World AIDS day is December 1st every year, but this year the school system of Burkina decided to do some activities on November 25th, which you may or may not remember was Thanksgiving this year! So while I didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving in any sort of food related way, it was fun to have a day out of the ordinary :)
In French, HIV/AIDS is VIH/SIDA, so almost the same. AIDS is NOT a large problem in Burkina Faso, I believe that the reported number of infected is only around 2%. This is very very small compared to eastern and southern African countries that have as much as 15% of the population infected. Either way, AIDS is taken very seriously, and is more of a starting ground to talk about issues more immediate to the people here, such as STIs/STDs and unwanted pregnancy. I hope I’m not coming off as downplaying the severity of the AIDS pandemic in other parts of the world, or even to those with AIDS here in Burkina, but even without having any information on me, I’m quite confident in saying that both Malaria and malnutrition individually cause more deaths a year than AIDS here in Burkina. So while it is very important that students are informed about what AIDS is and how it is and isn’t spread, a lot of the conversations during the day turned towards unwanted pregnancy which affects many many many of the girls in my classroom.
That morning all the students at school cleaned the school and CSPS grounds. Then two of the nurses from the CSPS came over and gave a lesson on what is AIDS. They talked to the entire school at the same time, and while I think they did a good job, I think it would have gone over much better to divide up age levels, if not age AND gender. There were 11 yr old kids who barely know what kissing is right there next to sexually active 19-20 yr olds who tried insisting that abstinence isn’t possible.
There were the usual misconceptions about how AIDS is and isn’t transmitted, and the one that really seemed to hang them up was mosquitoes. Mosquitoes cannot transfer AIDS/HIV from one person to another, and after how much they talk about malaria here, it was a little hard for students (and teachers) to grasp that they aren’t a problem for AIDS. We also talked for a while about mother/child transmission.
In the US, if a mother with HIV/AIDS were to give birth to a child, I have no doubt that it would be a C-section birth and that the mother would never breastfeed. Now think about rural Africa… The nearest facility capable of performing a C-section is 75km down the dirt road, a trip that normally takes at least 2 hours and cost about half a week’s salary, let alone the medical costs. And if a mother didn’t breastfeed, the child would starve. So, in Africa, they do actually recommend that the mother breastfeed. The transfer rate is so low that the benefits greatly outweigh the risk to the child.
By the end of the lesson by the nurses, the conversation had turned towards abstinence and how to avoid pregnancy. The profs and nurses both strongly encouraged the students to wait, at least until they were done with school, before having sex. I’m not sure how that went over, but we’ll just have to look and see at the end year.
That afternoon we had a soccer match between the 4e and 3e girls, just for a little bit of fun to reward the students for all the work they did that morning. But, when the profs said that it would be for fun, I didn’t realize that it would be for entertainment. When the girls got out there to play, the entire student body just laughed at them. It was obvious that they’ve never received any sort of training in strategy of playing the game, and all followed the ball around like a herd. I was really upset and tried to give the girls some pointers, but as most of you know, my sports knowledge and ability is quite limited… It was just so frustrating to see the girls out there trying their best, and getting laughed at, even when they were doing really well. Just the idea of girls playing sports is funny enough to set them off sometimes. I could (and probably will at some point) write a whole post on just this, but don’t feel quite ready to really elaborate at the moment…
All in all, not your typical Thanksgiving, but a good day, and definitely important message for the students. The next day, I explained what Thanksgiving is to each of my classes, just like I made them explain Tiimbe to me. It was really hard to try and explain a cranberry or pie to my students though :P
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Tiimbe & Tabaski
So about a month ago was the village fete of Tiimbe. I asked around to neighboring volunteers, and no one else had ever even heard of the fete, so I’m pretty sure that it is just celebrated in Yaho. We did have school that day, so I asked each of my classes, what is Tiimbe, what is the village celebrating, how do you celebrate? Well, the last question listed is much easier to answer than the first two; to celebrate you eat sauce arachide (peanut sauce), traditional dancing, you go out late and drink and dance some more. But the first two questions were a little harder. It sounds like Tiimbe is in celebration of the harvest (although the harvest is most definitely not done yet at that time of year), but also is sort of a new year’s festival. The elders of the village are apparently the only people to really know exactly what is going on.
So after school that day, I changed into my Tiimbe shirt and went to talk with some neighbors. One offered me tô with sauce arachide. But this sauce was not the same sauce that I’d had before, and normally you don’t eat tô with sauce arachide, normally that is for rice. But this sauce was much thicker, it had pate arachide (literally peanut paste, but the same as peanut butter) and leaves and was really really delicious. I really don’t know what kind of leaves they were, and even if I knew the word for them, either in Bwamu or Jula, I wouldn’t know the French word, and we probably don’t even have the same plant in the US, so we can just call them something similar to spinach. So imagine spinach & peanut butter sauce served over a corn product with a Jello consistency, and you’ve got the traditional dish of Tiimbe :P
Also that afternoon there were some women doing traditional dance around the petit marche. And I have to admit, it looked kind of painful… They would dance around a little then whip their heads back to the beat of the music. They tried to get me to try it, and I danced for a bit with them, but as I said, the head whipping just looked painful. The elders/leaders of the community were watching the dancing and giving out prices to the women, but I don’t know how that was decided. I believe the prizes were donated or purchased with the money that was raised from the t-shirts and fabric they sold.
That night, after everyone went back to their houses and ate dinner, they all came back out and went dancing at the ball. There are a couple places you can get a cold drink in village, and one of them has dancing once a week and for all the fetes. So the night of Tiimbe, the obviously had dancing, and because I didn’t have school the next day, I decided I was up for some fun! I convinced my friend Tené to come out with me, and we had a fun time!
Hopefully next year, I can get a head start and try and figure out a little more concretely what the purpose of the fete is, but either way, I’ll be excited to eat more special peanut sauce like that!!
Edit: So, upon posting this, I remembered that I titled it Tiimbe AND Tabaski, but have yet to say anything about Tabaski! It is a Muslim holiday (side note: I’m not sure if I’ve said this, but Muslim in French is Musselman, so it sounds a little like muscle man, and always makes me smile) in celebration of when Abraham was supposed to kill his son, but then didn’t have to. Of course, the Muslim tradition recognizes Ishmael as the son in this story, and the Christians say it’s Isaac. But to celebrate the fete, they eat mutton, because Abraham killed the sheep instead. In village, I celebrated the fete by eating well (note the pattern between all fetes). I went with the other professors to my director’s house, and we had some chicken and riz gras. We just sat and talked for a couple hours then I went home and hung out with my next door neighbors. I’m not sure if it’s always like this, but I felt like Tabaski was more celebrated than Ramadan, but that might just have more to do with how well I know the community at the two different points of time. And this year it was the day after Tiimbe, so it was a pretty good week!
So after school that day, I changed into my Tiimbe shirt and went to talk with some neighbors. One offered me tô with sauce arachide. But this sauce was not the same sauce that I’d had before, and normally you don’t eat tô with sauce arachide, normally that is for rice. But this sauce was much thicker, it had pate arachide (literally peanut paste, but the same as peanut butter) and leaves and was really really delicious. I really don’t know what kind of leaves they were, and even if I knew the word for them, either in Bwamu or Jula, I wouldn’t know the French word, and we probably don’t even have the same plant in the US, so we can just call them something similar to spinach. So imagine spinach & peanut butter sauce served over a corn product with a Jello consistency, and you’ve got the traditional dish of Tiimbe :P
Also that afternoon there were some women doing traditional dance around the petit marche. And I have to admit, it looked kind of painful… They would dance around a little then whip their heads back to the beat of the music. They tried to get me to try it, and I danced for a bit with them, but as I said, the head whipping just looked painful. The elders/leaders of the community were watching the dancing and giving out prices to the women, but I don’t know how that was decided. I believe the prizes were donated or purchased with the money that was raised from the t-shirts and fabric they sold.
That night, after everyone went back to their houses and ate dinner, they all came back out and went dancing at the ball. There are a couple places you can get a cold drink in village, and one of them has dancing once a week and for all the fetes. So the night of Tiimbe, the obviously had dancing, and because I didn’t have school the next day, I decided I was up for some fun! I convinced my friend Tené to come out with me, and we had a fun time!
Hopefully next year, I can get a head start and try and figure out a little more concretely what the purpose of the fete is, but either way, I’ll be excited to eat more special peanut sauce like that!!
