around the cliffs there are still villages next to the old Dogon dwellings at the base of the cliff which are immediately below the Tellem dwellings 250 feet higher.

I feel like my anthropologist within me was awakened as we scrambled around the dwellings and took pictures. Our guide, Abdouli (a local Dogon) took us on 5-10k hikes everyday to the villages and dwellings where we would rest, eat lunch, learn about the Dogon culture and explore the dwellings. There were dwellings EVERYWHERE. The cliffs go on forever and so do the dwellings, it’s beautiful. It was truly amazing. Sometimes we would climb up fissures in the cliffs and get to the top and because the fissures are protected from the sun, wind and sand - they are like little tropical paradises tucked away in the cliffs. There are gardens of food that the villagers cultivate and because they don’t ever come into contact with money they barter with other villages with the produce they grow.

Boy makes a maraca out of a baobob fruit

Every night we would stay at little hostel-like places for hikers. You could stay inside the huts or sleep on the roofs... and obviously we stayed on the roofs (it was cheaper too) and slept under the stars. So many beautiful shooting stars! And no electricity to dull the starlight for miles and miles and miles….

Exploring!

Happy New Years! (Some other hikers gave us there new years hats to take a picture)

Sleeping on the roofs of huts near the cliffs.

We knew ahead of time it would get super cold at night so I knit everyone hats!

The way we had to get up to our roofs at night...

Overall it was such an awesome trip and definitely one I will never forget.

There are many NEW things that have also been happening in my life that I will also need to update soon, so stay tuned!

Love,

Les



As some of you may know December 1st is International HIV/AIDS Day and so in honor of that I decided to celebrate it in my village on December 2nd. The 2nd was a marche day so people could actually come to the workshop because they weren't in the fields harvesting rice that day but in the marche buying food and drinking palm wine.

My counterpart and I set up shop next to the marche with our AIDS kit and balophones. Balophones are like xylophones and they are played for different events such as funerals, marriages, dances, and also to alert the people in the village to come to the marche for events or meetings - such as my AIDS day activity.

The chef (chief) of the village came to the my workshop which was great because that gave the villagers confidence that what I had to say was important. So the AIDS day started with some music, and slowly people trickled in to see what all the music was about. Once there was about 30 or so people my counterpart and I started the workshop.

We went over the fact that it is not just Africa that is affected by AIDS but the entire world (partout!). Other topics included how one can get infected by the virus, how to protect oneself and family from getting the virus and were to go to get more info and help on the subject. Of course we did the condom demonstrations and I had both men and women, young and old come up and practice. We even went over the female condom for female empowerment reasons as I am a GEE volunteer and it's my job.

To increase volunteering during the workshop I bought 5 mille (10 bucks) of BF soap, a hot item in village and the people went crazy. Everyone wanted to volunteer. So note to self, definitely use that next time I do a workshop. So while I explained in french my counterpart (the village pharmacist) explained in the local languages to those that don't understand french. Some people even shared their personal experiences with AIDS to the group and asked questions for clarity on issues such as fidelity. I also mentioned to the men that when they go to Banfora or Niangoloko (regional capitals equal distance from my village) they often will sleep with women other than their wives which makes them more prone to contracting HIV. I mentioned this and they laughed the knowing laugh because it's true. I berated them a little on it and said at least use a condom to keep your wives and future children safe! Hopefully they will take that message to heart.

Once the sensiblization was over the balophones and drums started up again and the women made me dance with them and the chef thanked me for giving the info and told me how proud he was to have me in his village which was really sweet.

Afterwards I took along and rewarding nap. :)

Well, that's all for now, I'm in Bobo en route to Ouaga where I may just have to write another blog before Christmas.

Happy Holidays, my heart goes out to all my friends and family in the states and europe. I love and miss you!

Love,

Leslie

Life happens on my porch. It is easily my favorite part of my house. People are on my porch at every hour of the day… It is a rare event to find my porch unoccupied and in those rare moments I cherish the peace and quiet - but those moments are easily the exception.

It’s made integrating into my village easy; my courtyard which is HUGE is used by the women in my village as a safe place from animals to let their various crops and flours dry. Currently there are sesame, hibiscus flowers, corn, peanuts, beans, corn flour, and rice all laying out in the sun and drying. How is this related to my porch? Every morning and every evening women and children come into my courtyard to lay out their foods to dry and they hang out on my porch if they don’t have much to do. They greet me in Jula and Guin (the two local languages) and I stubble through the little Guin I know but usually revert back to Jula which everyone knows – even those that speak Guin.

Women when they are sick will come and lie out on mats and relax in the shade. Or they come to break off the kernels from the dried corn with me and chat about life and how tired they are from all the work they do – which is a lot. Sometimes they bring over dinner for me and we eat it together on my porch. At night women will sit on my porch in the dark, under the stars - long after I have gone to bed and they will whisper and giggle about who knows what - it’s all in local language and I have to admit it’s pretty comforting to fall asleep to the quiet whispers of women.

Over popcorn I have serious conversations with the neighborhood men who just come to say “hi” and then get sucked into very intense conversations usually prompted by something they mention… “I really want an American wife” and I always mention that they already have a wife or two… and so commences the conversations of women’s rights and equality. I know they just love that.

But of all these things, the best thing about my porch is the kids. Now that school has started it is much less frequent, but they come every moment they have time off. In the evenings it is especially fun to be at my porch. I will usually have just finished an evening run and the kids wait for me to “faire le sport” which means follow everything I do right down to the way I breath, J. We usually start with yoga and they love it when I do the “om” I’m not doing it for “inner peace,” I do it because the kids love it and it’s hilarious to see them be so serious with their eyes shut tight saying “om” J. Then there are the stretches and the ab exercises and then we finish with who can do the most push ups. It’s fun, the kids always want to have a dance party afterwards, I’m usually exhausted by this point and say ‘no,’ but there are those nights when I feel up to it. There are anywhere from 5 to 30 kids on my porch on any given night. During the day kids will come over and ask to draw all over my porch in chalk or ask for the children’s books in French I have for them. Sleeping babies are also a common sight on my porch left by their older siblings or exhausted mothers.

My gardens are right up against my porch and I currently have about 10 moringa trees growing on one side of it. I have the kids (the younger ones) go up to each tree and chant “Get bigger! Get bigger! Get bigger!” (in Jula – “A ka jya! A ka jya!..) every evening. It’s great, I have it on video even. I once tried to explain in terms children would understand that the plants eat their words… (intake of CO2). They probably think I am crazy… but they’re crazy – they’re kids!

Older girls come by to relax and paint their nails, I try to keep a stock of nail polish from the marché just for them. Then they sit and do their nails or braid their hair, it’s like high school all over again. I like that they feel comfortable around me because it gives me a chance to talk to them about their lives, what they do and don’t like about it and what their hopes are for the future.

Ha, my porch is very GEE. J

I love my porch, but my porch would be nothing without those who grace it everyday. I am very blessed to have such a great porch and live in such a great community. Don’t ever think I’m lonely here, I am always surrounded by people who care about me which I think is a very precious thing indeed.

Peace.

So I'm in Banfora with my little computer that has all my pictures on it but i forgot the adaptor. Lame. So this blog will just be a few words because it is incredibly difficult to type on these old, dusty french keyboards. Not to mention the spell check on these things is making everything look misspelled since its calobrated for french. Ey!

So this year Halloween was celebrated in ouaga and some volunteers got together and carved out two watermelons since there were no pupkins to be found. I have to admit it was very anti-climatic for me and so i came home the next day sad that there werent any cute kids in costums knocking down my door for candy. Or was there...

When i got back a pumpkin, the only squash to survive the horrible bugs that have been eating my butternut squash, watermelons and catalope, had miraculously turned ORANGE! So I took it that evening and waited till all the kids came over to chez moi and i carved it into a jack-o-lantern and all was right with the world. The kids loved it, how it glowed in the dark - they had never seen anything like it - they just stared at it. It was fun, i taught them how to say 'happy halloween!' and then handed out the tabaski candy i had been saving for tabaski which apparently is tomorrow. No one really knows because they have to wait till the moon is full meaning either tomorrow or wednesday.

I have pictures of this and even one with a kid in a skeleton shirt (they wear all the clothes that arent able to sell in thrift stores in america - they call them 'dead white man's clothes' because they think they came from some dead white guy).

So yeah, next time, if i dont forget to bring my converter i'll post pics.

Peace and love and happy thanksgiving!

Love,

Leslie

I know I’ve only been at my site for a little under two months but I’ve already been able to do so much with my community! The most recent and most successful (probably of all the projects I've done to date in Burkina) of those projects that I’ve started here was my CM2 (5th graders) girls camp.

Now girls camps here are not what you are probably envisioning with the overnighters, the singing around a camp fire… no, it’s more like voluntarily going to several days of intense sensiblizations – well and yes, there are games, we do sing and I am the “white girl” in village so there is definitely the attraction to wanting to see what the I am going to do.

