A day in Burkina

I’m at a training this week in preparation for the new volunteers coming, so I’ve been thinking a lot about my first impressions of things here. Volunteers often talk about is how quickly you get used to life here and how things quickly lose their novelty or strangeness. But thinking back to my first days (months) in country, there was a lot that I just thought was crazy, that I now found not really that crazy.

For example, when I first got here I was amazed at the number of lizards here! I mean, I’m from Minnesota, not a place really known for any sort of reptiles at all. But here in Burkina (and the majority of Africa, I think) lizards run around like squirrels do in the Midwest. And animals in general are just everywhere here. I’ve written about several incidents involving bulls, but there are also donkeys, chickens, cats, dogs, sheep, goats and pigs everywhere. And they make noise. All. The. Time. But I’m used to it. I can sleep through the roosters’ morning cries, and the donkeys’ random screaming and the goats crying (that really does sound like kids). Just this weekend I saw some horses racing down a street in the capital, which was actually really weird. Though riding in a taxi in the capital city that’s following a donkey cart, that’s not weird at all.

In addition to animals everywhere, there are children everywhere. And they aren’t really supervised… They poop where ever they want. For example, my neighbor kids poop 10 feet from the gate to my courtyard, so often open the door to go out to school and see one of the popping a squat. They used to run away in fear of the white girl, but now they just ignore me and I ignore them. And then a pig or dog comes along and enjoys a nice breakfast. (I’ll let you connect the dots on that one yourself).

Another weird thing that you quickly get used to here is eating food from plastic bags. Instead of “to go” boxes, street vendors and even restaurants will give you your food to go in a black plastic bag. And at first you think it is absolutely bizarre and little gross to be eating your rice or spaghetti out of bag, but you get over it.

You also get over being dirty constantly. You never stop sweating, and it’s so dusty that you will always have a thin (or not so thin) film of dust and sweat on your face and clothing. If by some act of God, you do stop sweating, you have a crust of salt everywhere. Mostly on your neck, it’s rather unpleasant.

Transportation here is also really something you have to see to believe. Most of the transport here is what we call bush-taxis, which are vehicles larger than a mini-van, smaller than a 15 passenger van (would that just make it a van?) But in addition to loading the inside with as many people as possible, the top is loaded up with baggage, motorcycles, bikes, animals, etc. There have been numerous occasions where the height of the stuff on the roof is the same as the height of the car itself. Not a comforting site, but I have yet to see one tip over! One of my first bush-taxi experiences involved a jam-packed van that had 2 bulls and 15 sheep/goats on top. At one point some water was falling off of the roof and everyone was trying to avoid getting hit by it from the window. I thought to myself “why are they being so weird about it, the mist is kind of cooling,” then I realized it was animal pee...

But in addition to all these funny (and somewhat gross) things that I have gotten used to and now consider almost entirely normal, there are some things that I will never get used to. And I think a lot of that has to do with being an outsider in this culture. I will never get used to children (and adults) blatantly staring at me, following me, crying at the sight of me (not so much the adults on that one), and asking me for things. I will never get used to people trying to touch my hair, people calling me fat or telling me I’ve gained weight, no matter how many times they try to explain it’s a compliment…

One last fun story (once again about animals): the other day I was biking home from a little shop in “downtown” Yaho. There is a spot where a bunch of young men/boys hang out, and right as I biked past, one pulled up alongside me and challenged me to a race. Being an awesome biker, I accepted his challenge and we both took off pedaling. Not even 100ft down the road a pig starts to cross the street, so the boy veers to the side to avoid it. At this same time the pig realizes that he is interfering in our race and starts to turn back, but where he turns is right where the boy had swerved! Boy hits pig, sending boy flying over his handle bars. Boy is fine, as is pig. Everyone downtown had been watching our race, and they are now all laughing hysterically at the poor boy, who simply grabbed his bike and turned back in shame. Needless to say, I think I won that race.

The Day I Climbed a Mountain

I mean maybe it's just a large hill, but let's call it a mountain for simplicity's sake (and because it sounds awesomer).

So there's this mountain by my house. I can see it when I'm coming home from the main part of the village, and I've always wanted to climb it. And after recent events that have led me to realize that a lot of things are out of my control (previous post), I've decided to take the mindset of "why not now" in terms of a lot of things I want to do here before my second year is up. (Side note: I'm less than a week away from my one year mark!) So with this new focus of living in the here and now, I decided that I wanted to climb that mountain. Now.

The morning of my climb (about a month ago), I got up at about 6, packed a backpack with lots of water and some snacks and headed out on my bike. There were paths leading up to the that point for the most part, but occasionally they would suddenly disappear and I would have to walk over rocky parts until I found a path again to continue biking. After biking for an hour or so the incline got much steeper so I locked my bike to a tree and started hiking. After only about another hour I was a the top and saw this:



Then I turned around and looked back toward village. It looked a lot further away than about 2 hours biking/walking. In the first picture there are two cell phone towers just above where I typed Yaho, and the second picture is those towers magnified x100 (approximately).



When I got up there I was just amazed at the beauty of this place. It is so easy to forget that no matter where you live and what you're doing, but in all the craziness that has been happening here lately, I really just needed a reminder of just how wonderful this world is. I mean, just look at how beautiful that is. And that was just a 2 hour bike ride from where I live.

That morning, while on the top of the mountain, I got a text from home saying that one my best friend's dad passed away. It was just a very surreal moment for me. The scenery surrounding me was so beautiful and awe-inspiring it literally made my heart hurt, and now my heart was hurting for my friend's loss. More painful for me was the fact that I wasn't at home, and I couldn't be there for my friend. All this also came during I time when I was trying to live in the here and now and I was doing something I had wanted to do since getting to site, but I suddenly wanted to be not here at all, but at home.

There honestly haven't been too many moments over the past year where I want to be at home, but this was most definitely one of them. While I love the work I'm doing here and the people I'm able to do it with, that doesn't make me miss the people and events at home any less. There have been weddings, holidays, graduations, homecomings (both the event and literally people coming home) and just the spur of the moment gatherings that I've missed over the past year.
But in that same time, I've learned French and some Jula, I've eaten to (and many other things), I've taught math, physics AND chemistry, I haven't had running water or electricity, I've used biking as my main mode of transportation, I planted a (failed) garden, I taught numerous small children to call me by name instead of "white girl" and now I climbed a mountain.

So when times like this come up, when I think to myself that maybe I should just go home and stop missing all these important moments; it helps to remember all the challenges I've overcome and the victories (however small) I've accomplished. And to remember that even if I were home, I can't be there for everything for everyone. Living in the here and now is certainly not easy, and there will always be events that tear you one way or the other. But when I look around at my beautiful surroundings and think that I only have a year left, I hope to make the most of it.


Side note: I tried to make a panoramic of all my photos together, but it didn't work. Instead I layered the pictures one on top of the other and got this sweet looking guy: