Palu, It’s a drag

Salut tout le monde!

Things have started to pick up, which I am happy about. As much as I enjoy just chatting with people in village and relaxing I am thankful to have more to do. At the beginning it was difficult to get started, but somehow things have begun to fall into place.

I mentioned in the last post about how I was going to be teaching malaria lessons at the primary school. I started out with the youngest classes first, with the director making the introductions for me. The first couple days, the teacher for the CP1 class (equivalent of kindergarten/first grade) was not there or came in late. The kids (about 65 of them) started out quiet, but then got super loud towards the end and did not really listen. At one point one kid was full on punching his neighbor. What?! As soon as they saw their teacher coming, they immediately got quiet and sat up straight. I wanted to say, “Is it because I don’t hit you that you don’t listen?” Yes, here in Burkina Faso the teachers are not supposed to hit students, but it still happens. With one teacher for so many students I could see how they might resort to corporal punishment. I do not agree with this form of punishment, but it is what the kids are also used to in the home.

The other classes were less challenging thanks to the teacher always being in the room. They also were a huge help when kids did not understand how I was speaking. (I do not take this personally though because often they cannot even understand accents of French people). I taught each class for 3 days, but only one day for the whole morning for the CM2 class (6^th graders). For the younger classes I stuck to the basics of explaining that it is only mosquitos that can give you malaria. The emphasis was on sleeping under mosquito nets every night.  By doing so, you can achieve your goals because you are not sick all the time (or dead. WAN WAAAAN).  Malaria is the biggest killer in sub-Saharan Africa. Of all the malaria cases in the world, 90% of them are found right here in Africa.

Just last year our clinic saw 5457 cases of malaria. 5457! And 12 of these cases resulted in death. And they were kids under the age of 15. I explained these statistics to the older classes. People in Burkina Faso and other malaria-zone countries tend to minimize malaria, like it is just some fever you get and then it goes away. We discussed the importance of early treatment by going to the local health clinic. Some people self-medicate when they are not 100% sure it is malaria, which can lead to drug resistance. Thankfully our health clinic always has rapid-tests on hand that can tell if someone has malaria within a matter of minutes. These are sent through the President’s Malaria Initiative (US org started in 2005) who partners with PNLP-Programme National de Lutte contre le Paludisme(Burkina’s org to fight malaria).

Each day I would ask who slept under a mosquito last night. It was only a handful. During hot season people sleep outside and most do not bring their mosquito nets out too. They claim it is too hot for mosquito nets, they don’t let air through. Also they claim there are not any mosquitos out. It is true they are less at this time, but there are still some! And people still get malaria. There was also the problem that many students did not have mosquito nets. Burkina Faso has national distributions to give treated nets to everyone every 2-3 years. However, people are not always home when this happens or they miscalculate how many are needed. Also some people sell the nets or keep them tucked away for safe keeping, as it is something new they don’t want to ruin. This June is supposed to be the next distribution. Just in time for rainy season, when there are more mosquitos.

We completed some other activities as well. I showed the kids how they can set up their nets outside and then taught them a song about malaria prevention that I wrote in French. I put it to the tune of a song that is popular here right now called “Chop My Money” by P Square feat. Akon. I think this may have been their favorite part. I also gave tests to the CM1 and CM2 classes. CM2 did very well, but the CM1 still needs to work on overall comprehension. It was nice to see though that they understood the basics of malaria and how to prevent it.

Here is the song below, along with the translation. Every now and then kids will come up to me and start singing it. Everything is easier to remember when it is a song! (If only I had had my physics text book to a song…)

C’est la nuit et on est prêt à dormir
(It’s night time and we are ready to go to sleep)
Mais il y a une chose ce qu’on peut sentir
(But there is something which we can feel)
C’est une moustique qui veut nous piquer
(It’s a mosquito who wants to bite us)
C’est paludisme qu’elle peut nous donner
It’s malaria that it can give to us

Palu, Palu
(short form of the word “paludisme”-malaria)
Il donne le corps chaud et on ne bouge pas
(It gives a fever and we don’t move)
Palu, Palu
Est-ce qu’on veut la meilleure santé ? Donc,
(Do we want the best health ? So,)

Evite le palu,
(Avoid malaria)
Evite le palu,
Evite le palu
avec une moustiquaire
(with a mosquito net)

Evite le palu
Evite le palu
Evite le palu
avec une moustiquaire

Une mousitquaire (x3)

Ça peut sauver nos vies
(It can save our lives)
Une moustiquaire (x3)
Ça protege nous-mêmes
(It protects ourselves)

If you are interested in learning more about malaria and how it is being fought today, I would recommend reading The Fever by Sonia Shah. Did you know we had malaria in the United States not too long ago? You will learn about this and much more in this book. Also feel free to ask me as well!

