In order to conduct sustainable and interesting health education, I embarked upon the endeavor of painting 5 large murals on the side of the village health center, each depicting a different message about improved health practices. While I wouldn't argue with anyone who says that I amount to nothing in the artistic world, I have to say, I'm proud of myself for the work I did on this project, and the end product, which, though nothing you would see in a glass case at the Louvre, will be quite useful for its purpose of helping my villagers to lead healthier lives. Inspired by a similar project done by another volunteer in her village, I skeptically began my mural project back in October. I had seen pictures of my friend's murals, and said to myself that as cool as that was, there was no way that I could do that myself, considering that my only experience in the visual arts was my utter inability to depict things as simple as small fish. The other volunteer assured me, however, that one need not be a Van Gogh to accomplish such a feat as the health murals. So I figured I'd do my best, and that my best had to, at the very least, be better than zero. (At least I hoped so). The process of painting the murals turned out to be one of the most important projects I have done in village. The majority of the villagers do not know how to read, so these types of visuals are very important. Each day, as I worked on the murals with the support, fascination, and help of my villagers, I could feel the information I was trying to get across seeping into their lives without them even being aware of it. Passersby of all ages would stop and watch, and sometimes help me paint, and I would explain the purpose behind the painting going up on the wall. People were fascinated by the process, often making comments as I painted such as "I didn't realize a person's hand did these murals!" My favorite was when I overheard a group of women walking towards me from far away arguing over whether or not the "person" standing there was in the painting, or if it was Ilana... The process started slowly; we had to first make the walls smooth enough to paint on. I worked with Yakouba, a mason in my village, to create 5 tableaus on which I would complete the vision. I calculated the size I wanted to murals to be, based on the dimensions of the pieces of paper on which the drawings I wanted to enlarge had been drawn on (drawn by my friends Chantal and Rob). I decided that I wanted the murals to be seven times as large as the paper, so I multiplied the dimensions of the paper by 7, and voila! We measured and used sticks to encompass the area we wanted to cement on the walls.

We then painted four coats of two different types of paint onto the newly cemented parts of the wall, to serve as the background and base for the murals. Luckily for me, there's a painter in my courtyard, Amade, who was a huge help with this part. He accompanied me to Ouahigouya to buy all the necessary painting materials, and showed me the proper methods for attacking the wall with the first coats of paint.

Once the base layers were on, I drew 7 inch by 7 inch grids, in pencil, on the walls, and 1 inch by 1 inch grids on top of my drawings.

Drawing the pictures onto the wall was surprisingly easy, as I treated it more like a graph, connecting points and lines where the grid-map on the small drawings showed me to. Before I knew it, I had fully formed drawings on the wall!! And now; the painting. What I originally thought would be the easiest part, because I was thinking it would resemble color-by-numbers, actually turned out to be the most challenging. Mixing the colors to find the right shades for the foods and the people, painting carefully with brushes way too big for detail work, so as to avoid smearing things and painting over previously painted areas, etc. It was difficult for me, the shaky-handed non-artist. But with the help of many people, including villagers and other volunteers, it was all finished in time for the new year.See photos and explanations of the finished masterpieces below:

This diptych shows the importance of weighing babies at the health center to monitor their growth, as well as the importance of bringing babies to receive all of the necessary vaccinations.Below is a photo of real vaccinations occurring in front of the mural of vaccinations. Note the verisimilitude of the mural to reality. The real person nurse happened to be wearing a similar outfit to the nurse in the mural...coincidence? When he (the nurse) saw this one finished, he said "It's my photo-copy!"

This mural, my personal favorite, shows proper breast-feeding practices. The mother depicted has just given birth, as you can see by the fact that the midwife is still present, and the birthing materials are still strewn about the table next to the woman. She is already breast-feeding the child, directly after giving birth, showing that women should begin breast-feeding within the first hour after the child is born, in order to release the hormones necessary to let the breast-milk loose. It shows as well, that the mother should give the child the colostrum (first milk), which is filled with important nutrients and antibodies, instead of squeezing it out and throwing it away, a common practice in the village. The poster above the woman's head in the mural shows a woman breast-feeding her child, a goblet of water crossed out, and 6 moons. While this may seem cryptic, it isn't. It is meant to show, simply, that mothers should exclusively breast-feed their babies for the first 6 months. Hence the water crossed out (forbidden) and the 6 moons symbolizing 6 months. The hand-washing mural. Meant to show people to wash their hands WITH SOAP, especially after using the bathroom, and before eating. The model for this mural was one of the boys from my courtyard, Amidou, who we took a picture of in order to draw the picture for the mural.

Sleep with impregnated mosquito nets! Especially if you are a child or a pregnant woman! It will kill the mosquitoes and keep you safe from malaria! And lastly, the three food groups, represented by the metaphor of the house. In the thatched roof, you can see the protection foods. The roof protects the house from the elements such as wind and rain, as the protective foods (vitamins) protects the body from disease. The bricks making up the center of the house, are made up of energy foods. Without bricks, the house falls; without energy (carbs), the body falls, it cannot function normally. The foundation of the house is made up of construction foods (protein). Without the foundation, you have nothing on which to build the house. You have no house. Without protein, you have no muscles, you have no body mass. All the foods depicted are foods easily found in and around the village, accessible to the villagers. The idea is to try to get people to eat things from each group, as typically, they eat only from the energy group, and not much from the protection and construction groups. After completion of the murals, a general assembly meeting was held in which all community members were invited to come party, dance, and learn the meaning behind each one of the murals. They now stand as constant reminders of practicing good health behaviors.

Well, i'm not sure who still reads this...but if you do, thanks!

The summer months were trying for reasons I unfortunately cannot fully disclose (as i also mentioned briefly in my last post). What (i think) i'm allowed to say is that all the volunteers from my area were removed briskly from our villages for security reasons, and then put back (YAY.) at the very end of August.

Many people have been curious to know how my village reacted when I came back from the 2 month hiatus, and all I can say is that they were really happy and relieved, just like I was, and told me sternly to "never leave like that again." Lots of old women and men (and young women and men...and children for that matter) standing around scolding me. HOME SWEET HOME.

Shortly after my return, it was time for the big fete of Ramadan to break the month-long fast, or as it is aptly called in Moore "No-Lokre", "Providing for the mouth". It was, as always, a joyous occasion filled with more rice than a human should ever be allowed to consume, and lots of nice new clothes for everyone. The two major fetes in my village (Ramadan and Tabasky, which is coming up on Tuesday) are somewhat similar in practice, though the reasons for the fetes are different.

On a fete day, in the morning, everyone prays together at the Mosque, and then they go home and prepare rice with meat (everyone slaughters a white sheep for Tabasky) and then representatives are sent from each courtyard with food for the other courtyards. So someone from my courtyard will take a big bowl of our rice over to the courtyard next to ours, for instance, and then whoever they give the rice to over there will pour the rice into their own bowl, and then fill up our bowl with their rice. Trading rice. It's awesome and makes everyone happy. Then the kids get new clothes (usually the only days out of the year they get new clothes or shoes are these fetes) and run around to all the courtyards singing "SAMBE SAMBE" and people give them pocket change. I guess that aspect of it can be likened to trick-or-treating on halloween, though the rest of the fete is not halloween-like at all.

Some of my courtyard kids in their new outfits and cool sunglasses, getting ready to go out and collect their "sambe sambe".

The women distributing some rice they got as a gift from a relative who lives in Ouaga. Anytime someone gives something to our courtyard, it gets evenly distributed among everyone (including me).

Papa (one of the old men of the courtyard) and his wife (she's called "Soldier's wife" b/c he was in the war, so I don't know her real name) with some of the kids.

There's one really interesting belief (superstition?) associated with the fetes that I discovered this year. A bunch of the kids and women were sitting around my courtyard chatting on the night of Ramadan, and one of the kids said "Tomorrow, no one will go to the fields." I found this alarming, as we were still, at that time, in the heart of the cultivating season, and people are generally in the fields all day everyday. "Why not?" I asked her. "Because," she said "tomorrow is the fete of the genies!"

Apparently the day after the real fete, the genies (spirits? ghosts?) have their fete out in the fields, and it's a dangerous affair if you're not a genie (all of us people.)

"Yeah...the genies make their rice tomorrow, and then if you go eat it, you DIE!"

"Well then why don't you just not eat it?"

"Because if they offer it to you and you refuse...you DIE!"

"OK. So no one goes to the fields because if the genies see you there they'll make you eat their rice and then you'll die. Got it. Let's stay home tomorrow then."

"Exactly."

So the day after the fete, everyone stays home and relaxes.

In weather news, the rains have completely stopped now, and we're into the mini-hot season, getting ready for the cold season. Before the rains stopped though, in September, they got very strong, and knocked lots of people's houses down. One morning, after a wacko rain-storm that felt like a tornado/hurricane, I was going out to the fields with Yakoba, who had participated in the agricultural training I held back in May, and on my way to meet him in his courtyard, it seemed like at least one or two houses from every courtyard I passed through had fallen during the night. People seemed to be in good spirits regardless, laughing as they shoveled up scraps of their fallen houses. That's not to say they think it's funny, they don't, they just know that the houses will eventually get re-built, and for now, they'll sleep in someone else's house.

One of the fallen houses in my own courtyard.

Yakoba in his very successful millet field

I will give an update on the project I'm currently attacking (painting health murals on the CSPS wall!) as soon as it is done and I have good pictures of the finished product. Until then, I'll leave off with a few pictures from the day we gave out mosquito nets to everyone in the village. This year, nets were distributed all over Burkina Faso to every single family (in theory) in a campaign against malaria. Each family was supposed to receive 1 net for every 2 people, though we didn't receive enough nets to attain that number. Regardless, every family got at least a couple nets, which is better than nothing. I thought this campaign was especially good because the community health volunteers from the village who helped do the initial survey of the population and then distribute the nets will be going around in about a month to make sure that people's nets are properly put up in their houses. If they are still in the package at that time or if the wrapper of the package is not around (meaning the family took the net and sold it) the net will be taken away (if it is there). Finally, some responsibility and follow-up and not just a free easy gift that people don't know the value of and thus don't use.

Kali, Me, and Limata Issigui (women from my courtyard) standing in front of the demonstration mosquito net used to show people the proper techniques for hanging them up in the courtyard. (photography by Rouketou)

Line of people waiting for their nets (stretches back for at least a kilometer)

Community health volunteers from the village handing out the nets.

I haven't really highlighted the hilarity of people's wit in this country, so I figured I'd take this lull in activity due to the rainy season (and other things to be explained in another forum) to do so. Actually, I still don't always understand the Burkinabé sense of humor, but the following are just situations that made me laugh:

**It seems as if the first three scenarios are condom related for some reason**

1. A few weeks ago, I got it into my head that I wanted to make myself an omelette for dinner, and I was in Ouahigouya for the day, so I figured I'd pick up some eggs there and take them home and have a delicious protein filled meal. I went to all the places where you can normally get eggs, to no avail. Every place in Ouahigouya was out of eggs. So annoying. Naturally, I expressed this annoyance at not being able to find a single egg for miles, to my friend, the lady who was working at the last place I looked, a small alimentation on my way home. Here is how the conversation played out:

Me: I want some eggs

Alimentation lady (AL): The eggs are finished

Me: What?? Ugh.

AL: All the chickens have been wearing condoms

Me: What??

AL: I SAID, ALL the chickens have been wearing condoms

Me: That's not cool. They shouldn't do that.

AL: Why not? Isn't it you guys that are always talking about family planning? You always say that we shouldn't have so many kids, don't you?

Me: Yeah, but chickens aren't people! They need to have as many kids as possible.

AL: Oh, why, so you can eat them?

Me: Yes.

2. I was having a meeting with a bunch of women at the CSPS, when the 2 year old daughter of the midwife came up to me holding a female condom. (We have a bunch of them available at the CSPS). Her name is "La vielle", and yes, if you speak French, her name does translate to "The old woman".

La vielle: Ilana, what's this?

Me: Why? What do you want with that? Who gave that to you?

La vielle: It's mine!!

Me: It's a condom.

La vielle: It's my condom.

I hear loud, obnoxious laughter, and I look over to see the midwife peeking her head around the corner along with the pharmacist, cracking up. Nice.

3. I've been doing a lot of condom demonstrations lately, and subsequently, people have actually been interested in trying them out! This pleases me. Anyway, I was sitting with the women in my courtyard before I left to go to the CSPS for the morning, and they were all telling me to bring them back condoms when I got home at mid day. As I was walking away, Sapoca, the 4 year old wonder-child who thinks she's 30, screams after me: "Ilana!! Don't forget to bring the condoms back for us!"

4. Sapoca (same wonder-4-year-old) typically comes into my courtyard at around 530 in the morning, waking me up, wanting to hang out. So, à cause de ca, she's typically around when I'm eating breakfast. We were sitting on my lit-pico (the cot type thing I sleep on which lives outside) eating bread for our breakfast and a girl came around selling samsa, a delicious, oily treat made from beans and flour. I was feeling especially hungry this particular morning, so I bought a bag of it, which I planned to eat later on. Sapoca clearly wanted me to give her some samsa, but she just sat there for a minute without saying anything, and then the following conversation ensued:

**For some reason this conversation is hard to translate into English that makes sense, so I'll write it in Mooré first and then translate it**

Poca: Ohh, Ilana, saamsa yaa baase. Ohh, Ilana, that samsa will make you sick

Me: Boen yinga? Alla yelle? Why? Who says?

Poca: Kaam menga yaa baase. The oil itself is illness.

Me: Pa baase ye, Poca! Yaa soma. No it isn't!! Poca, this won't make me sick.

Poca: Yaa baase. Lobge. Tug n lobge! It's illness. Throw it out. Go and throw it away! (waves finger angrily at me).

Me: Mam pa na n lobge ye. Fo data ti mam lobge la fo paam n dik n diibo. Pa sida? I'm not going to throw it out. You just want me to throw it out so you can go get it and eat it. Right?

Poca pauses. Then starts giggling. Smart kid. (She's heard me talk to the women about how too much oil is bad for you). She's getting old enough to be manipulative it seems. But it's funny.

By Ken Cliffer, Ilana's Abba (father, Ilana Baba), with guest guest comments by Nicki Cliffer, Ilana's mother (Ilana Ma)“She’s ours now; she belongs to us.” That’s what people in Bissighin, the village where Ilana is serving, said when they met us, Ilana’s parents. Their appreciation and pride in what she’s doing to help them is clear and deep. “Look what she’s doing for us,” said one of the women we were visiting in her one-room house, pointing to her healthy child. Ilana is clearly making a positive difference in their lives. In a previous ‘blog post (http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/04/ghana-marriage-season-and-life-skills.html) Ilana described our arrival and greeting her in Mooré (the language) at the airport. We had practiced it diligently on the plane, using her instructions. As she had anticipated, our greetings later delighted her villagers, who anyway are delightful people, readily eager for and delighted by personal engagement. Or they were amused when we got it a little wrong, like saying “ne yibyego” (good merning) instead of “ne yibyogo” (good morning). In any case, they greatly appreciated our attempts, even though we could say little more than good morning, good day, good evening, good night, and it’s good (ya soma). After arriving at the airport, we returned with Ilana to the taxi she had engaged to wait for us. We arrived at night. The small airport was teeming - crowded with smiling and chattering people who helped us negotiate our way through customs. Heading outside, we walked down a concrete ramp bordered on each side with metal handrails that held back a crowd on either side. Ilana's face was the one white face in the sea of welcoming smiles surrounding us. As Ken mentioned, Ilana had a taxi waiting for us. Burkinabé taxis are a breed unto themselves. This one, like most others, had the requisite cracked windshield, no mirrors, and ripped upholstery. I seem to recall plastic covering one missing window. Thankfully, it didn't have a hole through the floor. The night-time streets, some paved and some dirt, were mostly dark, lit by street lights in only a few places. The city was quiet. At the hotel in Ouagadougou, a long discussion between Ilana and the taxi driver ensued in Mooré. Ilana was wielding the language with finesse, standing up to the driver regarding the fees. She assured us that this was par for the course; a usual feature of the culture was to “negotiate” with some vigor. Seeing her wield the languages (Mooré and French) and stand up with assertiveness in the culture to avoid being taken advantage of was impressive.Left and above: Courtyard of the hotel in Ouagadougou. The hotel cost the equivalent of about $20 a night – on the expensive side for Burkina Faso. It was especially fancy, having showers – although in our first night’s room, nothing prevented the shower water from seeping from the curtainless shower area in the bathroom into the bedroom area, flooding it. The room we were in later was better in this regard. Ilana exhibited her assertiveness and language facility again the next day in the marché (market) in Ouagadougou – everywhere we went, people followed us around entreating us to buy their wares or come into their shops. At one point, Ilana, in Mooré, simply told a guy who had tapped her on the shoulder, “Leave me alone,” and pulled away, to the cheers and applause of the Burkinabé women around us. I suspect that her assertiveness there only made her and us more attractive and challenging as subjects, as the attempts at engagement continued until we departed, even though (or possibly partly because) we bought a few things. Since almost nobody there speaks or understands English, Ilana could talk with us relatively freely in English about what was going on and what she thought about it (not always positive) – a switch from our usual pattern in which we use Hebrew for that purpose in an English-speaking environment (I speak nearly exclusively Hebrew with our children, in any case).Left: In the marché in Ouagadougou. The marché in Ouaga was overwhelming! If you go, be prepared to be followed by crowds of people entreating you to buy... I was wearing a straw hat with a wide brim (a Target or CVS garden hat special). One of the shop owners begged us to follow him to his shop - where, after threading our way through the narrow corridors flanked with colorful shops and stalls, we saw that he sold conical straw hats. He was surprised that I didn't immediately jump at buying his hats since they were, according to him, much better than mine. Ilana hired a driver, Bill, to drive us around for the first couple of days, until our last night in Ouagadougou. He turned out to be very helpful in helping mediate in some interactions, although he sometimes was too attentive for Ilana’s taste – for example, at times in the marché. But all in all, he was appropriately attentive and helpful. As Ilana pointed out it would be, the marché in Ouahigouya, which we visited some days later, was much more subdued and free of the energetic marketing tactics. The day after we arrived, we stopped by the Peace Corps transit house, where we picked up Ilana’s Peace Corps friend and colleague Sara. We got cash from the ATM, and met up with Bill, the driver. We drove to Nazinga Park, by way of the artist’s colony outside of Ouagadougou.Left: At the artist’s colony, Ilana, me (Ken, Ilana’s abba=dad), and Sara, standing by a loom for weaving recycled plastic bags into fabric for purses, wallets, and other items; as Ilana and her colleagues have pointed out in their ‘blog entries, little is wasted. In Po near Nazinga Park, we had dinner with Ilana’s Peace Corps colleague Daniel, at a restaurant that had a big painting of Barack Obama on the outside wall (sorry, we forgot to photograph it). After dinner in Po, we were running late getting to Nazinga Park, not far from Ghana, where we had arranged to spend the night. It was dark by the time we got onto the long dirt road from Po to the park. On the way, we saw (presumably) controlled fires set to burn off the brush (below).When we arrived at the park entrance, we had to convince the guard to let us in, since the park had officially closed for the day. When we arrived to the housing area (several incredibly long, bumpy, dark, and scary [as in, what-do-you-do-if-you-meet-an-elephant?-scary] additional kilometers up the road), we had to search for someone to get us into the housing – we found the person who would end up serving as our guide on our “mini-safari” the next day, who had access to keys to some of the cabins. We got in, and shortly thereafter the lights went out. We showered in the dark, using our head-lamps (no photos of that, either).The next morning, we met our guide, and after encouraging the truck to start (left), we departed on our “mini-safari” drive through the park. The guide was remarkable in his ability to see animals before they became apparent to us.

Left: Wildebeest. One of our hopes was to see elephants in the wild. When we didn’t see them right away, we inquired about how often one would. The guide estimated about a 50-50 chance. So, when we finally saw an elephant family in the brush, we were excited. After we passed by, it crossed the road behind us.Left: Elephants crossing. OK - I can't resist. If you don't like groaners, skip the following. Q: What's the different between an elephant and a grape? A: Their color.Q: What did Jane say when she saw the elephants coming over the hill? A: Here come the elephants over the hill.Q: What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill? A: Here come the grapes. He was colorblind. Seriously, the elephants were amazing. Such large and graceful creatures living in their natural habitat, and we were able to share a momentary peek into their lives. Breathtaking!Below: Standing in the back of the truck – me, the guide, and Ilana – the view was better from there, without the truck structure blocking it.Bill, afraid of the elephants, started speeding up to get away from them. The guide, who was in the back of the truck (at that time the rest of us were still inside) banged on the roof of the vehicle. We think that was a signal to stop so we could observe the elephants. But Bill sped up. A misunderstanding ensued regarding whether we were going to try to see them again, between some of us and the guide, which Bill eventually helped mediate. We resolved it, and continued on to a water reservoir where we saw another family of elephants bathing and apparently doing in the water what animals do (this we did photograph, although detail is murky - see below). The reservoir had a nice observation area alongside it.Left: The elephants, the guide, Ilana, and Sara.

Below, right: The elephants and all of us with Bill, our driver.

Below, left: The elephants frolicking (?) in the water.

Below, right: The park office, and our truck.We returned to the office area, checked out, and got on our way back to Ouagadougou, via Po.

Below, left: Baboons we saw when we were on the way out of the park.

Below, right: The entrance gate to Nazinga Park (looking back toward the park on the way out).