There were three other PCVs, all really cool girls, who did an awesome girl’s camp this past summer with 3eme (8th grade) girls and they gave me their outline with the different activities they did and I, along with my friend in village, Mamou, went through the outline and adapted it to fit with girls who can not speak a lot of French, who are much less educated and from village… I ran around talking to everyone in village several weeks before the camp was set to take place and asked everyone to help out. I ended up with 4 willing community volunteers and 28 enthusiastic CM2 girls.

The first day of camp I went over the male and female reproductive organs, their names and their functions but the girls didn’t quite understand the French words so Mamou stepped in and explained in Jula and instantly the girls understood. It is important to teach the girls at this age (9-17 but most are 11-13) about reproductive health because they won’t get it until 3eme and most of the girls in my camp won’t even go to 3eme so it is important to teach them now. Then Mamou took over and explained to the girls about puberty, their changing bodies both physically and emotionally as well as puberty for boys and explained the risks that can come along with puberty, their consequences and where they can go to get counsel and support, like their teachers, the CSPS and me.

Then we went into the fun activity of gender roles. This is one of my favorite activities to do with kids. I had lists of works like “intelligent,” “steals,” “pregnancy,” “works,” etc. and the students had to decide which word went under “female,” “male” or “both.” They divided up the twenty or so words and then I asked them now, biologically what can both men and women do… and the one word that they couldn’t say was something both a man and woman could do was “authority.” They had been so chatty about how both men and women could be beautiful, work, cultivate, make money but when it came to authority they didn’t want to move it to the center. This is the cultural difference/dilemma that must be broken – I say this as a GEE volunteer but also as a person who strongly believes in the equality of men and women.

After that we finished off the day with Mamou translating the International Human Right’s laws into Jula for the girls, who probably had no idea that there were laws protecting them.

So day one was a long one. Day two I went over HIV/AIDS and STDs and then the Major (village doctor) came over and showed the girls all the different times of contraception available to them from condoms, pills, shots, and even tube tying. We also played some games while we waited for the Major who was late coming to the camp due to helping the sick at the CSPS.

The Major showing the girls "the pill." The third day of camp was probably the most exciting. Julie and James, two new volunteers came to watch my camp to see how camps could run and give them ideas for their future camps at their site. It was nice to have a little volunteer support and discuss with them during breaks how they thought things were going.

Julie and James introduce themselves to the class. So, our first activity was based on self-affirmations, something lacking for women in Burkina as a whole. Because of many reasons that I don’t want to get into right now, I had to give the girls a list of 20 things they thought they might be good at so that they wouldn’t just all write the same three things. I handed out paper crowns and had them write down their own three things that they were good at; then I had them trade crowns with their friends and their friends wrote three things that their friend was good at doing. After decorating their crowns they each came up in front of the class and read aloud what they were good at.

Encouraging the girls as the decorate their crowns. Then Mamou came over and we went over the importance of making good decisions and how one makes decisions with 7 steps like “define the situation,” “what are the consequences” etc. (all these things are lacking in their education system, hence I am here). She read them situations that did not have any one right answer and the girls explained what they would do in those situations and why. The last situation was really exciting because the girls had to decide why they would want to continue school (very few girls go to school or finish it for that matter here). It made them think about how education could better their futures and was a perfect seigway into the afternoon session’s goal.

For the afternoon session, three women teachers came into talk to the girls about their own personal stories of growing up in villages and how they over came their difficult situations to become government employees. It was amazing to hear their stories of struggle. One woman had to bike 40k each time to retake a test that would allow her to continue her education, others sold eggs, and a lot of cultivating fields and waiting to get enough money to continue school seemed to the biggest difficulties. At the end of their talks they each gave their own advice to the girls.

Madame Sabine talking to the girls about over coming her poverty. My friend Sabine said over and over, “You must suffer, you must work hard and you must have courage if you want to continue schooling!”

After all three women had told their stories they asked the girls why they might want to work hard in school and continue on to middle school (which they have to pay for, even public). The girls said everything from that they didn’t want to work in the fields anymore to they wanted to become teachers, professors, judges and ministry officials. Those are some big dreams for a group of village girls. It really just made me so happy to hear them start to think about their futures and dream. Then Mamou asked them what working hard in school meant and the girls went through the list of coming in on time, doing homework, listening, etc..

Excited girls snap and raise their hands wanting to be called on by Mamou to tell her what they want to be when they grow up. Overall the third day was incredibly productive and really exciting.

The last day (day four), the girls came into class and we created life maps with them. They drew a big road starting with where they were that day “CM2 student in Diarabakoko” and they had to write down what they needed to do to accomplish their dreams for the future. We went over with them the different tests and levels of schooling each would have to go through in order to become a teacher, professor of English, minister for the Burkina government, etc. and the girls also added in when they wanted to get married and have children. Then I asked them, when they had finished, what were the kinds of things that could hurt their future plans and we went over undesired pregnancies, AIDS, not continuing school. That activity was kind of hard for them to grasp but I think the idea that they had goals and there were ways to go about attaining those goals was definitely understood. Then I had them draw picture of their present lives, their houses, families, and types of work. After that they drew what they wanted their future lives to look like (their homes, husbands, job, clothes, motos, etc.). I really wanted to emphasize thinking about the future because the girls don’t ever really think or dream about their futures. They don’t know what to dream for here. Girls coming up to the front of the class, being crowned and telling their friends and peers what they want to be when they grow up. So for the closing ceremony each girl came up and said what she wanted to be when she grew up and she showed off her drawings. I then crowned her with her decorated crown that said the things she was good at and gave her pens and notebooks for school and some candy. Overall the camp went amazingly well and I really enjoyed working with the girls. I was especially pleased with all those that volunteered to help out with the camp and that it occurred before school started so that the girls had reason and motivation to do well in school.

Me surrounded by 28 beautiful princesses :).

Well, that’s all for now. Sorry for the long blog posts!

A plus!

Leslie

Life has been pretty busy lately. Three weeks ago I moved into my new home and I feel like I've been on a whirlwind of activities since. My village is incredibly motivated which makes working with them so much fun and easy.

The first week I went around and visited with the chief of the village, the Major of the CSPS (like the head doctor of the health clinic), some teachers who work at the school and the directors of the schools as well. I was able to show them my very official looking action plan and talk with them about their needs and how we could potentially work together this next year.

The Major and his wife took special interest in me and made me come over to their place every day, and still do actually which I guess is a good sign that they like me. It's great to be friends with the major of my village because he knows first hand a lot of the health issues that occur in my village specifically so we can talk strategy at working to alleviate those problems together.

The Major holding up a photo of guinea worm that has been eradicated from Burkina Faso (thanks to Peace Corps Volunteers) but the poster is to remind people that if they see this to come immediately to the CSPS to report it and help get it removed. His wife, Mamou has taken it upon herself to help me with getting started with projects with the women's groups such as soap making. So last week we did our first soap and hand-washing formation. I had told Mamou that I wanted to make the shea butter with the women and so the day before the formation the women came over with their ground shea nuts and we made shea butter. It took all day!

Mamou and Lucy pouring in the ground up shea nuts into water.

Mixing.

Breaking for lunch... 2 hours later.

Shea butter close up!So this pic needs some explaining. When the shea gets to the point where it begins to separate from the water the sound of the women mixing it actually sounds like a really sweet drum beat so me and my friend Lucy decided to break it down. And yes, there is video footage of this as well. We clump up the shea butter and throw it into a new bowl to rinse once more before we heat it up and turn it into shea oil.Shea oil! Shea butter is only from sub Saharan Africa!After the shea butter was finished we mixed the caustic (lye) with water and the chemical reaction (which can cause painful chemical burns) makes the solution very hot and produces unhealthy vapors. That needed to sit over night to stabilize and the next morning at 7am the women came over and we mixed the shea oil that we had made the previous day with palm oil and then added the lye. After letting that sit for the day and firm up we cut it into manageable sizes of soap to sell at the market. During the time we were mixing the soap I did a formation on the importance of hand-washing and how it is in fact part of the reason diarrhea is the second biggest killer of children under the age of 5 (see Unicef for more information). And it is also a big reason here, I explained how soap worked and how it is important to wash after using the latrine and before touching food to prepare and eat. Mamou explained it all in local language for the women.

Making lye...

Soap molds aka cardboard boxes.

And it's ready to be sold at the market!

I have to admit it was a little frustrating when we held the meeting on the profit from the soap the next day. I brought up different ideas of how to save the money through a savings and credit club but they had already tried that before I had come to the village and didn't understand the benefits of saving. When they had tried before they all gave some of their money (50 CFA each) and when they added it all up together they asked to divide it up and take back their money. It's something I've had problems with before here, it's hard to for them to want to plan for the future, in general many Burkinabe only want to think about the here and now which makes it hard for them to see the benefits of saving for the future. BUT at the same time, I am coming in from a different culture, perspective and ideas and so I feel wrong saying that this is frustrating... it's just a cultural barrier and I don't know how to be more culturally sensitive on this issue.