In Service Training Followed by Dɔɔni Dɔɔni

For two weeks during the middle of March we had our In Service Training (IST). Our training group had not all been together since December 15th, the day we all left for our different villages. After getting to know our communities we came back all together to discuss what we had learned and where to go from there. This learning process is never over though, as we will continuously discover new aspects of our village during our two year service. The first week was just our stage of 26 PCVs with our program managers and a few other PCVs from previous stages who were there to help with the training. Some of the sessions were those that are mandated by Washington, including those about “resiliency” and “coping.” One session involved a video where a puma was chasing a baby bear and you almost think that baby bear is going to be caught until mama bear steps in at the last moment and saves the day. One of our first questions about this video: “Wait. Do pumas eat bears?”

We also had technical sessions during that first week. One was gardening with the Environment Program Assistant, who gave us some free seeds to get started. “If you don’t water these plants at least twice a day in this heat they will cry, and then die,” he reminded us. We took a field trip to Loumbila, a village just outside of Ouaga to practice teaching sex and health education to junior high/high schoolers. Our group had what would be 7th /8th grade girls in the U.S., only these classes range in ages from 13 to 17. We discussed every girls’ favorite subject: periods. At the end of the lesson, we took anonymous questions via sticky notes. We had received a lot of questions: “Why does it hurt when I have my period?” “How do I avoid getting pregnant?” “Do guys have periods too?” Since we had split up the classes into guys and girls, the girls were more at ease. We still had some gigglers, but this is normal, especially as this was the first time some had ever heard about puberty. Another outing in Loumbila was with some of their community health workers. We visited some households to talk about malaria and see their habits of mosquito net usage. All these activities were of course conducted in hopes that we would be able to go back and apply them to our own villages.
The second week was spent in Koudougou. Each person invited someone from his/her village who would be a good person to collaborate with on projects. I invited one of our village midwives, Marie Claire. (A few pictures were posted of us together on Facebook) The role of village midwives now is not to help with deliveries, but to act as health educators. Together we went through program planning and management sessions. This was one of the tougher sessions to get through. We really take for granted our American education system, where we are encouraged to be creative and use critical thinking! Often with the Burkina system it is just wrought memorization. To explain the differences and similarities between our systems is a whole blog post for another day.
Together we identified family planning as the area we would first tackle. I have looked at our monthly reports from last year and quite a few women are have already met with CSPS staff to discuss their options for family planning. However, one of the problems we’ve noticed is that some women who have their first child do not come in for a post-natal checkup. They do not realize that they can get pregnant as soon as 45 days after giving birth. Just the other day a young woman came in to take a pregnancy test, with her 3 month old baby in tow. Luckily, the test was negative. Marie Claire and I have started making nightly visits to households to discuss family planning. So far everyone we have talked to practices family planning: on some sort of birth control if not trying to get pregnant, proper birth spacing and can explain the benefits for the mom, child and the whole family. These talks have also given us the opportunity to spread the word that we now have a maiticien (male midwife) at the CSPS who can do the hormone implants that can prevent pregnancy up to 5 years. For the moment Depo-provera and combination birth control pills are the most popular methods, but now with the implant option, we have quite a few make a change.
I asked if maybe we could talk with families that have girls in high school and Marie Claire said we would not be able to do that. She said there was a time not too long ago when women could not get birth control unless they were married. Interesting. I am not condoning sex before marriage, but I think that the options should be known. And families need to talk about sex with their students. It’s always better when it is coming from family anyway as who knows what random false information they will get from their classmates.