Below, left: Daniel, Ilana, Sara, and me, dining in Po (Nicki took the picture). I (Nicki) took most of the pictures because the camera was the one I received as a birthday gift (thanks to all who contributed).We returned to Ouagadougou, stayed overnight again in the hotel, and headed on the bus to Ouahigouya, after some delay getting going. Ilana told us about the bus schedules (you can read an earlier blog entry of hers that includes interesting bus experiences: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2009/12/dogon-country-and-jms.html). They have schedules, but when a bus gets full, it goes; thus, you can’t rely on the schedule, but need to know the practices. The schedules just mean that yes, there are buses, and yes, they go to those places. Times have nothing to do with schedules.Right: the erstwhile bus schedule.Below, left: the gathering people waiting to get on the bus.When we finally got going, we were on a bus that was arriving in Ouahigouya a little on the late side.

Below, right: Kids among those who sell stuff at every stop.

Below, left: Ilana buying some bread through the window (the common practice). Kids surround the bus whenever it stops. They have their wares on their heads (bread rolls, sesame-honey wafers, irradiated water in plastic bags called sachéts, and other foods). People who buy something automatically offer to share it with their neighbors. It's a sharing kind of culture, where even kids are shared around. A woman got onto the bus with an older toddler and twin babies. The bus conductor (not the driver, but the guy who punches tickets) without blinking an eye, plopped one of the babies in Ilana's lap for the duration of the mom's (and kids') trip. Baby was happy, mom was happy. Ilana just shrugged her shoulders and said - that's how things are done. Baby was not wearing a diaper by the way (diapers are not common, if they exist at all, in Burkina; we didn't see any). Good thing it's hot and things dry out fast.When we got to Ouahigouya, the sun was setting. Ilana’s plan was for Nicki and me to rent motos to ride to the village. Nicki tried it. Below: From the look on her face, you see why she used Ilana’s bicycle. Right. First time trying a motorized bike since - well, ever. At night, dirt roads. Bumpy, pitted, sandy roads with no light other than our camping head lamps. No practice in making that thing behave (i.e., stop, go, and turn on command). No thanks. I was much happier on the bicycle.Ilana used Ashley’s bicycle (a friend stationed in Ouahigouya). I rented a moto, which was our main light except for small headlamps that we all had. The ride to Bissighin on the dirt road was hazardous, but interesting. We all fell once or twice as we hit patches of sand (so tasty - that red sand), or looked back (me) to see why the others were having trouble. But we made it. Ilana tried – but not entirely successfully – to bring us in (sneak us in, really) along a route that would avoid our having to pass the villagers, who would reprimand her for bringing us back so late at night. (Which, when they saw her, they did.) Nevertheless, we were greeted warmly, especially so as we used the Mooré greetings Ilana had taught us. During our stay, we observed some of the life in the village, much of which Ilana has described in her posts. We’ll just hit a few of the highlights, emphasizing some of Ilana’s activities. In our previous guest entry, you saw the water pumping. One of the things the water is used for is washing clothes (below, left).Ilana has previously described the savings and investment club she helped organize, which also makes and sells soap (see #3 in http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/01/ahh-hello.html). The soap is a scarce commodity, and, therefore, is valuable (by their standards). Below: The beginning of the soap-making process – in which concentrated soap material is stirred and then diluted with water – fresh water and salt water alternately. (See Ilana’s colleague Erik Durant’s description on his ‘blog here: http://erikspeacecorpsexperience.blogspot.com/2010/02/hi-ho-hi-ho.html). One of the days I was washing dishes (using valuable soap and water sparingly). Ilana’s liquid soap was in a wide-mouthed container that I accidentally knocked off the counter, and quite a bit spilled on the dirty concrete floor. I used a wet sponge to wipe it up – squeezing it into the water in a bucket. When I had completed one round of this, I asked Ilana where to dump the soapy wastewater. She told me she’d take care of it. When she returned with the empty bucket, I asked her where she’d put it. She confessed that the women would not let her waste good soap, so they had rescued it to use, such as for washing clothes. She likewise rescued a second bucket-full. Little gets wasted. Another resource that is best not to waste, as it takes time and energy to collect, is the wood for fires for cooking. One of the projects Ilana has described (see http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2009/06/risky-business.html, which has her reference to Gwen's 'blog on it) is her teaching the villagers to make "improved cookstoves," which allow much more efficient use of the wood. They build the stoves up with mud bricks (i.e., from the soft mud made from termite mounds and straw, which has been prepared before and sat for the right amount of time), around a pot of the size that will go on top. Left: one of the women holding a soft mud brick that will be incorporated into the wall of the stove (and smoothed in, so that the brick is no longer distinct). The partially completed stove is next to the pot at the upper left of the picture.Below, right: A nearly finished stove (but not yet dried) with the proud craftswomen (and a boy who likes being photographed). An opening for putting in the wood under the pot will be cut later when it has dried a little more; the pot goes over the opening at the top.Below, left: Near where the women were building the stove a young man was building a house, prerequisite to obtaining a wife. You can see the size of this house where the woman (and, eventually, her children) will live – the men live in separate quarters.

Below, right: The future husband mixes the mud that serves as mortar between the already-prepared mud bricks.

In Ouahigouya we visited the man who owns the house where Ilana is staying in the village – and on another trip we visited the family Ilana had stayed with while she got training for her service – a more affluent family in a town on the other side of Ouahigouya. Ilana biked for both trips. For the first, Parfait, the head nurse, took Nicki to Ouahigouya on his motorbike while I rode the little moto – and then Nicki rode with me back to Bissighin afterwards. She rode with me on the entire trip to Ilana’s initial host family. (Ow ow ow... no cushions!!)Left: After our visit, Ilana’s initial host family escorted us to the edge of their village. In the foreground is her host father. (It was such a pleasure to meet this family. Ilana was lucky to have had such a wonderful host family.) Below, right: Here they all are with us (Ilana set the camera to shoot us on delay, so she could get into the picture).After we had been in Bissighin for a day or two, one of the residents pointed out that they would have to have a dance in our honor. Because they started late, they decided to finish the dance the next day - so we had two dances in our honor. Once with a lot of dancing, with singing for the music, and another time with a lot of singing, and some dancing to go along with it. This second time, one of the men in the village was tape recording the singing – perhaps why the dancing was less consistent, being distracted by the recording. The dancing and singing in our honor was nearly exclusively the women (and older girls) – although one of the older men took part around the edge during the second session – and ventured into the middle of it once or twice. But it was mainly the women. Below: A video of the first dance session. Some of the songs sounded like they included Ilana's name, presumably honoring her (and us). (The women and men laughed when Ilana and I joined in the dancing.) Below: A video of the second dance session, with the old man involved - wearing green and carrying a stick. Below: The kids pick it up dancing around the edges (the same old man is at the end of this clip).

We stopped by the school one day. On the way, we met a group of kids leaving – left – their teacher had not shown up. The instruction is somewhat spotty, partly because the attendance and attention of the teachers is. Below, right: One of the teachers preparing a meal during school hours outside of the classroom. (Absolutely lovely people, but we did not see a bit of teaching done.)

Below, left: Classroom. The kids were excited to greet us.Ilana’s main activity centers around fostering health practices, particularly that of the children, and focused around the health center – the one for which we walked for water (see our previous guest ‘blog entry). Ilana and her associates conduct many types of “sensibilizations” associated with the nutritional efforts (as well as other efforts). Here, Ilana and Aguera, the pharmacist, “sensibilize” the women who have brought their children and babies to be weighed, in light of the slippage that had occurred after their original instruction and success in feeding the children well – as evidenced by the children’s weights and arm measurements.Left: Parfait, the head nurse, also got into the act.

Below: Ilana is weighing and measuring the children, prior to the above interactions. The measurement is of the upper arm circumference, which indicates the nutritional status. One day when we stopped by the clinic, a woman had just given birth to her tenth child – here they are (below, left).Before we left, we were gifted with many, many peanuts, and with some traditional clothing (seen in a picture below and in one of Ilana’s previous entries in which she mentioned our trip: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/04/ghana-marriage-season-and-life-skills.html). I was gifted a Barack Obama cap, Nicki received a beautiful beaded necklace, and we were both gifted with a live chicken. We were expected to have Mr. Chicken (yes, I know) for dinner on the day we left. The chicken rode upside down on Ilana’s handlebars into Ouahigouya (see one of Ilana’s first few ‘blog entries for another gifted-chicken-on-handlebars story: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2008/11/tale-of-two-chickens-sorry-erik.html), was then transferred to the luggage compartment of the bus to Ouagadougou, and finally to the trunk of the taxi we took from the bus station to the Peace Corps transit house. By the time we arrived there, it was a bit thirsty – Nicki saw to slaking its thirst while it waited outside the transit house. ("Here chickie-chickie-chickie - drink something!!!" For some reason the guard and the gardener thought this was hilariously funny.) We won’t discuss its fate here, but let’s just say that the guard at the transit house had the makings of a good dinner sometime after that. We also left some of the peanuts for the transit house denizens, and took lots with us as well (we still have some left - anyone want to share some peanuts?)Left: Us with the chicken, and in our gifted clothing (well, I'm holding instead of wearing the cap; note that in our previous guest ‘blog entry, I am also wearing this clothing for the Walk for Water – see pictures here: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/05/guest-post-walking-for-water.html). Here are a few more random photos and observations from our trip: Below, right: A photo we like – woman carrying child.

Below, left: Woman carrying some things, including pots and pans.

Below, right: Kids playing foosball at the foosball table at the edge of the village.

Below: Kids playing soccer and bike-tire. Burkina Faso is very dry and dusty, at least during the season we were there. You saw it from Ilana’s entry about the dust storm (a couple of entries ago: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/04/inside-orange-sky.html). I had had a minor skin biopsy done shortly prior to making the trip, and found that controlling infection in the wound was a substantial and constant battle. As most people there do, we wore sandals or flip-flops, allowing our feet to dump heat (and moisture) and to pick up dust and bacteria. Therefore, we also constantly battled dryness and infection on our feet, putting antibiotic cream and lotion on them at least once daily after we washed them. Our “free” loaner phones from Verizon were far from free. At one to two dollars per minute charges, we thought we’d use them only for occasional communications or emergencies. It turned out we used them a lot, to make and confirm arrangements. We would have done much better by buying phones in each country to which we went, dedicated to that country. When we were in Burkina Faso, we tried as much as possible to use unité that we bought for our use with Ilana’s phone. But we still used ours at times. It was particularly bad on other legs of our trip, when we did not have access to a local phone. We were quite surprised by the group of travelers on the plane from Paris to Ouagadougou and back. Very few were black; the vast majority were white. But once in the country, the situation was quite the opposite – we rarely saw a white person other than ourselves and Ilana’s Peace Corps colleagues. One pair of older white women were in the marché on the first full day we were there, a white woman in the nature preserve was touring with her son who was on a missionary trip – and that’s about it. Otherwise, it was Peace Corps and us. Beyond an occasional call out from kids using the name for white people, perhaps some extra acknowledgement we might not have had as we traveled along the road on bikes and a moto, some extra attention in general, and the aforementioned “special” attention at the marché, we did not find that there was much consequence, and certainly no problem, being an unusual color. Of course, as noted above, we had Ilana assertively looking out for our interests and preventing our being taken advantage of. When we left the country, although Nicki loved the country and the people - and would go back any time, she was relieved to be getting back to her more accustomed way of life. (Unbelievable how comforting bland blue airplane seats can be.) I’m a little more tolerant of the rough life, so I didn’t have the same reaction. One of the flight attendants did comment on my sandals for going in the winter to Paris – which I did eventually change (in Charles de Gaulle Airport). We were a little taken aback by the fumigation of the plane with us passengers in it, upon leaving Africa. (Do watch out for that. No one warned us.) In any case, regardless of Nicki’s relief, we both valued immensely the time we had getting to know the country, seeing a place in which ancient ways of living were still largely being practiced (albeit with a creeping influence of western artifacts and customs). I was particularly impressed with the sense of connection to ancient ways, including, but not confined to, the dancing (among other occupations, I have been a dancer [modern]). But technology is changing things slowly – in the case of the technology Ilana is bringing and the way she is bringing it, in a way organically integral with the ancient ways, for the better, for health and well-being of the people, as reflected by their gratitude and love for her and what she’s doing. We went to and from Burkina Faso by way of Paris, where we had lovely visits with my cousin Don and his wife Maguy. (Hi, Don and Maguy - it was such a lovely visit with you! Thank you so much for everything.) We returned home via a several-day visit in Israel. (That was fantastic and amazing; we were able to see friends from childhood (Nicki), family (Ken and Nicki), former kibbutz hosts (Ken), and people in the dance world (modern and folk). Hi to all!!!) We then spent a day and two nights in England – with a trip to Cambridge. But as Ilana would be quick to point out, these are not the subject of this ‘blog, so if you’re interested in these experiences, give us a call, or write, or, better yet, come to visit. We have a room for you about the size of a Bissighin house. (More room than that - and we'd love to see you, so please come!)Right: With Don and Maguy in Paris (at the Louvre).

HI. I'm so sorry, but I have to complain about the heat just for one second. Feel free to skip ahead if you don't want to hear it.

AHHH it's hot! I thought the heat was almost over when it rained once about a month ago...but boy was I WRONG. I haven't cooked anything in my house in about 2 months, for fear of spontaneously combusting if I do. The only time I ever go inside my house at all these days, in fact, is at around 5:30 in the morning when I first wake up, to put my clothes on and grab my toothbrush. Then I race out of there as fast as possible, gasping for air. Everyone says the hot season this year has been way worse than last year, as we've had many 120+ degree days. I agree. You know it's hot when one day it's only 105 degrees, and you say "aaahh this feels great, it's only 105 degrees" and you don't even sweat all day!

Ok, thanks, complaint finished.

If you are interested in seeing videos of some of my courtyard kids, I posted a few on youtube because for some reason they won't upload here. They really are just silly snapshots of my little brothers and sisters; two are of them singing and dancing to their favorite song, "all the single ladies" and the other is of one of the babies, who's strapped a box on her back pretending it's a baby. Kids strap all sorts of things to their backs and pretend they're babies, like twigs, empty plastic bottles, plates...whatever they can find. But for some reason I found this particular box situation funny...maybe because the box baby is bigger than the real baby who strapped it to her back. Plus, this kid always cracks me up.

Anyway, here are the links if you're interested:

Matou

All the single ladies 1

All the single ladies 2

A couple weeks back, Erik and I organized and held a conference on maternal and child health for a bunch of volunteers who each brought two counterparts from their villages. It was your basic "training of trainers" workshop, where we focused mainly on nutrition/malnutrition/and the hearth model (you know, the 12 day nutrition workshop/malnutrition rehabilitation program for malnourished kids and their moms, where you teach people how to make good meals using their local ingredients, and do a health talk on a different subject everyday...i've done it with two different groups so far in my village, and plan to do another one soon). So the participants in our workshop learned about how to identify malnourished kids, proper nutrition, changing behaviors that lead to malnutrition, etc. They got a full run-down of how to conduct a hearth model, and got to visit the local CREN (center for rehabilitating severely malnourished kids) twice...once to see how things worked there, and the second time, on the last day of the formation, to practice putting to use their new skills by sensibilizing the women currently there with their babies. I'm really happy with how it went, and I think it's already helped other volunteers to implement the hearth program in their villages with the counterparts they brought.

I think the highlight of the workshop for me happened early the second morning, before we started the training for the day. Both of my counterparts from village were mothers who had participated in the Hearth programs I conducted and really followed it well. Both of their kids, who had been severely malnourished, are now healthy and well above the line for being malnourished, so my idea was to take them to this training so that they could serve as examples in the community, and hopefully help to conduct the same program they went through with me, with other women and their kids. Neither of them ever went to school, so they don't know how to read or write or anything, and while it didn't really matter much for this training, it did make some things difficult, like reading the scale for weighing and measuring the babies, and interpreting the numbers on the BMI chart. Anyway, one of the counterparts I brought from my village knocked on my door and asked if she could see me. I was kind of nervous that she was going to tell me that something happened and she couldn't finish the training, but instead, she asked me if she could borrow the scale that we had used to show the participants how to weigh and measure babies. I said "sure, but why," and she was like "to practice reading it of course!". Small victory, yes, but encouraging. It made me happy that she was so excited to be learning and to be helping her fellow villagers.

I just finished yesterday with an agricultural formation in village, in which 15 of the farmers (everyone is a farmer) got trained on new and improved techniques for increasing their production yield. I brought in an agricultural expert from Ouahigouya to facilitate the training, because, well, what do I know from agricultural techniques? Nothing. So because this was a training where a specific group of 15 people were assisting, and not just anyone who wanted could come, I had to be careful about the way I chose participants. In the past, when I've had to choose specific people for participation in either trainings or projects, I've talked it over with my major, and together, we've chosen the people we think would be best fitting for the job, and most likely to actually carry out their responsibility to pass on the knowledge to the rest of the villagers. It wasn't until recently that I learned that the chief of the village is not too happy about this, because he is not involved in that decision making process. When I first got to village, actually, I had asked my major if we needed to discuss these kinds of decisions with him, and he basically said that the chief didn't care and we didn't need to bother asking him. Ah, of course, a year and a half into my service I come to learn that it was really my major who just didn't feel like he needed to involve the chief, because he's a functionaire that doesn't come from the village, so he doesn't really care. Honestly, there are some cases where I don't understand why he needs to be involved; for instance, health related trainings that people are chosen for based on their specific health needs. He apparently wasn't happy that I chose women and children to participate in my hearth models without consulting him, but that's a program for malnourished children, for which I chose people by talking to the eligible mothers, and taking volunteers for who wanted to do the program. It did turn out that more people wanted to do it than I had space for in the first two programs, but we discussed together that we will do the program numerous times, so that everyone who wants to participate and has a kid who qualifies will be able to. Even so, I do know the importance of respecting the village chief and asking his permission to do projects and so forth. So for this formation, especially because there were no specific guidelines or qualifications to participate, except of course, being a farmer, which, as I said, everyone is, it was appropriate for me to consult the chief to pick the participants. I asked him to pick a group of 15 farmers, half men and half women, who gave a fair and complete representation of the village. My idea was one person from each quartier so that they could then go back and share their new skills with everyone else from the quartier, but of course, I had to just let the chief choose how he wanted to choose. What I ended up with was a group of 13 old, old men, half of which are too old to cultivate anymore, and 2 women. Haha...evenly split, eh? But honestly, even though it wasn't necessarily the group I was looking for, it didn't matter, and I was very happy with the way the formation went, as were the participants. The old men learned a lot of valuable techniques that they'll hopefully pass on to their progeny. It was cool to do something a bit out of the normal range of health related activities I tend to focus on, and work with an age/gender group that I don't normally get to work with. And, you know, it was really really good to have the support of the chief, making sure the participants showed up and followed the formation.

Guest ‘blog – Ken Cliffer, Ilana’s Abba (father)Last Saturday (May 8) we walked for water. Villagers in Bissighin walk for water every day – particularly, almost exclusively, the girls. Since they have a well with a pump in the village, they don’t walk very far, compared with how far many Burkinabés do (for some, hours every day). But they pump and they walk. The pump in Bissighin is in essentially constant use.Below, left: The large bowl under the pump handle is the type most often used for carrying the water on the girls’ heads (the water exits the other end of the pump, not shown; this bowl is waiting to be filled). Below, right: I’m carrying water in a closed container (Gerry can) on Ilana’s bike, as she typically does.

Below: Pumping videoAlthough Bissighin does have water in the village, the Centre de Santé et Promotion Sociale (CSPS; Center for Health and Social Promotion), the health center in Bissighin, does not have a pump, except for one (shown above) across the village, about 1.5 km away. So the health center relies on water carried from across the village, sitting in a bowl until it is needed. Needless to say (but we say anyway, for emphasis), this is not the healthiest practice for a health center.After Ilana arrived in Bissighin as a Peace Corps volunteer, she did a needs assessment, to determine directly from the villagers what they considered important gaps in resources. In Ilana’s words, from a grant proposal:In a community needs assessment conducted in February of 2009, in which men and women were asked separately to identify and prioritize the problems in their community, the number one problem identified among men and women alike, was that there was no source of water at the CSPS.Ilana developed a vision of a project to get a pump there, and called it “Pumping Life into Bissighin.” Again, in Ilana’s own words, from the grant proposal:The goal of the Pumping Life into Bissighin project is to obtain a safe source of water at the health center in the village of Bissighin, thereby improving the quality of service at the center, and its ability to serve as an example of proper hygiene for the rest of the community. The health center of Bissighin was built in 2005 as part of a project to decentralize health care in Burkina Faso, and provides basic health care to a population of about 5,125 people in Bissighin. The center has neither electricity nor running water, and while solar panels are used to provide lighting at night, the closest water pump is over 1.5 kilometers from the CSPS, making the acquisition of water a constant problem. The community of Bissighin is therefore requesting funding for a water pump to be placed on the center’s grounds, thus providing a source of clean, readily available water. In conjunction with the acquisition of a pump, the community would like to start a moringa garden at the center, in order to ensure food security in the community and promote the use of moringa, a fast growing and highly nutritious tree, in treating and preventing malnutrition. The community will take on costs of starting the garden, as well as train a pump management committee of community members. The acquisition of a pump on the health center grounds would greatly increase the effectiveness and cleanliness of the center, and improve the health of the entire population.However, despite various and repeated attempts to get grants to fund this project over the course of about a year, Ilana met substantial frustration. Some potential sources said they may be able to provide some money, but only if she found much more elsewhere. A Peace Corps mechanism to provide a Web site for soliciting contributions was available, but required that the village fund 25% of the project. It is typically used for much smaller projects, about ¼ or less the size (in money) of this one; Ilana anticipated that this project will cost on the order of $15,000. The villagers are motivated, but cannot come up with $3000 themselves in any reasonable amount of time. As Ilana has described in an earlier entry in this ‘blog, the savings and investment club she has helped organize has earned only the equivalent of tens of dollars over many months of operation, and that is quite a lot for them – and much or most of it comes from sales within the village.Back around a year ago, when Ilana first described her vision to us, we did some low-key exploration about possible sources of funding. During that time, a cousin-in-law (Nicki’s late brother Dale’s wife Korrine’s cousin Karen) informed us about a project run, coincidentally, by a woman from Leesburg, Virginia, about ½ hour from us, specifically to raise money to provide water for people in Burkina Faso. We called Susan Hough and left a message. At the time we got no response. It turns out, we now know, that Susan at the time was dealing with a health issue of her own that prevented her from responding.Then, as Ilana recently was expressing more and more frustration to us about her difficulty finding funding, I came again across Susan’s phone number, to inquire about Walking for Water. I called, and she answered. I described what Ilana was trying to accomplish. She made no promise, but said she would consider what Wisdom Spring, the organization through which Walking for Water is organized and administered, could do. And, incidentally, a walk for water to raise the funds would be happening in about a month or so from the time we were talking. Synchronicity finally – events lining up with the need, albeit after a substantial period of seemingly fruitless effort.So, Saturday, May 8, we walked for water. We walked 8 km, about the distance from Bissighin to Ouahigouya. Here is the poster we made to show who we were walking for, made from pictures we took during our visit to Burkina Faso, Bissighin, and Ilana in January (some of which we will describe separately in another guest ‘blog entry):Left: Me (Ken, Ilana’s abba = dad), Nicki (Ilana’s mother), and our nephew Michael Cohen, walking for water.