So the end of that is that the women will be selling the soap and making a little profit. And we are doing this with a women's association of 40 women.

Other than the soap making I have also been going around to each group of huts in my village with my counterpart, Yakouba, who is also my next door neighbor with his wife and two kids. After 7 he comes over and we walk in the dark on tiny goat and bike trails to the different groupings of huts which all have their own names in Gwe (it's hard to know how to write this word out, it's lie "Gwen" but instead of saying the "n" say it with your stomach? yeah, no idea).

The little excursions are actually really beautiful. The stars are out (new moon time so really bright) and they fill the sky, lightening bugs fly around the bushes of mint and corn and all you can see are the silhouettes of little earthen huts with their little roofs pointing into the night sky. Once we get to a group (there are 16 in my village) they give me a chair and all the women, men and children surround me to stare and wait for me to begin presenting myself - in the dark. It can take 2 seconds to 20 minutes for everyone to get together. (We do it at night because the women and men are in the fields all day because it is rainy season.) I being by explain why I live there, my name both in english and my african name (given to me by the village) and how I hope to work alongside them in the coming year (or two). I pause between my speech to give Yakouba time to translate what I am saying into the local language which is NOT jula unfortunately. Though I believe most of them can understand and speak it. So far they seem really receptive and have told me some of their needs such as a kindergarten class and helping their students continue on to high school.

I have two more projects lined up, a huge painting of a world map on the school wall facing the market and a girls camp that is to happen before school starts. And all within this next month. Eeks!

Well. I'm out of time at the cyber, hope this finds you all well.

Peace,

Leslie

PS: If you didn't catch this in my post... I LOVE MY NEW VILLAGE! THEY ROCK! ... 3rd year??? we will see...

Well, it's been a long time since I've actually written a blog post. 7 weeks I guess, almost two months! I promised my parents I would update this so here it goes.

7 weeks ago I had finished packing up my life at the College Sainte Therese, moved George to the comfy home of chez Rachel's in Bobo and boarded a plan to Morocco. I write that all in once sentence and yet each one of those events was incredibly stressful and time consuming - but I don't want to waste my blog expanding on those so...

Morocco.

Morocco was absolutely amazing. I got off the plane (four hours late - was in the ouaga airport for 12 hours - painful!) jumped on a 3 hour train and met my lovely friend, Kat in Marrakech. Kat had also brought a friend, Sam who had come from the states-side to chill in Morocco for a bit.

Marrakech was gorgeous. The culture there is so unique, I was surprised at how much more conservative it was than Burkina. A lot of the women, if not most, were completely covered from head to toe moving gracefully in and out of the markets stands.

Women in the market

The market in the center of Marrakech, also known as the "medina," was bustling with life. There were a million beautiful things for sale and an equal number of pesky sales people to sell them. Kat and Sam ended up buying rugs after crazy shouting matches over the prices, and I worked the jewelry guy over a two day period for a beautiful silver and turquoise bracelets made by the Berber.

When I had gotten off the train in Marrakech I was immediately embarrassed by my clothes. I had put on what I had thought were nice clothes in Burkina (though a little faded) and once in Morocco felt like I looked like a bum. So after an amazing breakfast the next day I ran into the market and bought a scarf and some sandals that where clean and new. Just a side note: Often PCVs in BF make references to people who have just got off the plane from the states as "shiny and new" because they just look cleaner and prettier than us.

The food there was amazing too... they would put cinnamon on oranges, and they had these amazing slowed cooked things called "tajines," fresh squeezed orange juice for .30 cents, amazing mint tea and pastillas. I'm making links because I don't want to explain EVERYTHING and go on too many tangents.

A Tajine we had in Imlil (small village in the Atlas Mountains)

Okay, enough about food and to wrap this up a bit. After two days in Marrakech (and trying out a "Hamam" aka a turkish bath) we headed to the Atlas Mountains. They were absolutely glorious.

Next to our hotel

View from a day hike Morning view from our windows in Imlil

We were there for a total of three days and did multiple hikes with beautiful vistas everywhere. It was beautiful, and calm, and magnificent, and in all the ways that words fail to express the silent grandeur of the mountains.

After our three days there we went back to Casablanca, stayed the night (I didn't think Casablanca was all that great) and then headed to the States.

All in all, Morocco was beautiful and I must go back and see the northern parts like Fez and Rabat, maybe as part of my COS trip?? We'll see.

So I did in fact go back to the States as some or most of you know (I never know who reads this). It was amazing to say the least. The three things that were different for me in the states after living in BF for a year were: the size of onions... they're HUGE in the USA, the short skirts and shorts everyone wears, and I could honestly never make up my mind about what to eat. It was terrible; I hate to be that person who can't make decisions.

So I went to Seattle, spent the Jully 4th with Tatsuro making nachos and drinking wine. Did a talk with a youth group, more like a Q&A which was really interesting for me to hear people's questions about BF and the PC. I then boarded another plane to LA where I hung out with a love of my life NAOMI CON, running around Melrose, Venice Beach, Hollywood and Santa Monica. We even made a cute little rainbow cake with rainbow chip frosting. Food. I love food.

My first fish tacos, yum!

I then took a plane to San Fran to meet up with my family for a beautiful wedding (congrats Dan and Annie!) and ran around San Fran with my parents and my sister, Jackie (She is also doing some pretty cool stuff this summer as a back-country mounted ranger in Yellowstone... JEALOUS! she already has her WFR!). We also watched the finals for the World Cup together... I think in my heart I wanted Holland to win. Oh well.

Picture of the fam at Dan and Annie's wedding and probably our christmas card picture as well :)

After the wedding my parents and I headed to Sonoma and Napa valley for wine tasting = divine.

Chateau Montelena: Judgment of Paris 1976

Then to the Oregon coast, which was great as always (there is just so much to say!).

Hike in Oregon

...and then they dropped me off in Portland so I could hang with another love of my life, Ashley. We went to voodoo donuts at 3 in the morning... so great.

Voodoo Donuts, Portland, OR

Then I boarded a train, got back to Seattle just in time for another more official talk at Cross of Christ Lutheran with a PowerPoint and everything. Thanks again to all those who came, it was great to see you!

THEN (I know... maybe I should have just not have written all of this) ERIN COOLEY came up from Portland and we went on this AMAZING hike up McCullen Butte (9 miles round trip) and it was exacty what I wanted to do with Erin, and I still can't believe she drove all that way for me. Love love love.

McCullen Butte

Ok, so I then went back to BF where I am currently - 40 hours of traveling = painful.

To sum up the last three weeks I have worked stage with the new volunteers that came this summer; gone to my MSC (mid service conference) and then back to stage to teach all the newbies about First Aid in BF. All in all it was a lot of work and fun hanging out with the new kids. And my MSC made me realize how little time I have to do what I want with my new village.

So currently I am in the Bobo office with George (reunion!) waiting to move into my new village today. I wanted to write more about this but I'm kind of feeling that I'm done with this blog and so next time I write I'll tell you all about my new adventures in my little village.

Peace and love and warm fuzzies,

Leslie

PS: For more pictures of my time in Morocco click here.

I would love to tell you the name of the new village I will be moving into later this summer, but silly security threats are kind of preventing me from doing that at the moment.

I went down this morning with Denize, my counterpart, to see my new house, meet important people and see my village. I took a couple quick pictures to share with you all, especially with my mom and dad in mind. So here they are!

This is part of my house, it's connected to someone elses, the two windows are my house, two rooms and they will be adding a hanger for me to lounge under when it gets really hot. There is sometimes electricity and no water and plenty of gardening potential... and i'll be able to sleep outside at night under the stars, yay!

View from my gate of my new village! The little thatch roof on the left is where they do welding.

Where I will be pumping my water not 50 yards from my new home! Exciting!

View of some huts from the road.

I will be taking a lot more pictures in the future, this is just a taste of what is to come, I am so exciting but a little nervous since I have to start all over. Find new people in the village who will work with me, find the girls to start soccer teams, girls clubs, camps, etc..

But what is life if not an adventure!

Peace out!

I thought I would write a quick blog while I wait for the vet to come and give George a rabies shot. No, he does not have rabies, it's just a prophylaxis rabies shot.

So why am I overwhelmed? Maybe writing it out will make me feel better. Today I have to visit with the nurse who is going to give a talk on nutrition next week for the moringa workshop and ask her to move the second workshop so that I can be at both (one was at the end of the week but I will be leaving for Morocco and the States). I also have to find my counterpart and ask her to take me to my new village that I will be moving into in August (yep, I'm moving!). And I just talked with my directrice and she said that I have to move out within the next two weeks because someone else is going to move in... ugh. I also have to go to the bank for money, find my German friend and get my Jula book back, figure out where I am going to move all my crap before I have to get ready and pack up for America next week. I need to finish my slide show for my talk at my parent's church and get last minute things for friends.