After getting back to village I also had a meeting with the director of our primary school. In honor of Malaria Month for Peace Corps, I wanted to do some lessons and activities with the kids. We were given a weeklong curriculum by our regional malaria coordinator and so that is what I will be using. However I will have to do some modifying for the younger kids. I haven’t taught by myself for classes this large (Average is about 45 kids) so we will see how it goes. I’m not easing in at all here. At the end of the month, for 6 days I will be teaching from 7:30-12, rotating from class to class. Ah! Kids have already approached me saying “Hey, is it this week you are coming to teach us?” I hope I can make it interesting enough for them all! And of course, I hope they will retain some information and start using those mosquito nets each night!
We’ve now been in country for 6 months! Crazy. This is now the longest period I’ve been away from the States. And 188 days since I’ve left The Good Life. Not that I’m counting or anything. Though the days may seem slow, when I look back and think of all that is to come, time is going by fast! Even though I’ve talked with some of my immediate family on Skype, I feel a bit disconnected from some of you all back home. So strange this feeling of wanting to be in two places at once. I miss you all back home A LOT, but I am happy to be here in Burkina. The other day I played “There Is No Place Like Nebraska” for my boyfriend Adama. I almost started tearing up thinking about how I’d be missing the entire football season. It’s not just the games, but everything that goes along with it, being with family and friends. But then I think about all the new friends I have made here, Burkinabé and other PCVs. All there is to look forward to right here in Burkina. Have to live in the moment and try not to think too much. Right. God brought me here for a reason and I still have so much to learn!

Journée Internationale de la Femme

The first time I heard about International Women’s Day was while I was a PCV in Mali. Now I know that it is also celebrated in the United States, but I do not remember ever going over this holiday in school or at university. Here it is called la fête de 8 mars, because you guessed it, it’s celebrated on March 8^th each year. The holiday was created to celebrate women empowerment and promote gender equality.  Burkina Faso may still have a ways to go, but you definitely see more women in leadership roles today than in the past. Take our program director, Dr. Claude. She grew up in Orodara, a now average size town, but back when she was growing up it was just like living en brusse. She excelled in school and thus was offered a scholarship to study medicine in France. She has now been working for Peace Corps for at least a decade. Such an amazing story. Side story: She met her husband on that first plane ride to France. Meet-cute, n’est-ce pas?

Yendéré went all out for the 8 mars fête. Family and friends now living in bigger cities and neighboring villages came in to celebrate. Everyone was decked out in Women’s Day pagne or the pagne our village had bought in bulk to wear as a uniform of sorts. The day started off with a women’s bike race through the center of the village on the main drag. Hundreds of people gathered along the road and a few police were brought in as crowd control. Crowd control is a bit different here in Burkina Faso. It involves people breaking off thin branches of a tree and then whipping them at people when start crowding the road or the event area. Is it bad that I laughed at this? I think it was mostly because a lot of times it is old little ladies who do it. After the race, each participant was given a prize, with the best prize reserved for the winner. During the awards ceremony, the mc would ask for money from the crowd as well for to add to the prizes. The winner ended up getting the equivalent of $20 on top of the other prizes. That money goes a long ways in village! They then put some music on as people chatted and had lunch.

A bit later in the day we had a couple soccer matches. The first match was women versus men. I participated as well, playing alongside women ages 20 to 60+. The women won 1-0, but the men claimed they gave us that goal because it was 8 mars. I think we earned it! I may or may not have wiped out at one point. In my defense though, we were playing without shoes, it was very sandy and it had been a while since I played in a full on soccer game. I know…Rule #76. Afterwards, people said that I played soccer well and I responded, maybe that’s because I was playing against old men. Haha The next match was a bit more competitive as it was the bachelors versus the married men. It ended up being a draw 1-1.

Following the matches we performed a skit. We had only practiced this a few times, but it came together pretty well. Burkinabé love theatre and I will definitely be using it in the future as a means of getting health messages out to the community. It had gotten dark by the time we were getting ready to start so they had to bring out a generator to power a light and microphones. A short summary: The play was all in Jula and involved three families and in each one you see women not being treated as equals. This ranged from domestic violence to the husband not providing for his family and instead spending all his money on beer. I had a small role, playing a child who witnesses a man beating his wife and goes running away to tell her parents. The play ends with the women bringing their husbands to the court house in front of a judge. They then explain how women can do everything that man can do, be president, doctors, etc and thus should be treated as equals. It ended with a song to celebrate the creation of Women’s Day.

After the play, everyone enjoyed Zamé (Fried rice with cabbage, tomatoes and meat), dolo, and zumkum. Man, was I tired after being out all day, but it was great to be able to celebrate with the whole village. Furthermore, it was one of the better organized things to happen in village and thus gives me hope for future events

Surpassing amount of time spent in Mali

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates here. I had every intention of writing earlier and will share that unfinished post now.

15 February 2013

Writing to you from Orodara where we just finished up our week-long Language IST for Jula. All 26 volunteers from our stage were clustered together in various towns with an LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator. I really need to make a list of all the acronyms used here!) to work on whatever local language is spoken in his/her village. It was laid back with class in the morning and then free time in the afternoon to practice. Our LCF Erika was great, helping us to pick up some new vocabulary and get a better grasp on more sophisticated phrases. She was also willing to help translate whatever we threw at her, from French to Jula. Some examples:

“YOLO” – Mɔgɔ bi balo siɛngo kelen, mɔgɔ si ti taa ka na. Rough translation – Once you live, you cannot leave this life and come back. Thus making the acronym in Jula “MBBSKMSTTKN.” Ca marche, n’est-ce pas?

Sidenote: “Jula” is how you spell the Jula language in Jula. “Dioula” is the French spelling of the language. To avoid confusion, I am going to stick to writing it as “Jula.”

N bi julakan kalan – I study Dioula. N bi tubabukan kalan – I study French kan – language

“May the force be with you” – Ala ka fanga d’aw ma

After eating a very spicy or questionable meal you might say, “N bi siran na n kɔnɔ yɛn!” This means “I have fear for my stomach!”

Some of the above expressions may or may not be made into t-shirts.

One can find a good variety of produce here, my favorite being avocados. I have eaten them as a part of at least one meal every day since arriving. Now if only I could find some black beans and some good cheese! For Valentine’s Day, Shannon, a 3rd year volunteer was kind enough to let us use her kitchen to cook dinner. We made macaroni with Laughing Cow “cheese,” sautéed onions and garlic and guacamole. No Bake Cookies were for dessert. Delicious! After dinner, we headed to a bar/dance club. There were quite a few couples with several women in Valentine’s Day pagne, including myself (My pagne had hearts and roses all over it, with written phrases “Je t’aime” et “Saint Valentin”) Todd, Hallie and I observed as people danced to Burkinabé electronic type music (not good), some love ballads (better), complete with a remake of Bryan Adam’s “(Everything I do) I do it for you.” Despite some of the awkward music, I’d call it a good night.

And now for the present.

Sunday I will be headed to Ouaga for our 2 week In-Service Training. I cannot believe it has already been three months in our vilages. Since my last post we have undergone some transitions.

All of the staff (nurses) at our CSPS were relocated to other clinics due to an internal issue. Drama drama drama! Dorfa, who sells the medicine and our grounds keeper/guard, Adama, are the only two who remain as these are elected people from the community. I was sad to see everyone go as I had just gotten to know them all. Most of the nurses had also worked with past volunteers and were familiar with Peace Corps. Now we have three new nurses, one at the maternity and the other two at the clinic. Normally we have 7 nurses on staff so it has been BUSY. Some afternoons the nurse at the maternity has to leave to go to a neighboring town so we end up having to refer patients to neighboring clinics 15K away. The nurse at the maternity, Sibiri, also has to sleep there in case any women come to deliver. The other day he was telling me he had to deliver 3 babies during the night so he didn’t get any sleep. Then he has to work all day giving vaccinations and pre-natal consultations. Even though they may never read this blog and they don’t know much English, I want to just give praise to Sali, Mamadou and Sibiri for their hard work. Nurses are not thanked enough! (Thank you to all the nurses State-side as well! So many friends and family in my life who practice nursing in various forms. You all are AWESOME!  ) I still do not know why they relocated everyone at the same time instead of just half until all the positions were filled. It is not fair to the nurses and it is the community who ultimately suffers.

So what do I do with my days? In the mornings I usually visit the CSPS and talk with the staff and patients. Tuesday and Fridays we have baby weighing to monitor growth. We have had a few babies recently who are malnourished. Most of them, however, come from satellite villages and not Yendéré. The babies are given Plumpy Nut (an enriched peanut butter type packet) and then are asked to come Fridays when we make enriched porridge. We definitely need to continue sensibilizations (health talks/demonstrations) with this because just giving Plumpy Nut and not changing how they are feeding their child will just cause the child to become malnourished yet again. The sad reality however is you can stress the importance of women having a balanced diet for themselves (if breastfeeding) and for their children, but it is difficult to find variety of food here. Right now there are some vegetables and fruit, but the vegetables are usually turned into a sauce for rice and other grains. The sauce is usually boiled too long and thus the veggies lose most of their nutrients. This is why I would love to do more with Moringa. If you have not heard of this tree you should look it up. Its leaves are enriched with so many vitamins and it grows so easily. We already have a few trees at the CSPS and at my house, but I need to look up information from our Mali manuals on pruning to produce more leaves. My counterpart, Marie Claire, also seemed to want to do more with Moringa so we will see!