Below: Michael and his abba Mark, Nicki's brother, joined us (and contributed).

Below: A water stop part way through the Walking for Water. The weather initially was threatening rain, and we carried water with us – so it was almost a walk in, with, and for water – but ended up being only the latter two.

Below: The band, woven green, who played at the gathering site after the walk.

Below: Sobonfu Somé, Susan Hough, and us; Sobonfu, who is a Burkinabé, and Susan are the organizing force behind getting the wells in place. Sobonfu is also an author, spiritual leader, and more – see Web site reference above and http://www.sobonfu.com/ .

Below: Susan, Sobonfu, and a group of the students who helped organize and raise money for the walk – it is mainly the students’ project (see Web site reference above for more information).We had, a couple of weeks before, sent an e-mail appeal to friends and family in our e-mail directory, asking them to consider contributing. Ultimately, through their (your) responses, we were one of two walking entities – the other being one of the high school students participating – roughly tied for raising the most – about $2000 each – thanks to all who contributed. In all, the effort raised more than $27,000 for developing water sources in Burkina Faso, and more is expected to come in in the next few weeks. (If you’re interested in learning about the organization and the effort, they are described at http://www.wisdomspring.org/ or at http://wisdomspring.organicmd.com/; click on the Walking for Water tab at the top for information on the event and donations.) In addition, Sobonfu indicated that the organization indeed does plan to put a well at the CSPS in Bissighin! At a gathering at Susan’s house afterwards, we called Ilana, who spoke to Sobonfu directly. Ilana’s excited, grateful, and pleased, especially because Sobonfu indicated that it’s a commitment that Ilana can tell the villagers about. Whew.As we left Susan’s house, she asked if she could have the poster we made (we can make more). She especially likes the idea of having a specific, concrete project that the kids can see, to which their efforts are applied. On our side, we are very pleased that we can provide something in return, both the substantial contribution we raised and the concrete connection to a specific project. And many people have shared our pride in Ilana for the work she’s doing.Coming - another guest 'blog about our visit to Burkina Faso, Bissighin, and Ilana.

I woke up Thursday morning in a thick orange haze and thought the world was coming to an end. And then I remembered that I live in the giant dust pan that is the north of Burkina Faso.

But really. I'd never seen anything like this before, and judging by the reactions of my villagers, neither had they. In the middle of the night on Wednesday, I was jarred awake by incredibly strong winds, which normally indicate a rain storm coming, but I didn't move inside, as my house felt like a sauna of death, and I had a sneaking suspicion that the winds were dissembling and that there would be no rain. I was right, of course, cause I'm always right.

I stuck it out outside and must have fallen back asleep, because the next time I looked at the time, it was already 5:55. Something felt really strange, but I couldn't pin point it. I stayed on my cot for a while, staring at my courtyard wall, because normally I wait until it's at least semi-light outside to get up and start getting ready. And then it hit me that it was already 6:00 and all my neighbors were up and functioning. That's what felt so off...already 6:00 and still no sun? And then I felt my skin. COVERED in dust, I was, COVERED, I tell you. It was kind of nice in a way, because I've been sweating like a beast every night in this hot season, but the thick layer of dust covering me must have soaked it all up, because I felt refreshingly dry.

It wasn't until I went inside my house to get my toothbrush, though, that I realized the extent to which the dust had covered the world. A haze had descended on the village. Visibility was extremely low. From my courtyard, I can normally see way out into the fields surrounding us, but I could barely even see my own courtyard wall.

It was actually quite beautiful, but unfortunately, with great beauty, comes great pain.

Just kidding, the pain wasn't really great. But it was really hard to breathe, and I'm sure that the dust was teeming with microbes, just waiting to be propogated through the village and into the villagers' organisms. We'll see if we get an influx of sick people at the CSPS in the next couple days.

At first, we thought the dust would last a couple hours at the most and then dissipate. But to the astonishment of the whole village, the air was still highly polluted with particles by dinner time. That night, we had another bout of wind, for which I did end up going inside my house because I thought I might get blown off my cot otherwise, and then in the morning, the air was as clear as ever. The world looked normal again, confirming that it was not, in fact, coming to an end.

But what was this strange haze caused by? I've heard the news of the volcano eruption in Iceland, and the subsequent ash cloud that covered Europe; however, I somehow doubt that had much to do with this, especially because the sky was clear of dust in Ouaga, just 180 km away. But I guess you never know. According to the people in my courtyard, there was a communiquer on the radio saying that a mountain had fallen, causing this dust cloud to descend upon us, though the same communiquer also predicted that it would last for 7 days. Who knows.

P.S. The photo included in this post is credited to Erik Durant.

Last night, we sat down to have our weekly savings and credit club meeting, just like we do every friday night. It usually goes the same every week; the women gather, either in my courtyard or right outside my courtyard under the trees, we all gossip for a while, the women bully me about something or other, (how the food i prepared for dinner tastes terrible, or how all my friends are prettier than me, etc.), they each contribute their 25 cfa for the week, they put in the money they've earned from making liquid soap that week, they discuss whether or not anyone wants to borrow money from the group to start an individual project, they count all the money to verify it's all there, and they do some book keeping to take note of their spendings and earnings. In any case, it's quite a simple and enjoyable procedure, which, like many "meetings" in burkina, is more of a hang out session with a little bit of productivity as a bonus.

Anyway, last night, we got through the first few steps of the meeting just like they always happen; the women made fun of the soup i was eating for a while, gossiped about the kid who fell into a well earlier that day (he's fine by the way, which is a miracle; they pulled him out with a very long rope and a plank of wood), but when we got to the part where we count the money to make sure it's all there, all hell broke loose. 10,725 cfa was missing!! Everyone was shocked. Their lock box looked completely normal, no one had broken it, so it was obvious that the perpetrator must have opened the box with a key and then put it back where it was without anyone noticing. We tried shaking the box vigorously to see if money could come out that way, but it was solid, so it couldn't have fallen out or have been shaken out by someone. It was extremely bizarre, especially because the key is kept with a woman who lives on the opposite side of the courtyard from the woman who keeps the box with the money in it, specifically for the purpose of avoiding situations like this. She keeps the key hidden in her house, and claims that she's the only one who knows where it is. At first, everyone thought that perhaps the money just fell out of the box, so we were all shaking out our clothes and shining our torches all over each other to see if it was anywhere to be seen. We quickly realized that the search was not worth the pain, because the money was likely in someone's pocket far away from us. Aguera, the keeper of the box, starting running all around at this point, in and out of my courtyard, and to be quite honest i'm not exactly sure what she was doing, or who she was looking for, but she clearly felt responsible as the box had been in her house when the theft happened. The rest of the women just kept saying things like "ooh this isnt good" and "see ilana, we told you there were robbers around here" and "it's the kids who did it. the kids are not good". The sum stolen was also very strange. There was a 10 mille bill taken (about 20 american dollars), plus 3 coins amounting to about a dollar and 70 cents. Why the coins, i wonder?? And why only one of the two 10 mille bills that were in there? If there had been a ton of 10 mille bills, then maybe I can understand because the culprit may have thought that the women wouldn't notice just one missing out of many. But there were only 2!! Why wouldn't he or she just take them both? Very strange.

The women have made about 35 mille at this point (about 70 american dollars), so the 10 mille loss is almost a third of their earnings, which really sucks. Now no one wants to take the money box because they're all afraid it will be stolen again, so they left it at my house last night, and there it will likely remain until they find some kind of solution to the problem. Maybe i shouldn't have said that here, in this public forum. I hope the robber can't read English. Perhaps a good combination lock would be better than the simple lock that opens with a key, and is probably very easy to pick open with a stick or pin or pen or something. I also suggested that maybe they have enough at this point to open up an account with the Caisse Populaire, the local bank in Ouahigouya. They said they'd all think about it and talk about it next week. They were too shocked to get any productive talking done last night.

So we dispersed and ended the meeting, and I started to get ready for bed, as it was already passed my normal 9:00 bed time, when I heard some commotion going on outside my courtyard, so I went out to see what was going on. "They found gold!!" was all I heard amidst the chaos. Everyone was running about in every which way, acting all crazy and ridiculous. And then, within 5 minutes, everything was quiet because all the men and school aged kids had raced off to the gold mine, leaving only the women and babies behind. About 10 minutes later, in fact, a lone man wandered through our courtyard, and the women all shouted at him "you're still here!! go! go!" and he said "i'm going, i'm going!". Someone finally found some gold in one of the many mines in the surrounding area of my village. I suppose where there's gold there must be more gold to be found, hence the literal rush out of the village and into the mines. I don't know much about mining gold other than that it's very dangerous the way they do it here, it happens mainly at night because it reflects off the lamps, and it involves using mercury to separate the gold from the rocks and sand and so forth, which is why i didn't go out to the mines myself. You also have to be really lucky to actually find anything, and I've never been one of those people who lucks out with things like that, so eh. Not worth it for me, but good luck to my villagers.

So on the same night that the women found out that their money had been stolen, the opportunity to gain lots and lots of riches through gold (probably not) was revived. Coincidence?

I see that my last posting (a long time ago, woops) ended with the awaiting of my parents arrival. Picking up where I left off, they arrived safely and immediately greeted me with a moore greeting they learned from my mini moore/french guide i'd sent them which they apparently studied on the plane ride over. Needless to say, the others waiting for people at the airport who heard this greeting were quite entertained by the two old white people coming off the plane and greeting their white daughter in Moore.

I'm still awaiting guest blog posts from both my parents and sister, but in summary, let's see...they got to see a lot of elephants, and my villagers were extremely excited to see my creators. They danced for 2 days to welcome them to our village. Even over two months later now, everyone is still talking about when Ilana's parents came to visit. But really, I'd rather my parents explain it from their point of view, because all you people who actually read this ever get is my narrow perspectives.

Mommy and Abba with some of my family in the courtyard With the CSPS staff who just presented my parents with a chicken and some traditional clothing. (from left, Aguiratou the midwife, me, Abba, Mommy, Parfait the head nurse, and Aguera the pharmacist)

So after my parents left, the visits continued in February. The next set of visitors were Anna Goldman, Lily Fender, and Lindsay Lindenbaum; three CCC kids who were setting out on a 4 month adventure of their own, and decided to stop by West Africa before continuing on to the South and East of the continent. I met the three of them in Ghana for an awesome vacation.

What can I say about the trip to Ghana? I found it surprisingly hard to speak English there. I realize that my maternal language is English, and I have little to no problem speaking English to people in America or other Americans here, but it's not really the same thing trying to speak English in Ghana. I guess I'm so used to speaking French and Moore to get around here in Burkina, that there are a lot of things that I don't necessarily know how to do in English because I've never done them in Africa in English. For instance, the first time I got a cab in Ghana, the driver pulled up and rolled down the window just as they do in Burkina, but I started to greet him in French, and then stopped because I knew that wasn't right, but I didn't know what the proper greeting to say was. I just kind of paused then, and stared at him with my mouth gaping open. It took me way too long to realize that the right thing to say was probably just "Good Morning". If i didn't live in a French speaking West African country, I probably would have just realized this right away; but i'm just not used to it. Lindsay had to step in and save me, because I completely froze. It was embarassing. On another occasion, we wanted to find something to eat for breakfast, so I suggested omelettes because that's an easy and nutritious thing to get in the street in Burkina, so I figured it'd be the same in Ghana. So we went around asking everyone where we could get omelettes and nobody was understanding until Lily asked for "fried eggs" instead. As soon as she said that, everyone was like "ohhh yeah of course!" and they showed us where to get them.

In any case, Ghana was beautiful. As soon as I saw the ocean I felt this magnificient sense of freedom. Like I could escape so easily if I wanted to; that I wasn't confined by the limits of the land. I don't know what i'm escaping from. Nothing, really, but seeing the vast expanse of water with no visible boundaries gave me a sense of tranquility and security.

So after touring the beaches, castles, lakes, and cities of Ghana for 10 days, the three girls came back to Burkina with me to see my village. The Burkina-bound bus was supposed to leave Kumasi, a city in Ghana, at 5:00 PM, so we got to the station to wait at about 2:00, mostly because we were already in Kumasi and had no where else to go at that point. When the bus still hadn't shown up at about 7:00, I asked the people at the station and they said it should be there by 8. So when it still wasn't there at 9, I asked again and they said that actually it hadn't left Accra (capital of Ghana) yet. Of course, they didn't feel the need to update us about this. If they had told us, maybe we would have gone out for dinner; but instead they kept telling us that it should be there any minute. Well, i guess any minute can really mean ANY minute. The minute the bus finally got there was no earlier than 1:00 AM, meaning we had been sitting waiting at the station for 11 amazing hours. That wasn't awesome to say the least. I was already feeling guilty for inflicting this painful journey on my three travelling buddies when the bus broke down at around 8:30 AM, about 4 hours from the Burkina border. I heard this really loud sound, resembling a gunshot (which i guess lindsay, anna, and lily didn't hear for some reason) and then everyone on the bus started clawing to get off, jumping over seats, yelling to open the back door, and generally acting chaotic. I joined in the chaos, jumping over seats myself and pushing people to get off the bus, as I had been startled by the noise, and saw a ton of smoke coming out of the back of the bus...forgetting about my three travelling buddies, who were, i found out later, yelling my name, trying to get my attention because they didn't know what was going on, but I was so busy trying to save myself (from nothing) that I didn't hear them at all. Everything turned out fine anyway, and there had really been nothing to freak out about, but I did feel bad after the fact that I had abandoned ship without thinking about my fellow travellers. We all made it to Burkina fine, and the three of them had a great visit in village. We taught the elementary school kids how to sing a camp song (la la leyo), which was a huge hit. I can't walk anywhere in village now without the kids screaming it at me actually, so that's good.

SO that was pretty much February.

March could probably best be described as the month of marriages. We just kept having marriage after marriage in village, which meant lots and lots of staying up til the sun rises and dancing. So basically, from my observational research as well as some purposeful questioning, here is what I have ascertained about the way marriages work here:

The prospective groom goes to a village nearby or a different quartier of his village when he is ready to look for a bride. He makes a scan, talks to some people, chooses a girl. The old men then have a meeting to talk about it. The girl is eventually promised to the prospective groom.

When it comes time for the wedding (when the groom has enough money) the bride is dropped off in her new village, but not in the quartier of her groom. She is first brought to the quartier of someone who she is related to in the new village (she is bound to have at least one relative in the village). She stays there the night before the marriage is to begin, and then is accompagnied by all the women of that quartier the next day to the groom's quartier, where she will now live. The women dance through the village in order to accompany the bride to her new quartier.

Once she gets to the new quartier, the women is kept inside a hut and cannot be seen by the groom. On many occasions, she has no idea who the groom is, in fact. I'm not exactly sure of the timeline of events from this point on; however, I'm pretty sure that the day the new bride is brought to the groom's quartier, there is a big party with lots of food (rice and pasta!), zom kom (the traditional flour/water drink), and of course, dancing. Perhaps the next night, the new bride is washed by the women of the quartier and other surrounding quartiers, and then presented, with a shawl covering her head, to the groom. Again, the women accompany her in a line of jubilant dancing through the courtyard to the groom's house. Then for 7 nights, there is much singing, dancing, and celebration.

Marriage season is fun, but I don't understand when people sleep.

I just finished a two week spring break health camp for the elementary school kids of my village. I worked with the two oldest grades, so the kids ranged in age from 11-16. Yeah, there are still 16 year olds in elementary school. A lot of times kids don't start until really late, and then many many kids re-double grades because they don't pass the first time...or the second time. Anyway, the camp was a mix of life skills activities to encourage a positive and healthy lifestyle, and the HIV/AIDS workshops followed by integrated soccer/HIV/AIDS sessions (see the blog posting about Soccer and the Southlands if you want more details about this concept). All things considered, the camp went very well; however, it was not easy by any means. The kids unfortunately, even after some of them have been through 7 or 8 years of school, still do not understand French, and what's even worse is that they don't understand how to think critically. This isn't their fault, it's because of the way school is taught/not taught. Basically, all the kids do in school is copy complicated french phrases from the blackboard and memorize them, giving the illusion that they understand things, but if you ask any of of them to explain whatever french words they spought off to you in Moore, they can't do it. Meaning, they don't actually undertand much of what they learn in school, nor do they learn how to think for themselves. So I made a big effort during my camp to explain things very well to the point where the kids actually understood the concepts, in both french and moore. I was working with a counterpart in village who really really helped with the Moore translation part, though even he couldn't translate all the French into Moore because the appropriate words just don't exist in Moore.

It was just very hard, especially in the beginning, to get the kids to respond to questions, or do the role plays that I had planned (before I realized how impossible it would be to get the kids to do them). I know that they get hit in school by the teachers if they reply with the wrong answers to questions, so that, I'm sure was a big reason why they're so timid about responding; but they all know me, and know that I wouldn't hit them, and I said multiple times that there were no wrong answers to my questions. For instance, one of the activities I had them do early on, was describing their role models, in order to try to get them to start thinking about the qualities of people that they admire, and strive to mirror in their own lives. I told them just to discuss it first with whoever was sitting next to them, and they wouldn't even do that. I know they understood what to do, because both me and my counterparts gave examples of our role models, in both French and Moore, and then told them to think about their own role models and describe them to their partners. It got to the point where I just told everyone to get up from their desks and sit in a circle on the floor, because I thought that maybe if it were a less formal, classroom set up, they would feel more comfortable talking. This...kind of worked...but not really. I ended up, at the kids' suggestion, going down the attendance list, and picking people randomly to talk to the group about their role models, making it clear that they were free to speak in Moore. The kids who actually finally talked, had great responses, but as soon as they started talking, they hid their head in their hands or their elbow, or crouched into a fetal position, or rolled around all over the floor while they were talking. I had never seen anything like it. These are kids that I know well, too, and I KNOW are not afraid of me, because they barge into my house at all hours of the day and night.

Anyway, as hard as it was at times, it was absolutely worth it. I know that the kids learned a lot, and they got a lot more comfortable about responding to questions and trying to think for themselves instead of just copying and pasting responses as the two weeks progressed. We spent every single afternoon talking about HIV/AIDS; explaining all the modes of transmission, prevention methods, the biology of the virus and the immune system, talking about decision making skills, etc. Again, i'm sure they didn't soak up ALL the information we talked about, because it was a lot for them to take in, but, especially with the integrated sessions on the soccer field, they at least got a lot of exposure to the subject, and understand more about it now than they started off knowing.

Below: The kids playing a soccer game that demonstrates the effect of HIV on the immune system of a person. It starts off with only 3 offensive players (with red bandanas) and the rest of the group (15 or so) defensive players. Every time the offense scores, they can pick any member of the defense to come to play for them. As the game progesses, and more and more people are defected to the offensive team (and are given red bandanas) it gets easier and easier for the offense to score. This demonstrates that as the immune system (CD4 cells; the defensive players) gets depleted by HIV, the bacteria and diseases (the offensive team) have a much easier time defeating the human body (by scoring goals). At this point in the game (shown below) almost all the players have been converted to the disease side, and only two girls are left in the immune system.

Below: The kids playing a game designed to help them think about decision making. One player at a time goes into the middle and is passed the ball. They then have to decide if they want to make 1 easy point by dribbling over to a group of kids all wearing yellow bandanas (no defenders) and making 5 passes with them, make 2 points by dribbling over to a group of kids, two of which have yellow bandanas and three of which have red bandanas (defenders) and complete 5 passes with the kids in yellow bandanas, OR, get 3 points by dribbling over to a group of kids with only one player in a yellow bandana, and the rest in red, and sucessfully score a goal.

1 point

2 points

3 points Below: The kids playing a game designed to demonstrate the importance of protecting yourself against HIV/AIDS. You are "protected" from the red bandana bad guys (HIV) if you have possession of the ball. There are many balls in circulation, and the kids have to pass to help each other out whenever they see that their friend is about to get attacked by a red bandana.

Drawing of how the CD4 cells workRecap at the end of an integrated session on the soccer field

Ahh hello.