Edit: So, upon posting this, I remembered that I titled it Tiimbe AND Tabaski, but have yet to say anything about Tabaski! It is a Muslim holiday (side note: I’m not sure if I’ve said this, but Muslim in French is Musselman, so it sounds a little like muscle man, and always makes me smile) in celebration of when Abraham was supposed to kill his son, but then didn’t have to. Of course, the Muslim tradition recognizes Ishmael as the son in this story, and the Christians say it’s Isaac. But to celebrate the fete, they eat mutton, because Abraham killed the sheep instead. In village, I celebrated the fete by eating well (note the pattern between all fetes). I went with the other professors to my director’s house, and we had some chicken and riz gras. We just sat and talked for a couple hours then I went home and hung out with my next door neighbors. I’m not sure if it’s always like this, but I felt like Tabaski was more celebrated than Ramadan, but that might just have more to do with how well I know the community at the two different points of time. And this year it was the day after Tiimbe, so it was a pretty good week!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
A rat, a bat, and a bull
Life here “en brusse” (in the bush), is much closer to the nature, meaning that I am now used to roosters crowing at all times of the day, donkeys braying (also at all times of day, and it’s really really annoying), cows mooing, goats and sheep bleating (which sounds a lot like children), and dogs barking (and fighting) and generally all sorts of noise all the time. Normally, all I really have to deal with is the noise, but in the last couple weeks, I have had a couple interesting run-ins with the wildlife here.
The rat: So the other night, I was getting ready for bed. I had already bushed my teeth and was just going to visit the latrine before lying down. It was already dark out (fyi, I was too scared to use my latrine at night for the first few weeks of site), so I had my flashlight ready and gave the usual preparatory flash around the latrine before going in. Normally, there’s nothing there or occasionally I’ll see a lizard scurry up the wall, but not tonight. Tonight, there was a black rat hanging out right next to the hole. I’m sure he was there to eat the crickets and other insects I don’t think about that also live near the hole, and normally I’d thank him for such a task, but I had to pee.
I kept my flashlight on him, trying to scare him away, but he couldn’t climb walls like the lizards can… I left, hoping he would leave, but was still there when I came back. It was starting to get late (aka 8:30), so I decided to let him be the bigger man, and I went and took care of my business in the shower area…
The bat: This one just happened two nights ago, I was talking to a friend on the phone lying in bed, in the dark, when I started to hear to something scratching against my window screen. I figured it was a large fly or wasp (those flies are louder than you think against the screens!), but when I shined my flashlight from bed, I saw a bat!! I still don’t know how it got into my house, but I suspect he found a way between the sheets of tin that make up my roof. I often see sunlight coming through in the morning, meaning there is a space large enough for a little bat to get in. I wasn’t sure how to encourage him to leave, and didn’t really want to get out of my bed at that point, so I just waited about 20 minutes when I heard him move to the window in the main room. I went out and opened the door, hoping that he would be smart enough to fly out, but that was a no go. I eventually just went to bed, but I could still hear him banging around against the windows. Luckily, he wasn’t there the next morning when I got up, so I will just hope that he doesn’t come back! I’ll maybe also look into sealing up my roof better…
The bull: This one actually happened on Thanksgiving Day, which is the same day my village did some activities in honor of World AIDS Day. I was biking between the CSPS and the school, where the kids were cleaning up and I passed someone from school and as I was waving, he started yelling that there was a Taurus coming. I turn around and see that there is a large black bull running towards us!! Everyone else around us is running to hide behind bushes or trees, but I was currently in the middle of the road with nowhere to go. I don’t know about most of you, but I have never had to avoid a rampaging bull before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do. It was running towards me, and I didn’t want to move because I was afraid it would try and chase me, but my friend was yelling at me to ditch my bike and run to the nearest bush. In the end, the bull moved on before I really made a decision, but it was pretty scary for about 5 seconds there (of course it felt longer than that though…). When I got to school, my colleague made fun of protecting my bike, but really I just thought movement would provoke him…
Also, I feel I need to point out that there are a lot of cows/bulls here. It is not at all weird to see them, but normally in a herd, walking to get water. So when they started saying, “There’s a bull!” I didn’t really care… But now I know, if a bull is running towards you, hide!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Stll here!
So i'm going to make this really quick, but i just wanted to give you a short update of life here! I have only one week of the trimester left before my In-Service Training (IST) for a week in the capital. I have to give two tests next week, and get them graded before heading off, so it's going to be busy! About as busy as this last week, where i spent a good chunk of time writing said tests!
This weekend was supposed to be the Volunteer Day celebrations, but the were unfortunately canceled because the weekend after is the 50th anniversary of independence here! So there are going to be some pretty big celebrations for that, which i'm looking forward to.
It is finally getting cold here (aka about 65 degrees), and i now have to wear my long sleeve shirt and socks in the morning! I can also finally sleep with a blanket though, so that's nice. But it is a weird feeling to be cold after six months of being hot all the time.
While i'm in the capital, i hope to have a few more detailed stories for you, Tiimbe, the local fete here, World AIDS Day and a few other fun days, so check back after a week or so!!
Miss you all, hope you're all getting ready for the holidays!
This weekend was supposed to be the Volunteer Day celebrations, but the were unfortunately canceled because the weekend after is the 50th anniversary of independence here! So there are going to be some pretty big celebrations for that, which i'm looking forward to.
It is finally getting cold here (aka about 65 degrees), and i now have to wear my long sleeve shirt and socks in the morning! I can also finally sleep with a blanket though, so that's nice. But it is a weird feeling to be cold after six months of being hot all the time.
While i'm in the capital, i hope to have a few more detailed stories for you, Tiimbe, the local fete here, World AIDS Day and a few other fun days, so check back after a week or so!!
Miss you all, hope you're all getting ready for the holidays!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Teacher's Pet!
So sad news; i had two thoughtful and interesting blog posts all written out and ready to go, and i forget my usb key at home... So you are stuck with my last minute thoughts.
Well, one good story that happened after i wrote the other entries: Toby followed me to school the other day! it was pretty damn cute :) Every morning, i am usually in a hurry to get out the door and to school by 7. I usually let toby out of the courtyard before then because he gets restless and starts scratching at the door. well, that day, for whatever reason, he made it to 7 before he started to bug me. So he followed me out the door and when i took off on my bike, he followed. School is about a km away, and he kept up the whole time! admittedly, i did go a little slower at the end for him, just because i didn't want him to get lost halfway between home and school. At school he explored all around the grounds, walking in and out of my classroom and even following me up and down the aisles! Finally, he curled up and took a nap until it was time to go home.
Like i said, pretty adorable!
So there are a quite a few events coming up; international volunteer day the weekend of dec 4th, Burkina's independence day Dec 11, and my In-service training starting Dec 13th. And the end of the trimester around the 10th. So, i'll finally have some work to do around here, haha! But also, i'll have lots to write about coming up, so check back around then! Miss you all, happy holidays coming up!!
Well, one good story that happened after i wrote the other entries: Toby followed me to school the other day! it was pretty damn cute :) Every morning, i am usually in a hurry to get out the door and to school by 7. I usually let toby out of the courtyard before then because he gets restless and starts scratching at the door. well, that day, for whatever reason, he made it to 7 before he started to bug me. So he followed me out the door and when i took off on my bike, he followed. School is about a km away, and he kept up the whole time! admittedly, i did go a little slower at the end for him, just because i didn't want him to get lost halfway between home and school. At school he explored all around the grounds, walking in and out of my classroom and even following me up and down the aisles! Finally, he curled up and took a nap until it was time to go home.
Like i said, pretty adorable!
So there are a quite a few events coming up; international volunteer day the weekend of dec 4th, Burkina's independence day Dec 11, and my In-service training starting Dec 13th. And the end of the trimester around the 10th. So, i'll finally have some work to do around here, haha! But also, i'll have lots to write about coming up, so check back around then! Miss you all, happy holidays coming up!!
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Toubabou!
So, I have to admit, that I had a little bit of trouble thinking of what to write for this entry. You’d think that after two weeks of not really talking to anyone back home, I’d be bursting with new and exciting stories of my adventures in Africa. Well, sorry to disappoint, but just like in America, when you start to get into the routine of things, they stop being new and exciting.
I do have a couple stories for you though, so hopefully they will tide you over until something really fun and exciting happens here :)
First, I need to explain that here (and most other non-Western countries) it is perfectly acceptable and normal to refer to people by the color of their skin. Say what you want about political correctness, this simply isn’t done in the States. It is considered rude at best, and in most instances it is much more serious than that. But here, it’s any everyday occurrence. Daily, I’m greeted as Toubabu (the Jula word for white/foreigner), Nasanu (Bwamu), Nasarah (Moore), or simply La Blanche (French). And both people I’ve never met, as well as my friends and co-workers will call me such. My friends and co-workers don’t call me those names directly, but I have heard them refer to me as such to other Burkinabe. Some days I decide it’s worth it to try and ask that people call me by name instead of by the color of my skin, where as other days it simply isn’t worth the effort.