In the mornings I’ve also been having Jula lessons at the non-formal school. I’ve been trying to focus on phonetics as I’ve already got a pretty good base. Villagers still insist on me learning Gouin and I’ve picked up on the greetings and some vocabulary. I understand where they are coming from as that is the language of the main ethnic group of Yendéré. Unfortunately it would be difficult for me to work on two languages at the same time, while speaking in a second language (French). Jula is just more practical for my work as a health volunteer as almost everyone speaks it, including people coming up from Côte d’Ivoire. Since we are on the border we have so many different ethnic groups and languages spoken. Burkina is about the size of Colorado, but there is so much diversity! Usually the connecting language is French, but if the people have not completed much schooling, the connecting languages are Jula in the south, Mooré in the central regions and Fulfulde in the north.

I’ve become closest with the women of the church and a couple shop owners. After church, we usually walk around village and stop at cabarets to have some dolo and chat. Dolo is not very alcoholic, but drink enough of it on a hot day and you might be in trouble. (You know that stereotype about Catholics drinking a lot? Yeah it exists in West Africa as well haha) The women usually converse in Gouin, but they try to include me in the conversation, stopping to explain some of what was said. The current topic of conversation is the huge party this Friday for International Women’s Day. I will have to post about that later. Looking forward to it! I’ve also enjoyed getting to know some of the teachers in village. Like the nurses, they are not from the village, but come from bigger cities like Ouaga or Banfora.

The other night I decided to have kids over to watch a movie outside. I was inspired my our recent regional malaria meeting, where we were given lots of resources such as radio broadcast ideas, skit ideas and a couple movies. One movie is actually a short Disney cartoon dubbed into French, made back when there was Malaria in the US. (Yes folks, at one time we too suffered from Malaria. I bet the cartoon is on Youtube, so you should check it out!) So I told some of the neighbor kids the day before that I was going to have a movie night. I set out mats, brought out my laptop and put the cartoon on. We started with about 10 kids, but by the end of it I would say there were about 40 kids. At the end of the film I had a little discussion on what they had learned. They then of course wanted to watch another movie so I quickly searched my computer and put on BBCs Human Planet. I put on the episode about oceans and even though it was narrated in English, the kids loved it. I need to find some more educational films like this in French!

Have I mentioned yet how freaking HOT it is here now?! Probably not because 1)I didn’t want to open with talking about the weather, that’s boring and 2)I would sound like I’m whining. Which I am now. Oops. Seriously though, it’s almost midnight and I am still sweating. I really need to start sleeping outside! My house has a nice breeze that passes through it, but unfortunately it is in the first room, not my bedroom where my mosquito net is set up. I tell friends in village that it is snowing right now in the States and how much I miss the snow. It has been 2 years now since I’ve seen snow. I know some of you right now are thinking, oh you don’t want this, it’s so cold right now and I would love to be somewhere warm right now! I love snow though and having seasons in general. And I’m not just saying that because I am melting right now. This heat is BAD and it is worse when you don’t have A/C or even a fan. Où est la piscine?!

Getting attacked by mosquitoes right now. Ahhhh Malaria! Yay for prophylaxis! Gotta get under that mosquito net now. Bonne nuit tout le monde!

Babies

“Jessica! Come here! A woman is about to give birth! Do you want to help?” yells Sita, one of our midwives who is in the “delivery room” at our maternity.

No men are in the room. Just an older woman (who appears to be the mom woman), the woman giving birth and Sita. She is lying on a table type bed that is cushioned and covered in vinyl. This is her 3^rd baby. No medications are used to numb the pain. Lying next to her is another woman, who is only 19. This is her first child and no family or friends are in the room with her. I am trying to take it all in. I am almost tempted to go over and hold this woman’s hand. There really isn’t much sound in the room except for the small cries that come from the women. They hardly shed any tears. I comment on this to Sita, saying the women are so strong here. The 19 year old gives birth first, a girl. And then about 15 minutes later the other woman gives birth to a boy. It is messy, a bit graphic, but beautiful. I do not even know these women but I almost want to start crying. Here are two new human beings! Sita then instructs me to put on some gloves and I weigh and measure these brand new babies.

This was one of my favorite days at site. A lot of the time I am just observing at the maternity or at the clinic and trying to ask questions. But this day I got to see a birth for the first time! And back to back!