Then I'm leaving for Ouaga this Thursday so I can plant trees for flood victims friday (they were relocated to the out-skirts of Ouaga and there isn't shade, so we are growing shade for them) and then coming back Saturday. I have to take George to Bobo so Rachel can take care of him the SEVEN weeks I'm gone (4 traveling, 3 in PST). Then comes Monday and Tuesday for the formation. Packing wednesday (new PCVs come that night!) leave Thursday for Ouaga, catch plane to Morocco early Saturday morning... and then starts my crazy traveling and so on.

Well, at least I can't say I'm bored. :)

I'll give an update on my new village as soon as I have one... and I didn't mention this before but I'm stoked!

Peace and love,

Leslie

Go to the people,Learn from them,Start with what they know,Build on what they have…

But the best of leaders,When their work is done,The task is finished,The people will say,“We have done it ourselves.”

~Lao Tse

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activities everything from "Coaching for Hope," traveling and illnesses to vacationing on the Togo beach front.

Two weeks ago I and 10 other girls from my college stuffed ourselves, some soccer balls and a lot of excitement into a little bush taxi headed to a little spring-break soccer camp. About 10k away my closest neighbor and dearest friend Kat had planned and coordinated a week long soccer tournament and HIV/AIDS camp at her site for girls in the Southwest region of Burkina. Myself and two other volunteers brought their soccer teams down to participate in what is known as "Coaching for Hope." "Coaching for Hope" is an organization world wide that trains HCNs* to teach their own people about HIV/AIDS through classroom instruction and soccer drills and games. It was great to see the young Burkinabe men teach the young teenage girls so passionately about HIV/AIDS; us volunteers mostly just sat back and watched as the girls learned about the biology of AIDS, the realities and myths as well as ways to say 'no' to sex and how to effectively tell the men the importance of wearing a condom. That I feel made this camp more sustainable which is a really big goal for PC, projects that can live on after we have left. They did role playing and skits along with question and answer time at the end of the sessions. Three days into the camp we gave the girls a break from the soccer and classroom and took them to the overly aggrandized "Cascades" (which are one of the very few waterfalls in all of Burkina so if you've seen a waterfall in the states these are no falls to jump on a plane to see... haha, but seriously the way people talk about them in Burkina would make you think you were going to see Niagara falls). That was a lot of fun, playing with the girls in the water was a lot of fun though I may or may not have schistosomiasis. Our PCMOs* have told us many times that the "Cascades" are also known as "Schisto Falls" and ironically I just read a really great article that mentions schisto and other NTDs (Neglected Tropical Diseases) in "Scientific American" and their effects on poverty in West Africa. If you get a chance to get your hands on the Jan 2010 issue it's a great read. The next day was the ending tournament where the winners of the tournament got to play against the volunteers and the Coaching for Hope coaches. It was a lot of fun, I could not have had a better time then playing soccer with such great company.

After living in village with the girls for four days I sent them back to Banfora while I and the other volunteers got geared up for Ouaga and the Rubix Cube COS* party as well as for a week long vacation on the beaches of Togo.

The Rubix Cube party was fun, I got to see a lot of my other PCV friends but it was slightly dampered by a freak-fever of 102.5 F that Sylvie, a PCMO* said was probably caused by a bacterial infection in the dust that I inhaled during the soccer game the day before. Lame. Actually the day after the party it got worse and I almost didn't get to go on to TOGO! Thankfully I was able to jump on the bus the next morning mostly healthy.

Togo was absolutely amazing save for the 17 hour bus ride there and 24hr + 8hr trip back to my site. We could have done the touristy things like go to the butterfly forest or do a little hiking in the hills of Togo but really we all just wanted to lie on the beach and that is exactly what we did. It was perfection. We stayed in little bungalows on the beach for 20 bucks the whole week, ate seafood and drank a lot of grapefruit juice (others might say beer but I'm still not that into African beers), swam in the aqua blue waters of the Atlantic and just soaked up the sun. Everything I had imagined and more. Wake up, swim, sunbath, eat, sunbath, read, eat, swim, eat, drink, sleep. Though we did go out one night and found a GERMAN restaurant, apparently they had some influence on Togo and therefore some of their food was there... I ate a BRUTWURST mit senf (with mustard) and it was amazing. We also went out on a random fishing boat that nearly capsized every minute we were on it... even the Togolese guys driving the dinky little thing were worried... not a good sign. The swimming was fun because it felt somewhat dangerous with the huge waves but that made it even more fun. The place we stayed at was called "Coco Beach Chez Antoine" and it used to be just a coconut farm but because the real estate was so prime they turned it into a cozy little beach vacation getaway.

Anyways, I'm back now, the day before school starts and dreading work because Togo was so amazing a relaxing. And just a heads up on future blog posts that I should/need to write I am in fact now a teacher at my college, I teach sexual education to the 6th grade girls.

Hope all is well in Americaland.

A bi doni.

So I just thought I would share some pictures I have from my reading club. I run a reading club every Thursday morning with 1st grade students who are mentored by 4th grade students. They get together under different mango trees in the courtyard of the primary school and read for an hour in French. Because French is a second language here the 4th graders need to translate the stories into Jula for the younger ones. At the end I give the kids stickers which they usually put on their foreheads, I have no idea why but it's really cute. Some of the pictures are somewhat hazy because of all the dust... it's because we have entered HOT SEASON and boy is it hot!

I would like to give a big thanks to my Aunt Marj who donated many books to this club, thanks Aunt Marj!



I hope to soon take my reading club on a field trip to the little library I found in Banfora to get them more excited about reading and help them out with getting memberships, it's about 200-350CFA a year for primary school students which is about 30-60 US cents.

Cheers!

So a lot has happened in the last month or so and I've been so busy I have had little time to get on the internet and spell it all out.

I guess the best place to start at the beginning, but I need to pick where the beginning started, oh boy. Sorry in advance. Let's start with Ouaga. At the beginning of February I went up to Ouaga for a warden's training as well as a GEE PAC(GEE Project Advisory Committee). Warden's training was just a day with a bunch of other PCVs who were chosen based on their locations to learn what to do in events of emergency, ie. coup d'etat such as Niger currently. So if PC needs to evacuate we know the basics of what we needed to do as volunteers. Jeff, an American who works at the bureau also had us all over for dinner that night which was really fun, it felt like a family night in an American home. He made delicious lasagna and chocolate cake and then we played family fun games like ping pong, board games and wii (sp?) haha. All in all, I really appreciated him opening his house to us, thanks Jeff!

After training I decided to visit my friend Emily in Sapouy, a kind of village 2 hours south of Ouaga. It was great to see her site, where she lives, her projects and just hang out together.

She introduced me to the women who make shea butter and I even got to help! Shea butter seems like a really complex process, during some of the stages it kind of looks and smells like chocolate!

We also went to a soccer tournament with Rob, another PCV who just third year'd it in Sapouy as a health volunteer. That was also really fun, but weird how the rules of throwing in a ball are not followed at all, if you know anything about throw-ins you know that it's illegal not to have both feet on the groud. Yet the refs never called it, ca va aller. I was there for two nights and three days, Emily was a great hostess!



After that short visit I went back to Ouaga for the GEE PAC. Emily, Jessi (another GEE PCV) and I were invited to come to this meeting where our counterparts as well as the DPEF of Burkina (she would be the equivalent of meeting with the head of the "No Child Left Behind" program in the states). For two days straight we had meetings that started at 8 in the morning and got out at 6 in the evening. They were all in french and I had to present my ideas in french which made for a massive headache by the time it was all done. It was really cool to be working along side the government of Burkina though, I was constantly impressed with what was accomplished such as where the GEE program would go in the future and what the DPEF should expect and help out with as well. there was so much information that I've forgotten a lot of it by now, sorry. But I just want to say that conference made me feel really grown up, in a good way. I feel like I'm actually working towards a change Burkina needs for development.

After the two day conference I decided to head down to another volunteer's pad out in a regional capital called Tenkodogo. Dylan lives there and Carolyn and Kristen are close neighbors who came into town during the same time I was there. Tenkodogo is the farthest east I have been in Burkina and I was pretty impressed. While there I was able to see a sweet bike race both for women 15k and men 40k race. They had to use village bikes, meaning no gears, and dang! did they go fast! Not to mention how hot it was, Burkina sun is relentless. I also got to share some sushi with a Japanese volunteer, Yoshi who, believe it or not trained in a little town (if you can call it that) in Northern California, the same tiny town I worked in a year later (2006), Etna. The world is constantly getting smaller.

So after a long time of being away from site I finally came back... and yet another blog full of things have happened since I've been back but I'm done writing for now, so until next time. CIAO!

...

wait, I guess I can at least introduce you to my newest addition to my humble abode, meet GEORGE! Cutest Burkina kitty ever! He is mix of Curious George and George of the Jungle all wrapped up in fur.