This past week I was sitting and reading at the coffee kiosk outside my house when this man comes up to me and greets me as “Madame Toubabu, Bonjour!” As I knew that I would never see this guy again and because there were other people around who always get a kick out of it when I ask people to use my name and not Toubabu; today was one of those days where I decided it just wasn’t worth it. So I simply responded with my Bonjour and start to open my book again (a little rude not to run to full gambit of salutations, asking about their family, work, health, etc, but I was annoyed). As I do so, the little kid working at the shop says, “her name’s not toubabu, it’s Danielle.” And suddenly, it was the best day ever! This little kid, who laughed along with his parents when I’d said that same thing in the past, was now sticking up for me! It was adorable and really made my week :)
A couple days later, I was at school for the study hall I host for the 3e class. I brought my water jug for the students to fill up and bring to my house after, and asked a group of girls to fill it up for me. As I’m walking away I hear one of the say, “La blanche…” and I yell after them that they can call me Madame, not La Blanche. Students here are expected to show a lot more respect to their teachers than we expect in the states, so that I really did consider unacceptable. The girls laughed and ran away, but I hope that my point was made. The next day, I had study hall with 4e and we were going over English words. One of the girls from the day before asks, “How do you call someone La Blanche in English?” “You don’t,” was my response to that. We then had a discussion about it, and how I understand that it is somewhat acceptable here, it is considered very rude in the US, so hopefully I’ll run into it less in the future. I had the same discussion with some of the functionaire women in the that weekend, so hopefully I will get to the point where at least my friends don't call me Toubabou any longer. But we'll see...
I do have a couple stories for you though, so hopefully they will tide you over until something really fun and exciting happens here :)
First, I need to explain that here (and most other non-Western countries) it is perfectly acceptable and normal to refer to people by the color of their skin. Say what you want about political correctness, this simply isn’t done in the States. It is considered rude at best, and in most instances it is much more serious than that. But here, it’s any everyday occurrence. Daily, I’m greeted as Toubabu (the Jula word for white/foreigner), Nasanu (Bwamu), Nasarah (Moore), or simply La Blanche (French). And both people I’ve never met, as well as my friends and co-workers will call me such. My friends and co-workers don’t call me those names directly, but I have heard them refer to me as such to other Burkinabe. Some days I decide it’s worth it to try and ask that people call me by name instead of by the color of my skin, where as other days it simply isn’t worth the effort.
This past week I was sitting and reading at the coffee kiosk outside my house when this man comes up to me and greets me as “Madame Toubabu, Bonjour!” As I knew that I would never see this guy again and because there were other people around who always get a kick out of it when I ask people to use my name and not Toubabu; today was one of those days where I decided it just wasn’t worth it. So I simply responded with my Bonjour and start to open my book again (a little rude not to run to full gambit of salutations, asking about their family, work, health, etc, but I was annoyed). As I do so, the little kid working at the shop says, “her name’s not toubabu, it’s Danielle.” And suddenly, it was the best day ever! This little kid, who laughed along with his parents when I’d said that same thing in the past, was now sticking up for me! It was adorable and really made my week :)
A couple days later, I was at school for the study hall I host for the 3e class. I brought my water jug for the students to fill up and bring to my house after, and asked a group of girls to fill it up for me. As I’m walking away I hear one of the say, “La blanche…” and I yell after them that they can call me Madame, not La Blanche. Students here are expected to show a lot more respect to their teachers than we expect in the states, so that I really did consider unacceptable. The girls laughed and ran away, but I hope that my point was made. The next day, I had study hall with 4e and we were going over English words. One of the girls from the day before asks, “How do you call someone La Blanche in English?” “You don’t,” was my response to that. We then had a discussion about it, and how I understand that it is somewhat acceptable here, it is considered very rude in the US, so hopefully I’ll run into it less in the future. I had the same discussion with some of the functionaire women in the that weekend, so hopefully I will get to the point where at least my friends don't call me Toubabou any longer. But we'll see...
Saturday, October 16, 2010
First week of school!
And second week, too, I guess! Well, Monday October 4th, we finally decided to get around to having school :) I met both my classes (I only teach classes in the 4th and 3rd grades, and there is only one class per grade at that level) that day, but spent most of the first day introducing myself and explaining a little about the Peace Corps. Unlike the US, class schedules here aren’t the same every day, meaning that my daily schedule varies as well. At my school, most of the classes take place in the morning, 7-12, we then have the lunch break/sieste from 12-15 and classes again from 15-18. Yes, that’s right, 18 or 6pm. To be honest, most grades don’t have class that late, and if they do it’s only one day a week. I had one afternoon class this week, and you can really tell that the kids are tired. 15 (3pm) is also about the hottest time of day, so to be stuck inside can be brutal. Luckily, most classes fit into the morning.
Friday of the first week, we had a teachers’ meeting where we found out that we were getting another professeur for math and physics/chemistry. With only the 4 original professeurs, we didn’t have enough people to cover all the hours. I feel kind of bad, because if I was able to take a full course load, we wouldn’t have needed the other prof, but I also know the school is really growing, so they would’ve needed someone next year anyway. The new prof took one of my P/C classes, meaning I now only teach 4th Math and 3rd P/C. I definitely feel like I could be doing more, and offered to take an English class, but the other teachers are paid by how many hours they teach, so they want to have full schedules. And I get paid the same regardless, so I feel bad taking classes away from them. But we’ve already talked about having an English club, and I hope to offer a sort of study hall/tutor session for both 3rd and 4th grade, hoping that I can help with math, physics/chemistry and English questions.
I also mentioned to my health center that I have quite a bit of free time and could help out there, but after talking to a health volunteer realized that I could do more giving mini health lessons to my students at the school. The nurses at the health center also mentioned that last year they talked to the school about how to stay healthy and avoid pregnancy. Right now, I think I will try to work that in as a mini lesson at the beginning of some of my study hall times.
Now that school’s started and the professeurs are back in town, I’ve hung out with them a few times in the evenings. We never really do much, just sit and chat, but it’s nice to be able to hang out with people who speak French well, and can even help with translation when I don’t know the French word :)
I also bought a light/battery combo, so I have light in my house now!! It was getting really hard to make dinner with a flashlight, and to be honest, that’s all I’ve really used it for. I will probably have papers to grade at some point coming up, so I know it will be nice then, too
Friday of the first week, we had a teachers’ meeting where we found out that we were getting another professeur for math and physics/chemistry. With only the 4 original professeurs, we didn’t have enough people to cover all the hours. I feel kind of bad, because if I was able to take a full course load, we wouldn’t have needed the other prof, but I also know the school is really growing, so they would’ve needed someone next year anyway. The new prof took one of my P/C classes, meaning I now only teach 4th Math and 3rd P/C. I definitely feel like I could be doing more, and offered to take an English class, but the other teachers are paid by how many hours they teach, so they want to have full schedules. And I get paid the same regardless, so I feel bad taking classes away from them. But we’ve already talked about having an English club, and I hope to offer a sort of study hall/tutor session for both 3rd and 4th grade, hoping that I can help with math, physics/chemistry and English questions.
I also mentioned to my health center that I have quite a bit of free time and could help out there, but after talking to a health volunteer realized that I could do more giving mini health lessons to my students at the school. The nurses at the health center also mentioned that last year they talked to the school about how to stay healthy and avoid pregnancy. Right now, I think I will try to work that in as a mini lesson at the beginning of some of my study hall times.
Now that school’s started and the professeurs are back in town, I’ve hung out with them a few times in the evenings. We never really do much, just sit and chat, but it’s nice to be able to hang out with people who speak French well, and can even help with translation when I don’t know the French word :)
I also bought a light/battery combo, so I have light in my house now!! It was getting really hard to make dinner with a flashlight, and to be honest, that’s all I’ve really used it for. I will probably have papers to grade at some point coming up, so I know it will be nice then, too
Saturday, October 2, 2010
To
My last blog updates were when I was on a mini-vacation to Bobo, the second largest city. I met up with a bunch of volunteers who are currently taking part in the Peace Corps Burkina Faso Bike Tour, a fund raiser for the Gender and Development committee. They biked just about the entire way around Burkina! I, unfortunately, was not able to join them for any of the actually biking (there are rules about how much you can leave site your first 3 mos), but it was fun to see them and wish them luck!
Other than that, nothing else has really been going on here. Toby is doing well! I attempted to make him some tô (the corn-flour goo that is the staple food source here), but it didn’t turn out so hot. He still eats it though. To the make the tô, I first had to make my own flour, which was interesting. I bought dried corn at the marche a while ago, but finally got around to finding a neighbor to help me.
First, we had to wash the corn, then pilé, or pound, the kernels to remove the skins. (and when I say “we,” I mean mostly my neighbor because I’m actually pretty useless when it comes to manual labor here. I’m pretty sure my neighbor girls who look about 7 are stronger than I am…) After the skin was removed and the kernels were washed again, they had to soak overnight. The next morning I went to the mill where my kernels became flour!
To make tô, I had to boil the water the kernels were washed in (mixed with some lime juice) and add in the flour mixed with more water (so it doesn’t clump). Then stir like crazy until your arm feels like it will fall off, and finally place the goo in a bowl to cool and form. And that’s it. Unfortunately, I waited a couple days in between making the flour and making the tô, so the flour was starting to go bad. When the flour comes back from the mill, it’s moist. All of our flour in the US has been dried, something I didn’t even think of as I just let the flour sit (covered to keep bugs out, which unfortunately kept the moisture in) for a couple days. Like I said though, Toby still eats it and that’s all I’m really asking for :) Also, my neighbor saved the skins from the kernels to feed to her pigs, so I liked that nothing was wasted in the process! As I mentioned, even the same water was used to clean the kernels and to make the tô!