Highlights from the last month follow:

1. December 11 --> Burkina Faso Independance Day. The government has made it a new tradition to hold the big Independance Day Fete in a different city every year. They started last year in Fada, and this year, the fete was in my very own regional capital, Ouahigouya. It's an important day for Burkina, so all of the leaders of the country are present at the big fete, including the President, Blaise Campaore. The city of Ouahigouya was therefore transformed, solely for the purpose of this one day independance day celebration extravaganza bonanza, into something resembling one of those fake village sets made of cardboard used for old western movies circa 1960. About 6 months before December 11, the work began, though it seemed that the majority of the changes were made in the last couple months. They paved new roads, put in stop lights that are now, after the fact, continuously flashing yellow because they're not all too necessary, built and fixed up buildings all over, added fresh coats of bright pink, yellow, and green paint to the huts on the side of the road (phone company advertisement colors), and built a number of very important and certainly crucial statues of men on horses that can now be admired from various spots around town. I think my two favorite new additions to OHG are the airport, built to facilitate the flying in of the entire military from Ouaga (it's a 3 hour drive from OHG to Ouaga, so yea, an airport is essential...), and the new neighborhood of ludicrously expensive houses that look like they belong in Arizona, built to lodge the important guests for the one night they stayed in OHG for the fete.

The main event for December 11 is a 3 hour long military parade, designed to showcase the power and force of the military, and rejuvinate Burkina pride, in which the entire military as well as thousands of civilians from different groups participate. The Peace Corps was invited to participate, so all of the volunteers near the OHG area came in to march. You'd think it'd be all fun and games; parade, woohoo! Not this parade. The week leading up to the festivities, we were required to attend numerous practices for the parade, in which, that's right, we learned how to walk. Granted, it really isn't a parade where you can mess around, so we did have to practice marching in unison in our blocks of 55 people (though after much persuasion they made an exception for the PCVs, as we could not get 55 volunteers who were available for the parade and the practices), making sure our arms swung together at the right angle and hour hands were pointing the right direction. They picked out one person from each block to stand and watch the parade practice the first time, and then listen to a critique of it and relay the information to the rest of the group; so because I had helped to organize our group of PCVs, they sent me to watch. I think the seriousness of the event was expressed most felicitously by one of the soldiers giving us a critique after watching the first practice. With a face and attitude so humorless it conjured up images of my junior year of high school SAT proctor, he berated the civilians, "I saw people laughing and smiling in the ranks. This is completely unacceptable. This is a very very serious event, and I will not hesitate to take people out." Though I don't agree with spending so much money on a giant party when there are people starving down the road, it was an awe-inspiring show of national pride, and for that reason, I was proud to be a part of it. We even got a smile and a wave from the President as he passed by to inspect the ranks before the parade began.

Erik's blog has much cooler pictures of the parade, so check that out if you want to see more, but here are a couple just of the PCVs.

Before the parade began, proudly displaying our banner, the only banner, in fact, which was different from the regulation banners provided for everyone else. I guess they figured we stuck out enough anyway, so they allowed us to carry our own special banner.

Marching during the parade. (I got to hold the banner!)

2. Hearth 2 --> I conducted my second "Hearth" or "FARN" malnutrition rehabilitation program directly after December 11. The program is explained in a previous blog, so I won't explain it again, but the second time through went a lot better than the first. I was extremely happy with the results; nobody died this time,every single baby had gained weight by the 12th day, and the mothers all took turns re-capping the health topics we had discussed, making it clear that they all retained information.

The group making an enriched pooridge

Dalouta and Fatao Solo weighing himself

Kali and Ramatou (Who live in my courtyard)The women give re-capps of sensibilizations

The Group

3. Liquid Soap --> My village's new obsession = liquid soap. Remember a while back, I wrote about how I started a savings and credit club with a group of women? Well, it's been about 6 months now since that started, and they've saved up about 10 mille ($20), from their cotisations of 25 cfa each per week, which is a fair amount of money. They decided that instead of taking out individual loans right now, they wanted to do an income generating activity as a group, so after going over the options (they didn't want to do hard soap because I already work with a group that makes hard soap), they decided on liquid soap. (That sentence just made it sound like the only options for income generating activities involve making soap, which is not true, it just happens to be something I know how to do, and something that also benefits my hand washing and hygiene campaigns in the village...) Anyway, I was a bit nervous about it, because I had never seen anyone in my village use liquid soap before, and I wasn't sure it was going to sell. I think the women were also a bit skeptical to be honest, because, while it was their idea (mostly) they really didn't seem all that excited about it at first, and I felt like I was kind of pushing them to try it out. Boy were we all wrong. The first batch of 30 bottles of soap sold out in less than 10 minutes!! Everybody loved it! The women were bouncing off the walls with excitement as soon as they realized how successful it was. They kept sending kids to my door saying "Ilana! We need more materials now!! Hurry! We have to make more soap! There wasn't enough!"

They've made it four times now, and the last two times, it's sold out before they could even finish putting it into the bottles. There was a line of people waiting for the women to finish bottling it! The one catch is that you have to get the materials to make it in Ouaga; they're not sold anywhere else, and the women NEVER go to Ouaga. This is fine for now, as I go to Ouaga occasionally and can bring stuff back for them, but I want them to be able to continue with it after I leave. I think, however, that we've figured out a solution. After going around and asking all the women who sell liquid soap in the marche in OHG how they get their materials to make it, which was extremely unhelpful, as they all commission it from someone they know who is going to Ouaga, and didn't seem like they could really help my village women, I went with another volunteer to talk to this guy who owns a "savonery" which is like a soap making place. We tried to get him to carry the products needed to make liquid soap at his savonery and sell it there, but he refused, saying that there wasn't enough of a market for it in OHG. After much convincing, however, he agreed to help us obtain the materials. Turns out he gets his materials from his brother in Ouaga, who puts it on transport for him, and then he sends the money on transport back. While this does add a transport cost, the cost is not weight dependant, so if you buy in bulk, it doesn't add too much to the unit price. Buying 20 kilos at once, even with the added cost of both transport and paying for the comission, there was only a 75 cfa increase per kilo of the product we needed, which is absolutely worth it for the women to be able to get it in OHG. So that was cool.

4. My birthday --> Yeah, it happened recently, as much as I dread getting older every year, as my dad has re-assured me since I hit the double digits and complained of being over the hill, "It's better than the alternative." People don't really recognize or celebrate birthdays in the village, as nobody really knows their birth year let alone the specific day. But if you do happen to know your birthday, like I do, then it's celebrated the opposite way we celebrate in America. Instead of people giving you gifts, you give them gifts! And instead of going out to dinner and having everyone pay for you, you have to buy dinner for everybody! I bought a whole bunch of pasta and one of the women in my courtyard prepared it for everyone and we all ate together. It was good.

5. Sarit visits --> My sister came to visit! It was great. Everyone should come visit me, right Beaty?? Guest blog posting from the visitor herself coming soon.6. As I write, I am in Ouaga waiting for the arrival of my second set of American visitors, my parents! They should be landing in Ouaga in about 3 hours. Inshallah.

Greetings. I'm back from Mali; it was an amazing 5 day hiking trip through Dogon Country. I returned about 2 weeks ago, but have been busy, so haven't had time to update my blog yet. In fact, I apologize but I'm going to refer people to Erik's blog posting about our trip, because he did a thorough and excellent job describing it and also has posted much better pictures than i took. I know it's sort of a cop out, but I wanted to at least get a posting up, and I sincerely don't have much time. I'll add some of my pictures here as well, but for the most part, what he said. On the left, you can see the houses built into the cliff by the dogon people. They're no longer inhabited, but you can climb up and walk around and through them.

Voila a couple more photos from Mali, but please look at Erik's blog for professional style photos:

Exploring the houses on the edge of the cliff. With our hilarious guide Oumar's supervision of course. I agree with Erik's description of him as a mix between Borat and the Crocodile Hunter.

Climbing up the crack in between two huge boulders in order to get to the top of the escarpement. Photography by Oumar.

View of Douru, a village at the top of the escarpement.

OK. So as soon as we got back from Mali, I spent one night in village, and then had to leave again to go to Ouaga for our Mid Service Conference. MID SERVICE?? WHAT??? Yeah. So that was that. It happened to coincide with thanksgiving, so I was very lucky to be able to spend thanksgiving with my fellow PCVs. Our associate peace corps director (APCD) invited us all over to her house for a thanksgiving dinner, which was delicious. (She's Burkinabe, so we got to share our thanksgiving traditions with her as well). This also unfortunately nearly coincided with the biggest Muslim holiday, and a very important day here, Tabasky. I wanted to make sure I was back in village to celebrate with my villagers, but the fact that it was the Friday after thanksgiving made this a very difficult task. Not impossible, however, and as I've learned quite well here, even if something seems impossible, you find a way.

Usually on big holidays like this, transport doesnt run, so if you want to be somewhere specific, you need to go the day before, otherwise you'll get stuck. I called all the bus companies that go from Ouaga to Ouahigouya, and there was only one company that was sending buses, and they were only sending 2, very early in the morning. This bus company, STAF, is infamous for their disorganization at the station, and the subsequent and very common "getting on the bus injuries". They oversell tickets, so you have to fight to get a spot on the bus every time. And people are ruthless. It's not uncommon to get onto that bus bloody from scratches or having fallen. When I take STAF, I wear my bike helmet to get onto the bus for fear of procuring a head injury in the process. It usually goes down like this: People get into a huge mass as the bus rolls into the station, everyone fighting to get to the front of the mass. Before the bus even stops, people are jumping in through the windows, crowd surfing to get high enough to get in. They hang onto the windows, or onto another person who is hanging from the window, forming towers of people just hanging off of one another. At the same time, people are throwing things through the windows, because if your item is on a seat, that means it's your seat. It's amazing; with all the disorder involved in getting on the bus, this unspoken rule about seat saving is always respected. I don't know how that works, but it does. In any case, the whole thing is a huge scary mess. Now imagine this huge scary mess and multiply it ten-fold on a day when there are only 2 possible chances to get seats on the bus, and everyone is trying to get home for the biggest holiday of the year. Not a pretty picture. I knew it was going to be crazy, so I got to the bus station at 430AM to await the arrival of the bus. I had my game face on, but unfortunately, so did the other 300 people who were already there waiting. They had all slept at the station, in fact. As soon as the first bus came into view, people dashed into the street to meet it and start the chaos of jumping in the windows. I also had the disadvantage of having to get my bike on the bus, which comes with a whole slew of new issues. In any case, Before the bus even pulled into the station, it was already way overcrowded. There was no way I was getting on, but i made someone throw my bike on top, so at least i wouldn't have to deal with that anymore. If i didn't get to OHG, at least my bike would be there. I now had one chance left. I don't know how i did it, but by some stroke of luck, a very big strong lady took pity on me, and decided to help me get on the second bus. She literally pulled me up by my backpack straps. I was dangling in the air by my backpack, and then somehow made it on, even with people pulling me in the other direction. YEP. THAT'S HOW IT'S DONE.

I made it back to OHG just as my bike was being taken down off the first bus i had thrown it onto and biked to village as fast as my little legs could carry me. I ended up making it in time for the very important prayer of tabasky, in which the entire village prays together. It's absolutely marvelous to see. (i wish i had a picture, but i didn't get there fast enough to get my camera out).

The rest of tabasky consists of every family sacrificing a sheep (preferably all white, but not always possible), preparing it with rice and sauce, eating it, and then going around and giving some to everyone in the village. yes, everyone makes basically the same dish and trades them all around. i come over and give you the rice i've made at my house, and then you come over and give me the same rice dish that you've made at your house! it's one of the only days of the year when people get meat in village though, so it's very exciting, especially for the kids.

As soon as tabasky was over, I only had a few days to solidify my plans for World AIDS Day in my village. I knew I wanted to have a big sensibilisation and free HIV testing available all day on December 1, the Journee Mondial du SIDA (JMS), and started trying to plan this over a month ago, at which point, everyone said "Oh Ilana, why are you planning this NOW? It's so far away!"

I guess I understand a bit more now why people say things like that, because even if you plan in advance, it doesn't really matter. People don't necessarily stick to plans. For instance, I had asked a theater troup from a neighboring village that does HIV/AIDS skits and sensibilisations to come, and they had agreed, but then two days beforehand, they texted me and said that they could no longer come. This did not please me, so I sent them a message saying that I wasn't happy and that wasn't a very professional thing to do, and that i was very disappointed, so they agreed to come.

We started off the day with a Women's bike race, as is very common to do with any big sensibilisation day or fete in Burkina. It's a great way to mobilize people and also gives the women a boost of confidence, as they're being cheered on and encouraged by all the men and other women watching. Before the race, I took control of the microphone to greet everyone and talk about HIV/AIDS, and the importance of getting tested. My major also said a few words, as did the chief of my village, and the chief of one of my satellite villages. Having the support of the chief is extremely important, and can make any activity in village a great success. I'm very lucky that I have a chief that is not only supportive with everything I do in village, but also very helpful. So the Chief dropped the flag (a towel rag) to start the race, and the women were off! After the race, everyone gathered to listen to the sensibilisation. I couldn't even believe how well it went, people were actively contributing, and clearly listening and getting the message!! I think my entire village, plus my three satellite villages came, plus majors from other health centers, and people from the District headquarters. After the sensibilisation, we started with free testing for whoever wanted. I had gotten the free testing kits from an HIV/AIDS NGO in Ouahigouya that I work with. I wasn't sure how many people I would be able to convince to get tested, so I asked them to donate 100 kits, which they did, though they were a bit skeptical that we'd be able to reach that number. So many people wanted to get tested that we ran out of kits. Unbelievable.

I'm extremely content with the way the day turned out, but what's more, is that it's not only me. The entire village has been talking about how great it was, and how they all want to get tested now. People are discussing HIV/AIDS, which was exactly the point. To raise awareness, and lower the stigma of getting tested. We had a soccer game against a neighboring village to close out the day, in which my village gave me a jersey so that I could play on our team. Putting on that jersey made me feel like our village was united in the fight against AIDS for the first time. I felt like they recognized the importance of being aware of it, and in doing something about it. The village was so happy with the day that they decided to hold a traditional dance that night. They danced and sang about stopping HIV/AIDS until til 3 AM. Mam suur noomame, my heart was happy.

Things have been somewhat crazy lately, but not in a bad way. Let me try to explain a bit.

I recently (last weekend) finished a project called the "FARN" or "Foyer d'Apprentisage et Rehabilitation Nutritionelle". It's a malnutrition rehabilitation project that follows the theory of positive deviance. Though the theory can be applied to many different aspects of life, the idea, explained in terms of malnutrition, is that in any given community where there is a high percentage of malnourished children, there are bound to be some children who are healthy and well-nourished. If all the people live in the same area (village) and therefore have the same resources, and are basically the same poverty level, what makes some kids flourish, while the majority of the populations children are malnourished?

In doing the FARN, you first find a "positive deviant" family, look at what they do differently, and try to use them as a model and teacher for the other families to follow. You then take a group of no more than 12 women and their malnourished children, and make a different enriched porridge or meal with them every day for 12 consecutive days. You use local ingredients that are easy to find in and around village. Nothing is given to the women by an outside source, the idea being to teach the women (and families) that they can have a healthy and well nourished family without outside aid or assistance; all they have to do is use the resources they already have available but may not be accustomed to using.

While the food is cooking, the mother who has been chosen as the positive deviant, affectionately known as the "maman lumiere", talks about a different health subject every day with the group of women. We started with simple, non-controversial subjects at the beginning of the project, like hygiene, nutrition, signs of malnutrition, etc., and progressed into the harder to talk about subjects like HIV/AIDS, family planning, pre and post natal health, etc by the end of the project. Each afternoon, I trained the maman lumiere in the subject material for the next day so that she could be the one to deliver the message. As everyone knows, hearing information from someone from your group of peers is a lot more effective than hearing it from some sort of outside figure. Then once the food is ready, the kids sit and eat all together as much as they can, and they take the rest home to eat throughout the day as a supplement to their normal meals. By the end of the 12 consecutive days of the kids eating a well balanced meal, the hope is that they'll have already gained some weight, and that they'll take the practices they learned during the twelve days and use them at home.

So how did it go in my village? I would say that my first FARN was a success, but not without its share of frustrations and let downs as well. With 12 straight days of me and my counterparts (the maman lumiere as well as my gerante (pharmacist) from the CSPS, Aguera, who is the only person besides the Nurse and Midwife in my village who speaks french, and thus does pretty much everything with me, as well as functioning as my mother in village), pounding information into the womens heads, there's no way they didn't learn something. The major point we wanted to make was that with very simple changes in practices, like washing hands with soap before eating, and USING all the foods rich in protein and vitamins that can be found around village but are not traditionally used to cook with, you can drastically increase the health of your family. It's a great project because it's sustainable, capacity building, and you can actually see results after the 12 days. I am already being hounded by all the mothers who weren't chosen to participate in the first FARN to put them in the next one, because they've seen the effect it's had on the children and mothers who participated in the first one.

I realize that explaining in too much detail how the FARN was implemented and what i did to prepare for every step of it might be boring, so how about a list of highlights and lowlights from the inaugural FARN, in no particular order:

Highlight 1: one week before start of project, I did a village wide baby weighing day, in which I attempted to weigh every baby in my village and take their height and arm measurements. Usually I weigh babies every friday, but i wanted to hold a special day, where I informed the women that I would be weighing to find the malnourished children, so that I could get a good sampling of kids. I actually got a great turn out of about 200 kids, which was awesome

Lowlight 1: this massive number of people, as awesome as it was, was extremely hard to deal with and a huge mess at times because people don't know how to stand in lines and wait their turn, and i was subsequently pushed all around by the giant scary mob of moms and babies waiting to be weighed. I had to get angry and threaten to take the scales inside and stop weighing babies if people didn't behave themselves, quite a few times. I tried drawing a line in the sand that people were not allowed to cross, until i told them they could, which worked for all of 5 minutes before everyone forgot it was there and continued to close in on me and smack me with their health carnets (little books where we write all of their health information and records) to get my attention to weigh their baby first. Also, for some reason, a lot of the kids are deathly afraid of getting on the scale to be weighed, and kick and scream and scratch and refuse to stay still, so, yea, i know you might be thinking that they're just babies, but in all seriousness, they can be scary. I came away with many a baby weighing injury, but it was ok, because I was glad to see the huge interest by the women who came out.

Lowlight 2: Two of the babies included in my first FARN were a set of twins from my own courtyard, who, to be honest, i should not have included because their situation was too grave for me to deal with in village. They were each about 4 kilos, which is a normal weight for a newborn, but certainly not for kids 16 months old. I had been telling their mom for about 3 months (maybe longer) that she needed to go get help at the hospital, because she claimed that they just didn't accept food, and that they refused to eat. But she refused each time, telling me that there was no money, or giving me other excuses as to why she couldn't go. Twins here are often malnourished, and I've found that people kind of expect it as normal. It's rare to find a set of twins that have both made it to adulthood. Anyway, I discussed with my major whether or not I should put her in the FARN, because I wanted to refer her to the hospital in ouahigouya, but he told me that if I didn't put her in, she wouldn't go to the hospital, so I might as well try helping her in village. So i did. A couple days into the FARN, one of the twins started looking worse and worse. Just looking at her, you could tell she had very little life left in her. At this point, even all the other mothers of malnourished children were telling her to get to the hospital. "This is not a kid anymore", they were saying. And they were right. I finally forced the mom to get on my bike, and i took them all to the hospital myself. On arrival, one of the twins had a temperature above 104 and was now only 3 kilos. She was so dehydrated that if you pinched the little skin she had covering her tiny bones, it stayed in the position you pinched it into. Please excuse the graphic description, but she was like a little sack of bones wrapped in cellophane. As I held her for the doctors to try to find a vein in which to put an IV, I could almost feel the life leaving her. After spending a few hours trying to get both of the twins settled into the hospital, they both ended up with IVs finally being placed into their heads because there were no plausible veins anywhere else, and laying on the floor in the one big room reserved for babies in the hospital. I left and went back to village once things were settled. The next morning, I explained to the father were his kids were in the hospital ( he had heard they were there, but he came to ask me where exactly) and he went to see them. About an hour later, I was sitting with Aguera when she got a call from him that one of the twins had died. I guess i knew she was most likely going to die, and I've known a number of kids who've died in village, but for some reason, i was especially sad about this one, i think because I felt some sense of responsibility for her. And I knew her well, and had played with her many times in the last year. I biked back into OHG the next day to see the mom and the other twin, who were still in the hospital. She seemed surprisingly to be much happier. I think she knew as well that her child was going to die, and she had given up a long time ago. It was more of a relief for her it seemed, that now she just has one baby to take care of (plus her other children, but that's not the same as a baby). I fear that in writing this I'll give the wrong idea about burkinabe, and I don't mean to insinuate that she was uncaring; I don't think that she is a bad mother, and I know that she was upset and mourned the loss of her child, but in general, death is not dealt with in the same way that it is in the United States. The mourning period is much shorter, and people tend to get on with life a lot faster, not because they don't love their family; they just mourn quickly, and move on. It's something that I have become accustomed to to some extent, but I think will remain hard for me, as with my American ways, I tend to want to mourn for longer, and show it more outwardly.