Cheers from Burkina!

This was a blog that I wrote last month but forgot to post it... So although it is in present tense it happened about a month ago.



Today was the first project, other than the girls’ soccer team, that I have run since being at site. I finished my study of Banfora and got the go ahead from my boss, Madame Zallia, to try out an educational meeting/workshop with the parents of an elementary school that I work with. It was an amazing experience to say the least.

If you are on board with gender equality and social justice then you might find this story interesting. My job title is “Community Education and Development Outreach Volunteer” and so, although I am not a formal teacher I do make things happen to help educate my community here in Banfora.

So what exactly happened today? Well, for the past week or so I have been collaborating with the DPEF (which, after translating from French means “Director of the Promotion and Education of Girls”) Madame Denise and Madame Sonia along with the principle and teachers of an elementary school in Banfora called “Centre C.” Recently a teacher brought to my attention that the girls in the school were not doing well because they were so overworked in the home that they were too tired to do their homework and often came tired and/or late to class. This problem is true through out Burkina Faso and is one of the reasons I am here, to promote the education of the female population.

After that conversation with the teacher I went to the office of the DPEF and asked if they would be interested in helping out with a sensiblization (educational meeting/workshop). They were interested and so after going back and forth between the principle and the DPEF I was able to coordinate a sensibization for today. It was hard because I really had to work on my French but I was able to translate my program for the meeting into French and go over it with the DPEF the day before the meeting. She was incredibly helpful and insightful with giving me advice about what I should expect at the meeting.

Now in PST (Pre-Service Training) we are told that most meetings, especially the first few will start an hour later than scheduled and that we shouldn’t be surprised if only a few people show up. So I was a little nervous that this would fail but prepared if it did. But thankfully that was not the case today.

Today was amazing. I felt like a cheerleader for women’s rights. I got to the school a little before 9AM and was surprised to see half the classroom filled with parents and the principle (even the principle told me the day before that it might have to start at 10 because people would come in late). Soon after the DPEF showed up and the president of the Association of Mothers for the Education of Students (AME) was also in attendance and helped run the meeting. The meeting began promptly at 9AM and I took on the role of facilitator, while Madame Denise led the meeting because she could speak in Jula (local language) to the mothers at the meeting. (Side note: women here commonly don’t speak French because they had to drop out of school at an early age due to pregnancy, marriage, housework, etc.). After she introduced herself and the reason for the meeting we started on an activity I had seen in PST. We made two columns on a flipchart. One column was titled “Boys” and the other “Girls.” The parents at the meeting had to come up with all the housework and chores that each gender did and write them on the board. It was interesting though not surprising. The girl’s list was much longer than the boy’s column.

I translated what was actually written on the chart so you can see and understand what I am working on to change in Burkina.

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

*Remember these are the girls and boys who are in elementary school… ages 5-12

Boys

Girls

-Play

-Distraction

-Small scale commerce

-Housework

-Carrying and pumping water

-Clean the smaller children

-Cook

-Get up early, go to bed late

-Go to the fields to cultivate

-Find and chop wood for cooking

-Cleaning clothes

-Grind Millet

-Small scale commerce (selling at the marché)

-Taking care of the babies

-Marriage and pregnancies

Causes:

- Lack of literacy and education among the population

- Poverty

- Socio-cultural paradigms

Solutions

- share the housework between the boys and the girls

- reorganize the housework so that the girls are given time to study

- enroll into a literacy center for help with French during the evenings

- have periodical meetings with the AME

- do house work on days off from school (Thursdays, Sundays)

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

After the chart was completed Madame Denise asked what the parents thought were the causes of the inequality of the work distribution and then asked the parents to come up with solutions that could be put in place to give the girls more time to study. It was awesome, the classroom was full of people and the debates where heated and filled with emotion… it was amazing to watch. One of the men actually got really angry and stormed out. I could never tell exactly what they were saying, because most of it was Jula, but it was not hard to guess. It was so interesting to have this inter-gender dialogue, to watch as a culture that has been so male dominated come to the conclusion that change is needed if development is to be attained. Overall 55 parents showed up, 51 women, 4 men.

This also has possibilities of sustainability because I did not lead the discussion I only facilitated it so that hopefully after I leave here this discussion will be continued long after I have gone.

Overall I feel like the meeting was a success but only time will tell if anything is done to change the girls’ workload at my primary school. I am looking forward to coordinating more of these conversations in the future

My mom put it best, “It’s like you’re in a time warp.” Definitely.

Today a PC friend of mine asked me what projects I was starting up now that I can finally start them. I didn't realize how many I was getting myself into (and how excited I am for each one of them!) until I texted him back my list-o-projects. So I thought for a quick little update I would just copy my text here and expand later if I feel like it.

7 projects and they are: a girls club for life skills & art club, mentorship club for 5-8 yr olds, two soccer teams (though one is already started), 'coaching 4 hope' soccer tourney in march, AIDS awareness bike tour in the southwest, and a world wide schools english club..."

SO SWEET!

I love the freedom I have to do awesome things here in the peace corps in burkina! I actually have my dream job, how many 23 year olds can say that?

Love from the Faso!

Last week I was in Burkina's capital, Ouagadougou for some in-service training (IST) and to reconnect with all my friends from stage. It was fun, but like most people I think by the end of the week I was a little overwhelmed and itching to get back to Banfora and be in my little community of girls.

IST was mostly learning project planning skills, collaborating with others, having the WHO (World Health Org) talk to us about helping them out, learning how to make soap and how to grow things, write grants, and so on. It was interesting and fun to see everyone, but like my friend Molly, I have to agree, I'm glad to be home.

It takes all day to get from the capital to Banfora so by the time I rolled into my little town it was dark. I had a heavy rice sack with all my clothes and way too many books that I'd borrowed from the transit house slung over my shoulder, heaving it along in the dark on the very dry and sandy side-streets. By the time I got to the last leg of my journey from the bus station a very darling old man on an equally old bike asked if I needed help as he could see I was struggling with my sack. I agreed - relieved and gracious for the help and he held it in place on his bike while peddling slowly along with me. What a sweet old soul. He must have been in his 60s or 70s, peddling along in the dark. We reached my college gate and he gave me my sack, said "Bonne nuit!" and was on his way. His helpfulness warmed my heart greatly. As I took my rice sack up again over my shoulder I walked carefully over the sandy lane into the shadow of the mango trees (the moon was fairly bright making shadows even at night) careful not to step on any sleeping dogs (we have a lot of them here). As I approached the school buildings, coming out of the shadows I saw the girls sitting on the school steps braiding each others' hair as they always do saturday evenings when they are given a little freedom. As soon as they saw me come out from under the shadow of the trees hunched over from the weight of my sack they came running. Before I knew it I was engulfed in hundreds of hugs and kisses. My heart sang. What beautiful souls I am surrounded with here! How lucky am I to be surrounded by so much love? I immediately realized why I needed to get back to Banfora so quickly, I needed to be with these girls. As much as I am here to help them I can feel them helping me in ways they will never understand. They grabbed my heavy sack and walked me to my door. When I got to my "apartment" I was expecting to see that my garden had died while I was gone, but was so amazed and impressed when I saw that not only were they still alive but they were damp from being watered! I had asked the girls before I left if they could water them, thinking they would forget. But low and behold, they had watered my garden everyday and were so proud to show me that they had.

That evening, coming home to the college, gave me a renewed sense of purpose, of being here, of sharing life together with these girls.

And I have but one thing to say. I have been truly blessed to be here, it's more than I deserve, it's grace. Thank you Lord.

So although I will not be home for the holidays this year, don't pity me, God has been faithful and filled my life with a love that I could never imagine having here in Burkina Faso.

My GEE group for IST at Doug's (our Country Director) house for dinner.

Merry Christmas! I love you from thousands of miles away and yet my heart knows no distance.

Love and Peace from Burkina Faso,

Les

Yeah, I've been here for 6 months in Burkina Faso. A place, I am embarrassed to admit, I didn't even know existed before I was invited to come here. So I thought I would reflect on the last 6 months of being in Africa, a dream I've had since high school. I’ve made subtitles so you can skim through to find what might actually interest you…

Experiences (yeah, i know general): I've lived in an African village, I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. Sadly, I don't anymore but I can still reflect, I mean I did live there for two or so months. I had a host family, I didn't speak their language and they didn't speak mine and yet, we were able to communicate and now they will always have a special place in my heart. At same time though, I am acutely aware of how incredibly important language is not just for communication but for connecting with people. That's another incredible experience, I came in with almost no french, I think I could remember how to say "How much does that cost?" and how to negate phrases using the "ne ... pas" but that was it. Since then I have managed to learn enough french to get by and hang with the girls at my school as well as learn a little Moore and Jula (African local languages). I've cultivated with my host family in the fields; watched kids make toys out of my trash; sung songs in a church when I'm not sure of the tune, what is being said and what exactly I'm singing - but my heart is still there :). I've been taught how to shoot African bows and arrows at an African festival in Lobi country and watched teenage boys and girls at a "high school dance" and was surprised to see that there isn't much difference in the awkwardness I experienced at my own high school dances. I've taken 10 hour bush taxi rides (which should have been three and a half) where there were goats screaming (they sound like kids, it's kind of terrible) under my seat, chickens on the lap of the man in front of me, more goats and men tied up or hanging off the side of a 20 person van that is holding 30+ people and their luggage, not to mention the dust that coated my hair to a bright red by the time I stumbled off. I could go on, but I won't... for now, but I have to say that so far it's been a pretty amazing and crazy ride. I feel like if anything, my experiences here have made me realize the connectedness of people, the strength that love still has on hearts, it might be a different culture, a different world for that matter but Love never changes and I can relate to that, I can use that to reach people here.