Other than that, nothing else has really been going on here. Toby is doing well! I attempted to make him some tô (the corn-flour goo that is the staple food source here), but it didn’t turn out so hot. He still eats it though. To the make the tô, I first had to make my own flour, which was interesting. I bought dried corn at the marche a while ago, but finally got around to finding a neighbor to help me.
First, we had to wash the corn, then pilé, or pound, the kernels to remove the skins. (and when I say “we,” I mean mostly my neighbor because I’m actually pretty useless when it comes to manual labor here. I’m pretty sure my neighbor girls who look about 7 are stronger than I am…) After the skin was removed and the kernels were washed again, they had to soak overnight. The next morning I went to the mill where my kernels became flour!
To make tô, I had to boil the water the kernels were washed in (mixed with some lime juice) and add in the flour mixed with more water (so it doesn’t clump). Then stir like crazy until your arm feels like it will fall off, and finally place the goo in a bowl to cool and form. And that’s it. Unfortunately, I waited a couple days in between making the flour and making the tô, so the flour was starting to go bad. When the flour comes back from the mill, it’s moist. All of our flour in the US has been dried, something I didn’t even think of as I just let the flour sit (covered to keep bugs out, which unfortunately kept the moisture in) for a couple days. Like I said though, Toby still eats it and that’s all I’m really asking for :) Also, my neighbor saved the skins from the kernels to feed to her pigs, so I liked that nothing was wasted in the process! As I mentioned, even the same water was used to clean the kernels and to make the tô!
Conseil de Classe
written 9/30
Today was the conseil de classe for my school, which is basically a meeting with all professeurs and administration to discuss the schedule and program for the year. My school is really small, so there were only 8 of us in attendance; the 4 professeurs, the director/5th prof, the econome/surveillant, the president of the APE and the secretary of the APE. The director is the principal, the econome is in charge of all things financial and the surveillant is in charge of discipline. The APE is the parents’ association, but I think it might be better compared to the school board than the PTA. They seem to have quite a bit of power and access to money for the school.
The meeting started with general information and the presentation of me! I hadn’t met one of the professeurs yet, and hadn’t seen the other two since my visit earlier this summer. We then discussed the schedule for the school year, basically what days we are going to end class for each trimester. We also decided who was going to be Professeur Principal for each class. The PP is the prof in charge of calculating the grades for the class. Yes, each prof decides for the grade for the class they teach, but in the BF system all the grades are then averaged to find the student’s Moyen (literally, mean/average, which is used at the end of the year to determine if the student passes for the year). This is no easy task because they don’t have computers at the school here, so it is all done by hand. (I do plan on making an Excel program and sharing it with my fellow teachers). Because of how much work this entails, they do fight over who has to take the bigger classes, this year the director took the biggest class, 5th, which is 109 students.
The next issue on the table was in fact class sizes. I forget if I’ve mentioned this before, but my school is a college, meaning middle school, which has 4 grade levels, 6th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd. This year my school has two 6th grade classes, each at 90, one 5th at 109, 4th has 60 and 3rd has 41. You’ll notice that our retention rate is not that great. But this is also only the 6th year the school has been around, meaning the 3rd grade class is only the 3rd class to start here. A big concern for the school right now is the size of the 6th grade classes and the fact that next year, we are not going to have room for that many in 5th. So, we need to add another 5th grade class. Well, we currently don’t have a room for another class. We also don’t have enough professeurs for another class. We don’t have enough professeurs for the number of classes as it is! As we were discusses this, the director directed his concern for needing another classroom at the president of the APE, asking him if they can have one built by next year. The president seemed to think it was possible, but that still leaves the question of finding at least one more prof… I also know that the village next to ours is currently building a school, so maybe more of our students will go there, but I don’t think we can count on that. Nor do we want tp, it’s a good thing that the schools growing, it means that more students are continuing with school!
We finished the meeting with any personal requests for supplies or possible schedule changes, as well as a request to the APE to get some of the student desks fixed.
After the meeting we all went to the president’s house for some cold beers and delicious chicken! School started Friday, but I don’t have classes Friday, so I start Monday! I realized too late that because it’s hard to get to my village on Sundays, it would have been better to get Monday off than Friday (if I want to go to the capital for the weekend or something). But we’ll see how this goes and if it’s a huge issue I might ask to switch next trimester. It affects everyone else’s schedule though, so I’m kind of kicking myself for forgetting to ask earlier, or rather for asking for the wrong day off…
I have to admit, I am really ready for school to start! This last week, the amount of free time I have here was really getting to me. This past month I’ve felt a little directionless, and while that was nice at first, I’m glad to start feeling like I’m actually doing something here.
Today was the conseil de classe for my school, which is basically a meeting with all professeurs and administration to discuss the schedule and program for the year. My school is really small, so there were only 8 of us in attendance; the 4 professeurs, the director/5th prof, the econome/surveillant, the president of the APE and the secretary of the APE. The director is the principal, the econome is in charge of all things financial and the surveillant is in charge of discipline. The APE is the parents’ association, but I think it might be better compared to the school board than the PTA. They seem to have quite a bit of power and access to money for the school.
The meeting started with general information and the presentation of me! I hadn’t met one of the professeurs yet, and hadn’t seen the other two since my visit earlier this summer. We then discussed the schedule for the school year, basically what days we are going to end class for each trimester. We also decided who was going to be Professeur Principal for each class. The PP is the prof in charge of calculating the grades for the class. Yes, each prof decides for the grade for the class they teach, but in the BF system all the grades are then averaged to find the student’s Moyen (literally, mean/average, which is used at the end of the year to determine if the student passes for the year). This is no easy task because they don’t have computers at the school here, so it is all done by hand. (I do plan on making an Excel program and sharing it with my fellow teachers). Because of how much work this entails, they do fight over who has to take the bigger classes, this year the director took the biggest class, 5th, which is 109 students.
The next issue on the table was in fact class sizes. I forget if I’ve mentioned this before, but my school is a college, meaning middle school, which has 4 grade levels, 6th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd. This year my school has two 6th grade classes, each at 90, one 5th at 109, 4th has 60 and 3rd has 41. You’ll notice that our retention rate is not that great. But this is also only the 6th year the school has been around, meaning the 3rd grade class is only the 3rd class to start here. A big concern for the school right now is the size of the 6th grade classes and the fact that next year, we are not going to have room for that many in 5th. So, we need to add another 5th grade class. Well, we currently don’t have a room for another class. We also don’t have enough professeurs for another class. We don’t have enough professeurs for the number of classes as it is! As we were discusses this, the director directed his concern for needing another classroom at the president of the APE, asking him if they can have one built by next year. The president seemed to think it was possible, but that still leaves the question of finding at least one more prof… I also know that the village next to ours is currently building a school, so maybe more of our students will go there, but I don’t think we can count on that. Nor do we want tp, it’s a good thing that the schools growing, it means that more students are continuing with school!
We finished the meeting with any personal requests for supplies or possible schedule changes, as well as a request to the APE to get some of the student desks fixed.
After the meeting we all went to the president’s house for some cold beers and delicious chicken! School started Friday, but I don’t have classes Friday, so I start Monday! I realized too late that because it’s hard to get to my village on Sundays, it would have been better to get Monday off than Friday (if I want to go to the capital for the weekend or something). But we’ll see how this goes and if it’s a huge issue I might ask to switch next trimester. It affects everyone else’s schedule though, so I’m kind of kicking myself for forgetting to ask earlier, or rather for asking for the wrong day off…
I have to admit, I am really ready for school to start! This last week, the amount of free time I have here was really getting to me. This past month I’ve felt a little directionless, and while that was nice at first, I’m glad to start feeling like I’m actually doing something here.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Toby!!
So i bought a puppy!! He is adorable and his name is Toby. About three days after i got him i realized the reason i probably thought that was such a good name for a pet was because it rhymes with my sister's cat's name, Coby. He is only about 5 weeks old and was not weened when i got him. He cried for almost the entire first day at my house, including the first night. I ended up letting him sleep with me, which worked for calming him down.
He is doing much better now, although i think he still misses his siblings. He now sleeps on my clothes instead of with me, so that's an improvement. He loves to run around and explore, although occasionally he gets lost.
There have been a few times when i would leave him in my enclosed courtyard only to come home and find him missing! It took me a day or so to realize that he is small enough to fit through the drainage holes in the courtyard and was sneaking out that way, haha! I tried blocking them with some rocks, but he still figured it out, meaning i just had to find some more rocks.
But here are some pictures, and i'm sure there will be more stories to come!
Friends
Friends!