I’ve now been at my new village for about five weeks now. Slowly people are trickling back into town as the harvest is finishing up. The other day I just took my bike out and rode around the village. So many fields and gardens. I posted some photos on Facebook if you want to get an idea of what it looks like. I also biked down to the Côte d’Ivoire border with my friend Yaya. Our village is only about 10K away. As soon as you get to the border, the roads instantly change. I though Burkina’s roads were better than Mali, but Côte d’Ivoire beats them both. Also, there is electricity lines that run down there and through our village, but our village does not have electricity. Hmm. The border control area I found out is actually powered by a generator. They have a couple TVs down there and I was able to watch some Spanish soccer games. However, we missed like half the game the other night because someone kept tripping the generator. Third world problems. Been meaning to make a list of these, but not sure if it would offend anyone haha. Cannot wait to follow the CAN tournament! I’ll be cheering for Mali and Burkina Faso, but I think you know where my true allegiance lies J

This past Wednesday I also had the chance to go to one of our satellite villages for vaccinations. The CSPS schedules these throughout the month where they go to the villages our clinic is responsible for (aire sanitaire), but are kind of far from the clinic. In the future, I’m hoping to do outreach to these other villages through sensibilizations (skits/discussions on health topics, etc) and other activities. On verra! We didn’t have too many enfants come for vaccinations so it gave me time to get chat with the nurse leading the vaccination outing. Her name is Brigette, she is 31 and one of my neighbors. She is so easy to talk to and I think quickly becoming one of my favorite nurses at the CSPS. At one point the conversation turned to relationships because I was asking about her boyfriend who works at the CMA in a neighboring town.  (CMA = Centre Médical avec Antenne Chirurgicale. A  step up from the CSPS because they can do some surgical things). They met during nursing school and have plans to get married next year. Kind of more of a “western” relationship as she is 31, he’s 33 and they are dating before getting married. Like I mentioned before, the nurses are usually from bigger cities and not from the village. In village, relationships are a bit different, with marriage usually much earlier in life, sometimes at age 16. That is a topic for another day though. She asked if I had a boyfriend and I said no. She then asked if I wanted her to find one for me. I laughed. I think at one point I said okay, sure, whatever, so we will see what happens haha

Slowly I’m starting to find my niche in village. So thankful for such a welcoming community! However, I still have my share of ups and downs, but such is life. Continue to pray for peace in the region and for wisdom of the leaders to do what is best for the people of their respective countries.

I will end with some remerciements. A big THANK YOU to my mom for the amazing care package! You are the best! It is going to be hard to ration out all this great food. Thank you to my fellow PCVs, here in Burkina Faso and in other countries, for always knowing how to keep it laid back, to have a good time and to keep things in perspective. I love how close we are growing. Thank you to Mosaic for posting podcasts each week and providing encouragement and inspiration. Thank you for the continued support and love of family and friends back home. I do not think I’ll ever be able to express how much you all mean to me. Even if we don’t talk every day, or every week or even every month, know that I miss you so much. You are the fuel that continues to keep me pushing forward, developing a better story. And thank you for your unfailing love God and all these wonderful people you have weaved into my life. You are the reason I am here.

Sambé sambé!

Bonne Année! 2013!

I was on Facebook the other day and noticed several of my fellow Mali RPCVs posting about January 6, 2012. This was the day we swore in at the US Ambassador’s residence as Peace Corps Volunteers in Mali. Little did I know I would be swearing in yet again within the same year in Burkina Faso.

2012 was a CRAZY year!

I miss Mali. Everything and everyone that went with it.

However

I am ready for a new year and new beginnings in Burkina Faso.
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
So bring it on 2013. I’ve been through a lot already and think I can handle just about anything you throw my way. Just no more coup d’états and evacuations. Thanks.

Ala ka san kura kɛ hɛrɛ san ye. May God make the new year a peaceful year.

I have been living at my new site now for 3 weeks. As I’ve mentioned I think in a previous post, my village is just a few hours south of Bobo-Dioullasso, about 10 kilometers from the border of Côte d’Ivoire. I found out the other day a bit of the history of my village. Turns out the name of my village means “Hippopotamus” in the local language, Gouin. Apparently, the village had a lot more water before and a hunter came, killed a hippo and decided it was a good place to live. I tried to nail down a date when the village was founded, but no luck. Burkina Faso has more oral than written tradition, with history passed down from village chief to village chief.