Similar to my own bush taxi experience...mom, don't freak out.



Friends and Family (in the US and here): Being here has also made me realize how quickly time and life and loved ones pass me by. I studied abroad in Florence two years ago and it had been the longest I had been away from my family, in a foreign country... and yet here I feel like, as I see my friends getting married and my parents getting older that I still love them and miss them more than ever. Africa will always be here, but they won't and that realization makes me want to be with them, spend time with them and hang out. I'm sure living where I see the natural progression of life to death (it's not as hidden here as it is in the US) I'm just that much more aware of life and how it's a gift. I think I actually talk now, more than ever to my mom and dad, to my sister and even my aunts and uncles for that matter. And because I am in the same place that most of my fellow volunteers are in Burkina I feel a special kinship with them, they are my family here in Burkina and I am so greatful to be surrounded by such amazing people. Not to mention incredibly adventurous! So here's a shout out to my friends and family back home, I love you and I am so excited to see you when I return! To those PCVs reading this, you are awesome, I love you and I'm excited to see some of you guys at IST!

My bed with my friends in the fort of Christmas happiness listening to Christmas music, I feel like I trapped them more than invited them in there though and forced them to sing along to old Nat King Cole. :) Such good friends!

My feelings on Poverty: Now, this is constantly changing and being elaborated on but I feel like I could at least share my two cents at the moment. I knew poverty ment something more than dollars and cents, and for me it had something to do with the soul, and so for that I'm happy to say I don't feel that Burkina is truly in one of the top 10 ten poorest countries in the world but that's because I'm measuring it differently than the UNHDI I guess. When i first got here, that's all I could see though, the people have nothing, they make amazing things out of trash, and they know how to live without. I remember watching through the car window as Ouahigouya flashed by wondering when we were ever going to get to the "city" part and realizing that the one-story leans-tos WERE the city. And now, I don't see that anymore, I mean, I'm not blind but it doesn't phase me anymore, it doesn't mean the same thing. What I realize is more important than anything is the fluidity of the family here, everyone shares money, time, resources - they work together like a team and less like individuals trying to climb that ladder that puts one person ahead of another. You never hear that argument, "Oh, life is just so hard for me!!" "No way man, life is worse for me ..." there isn't that competition of "who can top this." It's refreshing. They laugh a lot here to, it's music to my heart.

What I miss most: Besides my friends and family? Mountains. By far the hardest thing for me not to see are mountains in the distance, I know, I know, Spokane lacked mountains and it was hard then, but at least I could drive 2 hours west and be in the Cascades. There just are no mountains here, or ocean for that matter. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, and I can't wait to be reunited with my mountains. Haha, dramatic right? But I'm being serious... did you know that gmail has a theme called "Orcus Island?" Yeah, you seattlites, crazy huh? Anyways, I also miss cheese, ice cream, chocolate, sweets in general... And I know this sounds selfish but I realize that I am missing out on all your weddings, engagements and nights out on the town. And as much as I love it here, I know that I am not living it as most twenty-somethings do and that makes me sad to know that I might be missing out sharing life together with you guys, so I miss what I'm missing with you all. So have a beer for me (microbrews preferably :P).

This is the happiest tea I have ever seen! My "Happy" tea comes with pictures of mountains! And it's "Mountain Fresh!"

Spiritually: Being here has made me that much more aware of how important my faith is because, here, unlike anywhere I’ve been before in my life, my devotion has to come completely from me. I don’t have the support of an amazing intern group (New Com!) or from amazingly wise bible study leaders or friends for encouragement (though email has been a saving grace). But it is that aspect of the Peace Corps that is actually making my faith so much more personal, and important. Haha, and I still listen to Russ, Ryan and if I go back far enough even Rob give sermons via podcasts, loved the 10 “words” series! But,I don't want to get to personal on this... it is a public blog... but I would love to talk about this on a more personal level via email if you want.

Hopes and dreams for the next two years: I’ve recently just finished up one of my first projects working to help girls have time to study after and before school but I’ll save the details for that for a later post. I’m actually envisioning creating a group of young artists (the girls at my school) to learn about self-esteem, girl’s and women’s rights and to have them express that through art, poetry, small theater performances and so on and to share that with the community of Banfora to raise awareness. That’s really specific, I have a lot more ideas, but this post is getting long so I’ll stop there…

And lastly but not least... Coolest care package goes to … drum role please…

NAOMI CON!

It was so pretty and full of love that I had to take a picture of it. Thanks Nomes!

*****************

And so with all the love in my heart I hope you shall really have yourselves a Merry Christmas.

Love from Burkina Faso.

Oh and David, this is your future wife :).

It was my first Thanksgiving away from home this year and that was a little sad. But I did end up having an incredible week of holidays that I was able to share with friends from all over. Some PCV friends of mine came over and we ate everything in their care-packages like brownies, turkey jerky, pasta primavera, trail mix.... it actually made me a little sick, I don't think I am used to so much of the instant powder stuff anymore. But it was good, we watched "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" which reminded me of mountains and snow - of home. The girls left in the afternoon to go back to their villages and I went over to my friends' place called the "Foyer Sainte Monique" where a German volunteer works, Jana and some awesome nuns. I made them celebrate thanksgiving with me by making garlic mashed potatoes, spicy chili soup and apple pie (and some cheap champagne!). It was funny watching them try out the American food, they were hesitant at first but then they dove right in. Now they want me to come every week and cook for them! Haha.

So that was Thursday, Friday was really interesting. I left my place at 7:30 watch the Muslim prayers for the Muslim holiday called "Tabaski." It's a really interesting holiday. It actually has to do with the Old Testament Bible story where Abraham takes Isaac up to the mountain to sacrifice him before God. And angel of the Lord comes and tells Isaac to not kill his son, but kill a ram stuck in some bushes nearby. So the Muslims sacrifice all kinds of animals on Tabaski in remembrance of what Abraham did with Isaac. The following photos show the morning prayers.

And the prayers have begun, notice the women and children are in the back and the people in the front are the men.

Women waiting in the shade and giving money to friends as gifts.

Like Ramadan, everyone gets new clothes and the women re-braid their hair and these kids have matching outfits. After the prayers the families go home, slaughter their animals and give 1/3 to their family, 1/3 to the poor and 1/3 to the mosque.



The actual prayers only lasted 13 minutes and then everyone left. There must have been several thousand here.

The men waiting for the prayers and sacrifice to begin.

She is so small!

This one is for my mom and the Bonhard family. Notice the red sweatshirt, I have yet to see any UM sweatshirts in Burkina ;). This girl knew my name too which was awesome, she recognized me from watching her class every Tuesday.

And so went my "Tabaski" morning.

I will actually be celebrating Thanksgiving on a larger scale this coming weekend in Bobo (second biggest city in Burkina) with a bunch more PCVs!

Happy Holidays from Burkina! :)

I realize that I haven’t been very explicit on the work that I am doing here and trying to accomplish. I’m in Burkina Faso to help with girls’ education and empowerment. What that means more concretely is that I am here to keep the retention rates high for girls in school, at both the middle/high school here at the College Sainte Therese and also at the primary school where I work two days a week called “Centre C.” I am involved directly with those two schools working with both the students and teachers. I am also here to raise the self-esteem of the girls, to let them know of all their options and opportunities and am here to give them the confidence to dream and “reach for the stars.”

Currently I am working on an “Etude de Millieu” which essentially is an anthropological study of the social constructs of the community in Banfora. I have around 70 questions that I am using to study everything from family dynamics and inheritance to seasonal illnesses and the micro economics of small enterprise development in my immediate community (there are 8 categories: Parental system, economic systems, NGOs, health systems, communication and transport and how women are involved, political systems, religion and leisure activities). This study will wrap up in December where I will meet with the rest of the GEE PCVs for more in-service training as we go over our findings and learn how we can best help our communities. We want to be using the resources the communities have for capacity building and keeping those projects sustainable so that they are not dependent on the peace corps to be present in order for the projects to function. I really like that about the work I do here, we spend three months learning about our communities, building relationships, learning the local language so that we can help the people here help themselves and not implement what we think they need before they tell us what they need.