So far, my closest friend is most definitely Sita, my neighbor. She is her husband’s second wife and she is pregnant with her second child. Her son, Yacoba, is 4 years old and adorable. He’s a little scared of me, but I’m sure that will go away with time. Sita’s husband and first wife live the courtyard next door as well, the husband owns coffee kiosk, so I spend a lot of time there just hanging out (also my house doesn’t have chairs yet, so if I want to sit and read, I’ll usually do it at the kiosk). The other wife doesn’t speak French, meaning I definitely talk more to Sita, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I forget her name more often than not (like right now…) But she is also really nice, we just aren’t really able to communicate right now. She has 3 or 4 boys as well (there is one I’m not sure if he lives there or just comes to hang out.)
Sita is only 21 years old, and was born and raised here in village. She did not finish school, but has pretty good French in spite of that. She is very social and I think just about everyone in the village knows her. The family is Muslim (note, two wives) meaning they just celebrated the end of Ramadan, which finished last week, and we had a giant fete! For the fete, instead of having all the friends and family over to their house, the women make lots of food, then go around and deliver it to their friends and family. I’m not sure yet if this is how all celebrations are or if this is specific to Ramadan, so I’ll get back to you on that. I have to admit, I because I didn’t know that how things worked, I kept waiting all day for everyone to get there. I was invited to dinner at Sita’s parents house, and also was expected a lot of people to be there, but it was just the family members who lived in that courtyard. At the end of night though, I did get to go out dancing with Sita and some other women! The bar was certainly packed!! I ended up dancing with the moms, mostly because after a couple guys asked me to dance, I realized that I don’t really know who any of my students are yet, and that dancing with them at a club might not be the best way to meet them… I was also exhausted because it was most definitely past my 9pm bedtime, haha! But it was really fun to see so many people from the village together.
Most nights after I eat dinner, I go over to Sita’s and we sit and talk for an hour or so after the sun sets (meaning I can’t do anything in my house) but before I want to go to bed. Even though we don’t understand each other perfectly, it is really nice to have someone to answer all my questions about the village. As I said before, Sita is very social, so I think she enjoys having telling me about the culture and customs as well :)
The second closest friend I have here is another women named Nadine, who works at the CSPS (health center) as a nurse. There are always at least 3 employees at a CSPS, the major, who is the head nurse and in charge of all administrative task (Alexander), the maternity nurse (Nadine), and a third nurse in charge of all the rest (Eliane). Our CSPS also has a health agent (not exactly sure what his role is, but he often seems busy) a grounds keeper (Felix) and a dispensary person (in charge of the pharmacy, Solange). I often go over to the CSPS to chat, and Nadine’s sister Chantal was visiting for the month, so she would often have a little more free time than Nadine to chat with me. Nadine is also unmarried, which is rare for a woman her age, which I think has to be at least 26 if not a year or two older. To become a nurse in Burkina you only have to finish CEG (college d’enseignment generale), which is somewhere between middle school and high school. The next level up is lycee, which is like a mix of high school and jr. college.
Nadine also told me that there is a women’s functionaires group in my village. Functionaires are anyone who works for the government, including nurses and teachers. The group consists of the two nurses mentioned above as well some primary school teachers and all the wives of male functionaires. I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the idea of me joining the group. On one side, I know that all of these women will be able to speak French, which is a little hard to come by here, but on the other, I don’t want to associate only with functionaires when that isn’t the point of my being here in the village. But maybe I can also use the group as a starting point for things I might want to accomplish in the village (even that would be more of a top-down approach, which might not work in all situations). Either way though, as a friend pointed out, I’m sure the get togethers will have great food!!
Well, other than the small groups of friends I’ve mentioned above, I have to admit that I have been somewhat hesitant to get to know people here. I think part of that is that during stage we hear all of the worst case scenarios that have happened to volunteers, so I am probably the most on-guard right now that I will ever be during my service. I think part of it is also that I’m just not an entirely outgoing person unless I first have a reason to be interacting with someone. I know that I need to work on that because if I only befriend people I have a built in reason to interact with, I’m only going to be friends with the 5-6 men who work at the school with me! And as I just get to know people in general I’ll figure out who are the faux-types (literally: false types) and who are actually nice :)
So far, my closest friend is most definitely Sita, my neighbor. She is her husband’s second wife and she is pregnant with her second child. Her son, Yacoba, is 4 years old and adorable. He’s a little scared of me, but I’m sure that will go away with time. Sita’s husband and first wife live the courtyard next door as well, the husband owns coffee kiosk, so I spend a lot of time there just hanging out (also my house doesn’t have chairs yet, so if I want to sit and read, I’ll usually do it at the kiosk). The other wife doesn’t speak French, meaning I definitely talk more to Sita, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I forget her name more often than not (like right now…) But she is also really nice, we just aren’t really able to communicate right now. She has 3 or 4 boys as well (there is one I’m not sure if he lives there or just comes to hang out.)
Sita is only 21 years old, and was born and raised here in village. She did not finish school, but has pretty good French in spite of that. She is very social and I think just about everyone in the village knows her. The family is Muslim (note, two wives) meaning they just celebrated the end of Ramadan, which finished last week, and we had a giant fete! For the fete, instead of having all the friends and family over to their house, the women make lots of food, then go around and deliver it to their friends and family. I’m not sure yet if this is how all celebrations are or if this is specific to Ramadan, so I’ll get back to you on that. I have to admit, I because I didn’t know that how things worked, I kept waiting all day for everyone to get there. I was invited to dinner at Sita’s parents house, and also was expected a lot of people to be there, but it was just the family members who lived in that courtyard. At the end of night though, I did get to go out dancing with Sita and some other women! The bar was certainly packed!! I ended up dancing with the moms, mostly because after a couple guys asked me to dance, I realized that I don’t really know who any of my students are yet, and that dancing with them at a club might not be the best way to meet them… I was also exhausted because it was most definitely past my 9pm bedtime, haha! But it was really fun to see so many people from the village together.
Most nights after I eat dinner, I go over to Sita’s and we sit and talk for an hour or so after the sun sets (meaning I can’t do anything in my house) but before I want to go to bed. Even though we don’t understand each other perfectly, it is really nice to have someone to answer all my questions about the village. As I said before, Sita is very social, so I think she enjoys having telling me about the culture and customs as well :)
The second closest friend I have here is another women named Nadine, who works at the CSPS (health center) as a nurse. There are always at least 3 employees at a CSPS, the major, who is the head nurse and in charge of all administrative task (Alexander), the maternity nurse (Nadine), and a third nurse in charge of all the rest (Eliane). Our CSPS also has a health agent (not exactly sure what his role is, but he often seems busy) a grounds keeper (Felix) and a dispensary person (in charge of the pharmacy, Solange). I often go over to the CSPS to chat, and Nadine’s sister Chantal was visiting for the month, so she would often have a little more free time than Nadine to chat with me. Nadine is also unmarried, which is rare for a woman her age, which I think has to be at least 26 if not a year or two older. To become a nurse in Burkina you only have to finish CEG (college d’enseignment generale), which is somewhere between middle school and high school. The next level up is lycee, which is like a mix of high school and jr. college.
Nadine also told me that there is a women’s functionaires group in my village. Functionaires are anyone who works for the government, including nurses and teachers. The group consists of the two nurses mentioned above as well some primary school teachers and all the wives of male functionaires. I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the idea of me joining the group. On one side, I know that all of these women will be able to speak French, which is a little hard to come by here, but on the other, I don’t want to associate only with functionaires when that isn’t the point of my being here in the village. But maybe I can also use the group as a starting point for things I might want to accomplish in the village (even that would be more of a top-down approach, which might not work in all situations). Either way though, as a friend pointed out, I’m sure the get togethers will have great food!!
Well, other than the small groups of friends I’ve mentioned above, I have to admit that I have been somewhat hesitant to get to know people here. I think part of that is that during stage we hear all of the worst case scenarios that have happened to volunteers, so I am probably the most on-guard right now that I will ever be during my service. I think part of it is also that I’m just not an entirely outgoing person unless I first have a reason to be interacting with someone. I know that I need to work on that because if I only befriend people I have a built in reason to interact with, I’m only going to be friends with the 5-6 men who work at the school with me! And as I just get to know people in general I’ll figure out who are the faux-types (literally: false types) and who are actually nice :)
At site!
Hello friends!!
Sorry for the delay, but I am finally at site, which means that I don’t have electricity or internet, so I’ve been saving all my good stories for now!!
I arrived at site Monday August 30th, after a slight delay. We (meaning me and another volunteer just to the south of me) were supposed to arrive the Sunday after swear-in, but we got within 3 km of the other site when we discovered there was a river crossing the road. At first we were going to drive around, which was at least 2 hours out of the way, but in the process of doing that we were informed that the other way around was also blocked by a river (there was a lot of rain the night before!). So we spent the night in Bobo, the second largest city in Burkina. We headed out again the next morning with more success :) We dropped her off first, then headed to my village! And I’ve been here ever since, haha.