Lowlight 3: This doesn't really have anything to do with the FARN, except that it happened during it, but one night, a kid went missing in village. This had never ever happened in the history of my village, because, well, in the village, all the kids run around everywhere, but they always come back home and it's never been a problem. There's really no need for kidnapping because if you don't have a kid and you want one, all you have to do is ask someone if their kid can live with you, and it's done. It's still kind of a mystery as to how and why this happened, but a baby, not even two years old, disappeared while the mother was taking her bucket bath. She didn't see the child when she got out, but didn't think anything of it, because it's perfectly normal for kids to just wander around everywhere. So she did some other things, and then went to look for her baby around the courtyard. When she still didn't find it, she asked a bunch of people if they had seen the kid around, and none of them had, and it wasn't at the boutique which is where kids tend to hang out, at which point she probably started getting nervous. The entire village ended up spending all night looking for the kid to no avail. I mean, nobody slept. Not a single person. Everyone in the whole village looked all night; in the fields, all around the village, everywhere. The kid was nowhere.

Highlight 2 (continuation of lowlight 3): The next morning, I went to get Aguera to go do the FARN for the day as usual. Every morning, I went and got her at around 530 AM, and we would walk to the woman's courtyard who we were doing it in together. That morning though, her response to me walking into her courtyard was "I don't think we can do it today, since the kid is missing". I told her we'd go and see, and when we got to the courtyard, the 2 women who had actually come on time were saying the same thing, that they didn't think we could hold the FARN today because of the missing child. I reminded them that even in the midst of terrible situations, your own kid still needs to eat, to which they said "oh yeah, that's true" and agreed that we should still hold the FARN. About 10 minutes into the causerie, an old lady stuck her head over the wall of the courtyard, and yelled "THEY FOUND THE KID!" at which point everyone dropped everything and ran to go see. Including me. Because everyone else did. Someone ended up finally finding the baby in a field a couple kilometers away, which was very bizarre because there's no way the baby could have gotten there on its own, since it can barely walk, and it had nothing wrong with it. Wasn't hurt, wasn't even hungry. Everyone thinks that someone took the kid, and then got scared because the entire village was mobilized in trying to find it, so they deposed it in a field. The entire village had to come see the kid to verify its existence. We had a big "we found the kid" party. Solidarity.

Well the list will have to stop there, because a) this posting has gotten too long and i want people to actually read it, and b) it's getting dark and i really should leave the internet and bike back to village.

I'm going on vacation to Mali next week for a few days, so the next issue of cogitations will hopefully be about that!

Hello, and how are you?Things here are generally good. Getting through malaria season (luckily I take a prophylaxis, so I won't get it, but that's not the case for all the people in my courtyard/village, who literally are getting taken down in droves by it). The rains bring tons of mosquitos, who have no qualms about biting people and transmitting malaria to them all over the place. SO, it's death season. I hope that's not too dramatic sounding, it's not supposed to be, it's just a matter of fact. There's a simple treatment for it, so if you have money, it's not too big a deal, but the problem is, no one in village really has any money. The treatment, if you catch it early, comes to about 2 american dollars, but in a village where one family might not see more than 25 American cents in the week, this is not easy, especially when you have to support a family of, let's say on average, 8 people. Conversations in and around village lately have often followed a similar pattern: Bissighin: Ilana, can i have some medicine, my kid is sick!

Me: Oh No! What's wrong?

Bissighin: His skin is hot, he has a fever. And his stomach hurts, he's throwing up. Will you come look at him?

Me: Uh huh, take him to the CSPS!! The medicine is there, I don't have medicine.

Bissighin: But I don't have any money!

Me: Your kid's health is important. If you wait until it gets worse, the cost will only increase. If you take him now, it's not too much money, and he'll be able to get better fast. It'll only get harder and more expensive if you wait.

Bissighin: Uh huh...OK, I'll take him if he's still sick tomorrow.

Me: OY OY OY. Sometimes this works, and people actually do take their kids (or themselves) to get treatment, but most of the time, they wait anyway. I've been called over to way too many courtyards to come look at a kid who's convulsing on the floor, or close to it, due to a fever of over 105 degrees. It sucks, but all I can do is help them to base the fever as much as possible, and encourage them to get to the CSPS. I've been scared a few times that some of the kids were going to die right in front of my eyes. So I've done a bunch of sensibilizations on Malaria this month, focusing on prevention, symptoms, and what to do if you think someone in your family has it. Somewhat surprisingly, a lot of people don't know how malaria is transmitted. They think that you can get it from eating too many mangoes, or the fruit of the shea butter trees, or being out in the rain for too long. I've also been helping my CSPS to make sure that everyone with kids under 5 years old is in possession of, and knows how to use properly, a mosquito net. The government provides free mosquito nets for all pregnant women, and people with kids under 5 (which seems to be pretty much everyone), which is great, but it also means that, since people aren't buying them themselves, and don't know the value of them (as in, how expensive they are), even if they get one, many times, they don't actually use it. There's a disconnect between the program that gives them out, and what actually happens on the village level. Usually, they're just given out, and the recipients are not taught how to use them, so many times, they just stay in their packages, which happen to be very pretty, so people are not inclined to open them and ruin the nice packaging. I've been trying to work on this, so when we give out the nets, I make sure that someone explains to everyone how to use it, and actually opens one up and shows them how. I tell them also, that I'm going to come around and make sure that everyone is using their nets, which always gets laughs from the women, but when I follow through and come around to check, I've actually seen lots of people using them correctly, which makes me very happy. The rains are actually slowing down, and now that most people's fields are cultivated, and it's just a matter of waiting for the harvest to start, people have been more available, and I've been able to get a couple more long term projects started. We started a soap making group, and two youth soccer teams, boys and girls. Well, ok, so far I've only made one batch of soap with the soap making group, but it turned out really well, and we're going to make a second, and hopefully improved batch, next week. The point of the group is to be an income generating project for the group of girls I taught how to make it, as well as functioning as a forum for sensibilizations and talks about health topics. Eventually, the group will be going around and doing hand washing and hygiene sensibilizations while they sell their soap.

The only problem right now, is that we didn't have a mold to use, so we just poured the soap out onto a big tarp to dry, and then formed it into balls. While this worked out fine, and the balls were very nice, the girls weren't happy with it, because people will apparently pay a lot more for soap in the shape of a square. Even if it's the exact same quantity, the squares sell better...who knew. So it's a work in progress, and I told them I'd try to get a mold made for the next time, so we can have square soap instead of round soap, even though it's the exact same product. Starting the soccer teams was pretty entertaining. My counterpart, Bukary, from the Coaching for Hope workshop (see blog entitled Coaching for Hope for details about that), and I, decided that we would start our youth teams, get them established, and then start doing the HIV/AIDS workshops when school starts. I think it'll work out well, but, starting the teams from scratch has been entertaining to say the least. The debut went a bit like this: -I go over to Bukary's courtyard to inform him that I want to start the team this week. My idea is to just start a girls team, because the boys already play all the time on their own.

-He agrees.

-I tell him to inform all the girls in the village to come play.

-He says he will.

-We set a date, time, and place, to have our first practice. We agree to meet at the school at 17:00 on the coming Monday. I remind him again that he needs to inform the kids.

-He assures me that they'll come.

-I tell all the girls in my own courtyard that we're going to start our soccer team on Monday, and that if they're interested, they should come. And to tell all their friends.

-The entire weekend, kids are coming to my door, asking me when we're going to play.

-MONDAY, I tell them. Be patient.

-Monday comes.

-I go to Bukary's courtyard with the soccer ball I've reserved for use by the kids. I'm followed by about 50 little boys, screaming with excitement, and guess how many girls?? ZERO.

-I am somewhat dissappointed, but I get to Bukary's courtyard, and he says, don't worry, they're just doing the chores, they'll be at the field soon.

-Oh yeah, I remember, that's right, the boys don't have anything to do and, the girls are still getting water and such...

-We get to the field. Bukary is wearing his full uniform that was given to him at the Coaching for Hope workshop. (In fact, he wears this exact outfit at every practice).

-Since the girls aren't there yet, and there's an abundance of very hyper, very excited boys ready to start practice, I agree to start with the boys, and say to myself, well, I guess we're making a boys team too. It wasn't really practical to assume that I could start up a girls team without starting up a boys team as well. Oh well.

-We warm up the boys. We do a stretching circle. They've never done this before, and it's quite entertaining to watch them all try to figure out the stretches, while falling over each other. Still no girls. I'm getting worried.

-We start doing drills with the boys, which is actually really good for them, because it requires discipline, and even though they play soccer by themselves all the time, it quickly becomes clear that they don't actually know the rules.

-Finally, the girls arrive. I'm ecstatic! I warm them up and stretch them, while Bukary continues with the boys, and then I tell them to take off their pagnes, because they all have pants on underneath, and go jump in with the boys.

-I get blank stares and scared faces.

-I realize this is not going to work. The girls don't want to play with the boys at all. They're intimidated. They've never been allowed to play before. I do some drills with the girls while the boys are on the field, and eventually even get them to take off their pagnes, which they are very shy about.

-I tell Bukary to get the boys off the field, that it's the girls' turn now. We get them off, though they're not happy about it. We decide to let the girls play a game. We set them up in positions, and put the ball in the middle of the field. We start. All the girls clump around the ball and start chasing it together, around the field, in one big group. Yikes, I say.

-Finally, after stopping and starting many times, and explaining each time that they need to stay in their positions, they start to get the hang of it a bit. There's lots of laughter. The boys laugh at the girls, but the girls laugh at themselves, so it's ok. It gets dark.

-We pull all the kids in, boys and girls together, and I make them do a cheer. They all want to keep playing, but I say no, and Bukary says, We'll play tomorrow.

-Everyone is content. We've now been having soccer practices for about 3 weeks, and I'm very happy with how it's been going. The girls now have no problem at all playing with the boys, and they take their pagnes off with a bit less embarrassment. Whenever one of the boys says something like "the girls don't know how to play!" all I have to do is shoot them a look, and they immediately correct themselves "I mean, the girls are learning, they'll play well soon!". It's especially good for the kids, girls and boys, who don't go to school, because it's the first organized activity they've ever done. You can tell that they really feel a part of something, and when we start doing the HIV/AIDS workshops and integrated sessions with them, I think it'll be amazing.

This week I went up to Djibo to help a friend out with her girls camp. Not exactly the same thing as Chimney Corners Camp, but i'll take it if it's the closest i can get this summer. There were 26 girls enrolled in the camp, all of whom spoke very good French, making it easy to smoothly run sessions and communicate with them without the need of a translator. The girls ranged from about 12-15 or so, and i just really can't get over how good their french was, so i'll say it again. They were awesome. I guess i'm just always surprised when I hear kids, especially as young as 12, speaking French so fluently and naturally, because I never ever hear it in my own village. To be fair, my village is really tiny (Djibo is a town, not a village), and only has one elementary school, with two teachers for the 300 students, none of whom seem to learn anything at all, and only 11 of whom passed their exam to move up to secondary school. Ineffective? You decide. In any case, the girls who were enrolled in the Djibo camp, organized by the two volunteers who live in Djibo, were very sharp, spoke great french, and were a lot of fun. Throughout the week, the girls had sessions on some heavier topics, such as forced marriage, sexual harassment, HIV/AIDS, family planning, etc. They also had sessions on hygiene, how to be a good eco-citizen, nutrition and malnutrition, first aid, MORINGA!, income generating activities and so on and so forth. They learned how to make soap and then marketed and sold it, though they all ended up selling it to their parents, so perhaps the marketing message was a bit lost there. But they did make a good argument for the fact that they still had to market it to their parents and neighbors who bought it, even though it wasn't the same kind of marketing that had been discussed with them. Even though they apparently wrote on some evaluation forms that they wanted camp to be serious (who knows what that means), we also did some activities more geared towards fun; kickboxing, theater, writing pen pal letters to a high school in Texas. Yesterday was the closing ceremony, where the girls performed the theater skits they had written and practiced during the week for their parents. It was pretty interesting, and surprisingly funny considering the themes they chose; Abortion, Forced Marriage, Deception, and Family Planning. I think many things that go over just fine here with parents and respected invitees would not necessarily go over very well in the states with a parallel crowd. The skit the girls did on abortion should serve as a good example for this point. At the end of the skit, the 14 year old girl who had slept around with three different guys; a butcher, a salesmen, and her high school professor (actually a really big problem here hence the session during the week on sexual harassment), and ended up getting pregnant, killed herself accidentally while trying to perform a self administered abortion since abortion is illegal here. The crowd's reaction to the skit was to crack up in uncontrollable laughter. Though the message (don't sleep around, and don't try to give yourself an abortion) was transmitted even through the laughter, somehow i don't see the same skit getting that reaction in the United States.

Even though the camp wasn't the type of summer camp i'm so accustomed to, I have to say, the girl-girl dynamics here are very similar to those in the U.S. We had the angsty teen hotties, who wore faces caked with glittery makeup, and who we had to separate during the sessions because they wouldn't stop gossiping, so they passed notes to each other and thought we didn't notice; and we had the cute tiny girls who were eager to participate in everything and were pretty hilarious, especially with their skit performances, in which many of their roles were the fast talking boyfriends of the skits, who used pick up lines like "que tu es belle aujourd'hui!", delivered in their little high pitched squeaky voices.

RANDOM PICTURES that may or may not fit with the theme of this week's update:

All the girls at the end of camp with their certificates

Tiny girl (Fati) playing the hot stud picking up the ladies in the skit

My road to and from village, after a good rain. Though this is just a small section, most of the road looks like this. I wasn't joking when i said i have to bike through a lake. There's no way around it.

SOME TOYS IN VILLAGE

Bottoms of old flip flops that can't be worn anymore become a toy car. The kids make these by piercing the pieces of flip flops with sticks and attaching them to each other. Then they attach bits of string to them and drag them around. I've even seen the kids find old batteries lying around, and little lamps (probably from broken flashlights), and attach simple circuits to create head lamps. Very realistic.

Mud dolls. They make these little mud people and play with them like dolls. There are always an abundance of them after a good rain.

Playing cards get cut in half so that more people can use them. Why should one person get to have them whole, when 2 people can have them for the same price if they're cut in half?

Practicing to be a mom with a little plastic baby. Though Seta here has a piece of plastic strapped to her back that actually does somewhat resemble a person, most of the time, the little girls walk around with empty bottles strapped to their backs as babies. It's really cute.

Saaba playing with his half deck of cards.

Not pictured, but something I'd like you all to ponder: All the kids in my village, who had never seen a white person before me, so i know they didn't learn it from a foreigner, take little pieces of string they find, tie them together, and play cat's cradle games with them. The exact same ones i learned when I was little; like jacob's ladder, etc., you know what I'm talking about. How is this universal? I wonder if this started in Africa and was later brought to the US, or vice versa. I would probably stray away from saying it's some innate skill, but it struck me as a funny coincidence nonetheless. Thoughts?

I love the south. Burkina-2.0.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, a bunch of us PCVs (about 20) decided to spend july 4th in Banfora. Erik and I spent the night in Ouahigouya the day before our trip so that we could make the early bus to Ouaga, which is advertised to leave at 6 AM, but in reality it leaves whenever it's full, so it usually pulls out of the station at around 5:30 AM. You must plan for this. Our plan was to go to Bobo, spend the night there, and then catch a bus to Banfora the next day, but when we got to the bus station to take the bus to Bobo, we encountered 2 other PCVs (Aaron and Josh) who were going to Orodara and then biking the 60k from there to Banfora. This sounded cool and bad-ass, so I convinced Erik that we should join in with the bike trip. He obliged, so instead of spending the night in Bobo, we continued on to Orodara, where we met up with some more PCV friends who live there/around there (Maggie, Dave, Colin, and Christie-Anne). After our slumber party in Orodara at Maggie and Dave's house, we set off to bike to Banfora to meet up with everyone there. (Group picture from the trip on the left). The bike ride was absolutely beautiful. So beautiful that I found myself getting jealous of the people who's sites are down south. Don't get me wrong, I love my barren, dry and dusty landscape up north; all I'm saying is that it was nice to see the rolling plains of luscious grass and the thick forests of trees and sugar cane that covered the relatively un-traveled and quite route from Orodara to Banfora. You can tell, too, that people down south have more money than those in the north. The animals are fatter, the people are fatter, people speak more french, etc, etc.

Banfora also has some awesome restaurants, and the only McDonalds in Burkina. Ok, well it's not actually a "McDonalds" but it's called McDonalds, and it has a picture of Donald Duck on the sign so that kind of counts. It's as close as we're going to get. It looks just like any other restaurant in Burkina, but the food is of high quality, and the fact that it's called McDonalds makes it appealing based solely on the fact that it reminds us of something we know. And they even have hamburgers! I'll try to get my hands on some pictures soon. Not of McDonalds, but of the south in general. And of my trip to the cascades and domes. What the Banfora area is really known for is the Cascades and the Domes. They're about a 15k bike ride through the sugar cane from Banfora, in a village called Karfiguela. One of my PCV friends lives there actually. Yeah, it's no big deal, she just lives at the site with the waterfalls and giant billions of years old dome rock formations; some of the only tourist attractions worth seeing in Burkina.

Enough about the southlands for the moment. When I steal pictures of it from people, I'll post them.

I got back from Banfora/Bobo/Paradise and was in village for a bit over a week and then I had to come to Ouaga to do a training session called "Coaching for Hope". I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but it's an 8 day workshop run by a British NGO and Burkinabe soccer coaches, that combines HIV/AIDS education and workshops with soccer training. It was great; probably the best training I've done here so far. There were a total of 9 of us PCVs doing the formation, and each person got to bring 2 counterparts from village to train. There were also non-peace corps related soccer players and coaches from Ouaga doing the training, including some really awesome girl soccer players who said that if there were a national girls soccer team, they'd be on it. One of the coaches running the formation was an ex-member of the Burkina national soccer team as well. I don't have a real soccer team yet in my village (just people that play everyday) so I got the coach of the girls team from Ouahigouya to come, and then took the only member of my Bissighin "team" that speaks French with me as well. We spent every morning playing soccer, doing drills, learning how to be good coaches, etc. Then every afternoon was spent doing a different HIV/AIDS workshop, followed by an integrated session on the field where we combined the info from the workshop with soccer drills and games that could help the kids visualize and conceptualize the information. Man, it was so so cool. The energy level was so high all week, with clapping and singing and cheers after every goal or good pass or whatever. Plus all of our counterparts got nice new soccer uniforms (pictured) that they all wore for every single day of the 8 day formation. And we got to play on the nice grass field at the International School in Ouaga, so it was pretty fancy. Everyone was just in such good spirits all week, and you could see how excited they all were, not only about the soccer, but about the possibility of teaching the kids about HIV/AIDS as well. So now I've got trained people to work with in village. Our plan is to create a youth girls team, a youth boys team, and a seniors team, and do the workshop with all of them. I think it has the potential to be a life changing, educational, and self-confidence boosting experience for all involved. YEAH. I'm excited to get started on the project after the rainy season.

This will be short, but i promise a blog with pictures in the very near future.

I just rode my bike through a lake to get here. No joke, my road turns into an actual lake when it rains. I'm not complaining though, I would rather ride through a lake then embody one with my sweat. How does one ride through a lake, you may ask? Well, fine, I waited till the water went down some, mostly cause my villagers wouldnt let me go cause they knew i wouldn't be able to make it, but it was still up to my thighs by the time i left, and i pushed my bike through the parts of the road that were really deep under water. We get these crazy wind storms before it rains too. It's awesome, because you can clearly see the storm coming before it happens. The sky turns this dark reddish brown color in whatever direction the winds are coming from. Then literally, in a matter of seconds, and a sweeping first wind, the air turns from being incredibly hot to almost a bit chilly. The change is so evident, you can feel it going through your body. Everyone scurries to get inside and get all their things inside. And then it starts. Winds that bring dust and sand that keep you from seeing 2 feet in front of you. I did make the mistake of trying to bike in a dust storm once, and I will never ever do that again. I think i swallowed at least 3 big buckets worth of sand, and I had to get picked up by a camion eventually. It took me about 45 minutes to go the distance it usually takes me 5 minutes to go. I was the only one outside too, which I should have taken as a sign not to go, but I'm stubborn and thought I could outsmart nature. It was kind of cool though (after the fact), cause i felt like I was in the middle of the desert with no one to be seen for miles, which felt like a movie, which made me feel like a movie star. Wait, that IS what happened (minus the movie part). The wind storms remind me of snow storms in a way though, cause the sky is all stormy, but it's not so menacing, and everyone is inside hanging out together and cozy. You have to get inside whatever the nearest house is, so many people have ended up waiting out these storms in my house, gathered around my candles. It's cozy like a snow storm.

In non weather related news, things have continued to be productive, which is very encouraging. A couple weeks ago, I did a week long tour of HIV/AIDS sensibilisations with the the 4 villagers who had previously attended the HIV/AIDS training of trainers with me (back in february). We talked with groups of women in my village and in my 3 satellite villages about HIV/AIDS, modes of transmission, modes of prevention, testing, stigmatisation, etc. We did condom demonstrations as well, and I would say the majority of the people in the groups we talked to had heard of HIV/AIDS but had no idea what it was. They had never seen a condom before either, which made doing the demonstrations a hoot. Every single group we talked to though sincerely thanked us for holding a discussion about it, and said they want to have many more discussions in the future about health topics. This was the most encouraging, because not only do I think they retained the information, but they really appreciated learning about it, and will hopefully make positive changes in their lives. The best part was that the information wasnt coming from me, it was coming straight from the villagers we had previously trained. I was really only there to facilitate and to help answer questions.