So what does this look like on a daily basis? Well, it’s taken me a while to build some structure to a very unstructured assignment. Everyday I visit classes at my college or at the primary school and I observe and work with the teachers. For example, I explain why beating children is not the most effective nor positive way to get their attention, to call on girls more often and just in general educated them on the marginalization of the women in Burkina and what they can do to help. I also work with the DPEF (Director for the promotion of girls) which is amazing because they are the ones spearheading the work in the region here, so working with them is very sustainable. Along with them I work with parental organizations and go to their meetings and “causer” which means “hang out” in English I guess (not the best translation though). They are the AME and APE which are two groups that asses the needs of the school and try to raise money to help the children have food for lunches, afford school and afford birth certificates so that they can even attend school. They also do more menial jobs like keeping the schools clean and rebuilding when necessary (every 12 years after the mud from the buildings has melted away). I work with them to inform them of their duties and educate them on the rights of children and women, how to raise money to help their children go to school and teach them how to successfully run needs assessments so that they can focus on the most important first. The idea of these groups is great, but it is unfortunate that most of these parental organizations do not function properly if at all in Burkina, so I have to train them. It’s really exciting but very tiring work.

Other work that I do less formally is I build relationships with the girls here at the college. On Sundays we have begun a little tradition where I teach them how to make American cuisine and they teach me African cuisine. So far they have loved the Mexican food, I think I’ll try Indian with them next. The soccer team is another facet to building their self-esteem and confidence. After my in-service training I am going to start a girls club where I teach workshops and hopefully have the girls here at the college learn what I teach and teach it to the primary school girls. This will hopefully give the primary school girls hope for continuing their education and will allow the older girls to see if they want to go to college to become teachers.

Secondary projects include working with the radio here and broadcasting information with some other volunteers on subjects like AIDS, sanitary practices with food, why so many children die from diarrhea before the age of 5, small enterprise development, importance of giving birth in a CSPS and so on. It’s exciting work but it can be incredibly overwhelming. My ideas of development work, what poverty is and the role of the NGO have changed tremendously since I’ve begun work here. But that is for another post, till next time…

A bi doni!

Les

My school (aka. College because it’s a middle school and high school) started a month ago today. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs trying to understand how I can be of service to the girls here. I absolutely love them and now I get to enjoy their company everyday. It’s funny, they ask me how long I am going to be here and I tell them 2 years, and then they tell me that when I leave they will miss me… its so weird, I know exactly what they mean though. I can tell that I am going to love my time here and that these girls are going to mean the world to me. I’ve only been here a month but these girls are so beautiful and amazing in so many ways. Haha, I’m gushing :). Today I was preparing to sit in on a French class when I found out that the teacher couldn’t make it so I hung out with the girls for two hours. They taught me some more Jula and Moore and we talked about the differences in culture and tradition between the US (in general) and Burkina. They asked where my husband was, haha, I told them that I was only 22 and definitely still single and they were shocked. They asked if I had a “petit amie” which means ‘boyfriend’ and when I said no they all immediately jumped on me and told me to date their older brothers. I tried to explain that there was so much I needed to do before/if I decided to get married and that I considered myself very independent, and that that was a good thing in my opinion. It was sad though when I found out that one of the girls was engaged to be married, she is only 14. They said it was tradition to be engaged/married so young. It’s these conversations that I need to have with the girls. To let them know that they have other options, I don’t know about you but I can’t imagine getting engaged at fourteen – I’d be in ninth grade, not even old enough to drive a car. So, because of this I am here at this college to help these girls see the options they don’t know they have. It’s so different here. I remember when I was little people used to ask “what do you want to be when you grow up? What are your dreams?” These girls don’t know what that even means! They don’t know what it means to dream, to think about and plan for the future. My mom sends me National Geographic which is great for so many reasons. I love showing the pictures to the girls and knowing that I am expanding their minds to the world around them. Their excitement as they crowd around me, fighting for a good position to look at the pictures is funny. When I was little I remember seeing pictures of people climbing mountains, going through ice caves and repelling down rock faces and I knew I wanted to be apart of that - these girls are just like me when I was younger but they don’t have the resources to know about what I had the chance to learn about and eventually experience. I hope that I am able to inspire these girls into action, into pursuits of their own creation – to give them a freedom they never knew existed. I also thought I would tell you a little about my soccer team (!). I have always wanted to be a coach of a soccer team. Everyday at 5pm the girls and I do drills and play soccer. They are so intense! I love it! It’s nothing like a practice with 6th and 7th graders in the US. They are very physical – usually in a good way and they are so tough! They play barefoot because all they have are sandals and sandals are pretty much impossible to play in so barefoot it is! The field consists of dirt and pebbles and half the girls are in skirts. I am so proud of them. There is one girl who is particularly good – she says she and her older brother played when she was at home - her foot skills are amazing for her age. I am excited to find and/or create another soccer team for the girls to play against soon. In other news, I have a resident mouse which is giving me an excellent excuse to find a kitty to eat it. Usually I wouldn’t condone killing a mouse just because it is in my house but I really want a cat and it’s a great excuse – wow. I also burn my trash here – I die a little bit every time I light a match but there is no other way to get ride of it. I also cut my own hair for the first time ever and I would say I did a pretty good job; it will save me hundreds of dollars for the rest of my life now that I know how! I also made a desert fridge which consists of earthen pots and sand that I water every day so that it can evaporate and leave the inside cool for my veggies (see picture). I’m reading the oh-so-pretentious book War and Peace and actually really enjoying it as well as Twilight (I needed the balance). And as of late I sometimes have wifi in my apartment! I say sometimes because the nuns turn it off from 5pm-7 or 8am and even if it is on it doesn’t always work. But I have it! So skype may be a possibility! Lastly I wanted to explain a lesson learned recently. Several nights ago I drank some tea right before I went to bed, bad idea for two reasons: first the caffeine kept me up all night, secondly it was my malaria day (meaning I had to take my malaria meds) and those don’t allow me to sleep and give me very weird lucid dreams. So with those powers combined I ended up spending the night in a weird semi-conscious state where I could never tell if I was actually asleep or away because - well what I think was happening – was that my dreams were of my being awake in my bed and not being able to sleep. I remember having a dream that several spiders were crawling on my arm and so I reached for my head lamp to shine it on them and they weren’t there – meaning I was asleep dreaming when I saw the spiders but awake enough to grab my headlamp and check… then later that night I saw a silhouette of a mouse on my windowsill… I thought I was dreaming, wrong. There was definitely a mouse so I had to get it out. Needless to say, I never got any sleep that night and have been making up for it ever since. Top picture: amazing quiche I made using my dutch oven. Middle picture: Colette, Coleman and Kat helping me make spring roles and sweet and sour sauce Bottom picture: Close up! Peace and Prayers, Les

School started on Wednesday and all the girls descended onto the campus on Tuesday. I have to admit it was really crazy and loud, though it was like the life blood of the school had come back through the energy of the girls. It’s really exciting, I feel like I have a real job, I have my own “apartment” and I have an office with a room to hold clubs and meetings! Plus there is a school bell that wakes me up at 5:30am every morning which is perfect (looking at the positvies here :)) because then I can get up and run before the girls are up; I love it when I have my mornings to myself.

Today I presented myself to all the classes here at the college, there are about 370+ girls that attend this school and they start from 6th grade all the way to “13th” grade, they have one more grade than we do in the states.

I just thought I would give you all little taste of what it was like to introduce myself to the girls. I was start off saying “Bonjour tout le monde! Je m’appelle Leslie. Je suis une volontaire du Corps de la Paix American. J’habite ici pour deux ans et je ne suis pas une professeur…” and I would get these blank stares. Sister Sylvie would then say exactly what I said and suddenly the girls understood, I think it could be because I don’t quite have the African accent to accompany my French. But seriously, there was so little difference in how Sister Sylvie said what I had already said I just looked at the girls like ‘You have got to be kidding me, you couldn’t understand me?’ It was very strange. And then she would explain that I was an American and the girls got really excited. They had me present myself in English, I would say (because this happened in every class) “What I said in French was that… *giggles from the girls* my name is Leslie and I am in the Peace Corps… then they just burst out laughing and cheer, I never got very far with the English explanations but I don’t think that mattered. I think they just like to hear English being spoken, either way it was really amusing to see their reactions to me. I remembered my friend Adeline tell me that when she first started speaking to them in French they could not understand her either. And Sister Sylvie told me that they just have to get used to me speaking to them because of my accent… oh well, ça va aller! Just a side note, when I talk to them one on one they definitely understand me… so I’m unsure where the confusion comes from.