My thoughts that first day were definitely very mixed. I arrived at site, dropped all my things off in my house and then the driver left. All within probably 15 minutes. It was very surreal. My counterpart and his family weren’t even there because of the change in schedule. I did have a few neighbors I recognized from my visit, but I didn’t remember anyone’s name. I obviously survived that first day, and all the ones following, but it was definitely intimidating.
Since then, I’ve found more of a routine, but I am certainly very ready for school to start. I have a little too much free time right now, which is just such a stark contrast to Stage. Most of my days, I get up at around 6, do dishes from the day before, make breakfast (usually just oatmeal because it’s easy), and do some other chores around the house (laundry, sweep and mop my floor, etc). I prefer to get them done in the morning because it gets hot later in the day and my house doesn’t have the best ventilation. Today for example, I weeded my yard, which was getting a little out of hand and took my about 2 hours! And even though I worked at 6am for at least the last year, I never got myself into a schedule where I was used to getting up that early. But it gets dark here around 6 or 7pm, and there isn’t a whole lot to do, so I go to bed. In the US, I would spend the evening watching TV or on my computer, neither of which are options here. So I’m usually in bed by 9, which is earlier than any enforced bedtime I can ever remember having in my life, haha!
The 15th was the day of rentrer (return) for professors and school administration. That means that my counterpart is back in town, as well as all the other school staff I wasn’t able to meet on my visit because they were on vacation. Yesterday I went and collected the books for the subjects I’m teaching, and I hope to get started with some lessons plans this week. Schools starts October 1st, which seems so late, but this culture is still largely agriculture based, and the harvest hasn’t happened yet here, so we just need to wait. I was talking to a friend last night and he said his school probably won’t start until halfway through October because of the harvest!
Well, I have some more subject specific entries following this, I just wanted to say that I am alive and well! And once school starts, I think I will have more of schedule not only for my personal time, but for when I will able to get to a place with internet access and say hello to all of you!
Sorry for the delay, but I am finally at site, which means that I don’t have electricity or internet, so I’ve been saving all my good stories for now!!
I arrived at site Monday August 30th, after a slight delay. We (meaning me and another volunteer just to the south of me) were supposed to arrive the Sunday after swear-in, but we got within 3 km of the other site when we discovered there was a river crossing the road. At first we were going to drive around, which was at least 2 hours out of the way, but in the process of doing that we were informed that the other way around was also blocked by a river (there was a lot of rain the night before!). So we spent the night in Bobo, the second largest city in Burkina. We headed out again the next morning with more success :) We dropped her off first, then headed to my village! And I’ve been here ever since, haha.
My thoughts that first day were definitely very mixed. I arrived at site, dropped all my things off in my house and then the driver left. All within probably 15 minutes. It was very surreal. My counterpart and his family weren’t even there because of the change in schedule. I did have a few neighbors I recognized from my visit, but I didn’t remember anyone’s name. I obviously survived that first day, and all the ones following, but it was definitely intimidating.
Since then, I’ve found more of a routine, but I am certainly very ready for school to start. I have a little too much free time right now, which is just such a stark contrast to Stage. Most of my days, I get up at around 6, do dishes from the day before, make breakfast (usually just oatmeal because it’s easy), and do some other chores around the house (laundry, sweep and mop my floor, etc). I prefer to get them done in the morning because it gets hot later in the day and my house doesn’t have the best ventilation. Today for example, I weeded my yard, which was getting a little out of hand and took my about 2 hours! And even though I worked at 6am for at least the last year, I never got myself into a schedule where I was used to getting up that early. But it gets dark here around 6 or 7pm, and there isn’t a whole lot to do, so I go to bed. In the US, I would spend the evening watching TV or on my computer, neither of which are options here. So I’m usually in bed by 9, which is earlier than any enforced bedtime I can ever remember having in my life, haha!
The 15th was the day of rentrer (return) for professors and school administration. That means that my counterpart is back in town, as well as all the other school staff I wasn’t able to meet on my visit because they were on vacation. Yesterday I went and collected the books for the subjects I’m teaching, and I hope to get started with some lessons plans this week. Schools starts October 1st, which seems so late, but this culture is still largely agriculture based, and the harvest hasn’t happened yet here, so we just need to wait. I was talking to a friend last night and he said his school probably won’t start until halfway through October because of the harvest!
Well, I have some more subject specific entries following this, I just wanted to say that I am alive and well! And once school starts, I think I will have more of schedule not only for my personal time, but for when I will able to get to a place with internet access and say hello to all of you!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
T-minus 8 hours!
So yesterday was swear-in day for Peace Corps Burkina Faso!! Our ceremony was held at the new American Embassy in Ouagadougou, which is less than a year old! We are the first group of Peace Corps volunteers to be sworn in at that building, so that was pretty cool :) The First Lady of Burkina Faso was also in attendance, which was a really big honor. The ceremony included speeches from 6 of the stagiaires, each in a different language, as well as speeches by our director, the Charge d’Affair (Burkina doesn’t currently have an ambassador, so the Charge d’Affair is the person in charge of the affairs of the office :P), and the Madame First Lady Chantal Compaore! We all said our oath of office as a group, which while maybe not super exciting, definitely kept the show shorter, because 77 new volunteers is a lot of people!
After the official parts of the ceremony there was a reception inside the embassy with drinks and appetizers. And cake! After that we decided to hit the town by going out to an American style restaurant and dance club!! It was a lot of fun and a great way to spend one of our last night’s together :)
So, today I spent my first full day as an official volunteer doing very official volunteer business, shopping. I get to my site of the first possible day, meaning I really only had today to get everything I need! I bought a stove (which is really just the range part and I’ll have to buy the gas tank separately), buckets for water, a 100L plastic trashcan looking thing which is used to store water, and a large wash basin for washing my clothes and dishes. I never really realized this before when I was living with my host families, but there are a lot of things necessary for getting, storing, and using water!! And I still need to buy plastic bidons, too (which are like gas cans, but used to get water from point A to point B)!
I also went to the large super market here in the capital, which is the closest thing to an American grocery store that you are going to get here in Burkina. (It definitely made me think of and miss Target!!) It was interesting though, because while they definitely had things that I will not be able to find anywhere else in the country, they didn’t have some of the most basic things I was looking for. I guess specialty stores in the US are the same, but it was just weird to go to what I felt like was finally a normal grocery room and not be able to find peanut butter… (which I can find everywhere here, I just wanted to buy one jar of it so I can get the jar filled up at my market). I think the only really exciting things I got at the market were lentils and olive oil and maybe a candy bar (or two) :P
Well, tomorrow (or 8 hours from now) is move in day!! I think I’m ready, and I’m really excited to get started. I will miss all my stagemates a lot, but I just keep thinking of all the amazing stories I am going to hear at our in-service training in December, haha!
Burkina Faso song (remixed)
During our last week of stage we held a little talent show, and while I didn't have many talents to share, it was a pretty awesome show. Some of you may remember earlier this year I posted a video a had written in preparation for his service in Burkina. Well, after 3 months of training he reworked it a little bit and we now have this gem to add to the collection. I'm sure there are inside jokes that won't be funny to people who didn't spend the last 12 weeks together, but take my word for it, the song is really funny :)
Burkina Faso (remixed)
Burkina Faso (remixed)
Monday, August 23, 2010
What’s next…
Well, as I said in my post below, one week from today I will have taken my oath of office (the same oath the president takes, btw) and will be living at my site. I still need to buy everything that I will need in my house, but I also think that I might live without too much the first couple weeks and see what I really need. Also, anything I buy I will have to take with me on the bush taxi from the bigger city nearby to my village. Just imagine trying to move a mattress or a gas tank and a small range for a stove on the roof of 15 passenger van, and you’ve got move in day. I’m actually lucky that I don’t have to take public transit with any of my stuff (like my bike) but instead I get dropped off right at my house by the Peace Corps. The down side of that is that I only have one day to do my shopping before moving, so I will probably have a shopping day once a week for the first month or so until I’m settled.
Our actual swear-in ceremony is next Friday, August 27th, at the US embassy here in Burkina. We were told there would be press there, so you should all look for pictures online next week! I also know that the Peace Corps Facebook page has been putting up pictures from the different swear-ins throughout the summer, so maybe keep an eye out for that. After that, I only have one day before I move to my site, so I’m not sure if I will be able to update or get pictures up before being in my internet- and electricity-less village, so it might be a while until the next update! Also, maybe check out some of the blogs I have linked on the side, because some of them will have a couple more days before move in. Or they will have internet at their sites…
For now, my address stays the same, but I might get a postal box in the nearest big town with one of the other volunteers. I’ll put it up if and when that happens. But the Ouagadougou address I have on the side will be a sure way to get things to me for the next two years.