This land of hippos is where I will call home for the next two years. There are no hippos now, but rumor has it they are in the river that flows at the border. I need to make a trip down there to see if I can spot one! What I’ve discovered thus far about my village: the population is around 7,000 people. The main languages spoken are Gouin, Jula and French. Occasionally people like to throw Mooré at me as well. Always have to stay on my toes! We have a Catholic Church and a mosque. Supposedly, there’s a Protestant church nearby, but I have yet to discover it. There’s a primary school and an adult literacy/technical school. We have several little “restaurants” where you can buy café au lait (instant coffee with lots of sweetened condensed milk), bread, salad, achecké (not sure how to spell this but it has a cous cous consistency), fish, rice and sauce, woso (an African sweet potato) fries and grilled pork, goat or sheep. You can also regularly find garlic, onions, tomatoes, hot peppers and bananas. We have a couple bars, as well as several places where women make and sell dolo, the local beer. There is a border control center with police, but it is a few kilometers from the center of town. This is the only area with electricity, which means cold drinks :) The train that goes from Ouagadougou to Abidjan passes through my town a couple times a day. At one time there was an operating train station in the village, but it has been abandoned for several years now, haven’t found out the reason why. However, there is a station in the town just north of me. I want to take this train someday, but Côte d’Ivoire is off limits still to PCVs because of the political crisis that occurred at the previous year.
My main hang out has been the CSPS, our local health clinic, as this is my partner organization. The clinic has 9 on staff including a guard/grounds keeper. Only two of the staff is from our village, the guard and the depot (dispenser of medication, a pharmacy of sorts). The rest of the staff comes from other cities and are on contract, but all are from the Cascade region. The CSPS serves 8 other villages on top of its own and also has quite a large population that comes from Côte d’Ivoire. We also have a community health organization, the COGES. Normally this organization is made up of about 7 elected community members, with the head nurse of the CSPS. For the moment there only seems to be 3 members, but they seem motivated!

My house…I will try to get pictures up soon. It is a cement two room abode with an outdoor “shower” (no running water, just a little cement room with a drain) and latrine. Since I am the third volunteer the house came with some furniture, other supplies and painted walls. Not sure if it was Lindsy or the volunteer before her, but she left several areas to hang pictures and what not. I think this is one of my favorite parts. And the big book shelf and dresser. I finally feel settled, not having to live out of my hiking backpack. Outside I have a little walled in courtyard with a few Moringa trees and a hangar. I love it!

I’m slowly starting to meet my neighbors. Many of them have still been harvesting in the fields. Many of their fields are about 20km away so they have little houses they stay in out there until they finish harvesting. Thus my area of town has felt a little empty. Minus all the pigs, goats and chickens that live around there. I was talking with a few people and town and it seems they are almost finished so maybe it will liven up more.

Though I have had many visitors. And by visitors, I mean LOTS OF CHILDREN. When they were on Christmas break it was horrible. They would come every day, sometimes at 6:30 in the morning. “Il faut me donner bon bon” which translates to “You should/need to give me candy!” They then continued to ask for other things. I said when it’s Christmas then I’ll give you candy. Later my response changed to “I’m new here. Where is my candy?” I think they were testing me. And they really did test me! I have a latch on both sides of my door because it doesn’t stay shut when you are outside unless you latch it. Well one time I was inside my house and kids were at my door demanding candy yet again, so I told them to go away. I’m not sure if it was intentional, but I went to leave and my door was latched from the outside. I couldn’t get out! I then had to yell at some kids to come back to let me out. Yes, I got locked inside my house. By children. We do have some fun times together coloring, painting nails, playing some baseball type game and having them teach me things in Gouin. They have been friendly, but sometimes TOO friendly if you get what I mean. However, kids are kids wherever you are in the world.

I celebrated Christmas in village by going to services at the Catholic Church on Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning. For the Christmas Eve service the youth put together a little play of the Christmas story with Mary and Joseph travelling to find a place to stay. You know the story. I love how they had the tallest guy play Mary even though they had plenty of females a part of the play. Afterwards it was almost like a high school drill team, with them performing choreographed dances. There was a visiting priest from another city and I guess he noticed me because he made me introduce myself in front of the whole congregation in Jula. Guess that’s one way to let people know I’m here! There was kind of spontaneous dancing that broke out afterwards and it went on until after 1am. Everyone was up though the next morning for the 8am service! Additionally, I was able to purchase enough phone credit to talk with both sides of my family on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. It was so great to hear everyone’s voices! I also spent some of Christmas day watching Elf and enjoying some hot chocolate. It’s so strange when it’s over and you are back in Burkina Faso. Movies really do take you out of reality for a moment.