Last week I went to the Sindou Peaks which was a lot of fun. My friends Martin and Adeline (French teachers at the school) with a bunch of others barrowed the nuns’ pick up truck and drove to the peaks 50k away. They are pretty old (1.8 million years old) and while we were driving there there was several huge storm systems converging – lots of thunder and lightening though we never got rained on. The peaks are were neighboring villages do sacrifices, and the Frenchies were joking that I would be next! However, the sacrifices only include chickens and goats… donc, pas de problem! One guy brought his guitar and sang on top of one of the peaks, it was fun (I thought we would surely be struck by lightening!), there was no one there and the lightening shows were fantastic. When we drove back it was absolutely beautiful, the stillness and quite of the night time air and the lightening, the stars and the fireflies was stunning.

In other news, Kat and I are planning a three day bike trip to go climbing at the Sindou peaks and then we are going to bike to Dakoro and then back to Banfora, about 160k ride, I’m excited! There is a lot going on, I feel like I have so much to write! I have also been experimenting with my dutch oven, I made some yummy buttery biscuits, some experimental oatmeal-raison-honey cookies (amazing!), banana spice pancakes, and bagels. It’s been fun! Experimental baking/cooking is one of my favorite pass times here when it is storming outside. Also reading the Old Testament while I wait for my yummy snacks to bake has been amazing too. Overall I am getting really excited for this up coming year! I have already started a girls soccer team! The girls are amazing and beautiful and I feel so overwhelmingly blessed to be working here! Thank you to all of you who have been praying for me and supporting me, it constantly amazes me that so many people have been responding to these blogs. Thanks for the encouragement, it is so appreciated!

Peace and Love,

Leslie

Wow, how do you describe bring dropped off in a foreign land knowing that you are going to be there for the next two years? You don’t speak the national language fluently and can barely mumble the salutations in the local language. Ha, this isn’t hypothetical for me anymore, it’s my reality and I’ll be the first to admit it’s scary ( - not to mention the animals outside at night that sound like pterodactyls! Honestly, they scared the crap out of me until I was told by my French friends that they were just crazy bats).

Just to clarify, I’ve been in pre-service training for the last two months or so learning culture and language, etc. and just last week I was sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer because I was recommended by my teachers and passed the language exam (French only). So now I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer and on my own… literally.

It was a nice 8 hour day of traveling last Wednesday from Ouaga to Banfora, my new home in the southern region of Burkina. Along with three other volunteers we swept through the Banfora market with our thousands of CFA (currency here pronounced “say-faa”) and bought things for our news huts and my “apartment.” I live in a boarding school with girls so I like to refer to my humble abode as an “apartment.” I do have a site mate, Brad, who lives in Banfora as well. He is a technology teacher at the high school in town. He runs and wants to train for the up-coming marathon in May which could be awesome for having someone to run with!

Anyways, my first whole day by myself was weird. I feel like I am having a lot of out of body experiences where I watch how I react to being alone, and living alone for that matter. I’ll admit I haven’t been sleeping a lot at night mostly because of those insane dinosaur bats and the stray dogs that are always fighting outside my bedroom window, thank goodness people practice “siestas” here in the afternoons. I would be dead without those. (I realize I am rambling…)

I’ve decided to be very intentional with how I spend my time every day because I don’t have a 9-5 job, I have a 24/7 job. In the mornings I get up, run out to the surrounding villages, which are so cool(!) I love running here - there are little villages tucked away in all the hills and the corn and sugar cane here are like 10 feet high! It’s fun to explore! I finish the runs with some yoga stretches and then make oatmeal and tea :). During breakfast and washing dishes I listen to a French station on my shortwave radio. After that I either practice Jula or French or both and then I head out to the marché to buy French bread (Burkina Faso was a French colony until the 1960s) and whatever else I need. Probably one of the things I love the most is when I speak Jula to the old men and women here, their stony faces break into the biggest grins when they hear their native language. I love that, it’s like touching them with a magic wand – and their smiles are so big and beautiful! They don’t expect foreigners to know or even try to learn their language so they are happy to hear me say “Aw ni sogama!” Plus, I can usually bargain their prices down considerably afterwards.

After marché time I try to get lost, which is ridiculously easy for me right now. I get lost until I get hungry for lunch and then I stop in an alimentation (is that English too? A.k.a small grocery store but there is nothing quite like it in the US) and I buy a small saché d’leau (translated that is a ‘small bag,’ not bottle, of water) and some local yogurt.

After lunch, I come home (take a nap) and every afternoon thus far has been very different. One day Brad and I went and ordered a kitchen table top and bed stand for my “apartment,” another day I walked aimlessly around the marché greeting people and laughing with them at how terrible my Jula was, another afternoon I made a fruit and vegetable drying rack (so exciting!) and planted my first Moringa tree (my new favorite tree!); I talked to a doctor about how he could give a sensiblization on Moringa trees to a women's group that works to raise money for the girls and their education and that way nutrition, small enterprise development and girls empowerment can all be done at once(!) … But today my French friends who also work at the school invited me over for some lunch and we talked about everything, mostly French and then English when I failed to understand – it was a brain work out but it was fun, they are really nice and I am excited to work with them and learn more French!

Alas it has been raining all day with thunder and all! Just so you get an idea to how much it has been raining here I got a text today from the Peace Corps regional office in Bobo saying:

“From Bobo Warden: ALERT check EAP manual. Avoid travel near Ouaga & Kaya. Flooding w/ roads out. Dams may burst in other regions. Please call/text your present location to ….”

So yeah, lots of rain.

Oh and emails and letters would be greatly appreciated… here is my new address in Banfora:

Leslie Otto, PCV

BP 252

Banfora, Burkina Faso

West Africa

Love and Peace and all the Joy in the world,

Les

****** flood updata from country director******

"To all PCVs -- FYI. An article from the international press. One USAID official emailed that, "The 263.3 mm that fell in less than 12 hours in Ouaga on Sept 1 is a record for Burkina and probably would be hard to match in any other capital city in the world."'

The title of this post is dramatic, but I think it should be. I am leaving for two years and three months to live in Africa. A place my heart has yearned to be for such a long time now, and yet I've never actually been there. I've been hard pressed to write down my thoughts about my life in Africa and the Peace Corps, so I hope this blog doesn't sound forced. I don't know really how to explain what I am going through right now. Emotionally I swing like a pendulum. Some days I cannot wait to leave, other days I feel sick to my stomach with an anxiety that I cannot pin-point. I'm still having a hard time thinking about stepping onto that plane on Monday. I am going to be leaving all I know behind me and meet up with fellow PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) in Philly for two days for pre-staging info and then jetting off to Burkina on the 10th. I cannot wrap my head around what I have gotten myself into. But don't get me wrong. I am excited to be in Africa, serving a people that lack running water and electricity. Can you imagine not having those every day? In a lot of ways I can but that is only because I backpack (something I guess I'm giving up for two years). There is definitely something freeing about being away from the computer, the cell phone and everything else that demands my attention. Plus, I am excited to essentially live outside. Though, I am not looking forward to the pile of pills and vitamins that I will have to choke down every day. Just a small sacrifice to make in order to be able to serve a community that is in need and lacks resources. Something that surprised me when I was learning about Burkina was that their literacy rate is only 21.8% according to the CIA World Fact Book. So, not only is there no electricity, and therefore no internet to get information about everything, there is no way to for people to learn because they can't read books or use the internet if they wanted. Reflecting on my own life I realize that I use the internet daily, and not only for email and facebook but to get information on how long I should cook fresh lasagna noodles or how hot it is in Burkina or what the weather will be like tomorrow and so on. After all these revelations I start to think, 'wow, I am going to a small village somewhere in Burkina to help these people realize the importance of educating the female population, and on the importance of education in general.' Once they understand the power of literacy, who knows how much will change in their village, and hopefully for the better. But, of course I have to stop myself and realize that I come from a different culture that values different ideals and I don't want to impose those on these people. These people have lived like this for a long time, they know how to read signs in the weather, how to live together in a community and enjoy life without all the "conveniences" of the developed world. And so I wonder, where is the balance?

As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:

you'll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.

May there be many a summer morning when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you come into harbors seen for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind-

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you are old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you would not have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

C. P. Cavafy, 1911

I feel like everyone these days has the same questions for me, and the most common seems to be, "when are you leaving?" my answer, "I am leaving June 8th." Hence the title of my first real blog.

I just thought I would just write a quick little blurb on how incredibly hard it is to know what kind of clothes to bring to a place that reaches 120 degree fahrenheit and has a four month rainy season. I find myself trying on clothes at Target and Marshalls and wondering, 'will I wear this?... I have no idea!' I really don't. I read the packing list and I looked at photos of what women are wearing in burkina, and it is still hard. I need basics to wear for my first three months of training. I have no idea what I am supposed to buy. Light, loose, comfortable, skirts/shirts... it seems easy enough, but I've hear that I am just going to end up buying clothes there anyway. Haha. If you are in Burkina Faso right now, and are a women it would help me so much if you could tell what I should bring clothes wise. The peace corps wiki, the welcome book to burkina and the packing list just are not helpful enough.

Anyways... I am practicing my french, so AU REVOIR! and CIAO! (from my italy days :) )