As I mentioned above, I won’t have electricity at my site, meaning communication might be less frequent. I’ve been spoiled these last few weeks of model school because we had free access to a computer lab, but from here on out I hope to update only once a month or so. I also have a stack of letters I’m sending with a friend going to the US (because it’s cheaper to mail a letter within the states than from here), so hopefully you lucky friends will get those letters within the next couple weeks! I'm sure I will have lots to say as I get settled in at my house and in my village, but you will all just have to wait :) I really can't believe that Stage is finally done, but I'm excited to start this next chapter of service!!
Our actual swear-in ceremony is next Friday, August 27th, at the US embassy here in Burkina. We were told there would be press there, so you should all look for pictures online next week! I also know that the Peace Corps Facebook page has been putting up pictures from the different swear-ins throughout the summer, so maybe keep an eye out for that. After that, I only have one day before I move to my site, so I’m not sure if I will be able to update or get pictures up before being in my internet- and electricity-less village, so it might be a while until the next update! Also, maybe check out some of the blogs I have linked on the side, because some of them will have a couple more days before move in. Or they will have internet at their sites…
For now, my address stays the same, but I might get a postal box in the nearest big town with one of the other volunteers. I’ll put it up if and when that happens. But the Ouagadougou address I have on the side will be a sure way to get things to me for the next two years.
As I mentioned above, I won’t have electricity at my site, meaning communication might be less frequent. I’ve been spoiled these last few weeks of model school because we had free access to a computer lab, but from here on out I hope to update only once a month or so. I also have a stack of letters I’m sending with a friend going to the US (because it’s cheaper to mail a letter within the states than from here), so hopefully you lucky friends will get those letters within the next couple weeks! I'm sure I will have lots to say as I get settled in at my house and in my village, but you will all just have to wait :) I really can't believe that Stage is finally done, but I'm excited to start this next chapter of service!!
Final thoughts on Stage!
So one week from today I will be living at my house in my new village!! I’m not sure when I will have internet access next, so I wanted to put up a few different thoughts here.
1. Model School: Friday was the Conseil de classe and the closing ceremonies for model school. The conseil de classe is when all of the professeurs get together and talk about how well each of the classes preformed. We listed off the best two boys and girls in each class, and they received prizes at the ceremony. There ceremony itself was pretty fun. Each grade had an opening little song/dance to represent their class, except the songs weren’t actually sung by the students. They were just lip-synced, which the other volunteers said is actually really popular here. So I am definitely looking forward to seeing more of that during my time here, haha! The dancers were really good though, and it was just fun to get to that side of our students. Also, all of us professeurs decided to get matching clothes made (which is actually common here, sometimes schools will have one pattern of fabric that represents the school. Or people attending a wedding together will all get matching clothes made), so check out our sweet uniforms below!!
2. Sabou: Last weekend the Second Ed. Sector was able to take a little field trip to Sabou, where they have sacred crocodiles. The story behind the crocodiles is that the founder of the town was traveling through the bush, when he was overcome by heat exhaustion. A crocodile came up and have him water and saved his life (or something like that). So the crocodiles became sacred, and it is supposed to be good luck if a croc comes into your house if you live in the village. You should just feed it a chicken and send it on its way. The guys who worked there also insisted that they crocs were harmless, that it would be perfectly safe to swim through the lake the live in. None of us were quite brave enough to test that theory, but the workers were certainly fearless as the just walked in, grabbed one by the tail and brought it to land for us to take pictures of… It is definitely the first really touristy thing I’ve done here in Burkina, and it was just really weird to take that little break from trying to fit in (as much as 80 white people can fit in while living together in Africa…) to enjoy something like a vacation :)
1. Model School: Friday was the Conseil de classe and the closing ceremonies for model school. The conseil de classe is when all of the professeurs get together and talk about how well each of the classes preformed. We listed off the best two boys and girls in each class, and they received prizes at the ceremony. There ceremony itself was pretty fun. Each grade had an opening little song/dance to represent their class, except the songs weren’t actually sung by the students. They were just lip-synced, which the other volunteers said is actually really popular here. So I am definitely looking forward to seeing more of that during my time here, haha! The dancers were really good though, and it was just fun to get to that side of our students. Also, all of us professeurs decided to get matching clothes made (which is actually common here, sometimes schools will have one pattern of fabric that represents the school. Or people attending a wedding together will all get matching clothes made), so check out our sweet uniforms below!!
2. Sabou: Last weekend the Second Ed. Sector was able to take a little field trip to Sabou, where they have sacred crocodiles. The story behind the crocodiles is that the founder of the town was traveling through the bush, when he was overcome by heat exhaustion. A crocodile came up and have him water and saved his life (or something like that). So the crocodiles became sacred, and it is supposed to be good luck if a croc comes into your house if you live in the village. You should just feed it a chicken and send it on its way. The guys who worked there also insisted that they crocs were harmless, that it would be perfectly safe to swim through the lake the live in. None of us were quite brave enough to test that theory, but the workers were certainly fearless as the just walked in, grabbed one by the tail and brought it to land for us to take pictures of… It is definitely the first really touristy thing I’ve done here in Burkina, and it was just really weird to take that little break from trying to fit in (as much as 80 white people can fit in while living together in Africa…) to enjoy something like a vacation :)
3. General health and well being: After about 3 weeks of less than ideal stomach conditions, I have been back to normal for over a week now!! But in our last weeks, there have definitely been more incidents than usual! I fell off my bike into a mud puddle and sliced my hand open (it was actually pretty hilarious, don’t worry), and another girl also fell off her bike and got a pretty nice bruise. A friend got into a bike accident and broke his arm; while another was side-swiped by a moto and hurt her elbow. There have been the regular stomach issues as well within the group, but I just hope that everything settles down on the accidents front when we all get to our sites!! Ironically, the day I fell off my bike was the day of our first aid training, so luckily I knew to clean and bandage my wound :)
4. Language: So, unless I dropped a level on my latest test, I reached the level I needed to before swear-in. I’ve been pretty comfortable with the French since returning to a host family again, but I admittedly still make plenty of mistakes and really just need to work on expanding my vocabulary. I think I understand most of the structural rules, I just can’t think of what I want to say sometimes… When I first got here and heard how much the current volunteers struggled with English, I wished I would be able to get to that point, and now it doesn’t seem like it is that far away. Maybe all my blog posts next year will have to be in French…
5. Host Family: With my new host family there are a lot more kids who live here/hang out in our courtyard. My favorite is a boy named Elise, but there is also Elisabeth, Eli, Toma, Louise, Ines, and Martin. Elise is in about 5th grade, and whenever my roommate or I walk anywhere around the neighborhood, he will accompany us (if not the whole entourage). And even though is only about 10, I definitely feel safer with him. He also gives me gifts, so of course I like him, haha (and I just have to convince myself that he has permission to be giving me all these little trinkets and not that he is stealing them from his mom...) My roommate is much better about spending time with the kids, but we’ve had a few fun nights together. My favorite was the night mom and dad went to church and we stayed home and had a dance party! It started with the girls showing us some dances to local music, but my roommate got out her computer and we were all rocking out to some Black Eyed Peas in no time. I don’t think I will ever forget the kids jumping all around and singing along to “Imma Be.” Rockin like this my job!
It’s hard to believe that I have been gone for about 75 days. Haha, I remember I had a countdown going before I left, and it really doesn’t seem that long ago where I still had 75 days to go! But these 11 weeks or so of training have definitely been challenging, but also really fun. I think more than anything I will be sad to say goodbye to everyone I know in this country, and start the challenges of getting to know my community, my family, for the next two years. I think I’m ready for the challenge, but we’ll just have to wait and see!
4. Language: So, unless I dropped a level on my latest test, I reached the level I needed to before swear-in. I’ve been pretty comfortable with the French since returning to a host family again, but I admittedly still make plenty of mistakes and really just need to work on expanding my vocabulary. I think I understand most of the structural rules, I just can’t think of what I want to say sometimes… When I first got here and heard how much the current volunteers struggled with English, I wished I would be able to get to that point, and now it doesn’t seem like it is that far away. Maybe all my blog posts next year will have to be in French…
5. Host Family: With my new host family there are a lot more kids who live here/hang out in our courtyard. My favorite is a boy named Elise, but there is also Elisabeth, Eli, Toma, Louise, Ines, and Martin. Elise is in about 5th grade, and whenever my roommate or I walk anywhere around the neighborhood, he will accompany us (if not the whole entourage). And even though is only about 10, I definitely feel safer with him. He also gives me gifts, so of course I like him, haha (and I just have to convince myself that he has permission to be giving me all these little trinkets and not that he is stealing them from his mom...) My roommate is much better about spending time with the kids, but we’ve had a few fun nights together. My favorite was the night mom and dad went to church and we stayed home and had a dance party! It started with the girls showing us some dances to local music, but my roommate got out her computer and we were all rocking out to some Black Eyed Peas in no time. I don’t think I will ever forget the kids jumping all around and singing along to “Imma Be.” Rockin like this my job!