New Year’s Eve I decided to travel to Bobo to celebrate with other PCVs. There was a group of about 20 of us there. Many of us went out to dinner for some pizza at one of the nicer restaurants in town. I got what we would call a Hawaiian pizza, though it was ham instead of Canadian bacon. (I don’t think I’ve done it much on this blog, but I LOVE talking about food. Lately I’ve been having dreams where I am back in the States with friends and family at various restaurants. Sometimes it’s buffets. And they are so vivid! I haven’t even been here that long! Ahhh! Mefloquine!) Afterwards we kind of went bar hopping around the city. People lit off fireworks at midnight and then we all danced at this bar/restaurant called Trigone, or as what some people refer to as “The Junkyard.” (This then reminded me of the bar near the training center in Mali called the “The Trash Pile”-given this name by PCVs because it was across from a giant pile of trash.:) ) Some of us ended the night/morning by watching some Modern Family on a little netbook and then passing out. All and all it was a good time.

So here I am now. In my village of hippos. Trying to learn as much as I can. During our first three months at site we are not supposed to start any projects, but work on what is called the Etude de Milieu. This is basically a formal report of your village/town/city that has basic information on what your town has to offer as well as baseline data on health topics such as “How many women attended 4 or more prenatal consultations this year?” or “How many households have latrines” or “How many hand washing stations are available and where are they?” The report seems like a lot of information at first, but the purpose is for us to learn as much as we can about our site and to have data to look back on in the future, to see if we have made any progress. During this process, (and that is what all this is, a process, that cannot be rushed. I must remind myself of this daily!) we are getting to know the people in our community. At the same time, we are discovering potential work partners. Already in my short time in village I am meeting people who you can see truly care about their community and would be great to work alongside. The issue is knowing where to begin! Dɔɔni Dɔɔni!

Dɔɔni Dɔɔni kononi ba nyaga la. Petit á petit, l’oiseau fait son nid. (Little by little, the bird builds its nest. In Jula and French respectively.)
Thank you to Lindsy or Sara for painting that on the wall. This is a very important phrase to see and to remember daily!

Where am I?!

I ask myself this question after experiencing the following situations:

• I finish watching a few episodes of New Girl on my computer. When it’s over, I walk out my door and see people pumping water into buckets and using donkey carts to transport said water.
• Sitting at a nice hotel, ordering a Coke that is twice the price of what it would be in the store, but I must by something in order to use the Wi-fi. I feel a little out-of-place as I sip water from my Nalgene as Western tourists go by. They look so much clean.
• Bargaining for a taxi in Ouaga and getting upset when the driver tries to charge us the equivalent of 25 cents more just because we are foreigners. He thinks we will pay it because he thinks we don’t know the normal price of a cab. But au contraire, sir. We know.
• Having a cab roll up and cramming 10 people inside because we don’t want to have to wait for another at night when they are few and far between.
• Visiting an American-like grocery store in Ouaga, being overwhelmed by the options and hearing upbeat Christmas music.

There have been and will be more of these happenings where I will continue to ask “Where am I?” or “What is this?”

Training is over! Currently I’m in Banfora, but I head to my site tomorrow. AHHHHH! I’m both excited and nervous! We had to take public transportation from Ouaga to Banfora, but a Peace Corps driver is meeting us in the morning and taking me and another PCV to our sites. Saying goodbye to our host families was sad, but we will hopefully be able to visit sometime. My host dad has already called me a couple of times just to see how I’m doing. Such a sweet man!

Swear-In number two was a success. We had the ceremony at the U.S. Ambassador’s house this past Friday. I was asked to give a thank you speech in Jula, one of Burkina Faso’s national languages. We also had speeches in French, Mooré, Dagara and Lélé, all given by fellow PCVs. The ceremony went quick, but was great. There was a live traditional band and a trio of current PCVs played the U.S. National Anthem. Sodas and cake followed. The eating then continued at our Country Director’s house where we had pizza, brochettes and homemade cookies. Later that evening we continued the celebration by going out to dinner and going to a few bars. I really liked this place called Dinero’s. It had pool tables and they were playing some great music from the 50s and 60s. We ended the night by dancin it up at the Majestic.

I didn’t sleep that night because I had to be up early to catch the bus. Luckily though the bus we took was nice enough to where I was able to pass out a while. I’ve been able to hang out a bit with some volunteers that are in my area. I think I’m going to like it down here in the Soud-Ouest! I cannot believe it is almost Christmas! Doesn’t feel real when it’s 80 degrees. Since I won’t have Internet for a few weeks I will wish you all a Merry Christmas now. Hope you have a great end to the year and are able to spend time with those you love!

Joyeux Noël et Bonne année!

The Tagnan Family
My host family and I had a mini photo shoot one day. It was so cute because they got dressed up just for it. I think my host mom changed outfits like 3 times