I'm in Ouahigouya for the night, and then tomorrow I'll be traveling down to the South of Burkina to Bobo and Banfora for July 4! I'm really excited because I have yet to go past Ouaga, and the south is supposedly greener and cooler than the north. There are also waterfalls in Banfora, which next to Fespaco are probably the second highest attraction of tourists in Burkina. I was also just in Ouaga a couple weekends ago for the soccer game of Burkina vs. Cote d'Ivoire, but just as we were all getting there, we got a message that all volunteers were banned from attending the game for fear of riots breaking out. It was disappointing, but since almost all the volunteers in Burkina had the intention of going to the game and were thus in Ouaga, we still had a great time, and went and watched at a sports bar type thing. Burkina didn't win, but they played really well, and there was much Burkina patriotism and love felt throughout all of Ouaga. Enough to send chills through the spine.

Ok, off to see about getting something made at the carpenter.

I've never really thought of myself as an overly cautious person. I suppose I was raised in a family where one is taught to approach life with caution in mind, and I have parents (or at least a mother) who ranks somewhere between very cautious and over-protective on the SPFC (Scale of Parental Figure Cautionality). But still, I was a gymnast, that requires some risk taking, right? It's not a full contact sport, but it's dangerous enough. I like to climb tall things and jump off of stuff and so on and so forth, which I think in many people's minds constitues as taking a risk. But being a volunteer requires taking the kind of risk that I'm not accustomed to taking. It requires trying to pioneer programs, or teach people things with an extremely low expectancy of success and sustainability. I guess the nature of any risk is that there's a good chance of failure. Or maybe it's just that if you do happen to fail, the result would be disaster. In any case, the risks I now have to force myself to take in order to have any level of success in helping my village are not risks I'm used to having to take. The type of risk I have to take is trusting myself to be doing things that will sustainably help my community. There is no one here with me; no one to monitor me, or tell me if I'm doing things right. I have to put complete trust in myself and in my technical knowledge whatever that is, without anyone to check me if I mess up. And the hardest thing is that if I want to get anything done at all, the only way to do it is to jump in head first. No hesitations. Nobody is going to tell me what projects to do, and nobody but myself is going to get them going. It doesn't really matter if I'm not fully confident before I start that it'll turn out with the results I want, I have to do it anyway. And that's what makes it the riskiest business I have ever engaged in. I felt like I was taking a big risk last week in this way, when I held my first technical training session with people in my village (except for how to make enriched pooridge, which is just like a cooking/nutrition lesson). It was on how to make an "improved cookstove", "foyer ameliore", or "ragande", in english, french, and moore respectively. Normally, in any village courtyard, food is cooked by lighting a fire under a pot which rests on three big rocks. This makes it very hard to control the temperature of the pot, and it also wastes a lot of wood because much of the heat escapes from the open fire. The point of the mud stove is that it makes wood burning way more efficient, by surrounding the pot on all sides, not letting as much heat escape, and thus saving the women a lot of time spent looking for wood, or money spent buying it. It also protects the food better than the normal way of cooking just over an open fire, and it makes it impossible for the pot to turn over. If you want more detailed information on how to make them, or why they are important, see Gwen's blog about it from our training at: http://gwendolyninfaroffplaces.blogspot.com/2008/12/mud-stoves.html.

When I did needs assessments during my first couple months at site, one of the things the women said was that there's never enough wood to cook with, and that it takes up way too much of their time to have to go searching for it. So naturally, the first thing that came to mind, was that mud stoves would be an excellent, free, and sustainable way to ameliorate this problem, which is why I decided to hold the training session on how to make them. It took me a while to get to the point where I was comfortable doing it though. I had been trained on how to make the stove, but I had only done it once before, and it had been way back in November, so I wasn't sure if I remembered exactly how to do it. It's not an extremely complicated process, but it's very specific, and certainly not innate, and I had a lot of fears about making mistakes, and having it not turn out right. I had a handout explaining it, but even with that, I wasn't fully confident that it would turn out right, or that I could express the technicalities of making the stove in french and moore. In short, I knew I wanted to do the training, but I was really nervous about getting it started. I didn't know how I was going to go about getting all the materials I needed, who would help me do the training in Moore, or even how I would find a group of women interested in taking time out of their day to participate. But as soon as I decided that the only way things were ever going to get done was if I lost the fear of failure and just did it anyway, everything seemed to fall into place. It was much easier than I thought it would be to find an interested group of women and to gather all the materials.

I stopped by the courtyard of one of the women who helps me make enriched pooridge every friday, Ramata (in the yellow shirt in the picture to the left), and I told her I wanted to make a foyer ameliore at the CSPS to make things easier for her when she makes the bouillie. Also, having a foyer at the CSPS is a good example for evreyone who passes by to see how it works and why they should build one in their own courtyard. She was immediately on board, and told me that she wanted one in her own courtyard too. I said, good, then you can help me organize a training session on how to make one! Ramata is one of two women in my village that I know speaks enough french to help me translate into moore, so I decided that I would teach her how to make one first and do it at the CSPS, and then we could hold the training session together in her courtyard. This way, she would have already made a foyer, and could help me to explain it to those who would attend the training session. I asked her if she could find a group of about 10 women that would like to learn how to make the stove, and told her what materials I needed them to gather before the training session would take place. She happily obliged to find the group to train, and we chose a date for the training. It's actually a two part training; in the first part, the women learn to make the banco, or the mud mixture specific to building the stoves, and once the banco has time to dry, the actual construction of the stoves takes place a week later. So I showed Ramata how to make the banco last thursday, and then we held the first of the trainings last tuesday with a group of 12 women.

They were all really excited and I think they especially enjoyed watching me get dirty as I helped them mix the mud and stomp all over it. Ramata and I then made the mud stove at the CSPS last thursday, and a bunch of other women ended up stopping by to help us out which was nice. It turned out...ok...maybe a bit lopsided, and it started to rain when we weren't quite finished so we really had to rush at the end, but I think it's going to be functional so that's all that matters. Somehow every single person in the village seems to have found out that I am doing this mud stove training, and now every woman I see says, "when are you going to come show me how to do it!?" I'm really glad that everyone is so excited about the mud stoves because it's something that doesn't cost any money, and the time it takes to make one is absolutely worth the time and money it will save people in the long run. I guess the point is that if I am hesitant to get a project going, I just have to remember that it's always worth risking that things will not end up exactly how I imagine them, because if I hesitate to start projects, or never start them at all because of fear of failure, that would be an even bigger failure than not trying at all.

In terms of other work I'm doing currently, I started a savings and credit club with a group of women. There are 14 women in the group, and each week, each of them will put 25 cfa (5 cents) into a box. Right now 25 cfa per week is all people can afford to put in, but hopefully after the rainy season when there's a bit more money, we can up it to 50 cfa. Eventually, the money will add up, and the women can start taking out loans from the group. For example, if one of them wants to start a small enterprise of sorts, like making soap and selling it, she can go to the group and ask for a loan of how ever much she needs to buy the materials. She then has a certain period of time (this group decided on a month) to pay the money back to the group after she has made money off of her soap. My group decided that any time money is borrowed from the group, it will have to be for some sort of income generating activity, so that they'll be able to pay the money back, with the exception of someone needing money for a medical emergency. They voted on the President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Guardian of the Box (no one wanted to do this because no one wanted to be responsible for the money), and Guardian of the Key (separate from guardian of the box so that the guardian of the box can't open it). I think the women, who haven't ever been a part of an official type group or club, are really getting a kick out of having meetings and participating with their roles.

This week was also a polio vaccination campaign, where every single kid 0-5 in the village has to be vaccinated, so you have to go around to every single quartier and make sure everyone gets the vaccine. As each kid gets vaccinated, you mark their finger with a very very permanent marker which is now all over my own hands because of the insane squirming they do to avoid said marker because apparently markers are scary. The vaccine isn't a shot, which is nice; it's two drops in the mouth of every kid, so that makes it a bit easier to vaccinate all the kids. During the campaign, you have to start at 4:30 AM every day though because by 8 AM it starts to get way too hot for the vaccine to stay cold even in the coolers we carry around, plus people start going to the fields and then you miss kids. It's supposed to be only for kids up to 5 years, as I said, but since no one really knows their age, this is pretty flexible. Let's just say there are some pretty giant "4" year olds, some as tall as me, in my village.

Last night was a big tam tam fete in my village. It's a big traditional dance that basically passes throughout the village and picks people up as it goes along. People playing the tam tams are in the back of the growing lines of people all doing the dance which can best be explained as bobbing their heads and waving a piece of cloth in front of them in their rows. The rows grow and grow as more people join. I still don't really know the reason for it, or why it happened yesterday, but in any case, it was a good time. I took some videos of it which maybe I'll try to post next time I go to ouaga.

In any case, here's one random picture from my courtyard this week (my time is rapidly running out otherwise I'd add more). This is Sapoca, age 4

"Ilana! stop doing your laundry! can't you see the winds are starting? the rains are coming! quick, get everything inside!"

Well, unfortunately, even with the help of about 30 frantic burkinabe in my courtyard, i didn't get everything inside, and all my hard work on my laundry for the past 3 hours went to waste, but it really didn't matter. It rained!!!!

Two days before it actually rained, there was some far off thunder and lightning, and i thought the sky looked a bit menacing, plus it was getting windy, so i expected the rain to come then. I was at the pump getting water, and my little solar panel i use to charge my phone was outside at my house, so i ran home to make sure i got it inside before it started to rain. Everyone who was at the pump looked at me like i was crazy. "What are you running about for, Ilana? It's not going to rain yet!" "Yes it is! I don't want my stuff to get ruined!" Laughter ensues. "It's not going to rain for another couple days. Wait, you'll see." I was sure it was going to rain any second. I waited. It'll start raining any second now...

No. never came.

Fastforward to two days later, terrential downpour, just like everyone had said. Right on the dot. Guess i just don't have an inner guage for the schedule of the rains as precise as my Burkinabe neighbors. On the day that it actually rained, i was apparently completely oblivious to it until it pretty much slapped me in the face. It was miserably hot as always, and i had spent the entire day dripping sweat all over my laundry, which is somewhat counterproductive, but what can you do.

As soon as it started to rain, everything instantly cooled off. I've never been more excited by a simple act of nature. All the women ran to get inside their houses and yelled for me to do the same. Aren't you afraid of the rain? You have to get inside. NOW. NO!!!! I love the rain!!! The kids saw that i was staying outside, so they stayed outside too. Then the dancing began. We jumped, we clapped our hands, we did the maceraina. The kids were squeeling with joy and we were all laughing so hard, the parents started braving the rain to come out to see what was happening. Everywhere i went, the kids followed me. I went into my courtyard, they all came too. I went out, they ran after me. We slipped and slid everywhere. It was muddy, but the mud didn't last long on our clothes cause it was raining so hard that it all just got washed off in an instant. After a while, the younger kids started looking really cold. They were shivering, but they refused to go inside. I started picking them up, one by one, and carrying them to their respective houses so that they could go dry off. They didn't mind going inside if it meant that I would carry them there. Every time i made a kid delivery, their moms would crack up, accept the kid, and immediately strip them down. The whole village looked different wet, and it was remarkable.

The rain floods the roads and makes it really hard to ride my bike anywhere, but I really don't mind. I'll trade barely traversible roads for a bit of cool air any day. Now, though, the day after the rain, it's back to being really hot, but the brief hiatus was well appreciated. I've always loved a good thunderstorm, but never as much as I do now. It's still not actually rainy season, but I eagerly await its arrival.

don't ever try sleeping in a lake. especially of your sweat. it's really not that comfortable. it's hot season. most definitely. i'm pretty sure we're averaging something like 110 degrees in my area every day, and though every part of me wishes this was an exaggeration, it's not. and apparently we're on the upswing and it's only going to get hotter until june when the rains start to come. ooh, actually, i have to go, but i'll give a better update on my life soon. well, this was a pretty good update, cause right now, my life consists of sweating until i become the definition of a standing body of water.

Heyy. Yes, yes, it's been a while, but don't fret, things have been good here, i've just been busy with finishing up my etude de milieu in village, and then going through my in-service training for the last three weeks. So I'll just give a QUICK re-count of my life since the last time I've posted:

Well, let's see. If we go back to the end of February, i traveled up to Djibo, a town farther north of me, in the Sahel, for an HIV/AIDS training of trainers with four of my villagers. We worked with the "action sociale" in Djibo to hold a workshop (in Moore, Fulfulde, and French) on HIV/AIDS, and how to teach others in the village about it. It was really good, but definitely hard at times, because none of the people i brought as my counterparts from my village were literate, so it made taking notes very difficult for them. Honestly though, i think they learned a lot, and now hopefully we'll all be able to work together back in village. I was hoping that Djibo would look drastically different than the beautifully dry and dusty Ouahigouya, but, the only major differences I saw were that there is an abundance of sand that's difficult to bike through, and the occasional camel. Oh, and the people speak Fulfude instead of Moore.

On to the beginning of March. I took another trip, this time to Ouaga, for FESPACO. Don't ask me what FESPACO stands for. I don't know. I can tell you though that it's a big pan-african film festival, the biggest in africa actually, which is probably the only thing tourists voluntarily come to Burkina Faso for unless they just happen to be strolling through on their way to Ghana or Mali. It only happens once every two years, so pretty much every volunteer in the country, plus those in surrounding countries came to Ouaga for it. I'm not sure how film festivals usually work, but there didn't seem to be any sort of program that gave descriptions of the films, so it was basically a "guess what the movie would be about/what language it would be in by the title and country of origin" game. Yea, i didn't play that game too well, but it's ok. I did see one movie in Moore with French subtitles, which was cool just because it was in my local language, but it felt a little bit like i was just living my every day life in two dimensions. My transport back to village from FESPACO was a bit comical because my bike didn't come back on the same bus as me due to a lack of any free space whatsoever on that bus. SO, the bus company said they'd put it on the next bus and it'd meet me in Ouahigouya, which was no big deal. Erik, Josh (who doesn't live near us but was traveling with us), and I putzed around OHG for a few hours waiting for the next bus to come in, only to find that they had absolutely not put our bikes on that bus at all. Of course. They assured us though, that they'd definitely be in the next day at some point. Good good, that was helpful. It was starting to get dark, so we had a quick group meeting and decided that the best thing to do would be to walk to my village since it's the closest to OHG and none of us had enough money with us for a hotel. We started walking, and every single Burkinabe who saw us had the exact same reaction to our lack of bicycles. They would stop, be utterly shocked and appalled at the fact that we were walking and not riding a bike, and then hop off their own moto or bike and insist upon accompanying us all the way to our destination. Inevitably, after roughly 40 steps of walking with us, they'd say "uhh well, i'm going to get going now, uhh bon courage!" I guess we fatigued them. The way back into OHG the next morning would have been a bit more miserable, seeing as the sun was shining at full force; however, a camion saw us walking when we were about halfway there and offered to pick us up. We accepted.

After FESPACO i only had about 2 weeks in village to finish up my « etude de milieu » and do some more integrating into my community, before heading off again for my 3 week in-service training, which i’m just finishing up right now. I’m heading back to village tomorrow, which i’m very excited about, and i’m also hoping that my near month long absence hasn’t set me back in the integration process. Before i left though, things were going really well in terms of feeling like part of the community. I started playing soccer with the boys who play everyday in an attempt to show them that girls can actually do sports (i may be doing more harm than good with my sub-par soccer skills, but i try). Instead of just staring at me like i’m a fascinating modern art exhibit, the kids actually come in and talk to me now. Granted, i don’t always know exactly what they’re saying, but usually i can figure it out based on their karate kicks, their sound effects, or their vigorous pointing in one direction or another. Now, every night, the women in my courtyard call me out to their nightly chat/gossip sessions, which again, is all in Moore, but we’re getting to be pretty good at understanding each other with my limited Moore, and their even more limited French. I’ve taught the kids in my courtyard how to dance like an american. Or wait, how to dance like I do, so maybe not really like an american, more like a spastic monkey, but i did show them the maccareana, so that should count for something. Right before I left, there was some crazy man (a fou) walking around my village, not really doing anything bad, just being generally crazy, but he wasn’t from my village, so all the little kids were afraid of him. My favorite little six year old brother, Saba (yes, like what I call my grandfather), came running to my door, saying « ILANA !! QUICK LET ME IN, HE’S COMING, HE’S COMING , I’M SCARED ! » So i let him into my courtyard, and he sat with me while i washed my underwear (which is why my courtyard door was closed in the first place), avoiding the scary man (but really occasionally excitedly getting up and looking through the holes in my courtyard door to see if he was out there). It was nice to know that he thought i could protect him.

Oh, also, as a reward for losing my phone so many times, and then having to buy a new one on more than one occasion, my phone company (ZAIN) gave me a bunch of gifts, including a couple ZAIN pagnes, out of which i had matching dress/shirt outfits made for me and Erik. Below is the result (please try to ignore the insane t-shirt tan lines):

I love food. We all know that. But here, food has become the bane of my existence. The reasons are manifold and as follows:

Reason #1: I never learned how to cook for myself. I lived at home (thanks mommy), then I went to college (thanks meal plan/Rita/theta), and every summer I was at camp (thanks Mic/CCC kitchen staff). All this means that I've never HAD to cook for myself because my whole life so far, I've had some way or another of nourishing myself without a bother as to how the food got to my plate. Now, I've been desperately trying to figure it out with severely limited options as to the ingredients I have available. Let's take an example. The other week I decided I wanted to try to cook some rice. I looked in the peace corps Burkina Faso cook book for tips as to what I could make and found a recipe for some curry type thing that kind of matched what I had to work with, but not exactly. I started off great by sifting through the rice for rocks like you are supposed to, then washing it until all the bugs stopped floating to the top. I felt, at this point, that I was on top of it. I owned this rice. Then I sautéed my onions, green peppers, and garlic in blue band (butter/Crisco) and set them aside, just like the recipe said. Then things got crazy. I didn't have any of the right spices, or any flour, so I figured I could substitute a chicken consommé cube that my grandmother had sent me for the flavor. I boiled some water and put the cube in. Now here's the part I don't think I can justify, because I have no idea what was going through my head, and in fact, remember thinking at the time, "this is a bad idea", but i did it anyway. I put the vegetables I had sautéed into the chicken consommé water, along with spoonfuls of powdered milk. Chicken soup milk...Whyyyy??? I hate milk; always have; why would I ever think that was a good idea. The vegetables just kind of got soggy in the chicken soup milk. I thought maybe the "sauce" would thicken or something if I kept it on the heat. I thought water would boil out of it. Ugh who knows. My mother tells me that apparently it's the flour that makes stuff like this into an actual sauce and not disgusting chicken soup milk with soggy vegetables. I had no choice but to eat it, because I was in desperate need of nutrients and I couldn't waste all that good food. Turns out the rice owned me.

Reason #2: Seasonality. Sure, in the U.S. you hear that maybe watermelons aren't "in season" right now, but all this really means is that the price goes up a little bit. You can still find them in any grocery store you go into. I have no idea when strawberry season or artichoke season is, because I never had to know. But here, seasons for foods are painfully obvious. I would love to have a nice juicy mango right now, but I'm told I have to wait until April, which I really don't want to will to come because it's also the hot season. Just the other day I started noticing that there was an abundance of potatoes all over the marche though. Guess it's potato season.

Reason #3: There's barely any food in my village. We don't have a market like most villages, I think because I'm so close to ouahigouya. I mean, biking the 7 or so Kilometers to the marche is not what's annoying; it's transporting the vegetables back to village which poses the problem. I strap them onto my bike and it's fine, but there are certain things I cannot physically transport without ruining them, like eggs. Eggs are just sold straight up, without any sort of protection, so unless someone sends me an egg carrier from the U.S., I can't have any eggs at site.

Of course, you can never have a list of cons without an adjoining list of pros:

Tea time: Taking tea here is not to be confused with "having a cup of tea" or "quickly getting a cup of something hot from starbucks or some other chain like it to-go and then rushing off to continue the day of running around like a crazy person". NO NO. Here, it is a process; one that takes no less than 2 hours; sometimes 4 or 5. You may be asking yourself, how can one possibly or even phycsically drink tea for so long. Let me assure you that it is possible. It's made outside (as everything is) over a little fire in a tiny teapot about the size of a large fist. It's made straight from the leaves (ok well its not really leaves but i dont know what it is, so for lack of a better word), so you fill the tiny teapot with water, put in the leaves, and wait til it starts to boil over. Then you pour it all into a cup, then back into the pot. Repeat many many times. Then, when all the leaves are on the bottom and don't escape into the cup when you pour it out, you pour the tea back and forth between the teapot and the cup very quickly, several times, adding a ton of sugar while you do it. This makes the tea frothy and cools it down a bit. It's then poured into shot glasses and distributed to anyone and everyone who happens to be around. If there are peanuts, you place them in the shot glass with the tea, and drink the whole thing together like a shot. Or you sip it. The whole process is ongoing and continues on for hours. In-between waiting for your shots of tea, you chat, play cards, sit and think about life--whatever.

Free food: People are insanely generous with their food, and, as I've mentioned previously, if you happen to be at or around someone's house during a meal time, they'll make you eat their food. Subsequently, I avoid going over to my neighbor's houses during meal times because I don't really like to (pronounced "toe"), the only thing people really eat, which is like a millet/water combination that's roughly a play dough consistency. I do, however, sometimes stay at my major's house or my accoucheuse's house for lunch because they make delicious rice, green beans, etc. Even people you don't know will offer you their food if you pass by them while they're eating. "Vous etes invitees" is a very common phrase, though I don't think they really expect you to take it. The proper response to that is "Merci, bon appetite". I've noticed though, that on public transportation, people are really forceful with trying to get you to eat. I've mentioned before how any time the vehicle stops, people crowd the windows selling bread, peanuts, little fried dough-like things called gateau (not really cake though), and so on. Any time people sitting next to me (strangers) buy these things; which is pretty much always, they offer me some, to which I always politely decline. But it doesn't stop there. They don't accept my declination and continue to shove the food in my face, to which I reply, "no really, I'm not hungry, but thank you". They inevitably say "I'm not hungry either, but I'm eating. Il faut enlever, il faut manger." YOU MUST TAKE IT, YOU MUST EAT. I hear it so often. Never before have I been bullied into taking someone's food. And so often. People also just sometimes bring me food for no reason. Last Thursday night one woman just strolled on by with some potatoes for me, and another gave me benga (beans and rice). I don't know the science of when and why this happens, but it's nice when it does! And then of course there's the fact that for every occasion; weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc., everyone who goes gets served food. These are not occasions that you have to be invited to either. It's assumed that if you are in the vicinity as it is happening, that you will go, and you will eat.

Gifts of food: I suppose this really could fit into the "free food" category, but it's a little different. Food is probably the most common thing given as a gift to people. Just recently, I enjoyed a delicious meal of the two chickens that had been given to me by the elders of my courtyard. I kept them alive in my courtyard for a few days before eating them, but I didn't really have any idea of how to take care of them, and they were extremely loud in the mornings, waking me up at 4:00 with their cock-a-doodle doos. Seriously, they were so loud I thought they were in my room with me, in my TENT with me, screaming their little wake up songs directly into my ear. They had to go. SO, I took them down to the CSPS, found an old man there to kill them, watched him chop their heads off, and then gave them to my major and my accoucheuse to prepare. One was grilled, the other boiled and served over spaghetti. My favorite part is that when you throw the parts that you don't want to eat on the ground, like the bones and the fat, the other chickens wandering around the courtyard who are lucky to still be alive come and gobble up whatever you drop. Stupid cannibal chickens. Little do they know they're eating their best friend and they're probably next.

Before the pictures, a couple things i've accomplished this week:

1. learned the moore for "i fell". I fell off my bike at the pump, in front of a lot of people. I didnt get hurt, but a lot of people laughed at me, and i lost the whole bidon of water i had just pumped as a casualty of the fall. I of course, was laughing harder than any of them, and when i got up, i gave everyone who was staring at me the two thumbs up sign to let them know i was ok, which they all promptly imitated back at me. For the whole week now, people have been telling me, "ilana! i heard you fell!". News travels at an incredibly fast rate.

2.realized that i can, if absolutely necessary, get myself unlost from deep in the bush. i went for a run and tried to take a route through the bush, where no one really lives at all, and since there's no way of having landmarks when the terrain has no direction, and there's no one to see for miles and miles, it's apparently quite easy to lose the road completely. i eventually got myself out of the brush and back onto a main road and then asked people who i saw how to get back to bissighin from there. it's commonly said that if you have a mouth in burkina, you can't get lost, cause you just ask people along the way if you are going in the right direction, but i guess this doesnt hold true if there is no one around for your mouth to talk to. luckily i got out of being en brusse right before it got really dark. i guess i'll take the bigger road when i run from now on.

Ok, here are a couple pictures from the huge, week long "man gets back from mecca" party in my village (actually in my quartier):

Disclaimer: i did not take these pictures, a girl in my village insisted upon taking them, so they are of whatever she thought was important to take pictures of. I think she did a fine job though. The first one is of people praying. There are, i believe 6 times per day when people are called to prayer. The call to prayer every morning at about 4:30 or 5:00 is the best. i can hear it very clearly from my warm cozy piece of foam. In all seriousness, i have actually begun to find the call to prayer quite comforting.

This picture on the right is of the school boys who sang as the mecca man made his grand entrance back into the village; although i think at this point they are in the midst of a procession accompanying him to the courtyard (my courtyard!)

The next two are pictures of the traditional dancing that happens all day during fetes like this one. I usually try to dance for an hour or so, but the rest of the women dance all day and night, taking short breaks for food occasionally. As i think i've mentioned before, for special events like weddings, funerals, or any big party, people get uniforms made out of the same pagne fabric. Everyone buys their fabric and then the tailor makes it into whatever they want out of it. I was just given a pagne to wear during this one because i didnt get fabric in time for the tailor to make anything out of it. Below; you can see the entrance to my quartier, which is called Ronsin, if you look straight back, behind all the people, to where that tree is.

From Zogore AIDS Day:

As i mentioned in a previous blog, I went to a friend's village one weekend to help him out with a big HIV/AIDS sensibilization and awareness day. The following are a few pictures from that weekend.

Below you can see the women getting ready for the all womens bike race held to kick off the day. This was pretty funny, as the bikes dont really have breaks, so as soon as the race started and they took off, many of them crashed into each other and fell. I'm allowed to say it was funny cause no one got hurt; they all laughed, got up, and kept going.

One of the dance troups (there were 6 there) doing a cool triple person move.

Aaron giving his discourse on HIV/AIDS (...written by ilana) and welcoming everyone to the day. He wore his nicest boubou for the special occasion.

The boys soccer teams from zogore and a different village nearby getting ready to play their match. I think the team in the green shirts and pink shorts won. These teams are really lucky that they have uniforms and a real ball. The kids play soccer in my village with rolled up cloth and they make the goal posts by putting large sticks in the ground opposite each other and tying a piece of string between them. It works pretty well, but still, i'm sure they'd love to have a real ball to play with.

The winners of the womens' bike race pose for a picture with the Haut Comissaire of the Yatenga Province.

These are all the pictures i have time to post right now (it takes for ev er on this computer), but hopefully i'll have more soon.

To start off with, here are a few pictures of my house. My house consists of 2 rooms, but the second room is too dark to take any pictures of and really only consists of my mattress on the floor.

This picture here is my attempt at the aerial view of the inside of the main room. It functions as my kitchen/dining room/living room. In the back, you can see my countertop with my 2 burner stove powered by a propane tank, where i attempt to cook all of my not so delicious food. The lit pico (cot) against the left wall is where i hang out and read at night before i enter my dungeon room and go to bed. The table in the foreground is where i eat/write/read/study, etc.

Here you can see a close up of my kitchen. My favorite part of the countertop that I had made is the 2 holes cut out in the top to fit a set of bowls that act as makeshift sinks. While most people have to do dishes on the ground outside, which can get messy, i can do it standing up right in my house! (if you happen to have looked at Eriks blog, yes, his house is strikingly similar to mine as we went shopping for all of our stuff together). i use the bottom shelf for some food items, though i keep most of my food in a trunk to the right of this countertop to keep bugs from getting into it. i also use it as a shelf for my dishes. Underneath, you can see the bookshelf i tried to make out of a box. For now it works well, but maybe ill go back to the carpenter eventually and have him make me a real bookshelf.

Half of my courtyard. The big purple bin is where i keep my water, and the yellow thing is what i take to the pump and back. I strap it onto the back of my bike.If i had taken this picture from underneath the hangar, you would have seen the uncovered half of my courtyard, at the end of which is my latrine/shower room where i take bucket baths.

Here is a view of my house from the entrance of my courtyard.

OK. Now for the true cogitations of the day:

I know I haven't written a blog in a while; I've felt a bit like whatever I write won't really express what I'm feeling or explain what I'm doing. That's not to say that what I'm doing is too important or "different" to explain, but it's just that I'm not sure I'm capable of any sort of true explanation. In the past month, I've had what can only be described as a tornado of feelings that make me feel like I've done nothing, yet so much has happened at the same time. The concept of time here doesn't exist in nearly the same way as it does in the United States, which is partly to blame for my confused state of mind. People kind of just tell roughly what time it is, or how many hours have gone by based on where the sun is or how hot it is at the time. Time seems to simply evaporate. I realize it's an abstract concept in the U.S. as well; that you can't physically grasp at time and have it respond back with any type of force, but here, it really seems to be a strange phenomenon. It's much more fluid and constant, a quality that I'm finding can be both the most freeing thing in the world and simultaneously the most frustrating. It's hard to have a gauge of accomplishment without a sense of time, yet you never feel like you're wasting it because it's not there to waste. For about a week, my clock on my phone was set a full hour ahead of the normal time, but i didnt even notice until my accoucheuse pointed out the difference between my clock and hers. I had even had meetings scheduled for specific times, but when people are typically 2 or 3 hours late for meetings or events anyway, it just really wouldnt have crossed my mind that maybe my clock was wrong. i cant imagine ever not noticing being a full hour off of everyone else in the U.S., but here, i went a full week functioning completely normally an hour ahead of the rest of my country.

I can't really come to any concrete conclusions, therefore, about how my etude de milieu has been going in the American/Business/Get Things Done type sense. In some ways I feel like I, myself have an outside perspective of it. Don't ask me who has the insider's point of view. Maybe it's the people in my village I interact with everyday. They could probably tell you best how well I'm integrating, and whether or not anything I've done so far has been effective, but unfortunately, they can't come here and type this out for me, and even if they could, it would be in Moore.

So what have I been doing then? Good question. I don't really have a "typical day" in village at this point. I'm at the CSPS for at least part of the day every day, but what I do there varies depending on the day as well. Every Friday, for instance, I do baby weighings, to make sure that babies are gaining weight. The mothers all bring their babies, we weigh them, and then I look at the age/weight chart and tell the mothers whether or not the baby is where they are supposed to be for their age. The other morning, my major came by my house at 7 AM and told me I was late. What I was late for, I had no idea...no one had told me I needed to be anywhere or do anything. As it turns out, he had scheduled me to perform an enriched pooridge demonstration in one of our satellite villages. So I got dressed as fast as I could and biked even faster to Komsiliga, a village luckily not too far from mine; probably 6K or so. I got there and my major was already there waiting for me (since he has a moto, he can go much faster than me on my bike). He showed me the materials for the bouillie (pooridge) and said "you know how to do it, right?" "uhhh huhhh, yes yes, sure". I mean, I do know how to make the bouillie, but I didn't necessarily know how to do it with the ingredients that he happened to have obtained. I figured we could make it work. I gave the demonstration, explaining how to make the bouillie to a group of women gathered around, as one of the women in the village carried out the procedure in a giant pot (picture witches brew). All the women who came brought their own little pots to put their portion into, so at the end of the demo, we split up the bouillie between everyone. During the demonstration of how to make it, I also talked about why it was important to use ingredients other than millet in cooking, the importance of vitamins, protein, blah blah blah. I actually think it went fairly well, but until I was in the midst of doing it, I had no idea what I was going to do or say, really. And so it goes. It seems right now that it's hard to get the things I (read in italics and bold) want to get done accomplished because I have to rely on other people to do anything, because of my lack of Moore speaking abilities. Though I'm learning, and I can have conversations about a limited number of topics, I'm nowhere near good enough to lead meetings with people on my own. For instance, there's apparently a women's soap making group in my village that I've been trying to meet with; however, all I can do is keep asking when I can meet with them, and expressing interest, until someone else sets up the meeting, because I don't know where to start at this point to organize a meeting with them and then conduct said meeting. Hopefully things like this will get easier as I get to know more people better in my village, and as my language skills improve, but for now, it stands as one of the more frustrating aspects. I don't like not being completely self-sufficient.

Besides what can be labeled loosely as "work" I spend a lot of time just doing things necessary for survival, and generally conversing with people. Pumping water, for instance, takes much more time than one might think, but is also one of the best integration tools I've found. The water pumps are very social places, and it is there that I can meet/spend time with women from all over the village, and make myself a visible force. I've also started going for runs in village, which has been comical to say the least. I inevitably end up with a gang of 50 kids running along with me, though I lose them for the majority of the run, which is on the outskirts of my village. As soon as I make it back to the heart of the village though, the same kids who started out chasing me are waiting for me, and join me for the grand finish. The first day I ran, i got back to my courtyard, and one of the women asked me "Can you run really really fast!!?" "OF COURSE". "SHOW US!!" "OK!" My competitive spirit cannot be shattered, and I sprinted for her, causing a tremendous uproar of laughter from everyone watching, followed shortly by everyone and their mom wanting to race me. So I ran races with everyone separately for about an hour, until I starting losing, and then decided I was tired. Now, every single day, people come to my door asking if I'm going to "manda sporte" today, expecting me to run races with them again and again. OYYYYYYY. WHAT HAVE I DONE????

I just got back last night from a friends village about 35K from mine. I was there helping him with an AIDS day in his village which turned out to be huge! The high commissioner of the Yatenga province came, along with other important Burkinabe people from our region. There was a womens bike race, a soccer game between the two schools that he has in his village, a big dance, and lots of talking about HIV/AIDS. It was awesome. I left on thursday to bike there, and ended up doing the bike ride in the hottest part of the day. I didnt mean to, but the morning i was supposed to leave, i had to do another bouillie demo in a satellite village, so by the time i got back from that it was already about 11. Then i wanted to leave right away, but the elders of the village for some reason decided to come over and give me chickens and then i had to figure out what to do with them since i was going to be leaving for the weekend. They escaped from my courtyard because i stupidly untied them from each other thinking that maybe id give them a break from being bound in shackles, so the kids in my courtyard spent about a half hour chasing them down and brought them back to me. I didnt end up getting to leave my village until about 1300by which time it was the absolute hottest part of the day. I had to get to my friends village though for a meeting in the afternoon, so i left anyway and did about 20 miles in probably 100 degrees. NEVER AGAIN.

"Barbie girl" just came on the radio in this internet cafe.

I feel the explanation of my life is inadequate. I feel like the computer is eating my words. Just come here and I'll show you.

December 26, 2008; Day 1 at site: Leave Ouahigouya at around 11:00. Arrive in Bissighin at around 11:15. Some people have 4 day long journeys to get to their sites. I have a 15 minute drive or a 30 minute bike ride. Tough life. Drive up to CSPS. Seems as if no one is there at first, and I feel a twang of rejection, but we wait outside, and my major finally comes out, and gives me an excited greeting, so I feel better. Major crams in the car, and we drive up a hill to my new house/mud hut. As soon as we stop, people surround the vehicle. I get out and start to help unload the car, but the driver says, no, wait, watch. He opens the back, and kids line up to take stuff in to my house. They fight to grab things, and in a matter of minutes, the car is emptied, all my affairs are in my house, and I've done nothing but stand and watch. The driver helps me set up my gas stove, makes sure my water filter works, changes the locks on the door, and bids me farewell. I stand outside my house for a minute, not really sure what to do, and then decide that I should probably start setting up my house. I enter my house, set down a natte (mat type thing) on the floor, and immediately, 40 or 50 kids swarm in and sit down on it, laughing hysterically. I am stunned. I laugh back at the kids out of confusion and awkwardness. I very quickly discover that nobody really speaks French, and while I thought I was used to this, I realize that in my host family, my older siblings and dad spoke relatively good French, even if my mom didn't, so I had someone to help me translate. There's no one here to help me translate. Good. Since my house is now filled to maximum capacity with people, and there's really no room for me to begin to set things up, I decide to venture out to find water. I have a bidon to use to get water from the pump, and a big basin to fill. I point to the basin, as one woman says "koom" the moore word for water. "Oui, koom dedan" I reply, in a confused mix of French and moore that was an attempt to say, "yes, I'll put water in here". This sparks a tremendous uproar of laughter, in which I have no choice but to join, and I grab the bidon and start walking towards the nearest pump. I'm followed by an army of screaming children, repeating my words "koom dedan, koom dedan!!" We reach the pump. I greet the women at the pump, and they promptly take my bidon from me and start pumping water into it. I try to pump myself, but they only let me do it for about 30 seconds before pushing me out of the way and taking over. When it's full, a kid takes it and carries it on her head back to my house. We repeat this process until my big basin is filled, which takes 3 trips to the pump. I now have water. Yay. I decide I really need to set up my house, so I tackle this next, working around the millions of people who refuse to see the need to get out of my way. I'm too awkward to tell them to move, so I just deal. After spending a disproportionate amount of time trying to set up my mosquito net in my extremely dark bedroom, I'm hungry. Sabba and Savta sent me a kosher beefsteak in the mail that I put in boiling water for 3 minutes and it's done. Don't ask me how this works or why, but I eat it. It's good. I want to take a bucket bath. I tell people this, thinking they'll leave, but they just say ok and wait around. Again, I'm too awkward to force them out. I accept the fact that if they're not going to care if I take a bath while they're there, then I guess I won't. I get dressed and tell people I am going to bed. It's about 7:00. I don't actually want to go to bed, but it's the only sure way I can think to get some privacy. I lock myself into my house and spend the rest of the night writing and reading by candlelight with candles that I've melted into the windowsill because they don't stand up on their own, because my headlamp has no battery and I was too cheap to buy a kerosene lamp or a lantern. Fall asleep at 8:30.

First two weeks at site: integration begins. people continue to enter my house whenever they feel like it. It seems as if a 3 year old has already attached herself to me, as she is brought over to my house for me to calm her down when she is upset. "she wants you," im told. ok thats fine. she's actually quite entertaining. i saluate the "vieux" or old people of my courtyard each morning, and i go to the CSPS to observe and help out. i sit in on some prenatal consults and help with organizing the vaccination campaign. things like that. im not really supposed to be doing much "real work" until after the initial three months of etude de milleu, but meeting people, introducing myself to everyone and explaining why i'm here is actually quite exhausting. i have had meetings with my COGES and with many of the respected elders in my village and surrounding villages. i have yet to meet my own chef du village because he is on vacation, but i'm told i'll meet him soon enough. I do my laundry at the pump; rather, the kids do my laundry. i try to do it, but i get pushed out of the way and told the kids should do it for me. i dont really object; though i help them do it. i almost kill myself the first time i try to start my gas stove, but i quickly learn the correct method for not lighting my whole house on fire. i cook occasionally, but if you go to someone's house here at a meal time, they'll feed you, so i do this often. people tend to bring me vegetables though, so when i am bombarded with copious amounts of tomatoes and green beens, i try to figure out how to cook them so they taste decent. One day, i am given a uniform to wear (for special occasions all the women wear the same pagne) and im taken to a traditional dance. well; i figure out that i should go because everyone is asking me "are you going?". i have no idea what i'm going to, but i say "yes" and just follow people. it turns out to be a bit far away, so the women in my courtyard tell me to get my bike. they are walking, however, so they tell me to "prendre en enfant" who will show me the way. i take a kid with me and we arrive at another village. i'm then taken into someone's random hut and told to go sit in a room by myself. i wait. i have no idea what is going on, but people come in occasionally and greet me excitedly. i am served a traditonal drink of zoom koom (millet,sugar,and water) and then forced to eat a meal of rice mixed with some sort of meat and cabbage. i'm not hungry, and i'm terrible at eating with my hands, but i do it anyway for fear of offending someone. after i'm done eating, i assume its ok to get up and leave the room. i go back outside where there are millions of people. the traditional dance begins and i am shoved into the line of women to dance. i try to follow the moves. i am somewhat successful, but laughed at none the less. eventually, i get tired and thirsty, and there's no water in site, so i find the women i came with and tell them i am going back to the village. they make me prendre another enfant, and i return to my house.

All things considered, i'd say i'm doing pretty well. Aside from this being an incredibly awkward couple of weeks, its been really good to be at site finally and it's getting less awkward every day. i think.

Training is over, and I’m now officially a peace corps volunteer, though we aren’t being affectated to our sites until December 26 because the people at the bureau were afraid that we would be depressed if we were all alone for Christmas/the holidays. So we’re all hanging out in Ouahigouya until we go our separate ways. It’s like the end of camp. We don’t know for sure when the next time we’ll all see each other will be. It’s quite sad to be leaving everyone, but it’ll be exciting

In the last few weeks, in addition to being sworn in as a volunteer (on Burkina national television!) many important events have transpired. I left my host family in Somyaaga last week, which was really sad, but since my site is only about 14K from them, I’ll be able to visit them often. Before we left our training villages, we had a big party/thank you ceremony for all the host families. The day of the ceremony, my host family reminded me way too much of my united states family, as we were about an hour late for the ceremony. My dad and I were the only ones ready in time, and he was waiting impatiently on his moto, and then decided to just leave without everyone so that at least one representative from our family would be there. I probably should have left with him, but I thought that if I stayed and waited for everyone else, they’d try to get ready faster. He ended up coming back home, telling us that everyone else was there and waiting, and then leaving again before the rest of us left. It was very abba-esque. So me and 5 of my sisters ended up riding our bikes to the ceremony, and my moms (yes, plural) and the rest of my siblings walked. All the trainees in my village were supposed to give a speech thanking their families, but by the time I got there, everyone else had already finished, and they were just waiting on me to give mine, but then I had to wait for the rest of my family to arrive because I wanted my mom to hear my speech. Good thing Burkinabe are extremely patient. Finally, after much waiting, she and the rest of my straggler family sprinted it in to much applause, and I delivered my “speech” in both French and Moore (pronounced more-ay). Just for fun, and in case you’re curious as to what Moore is like, here’s what I said:

French version: Je voudrais dire merci a toute ma famille pour votre hospitalité durant mes deux mois a Somyaaga. Je sens que je suis vraiment un membre de la famille. La famille va beaucoup me manquer, et j’espère que nous allons continuer à entretenir nos relations quand je serais a Bissighin.

Moore version: M baaba, m ma, m yapa ne m kem damba faa. Mam puusda yamb barka, yamb sen n sak n deeg maam yamb zaka puga. Wakat kanga faa, mam lebga wa yamb zaka biiga. Mam na tagsda yamb yel wakat faa. Y-Barka!

Rough translation of Moore version: My father, my mother, and all my siblings. I want to thank you very much for opening up your home to me. Through all of this time, I feel like I have become like a true member of the family. I will think about you all the time. Thank you!

Our swear-in ceremony was like a graduation of sorts. There were speeches by important political/traditional figures of the Yatenga Province (where Ouahigouya is), our Country Director, The Ambassador, and 3 members of our training class. We then took an oath given to us by the Ambassador, and voila!, We’re volunteers! The peace corps invited 2 members from each host family to our swearing in ceremony, and my mom and dad came, and afterwards, my mom said “mam nonga fo” which means “I love you”, and then she said something to the effect of “you are like my real child”. Hearing (and understanding) her say that was the highlight of my day, and a highlight of my time in Burkina so far.

We also spent this week meeting and getting to know our counterparts who we’ll be working with in village. The role of the counterpart is to support you in your projects, help you get integrated into the village, and help you out with any other things you might need. Every health volunteer’s counterpart is the head nurse at the CSPS, but the small enterprise development volunteers that we’ve been training with have counterparts who are various leaders of different organizations or women’s groups, etc.

The last couple days have been shopping days in Ouahigouya, which has been probably the most exhausting thing I’ve done yet. If you are opening up a new site, as in, you’re the first volunteer who’s ever been there, which I am, you get 200,000 cfa of “settling in” money to buy everything you need for your house. That’s about 400 american dollars. Erik and I shopped together and basically spent two days in the Marché (outdoor market) gathering all the things we needed including gas stoves, gas tanks, lipicots (cot), buckets, mattresses, etc. We paid for everything together because it was just easier that way, and then we’d stop every now and then to figure out our math. We would just find random benches to do our calculations on, and re-group before we continued shopping. It was kind of funny; if we picked a bench that was in too much sunlight, people would make us get up and then they’d move it into the shade for us. They really really don’t like it when you are in the sun. Also, a side-effect of us shopping and paying for everything together is that the furnishings of our houses will look close to identical. Oh well. We found a donkey cart to bring all our stuff to the place we’re staying in Ouahigouya, and then on affectation day, the peace corps will help us take it to our sites. We also went to a carpenter and had him make a countertop to use for cooking and a little table to eat at. That will be transported by way of donkey cart as well, straight to my village.

Happy channukkah and merry Christmas to everyone! I’m sharing a room with three other girls right now, and one of them made a paper menorah for me to color in candles every night. We’ve been having nightly channukkah ceremonies in which we sing the blessings and I share some chocolates (courtesy of my grandmother and grandfather in the U.S…thank you sabba and savta!).

Ok, it is getting to be dinner time and im hungry. Check facebook for pics cause they dont seem to be uploading here. Ill try again next time, but for now, there are a few on facebook.

My Thanksgiving here was good; different than the usual Cliffer family thanksgivings, but it was fun. We all got to be together for it, and we prepared a large feast with the sheep that the chief of OHG had given to us a while back as well as a turkey from the U.S. that was a gift from the Ambassador.

Last weekend, my friend Erik and I decided to bike to his future site to check it out, since it’s so close to Ouahigouya. Well, actually, we had planned on going to my future site as well, which is even closer to Ouahigouya, but a chain of events occurred that made this goal impossible. I’ll explain. There’s a current peace corps volunteer (PCV), Christina, who’s site is actually only a 1K ride from Erik’s village, so we biked to her village on Saturday night and stayed the night there. The plan was to go to Erik’s village Saturday night, and then mine the next morning on our way home, but when we got to Christina’s house, she realized that she had left her key in Ouahigouya (OHG). It’s about an hour bike ride, so it wasn’t really plausible to bike all the way back to OHG and then back again to her village before dark. We ended up eventually finding someone with a moto who rode back to recover the key, but with all the confusion of explaining where it was literally by drawing maps in the dirt, and then figuring out what to do for dinner since all Christina’s food was in her inaccessible house, it got too late to go to Erik’s village. The midwife of Christina’s CSPS was really nice, and let us eat dinner at her house while we waited for the key. So Sunday morning, we went to Erik’s village, saw his house and CSPS, and met his major (his future counterpart) and his chef du village. Before leaving the village, Erik’s Chef du Village gave him two chickens as a gift. This was great and all, but we had about a 20K bike ride to get back home to our training village, and in the heat of the day, it was no easy task to transport the chickens hanging upside down from our handlebars. Erik and I split the job of carrying them on our handlebars. We had planned to stop and see my village, but we were afraid that the chickens would get dehydrated and die, so we decided to forgo the idea and just go back home. Ouahigouya is about half way between Erik’s future village and our current training village, and it was so hot that it took us 2 hours just to get to OHG. Don’t ask me why we are idiots and decided to bike in literally the hottest part of the day, but we stopped in OHG to take a rest and give the chickens some water, and noticed that one of the chickens wasn’t doing very well. It wasn’t drinking any of the water we tried to give it, and it was kind of just lying there sadly, beak to the ground. We were hungry, so we left the chickens at the training center (they were tied together so they couldn’t really go far) and went to get lunch. Sadly, when we came back to get the chickens before we rode the rest of the way home, one was dead. I felt a bit terrible, but there was nothing we could do, and we didn’t want to have to bring the dead chicken to our village, so we found someone on the street who would take an already dead chicken. Before taking the chicken, he gave us a lecture on how you have to check animals before you buy them to make sure they’re not sick. It was awkward. Anyway, we ended up finally making it back home with one live chicken, which Erik and his family then ate the next night for dinner. Apparently it was delicious.

Hello! It's now been exactly one month since my arrival in Burkina Faso. Every day I get more and more comfortable with being here, which is good. In the beginning, it was a bit hard for me to picture spending two whole years here. That's not to say that I wasn't happy, or that I was thinking I couldn't do it, but it was just really hard to fathom how I would survive such a long period of time with such seemingly limited resources. I don't know if I really want to admit this in such a public forum, but I honestly think one of the things I miss most is being in the know about neuroscience related topics and the like. I asked my parents to send me scientific American though, which should help with that, and if you ever come across interesting articles about any subjects really, go ahead and send them my way! Well, that makes me sound really nerdy, but whatever, I need to express myself somewhere. Now, though, I definitely find myself being more comfortable with the idea of spending a prolonged period of time here. Everything takes a lot of patience. Mostly, I need to have patience with myself, because I find myself getting frustrated at times when I have no idea what my host mom is telling me to do, or when the group of us in our village spends what seems like an unsuccessful hour trying to get a point across to the Coges (the village leaders elected to be in charge of the budget and other functions of the community health centers) in our limited French and Moore. At first, I was pretty awkward about doing certain things in front of my family. Brushing my teeth, for instance. I have to spit into the corner of my courtyard, which they all watch me do. But I realized that whatever I do will be strange and foreign, so who really cares anyway. So the summation of this is that I feel like I'm adapting to life here, which is good.

We also got our site announcements this week, and I'll be living actually very close to where I am now starting in December, for the next two years. I'll be in a small village just 5K from Ouahigouya, so chances are, I'll be doing a lot of my typing of these blogs and emails from this very same internet cafe! I actually have quite a few peace corps neighbors in my general vicinity, one of which is Erik, the other William and Mary grad. I think he and I are about 7 or 8 K apart, but we're not exactly sure. I'm also close to another girl from my training class, but again, I'm unclear as to the exact distance. It'll be really nice to have such close neighbors though!

Speaking of things that don't phase me so much anymore, we took a visit to the CREN the other day as part of training. This is the Centre de Rehabilitation et Education Nutritionelle, which is basically a center for malnourished children. Severely malnourished children are referred to the CREN for rehabilitation, and they stay there along with their mothers, until they are nursed back to a healthy enough weight to sustain themselves on their own. To be honest, it seems that most kids here are malnourished at least to some degree. There's a severe lack of protein in their diets. Most of my brothers and sisters have the big bellies characteristic of malnutrition. We learned about the different types of malnutrition at the CREN, and got to see the intensive care part of the hospital where the most severe cases are. We walked in and immediately saw an 11 pound five year old lying on the table. He was nothing but skin and bones, and it looked like it took every ounce of energy he had in him just to breath. When mothers and their children are at the CREN, they stay there for however long it takes to get their children healthy. Once they're out of the intensive care, they stay in a set-up much like a miniature village, which helps to the mothers and children there to feel a sense of community. They have specific feeding regiments they go by, and they also do sensibilizations to teach the mothers how to prepare nutritious food. As part of our training, we also learned how to prepare three different types of enriched porridge, so that once we go to our villages, we can teach women to make them as well.

I think what surprised me the most about the hospital we visited was the lack of privacy. We literally just walked into a room where women who had just given birth were laying on the floor with their tiny tiny babies. A group of 10 American kids, no questions asked. In the U.S., they basically put the babies in space suits right when they come out, and no one is allowed to touch them, let alone a group of complete strangers. But here, we just waltzed right in there just to see what was up. The women, who's babies are smaller than any baby I've ever seen in my life, were all just laying on the floor, cuddled in close to each other because there's not much room in there, and they've got to fit a lot of people. There's no such thing as a private room, or private space, or a private consultation, really. The hospital consists of a few large rooms with beds, where everyone shares the space, and many people lay on the floors, because the beds are a hot commodity. The funny thing is though, people still greet you when you walk in, no matter how sick or miserable they are, and tell you that everything in their life is going great. I can't think of a good word for it, so for lack of a better one, it's startling.

First and foremost, yayyyy for obama!!!!! The entire country of burkina faso is ecstatic about the new president of the U.S. Everywhere I go, people yell "OBAMA!" at me. We were really lucky because the very nice and understanding people at the peace corps bureau allowed us to stay in Ouahigouya for election night so that we could all be together for it. We kind of had to stay up all night to get the news, but a lot of people took naps and then woke up at around 5AM to the news that Obama had won, and we got to listen to his speech. We all cheered when he said something about "for those of you gathered around radios in far corners of the world..." cause that's exactly what we were doing. One of the other PCTs had his short wave radio out all night and we were trying to get BBC on it, but it wasn't really working. Then luckily, the tv at the training center was working, and we watched the burkina faso news station, which kind of reminded me of wayne's world because it seemed like a couple guys giving the news out of their basement. but it was ok...we understood and then we got to watch the speech dubbed over in french. anyway, yay!

Right now, i'm in Ouagadougou for the weekend with all the other health PCTs touring the peace corps bureau and the U.S. embassy, and staying at the peace corps transit house. the transit house is pretty nice, it has electricity, and the thing that surprised me the most...warm showers!! I was caught off guard by the shower, because i guess i haven't showered in warm water for almost a month now, so it felt strange at first. Anyway, it's kind of like a hostel just for peace corps volunteers; there are book shelves with lots of books to choose from, couches, and about 20 beds. the beds are kind of more like mattresses strewn about the floor/outside, cause it's much cooler to sleep outside. they even give you a towel to use while you're here! it's definitely a comfortable place, and nice to know that it exists and that during my service it'll be a nice treat to come and stay here occasionally.

Last weekend was also a traveling weekend. We went in our language groups (mine has 4 people in it) to current PCVs sites to see how they live/what they do. The peace corps calls this a "demystification visit" which describes it pretty well. My group actually visited the oldest volunteer in all of west africa, who is 65 years old (i think). Her name is Mary Kay,she was a great hostess, and it was really good to get a practical picture of what a volunteer lives like and actually does at their post.

We got to do baby weighings at her CSPS (the village health center), we saw her do a sensibilization on hand washing at the elementary school in her village, and we got to meet with her CSPS staff. She's also lucky enough to live only 2K away from the next volunteer, so we got to meet another PCV, Garrett, who does secondary education. We attended a talk that he was giving to his students on preventing unplanned pregnancies. It was really cool to see and i think it got us all excited for getting to our sites and getting started. Also, Mary Kay obviously has experience being a mom and cooking, and her 5 kids in the U.S. often send her american type foods, so she made us delicious meals which were amazing.

I would say one of the hardest parts of the demystification visit was the public transportation to get there. It's pretty rough, but do-able. First, we took a bus to get from Ouahigouya to Ouaga, which wasn't bad at all, but they just sell as many tickets as possible, so the bus was more than jam packed. It also doesn't hesitate to stop for whoever flags it down on the road, because the more people they pack in there, the more money they make, so we stopped pretty often to let in more and more people. The isles were stuffed with people just standing for the entire 3 hour bus ride to Ouaga. This was the most comfortable part of the trip. Next, we took a taxi to another station, and then we took a bush taxi to Mary Kay's village. The bush taxi was even more overcrowded than the bus, and much more hot and gross. It's about the size of a mini-van, and there were 27 people on it. That's not including the people that rode for the entire time on TOP of the bush taxi. People also don't hesitate to bring their chickens and goats and sheep on the bush taxis, or put them on top of it as well. It's pretty great. Mary Kay's village is only about 113K south of Ouaga, which is about 50 miles, but it took us 5 hours in the bush taxi to get there. This is partly due to the 600 breakdowns which our bush taxi suffered along the way, partly due to the terrible roads, and partly due to the fact that every single time you slow down or stop, people rush up to the windows to sell you stuff. This part's kind of nice though cause you can buy bread and peanuts and whatnot, so when you inevitably get hungry (or at least i do) during the trip, you always have food options. Most people had to travel with their bikes which makes things harder, but we didn't have to use ours at Mary Kay's, but i'm sure sometime soon i'll have to travel with mine, and it'll be glorious. Anyway, i guess we just got our first small taste of public transportation in burkina. Not too terrible, but i didn't love it.

In other news, i've finally figured out my entire family tree. My dad has 2 wives, one of which has 7 kids, and the other of which has 5, so there are 12 kids total in my family. Then there are 6 cousins that also live with us, along with 2 grandmas, 3 aunts, and some other women who i'm not really sure how they're connected. Anyway, it's a lot of people, but it's fun.

I'll leave off here for now with a funny story, that unfortunately didn't happen to me, but i thought i'd share anyway:

During the first week that we were in our homestays, one of my fellow PCTs who lives in my village got home one night, and her dad came to her with a big covered bowl filled with millet. With her limited language abilities, she tried to figure out what why he was giving her this bowl of millet, and what he wanted her to do with it. They motioned, she understood that he said something about "faire sa toillette" and so she thought she understood that he wanted her to sprinkle this millet around her latrine. So she sprinkled the ENTIRE bowl of millet around her latrine. Later, when the family was getting ready to prepare dinner, her host sister took the top off of the bowl only to discover that the bowl was empty. There was several women around and all were laughing wondering what the crazy white girl had done with the the millet. Turns out that the millet was to be used to make a special drink called Zoom Koom, and she had put it all around her toilet. Yeahh...so we later learned in french class that the term "faire sa toilette" means "go get ready" so really, her dad was trying to tell her that after she got ready, they would share this special drink together. Woops.

So. I know that I haven't really explained anything at all about what I've been doing, so I'm going to try to summarize in a few categories:

Before you get bored and stop reading...Contact info:

I have a cell phone in Burkina now! SO. CALL ME. TEXT ME. WHATEVER. Go to pingo.com and get the cheap rates. Ok, well I don't actually expect you to call, but just know that if you want to, you can and I would love it! I don't really keep it on much because I don't have a way of charging it right now, but when I move to my site I'll get my solar charger thing and hopefully that will work. (right now, I'm keeping that at the training site). I have some service in my village, and when we take breaks I turn it on. I also don't have voicemail, but texting is great (and cheaper).

MY NUMBER: 001 226 75 52 50 62

General Numbers and Logistics:

There are 2 types of trainees in my training class, Health volunteers, like me, and Small Enterprise Development (SED) volunteers. There are 32 of us all together (yay jubs!). The health volunteers are split up for our homestays into three different surrounding villages of Ouahigouya that are each about 10 K from the training site. There are 9 of us in my village, and 5 in each of the others. The SED volunteers are all scattered around the bigger town of Ouahigouya. For training, we do some stuff as a whole big group, and for that, we bike into the training center in Ouhigouya and then bike back home for dinner with our families. Stuff we do all together is the medical trainings, the safety and security trainings, and other general peace corps things. I think our most fun medical training thus far was the one on malaria, in which we had to learn how to make a malaria slide to send to the peace corps medical officers (PCMOs) in case we think we have malaria when we are at our sites. We all had to practice pricking our own fingers and preparing the slides. It was a good time. The other training, specific to our projects and sectors, we do in our villages. We do technical training about our jobs, and then lots of language in small language groups. Right now we're learning mainly French, because we don't know what the local language at our sites will be yet, and a little bit of Moore because that's what they speak in our villages.

Burkina Life:

It is hot. Really really hot. I don't think I've stopped sweating at all since I've gotten here. Well, actually, one day it rained, which was awesome, and according to the Burkinabe people, a welcome for us because we're in the "mini-hot" season and it's not supposed to be raining now. It made things exponentially cooler for about a minute. People here really are very hospitable and nice. Everywhere you go, you greet people to show respect, either in French or in Moore. A sample conversation with someone you see in the street, in Moore, might go something like this: (if it's morning)

A: Ne y yibeogo! (good morning)

B: Y Yibeogo yaa laafi (good morning, how's it going?)

A: Laafi Balla. Y zak ramba? (it's going well, how's your family?)

B: Laafi, tuume kibare? (it's good, how's your work?)

A: Laafi, wend na kond nidaare (Good, good bye, see you soon!)

B: Wend na kond nidaare (Till next time!)

I try, and usually get laughed at a lot, but it's cool.

Biking in the heat, in a skirt on these roads is pretty interesting. The main road isn't bad, but the roads through the villages and towns are rocky and dusty. I haven't fallen yet, but I almost do just about every day, so I'm sure I will sometime soon.

The kids literally follow us everywhere. They're completely fascinated by us, and just stand there and stare at us forever. They seem to never get bored of it. Someone brought up the fact that they don't have tvs or anything, so we're a source of entertainment because we look different and weird.

Homestay:

Before we were adopted into our families, we had to pay the Chief de Village of Ouhigouya a visit so that he could give us permission to become part of the community. He's called the King of Ouhigouya, and he looks like a king, because he sits in a giant throne in a big room. We brought him a chicken as a gift, and in return, he have us a sheep. We then had an adoption ceremony last Sunday, in which we were all adopted into our new homestay families. For those of you in greek life at home, imagine something somewhat similar to revelation. The Chief de Village welcomed us to the community, some more words were exchanged, and each of us was called up and met by a different family. My family is great, though it's hard to communicate because most of them don't speak French, they only speak Moore. My dad speaks French, and a few of my teenage brothers and sisters who go to school speak French, but they always speak really fast so it's a bit hard for me to understand them. I'm definitely getting better at it though, and my dad even told me this morning that I understood him well now! My mom and I communicate through lots of pointing. She speaks at me in Moore, and I try to understand what she's telling me. Usually we eventually understand each other, but it takes a lot of staring, then laughing, then pointing at something. I actually honestly don't know how many brothers and sisters I have, but there are at least 20 little kids and some babies in the courtyard all the time. I don't know how many are my siblings and how many are cousins. I know the names of 7 of my brothers and sisters, but nowhere near all of the kids in the courtyard. It's hard because it gets dark pretty fast by the time I get home, so I don't get to see people in the daylight for long. Every night when I get home, I immediately have to go take a bucket bath. I actually shower more here than I ever did in the U.S., only because I have to though. Everyone has to shower before dinner and before breakfast. In fact, in the morning, you aren't allowed to talk to anyone until you've washed. Bucket baths are actually pretty nice. I basically take a bucket of water, and a small cup into a little outdoor walled off area, and soap up and dump water on myself to rinse off. It's great, and really refreshing after such hot days. The way you signify that you are in the bathing area is just by hanging something over the edge. The first night I was with my family I accidentally threw my towel all the way over the wall and then had to make a mad dash for it. I learned to gently place my towel there after that. The latrine, I can't say I enjoy as much, but I'm getting used to it. So after I shower when I get home, I eat dinner with a few of my sisters and then try to converse with my family before I go to bed. This involves a lot of them laughing at me, and me laughing at myself for not really knowing what's going on at all. Tomorrow is Sunday, so I won't have class, which means the whole day will be spent with my host family, so I'll actually get to see people in the daylight. And, as my mom told me this morning in Moore but I figured it out, I'll learn how to do my laundry!

I go to bed every night at around 9:00. Seriously. Partly because there's just not much to do in the dark without electricity, and partly because I get up with the sun, the animals, and the crying babies. Donkeys are extremely loud...who knew? So yeah, I probably go to sleep when most of you are finishing school/work, and wake up when you're going to bed. So wish me goodnight when you get out of work, and I'll wish you goodnight when I wake up.

What I eat:

Lots of oil. Lots of carbs. I eat a ton of spaghetti, sometimes with things in it like meat (ugh) or fish, lots of rice with a tomato based sauce on top, and a TON of bread. Every breakfast is bread and tea. Honestly, don't worry about me losing weight here, I think I'll actually probably gain weight, because even when I'm full, my sisters and my mom always serve me more and then I have to eat it.

That's it for now:

Well, I need to get going for now. A few of us from my village biked into Ouhigouya today to use the internet, cause we had the whole afternoon off, but we need to get biking home soonish so that we can get there before dark! Today was probably the hottest bike ride of my life. But it was worth it cause when we got here we got really good sandwiches and cold drinks!!!! The cold drinks were the best part, cause in village, nothing is cold. Ever. Ok, I love you all and I'll write again soon!

hello! i apologize in advance for any major spelling mistakes, the keyboards here are all mixed up by american standards. just know that a=q and ,=m and so forth. SO. it has been a week and an extremely hot one at that. i hope to give a more detailed description of stuff in a few days. oh no! apparently i have to go bike back to the training site now haha. we dont get long breaks and its hard to find enough time for internet. more substance soon i promise; just know im alive and well for now

I'm about to leave for Philly to go to staging, but I wanted to create this first.  So here it is.  Today starts my pre-service orientation, and then my flight to Burkina Faso leaves tomorrow and I arrive in Ouagadougou on Wednesday. I'm scared/excited, as well as a delinquent who has yet to finish packing and must leave in a half hour. So I guess I should go do that.