It’s hard to believe that I have been gone for about 75 days. Haha, I remember I had a countdown going before I left, and it really doesn’t seem that long ago where I still had 75 days to go! But these 11 weeks or so of training have definitely been challenging, but also really fun. I think more than anything I will be sad to say goodbye to everyone I know in this country, and start the challenges of getting to know my community, my family, for the next two years. I think I’m ready for the challenge, but we’ll just have to wait and see!
Also, i just tried to add a couple pictures, but it wouldn't let me. I think they will make it to my website though, so check that out!!
Friday, August 6, 2010
Positive Deviance
So, one really interesting part of our training is that we get an introduction to how to do development work. There are probably a million things that would fall under the description of ‘development work’ but for my purposes I will relate everything to what the sectors here in Burkina are working with, so that includes education, the education and empowerment of girls, health and small business enterprise as well as bringing change to developing nations in general. So far we have discussed working within the village to find out what they want/need, not imposing on them what we think they need. We also discussed ensuring that any changes we make are not going to harm the community in any way, ensuring that the structure and integrity of the culture are still intact while trying to make any sort of improvements (and I’m using improvement really loosely here). The other day we had a session on Positive Deviance, which is actually a concept that I think everyone is familiar with, but I just didn’t have a name for it before. Positive deviance is looking for a solution to a community or group problem by looking for examples that already exist within the community; looking for those few people who are doing something slightly different and getting different results.
The example that is most relevant for the work I am going to do here is the example of keeping girls in school. The dropout rate is much higher for girls than boys here, mostly because girls are expected to do more at home and a lot of people don’t see the value of giving girls an education. But in each village there are girls going to school. So these girls and their families are our positive deviants. They have the same resources as their neighbors, but they are doing something different that makes is possible for their daughters to stay in school. Maybe they relieve the responsibilities of the girls a little. Maybe they bought a lamp so that when the girls are done with their required chores, they have a way to finish their homework in the dark. (This one really stuck out to me, because my future village doesn’t have electricity, so if the girls have to hurry home to finish chores before the sun sets, how do they do their homework?) So, once I get to village, if I think that I want to try and increase the number girls at school (which I’m sure is something I will work with in some way over the next two years), I hope to be able to meet and talk with families who have daughters and see if any tactics they use could be accessible to the entire community. While there is a huge bridge to gap between saying that is what I should do and actually doing it, I hope to get there eventually. :)
Another thing we talked about with this topic is dividing out good examples from the “True, but Useless” ideas. Like maybe the family that sends their daughter to school is able to afford a maid to do all the chores the daughter would normally have to do. So this family would not count in our context as a positive deviant because they are not working with the same resources as everyone else.
As I said before, this idea is not a completely new concept. The most obvious example I thought of for the US was in the business world: if you have one store that is making more money than all your other stores, of course you are going to look and study that store in depth to figure out what it is exactly they are doing that is so different. But this is just the first time I’ve had this concept explained to me in a concrete way, so I’m pretty excited about it!
Also, the entire concept of having a philosophy to development work is also something I never thought about. (Just like I never really thought about having a teaching philosophy until I started teaching...) I think it was just something I thought looked cool, but never really looking to how it’s done or the idea that it isn’t all done in the same way. I know that we have heard several times the idea to Do No Harm, but I’m not sure if that is a philosophy across the whole of the Peace Corps, or if that is just a phrase that my Country Director really likes to use. So even though I am really tired at the end of the day, and I am really ready to be done with training, I like that our training has been (or has made an effort to be) all encompassing and focus on areas across the board as well as broad/general ideas that will certainly help us in any sort of job we will have after this. I hope to have more insightful thoughts on this topic in the future, right now it is just too new of an idea, I don’t really have any knowledge other than spitting back out what I’ve been told. But I’m excited to learn more!
Also, they gave us the website of the organization that came up with the exact model/definition of positive deviance the Peace Corps uses. I'm not really sure what's included in the website, but if your interested, check it out!
www.positivedeviance.org
The same day we had this session on Positive Deviance, we also had a session on potential ideas for working with health education at our sites. I know there is a CSPS (health center) just down the street from me, and I met three of the nurses who worked there (and they were all females!) so I already think that I would like to work with them on a few things.
But this week I gave my first test at model school, and I have to say, grading 60 tests is no fun. I can’t imagine what grading tests for two classes of 100 would be like. But lucky for me, I know my classes won’t be much bigger than 60 at my site. And next week is already our last week of model school! So soon!! This weekend I have another language test, and my goal is to reach two levels up (which is where I have to be before swear-in). Tomorrow we are having a session to practice cooking in Burkina, so I think that should pretty fun! I am still a little sick, but most certainly better than a couple weeks ago! I also chopped my hair off the past weekend, so I’ll have to get some pictures up once soon!!
I hope everyone is having a fun end of summer, I can’t believe you Iowa teachers already start in a couple weeks!
The example that is most relevant for the work I am going to do here is the example of keeping girls in school. The dropout rate is much higher for girls than boys here, mostly because girls are expected to do more at home and a lot of people don’t see the value of giving girls an education. But in each village there are girls going to school. So these girls and their families are our positive deviants. They have the same resources as their neighbors, but they are doing something different that makes is possible for their daughters to stay in school. Maybe they relieve the responsibilities of the girls a little. Maybe they bought a lamp so that when the girls are done with their required chores, they have a way to finish their homework in the dark. (This one really stuck out to me, because my future village doesn’t have electricity, so if the girls have to hurry home to finish chores before the sun sets, how do they do their homework?) So, once I get to village, if I think that I want to try and increase the number girls at school (which I’m sure is something I will work with in some way over the next two years), I hope to be able to meet and talk with families who have daughters and see if any tactics they use could be accessible to the entire community. While there is a huge bridge to gap between saying that is what I should do and actually doing it, I hope to get there eventually. :)
Another thing we talked about with this topic is dividing out good examples from the “True, but Useless” ideas. Like maybe the family that sends their daughter to school is able to afford a maid to do all the chores the daughter would normally have to do. So this family would not count in our context as a positive deviant because they are not working with the same resources as everyone else.
As I said before, this idea is not a completely new concept. The most obvious example I thought of for the US was in the business world: if you have one store that is making more money than all your other stores, of course you are going to look and study that store in depth to figure out what it is exactly they are doing that is so different. But this is just the first time I’ve had this concept explained to me in a concrete way, so I’m pretty excited about it!
Also, the entire concept of having a philosophy to development work is also something I never thought about. (Just like I never really thought about having a teaching philosophy until I started teaching...) I think it was just something I thought looked cool, but never really looking to how it’s done or the idea that it isn’t all done in the same way. I know that we have heard several times the idea to Do No Harm, but I’m not sure if that is a philosophy across the whole of the Peace Corps, or if that is just a phrase that my Country Director really likes to use. So even though I am really tired at the end of the day, and I am really ready to be done with training, I like that our training has been (or has made an effort to be) all encompassing and focus on areas across the board as well as broad/general ideas that will certainly help us in any sort of job we will have after this. I hope to have more insightful thoughts on this topic in the future, right now it is just too new of an idea, I don’t really have any knowledge other than spitting back out what I’ve been told. But I’m excited to learn more!
Also, they gave us the website of the organization that came up with the exact model/definition of positive deviance the Peace Corps uses. I'm not really sure what's included in the website, but if your interested, check it out!
www.positivedeviance.org
The same day we had this session on Positive Deviance, we also had a session on potential ideas for working with health education at our sites. I know there is a CSPS (health center) just down the street from me, and I met three of the nurses who worked there (and they were all females!) so I already think that I would like to work with them on a few things.
But this week I gave my first test at model school, and I have to say, grading 60 tests is no fun. I can’t imagine what grading tests for two classes of 100 would be like. But lucky for me, I know my classes won’t be much bigger than 60 at my site. And next week is already our last week of model school! So soon!! This weekend I have another language test, and my goal is to reach two levels up (which is where I have to be before swear-in). Tomorrow we are having a session to practice cooking in Burkina, so I think that should pretty fun! I am still a little sick, but most certainly better than a couple weeks ago! I also chopped my hair off the past weekend, so I’ll have to get some pictures up once soon!!
I hope everyone is having a fun end of summer, I can’t believe you Iowa teachers already start in a couple weeks!
Monday, July 26, 2010
One month left!
Sorry for the wait, but for your patience; i have two posts!! read the one below as well!!
So for about the past week we have been in our new training city, and I have to say it is definitely not as hot as Ouahigouya was! This last week I even wore my jacket! It also poured for a couple days, which does wonders in bringing down the temperature! I don’t have a thermometer like I did at my host family, so I don’t really know what temp we’re down to, but certainly cooler. I am definitely not looking forward to the hot season next spring, when it won’t rain for about 2+ months. And from what I hear, everyone just gets really crabby. But I’ve got plenty of time to worry about that. :)
We are now in our new host families! We are doubled up, two people to a family, just because they didn’t have very much time to find families. My roommate is Paula, a woman from the Girl’s Empowerment and Education sector, and she’s super nice. We share a room that is a little bigger than my old room, so definitely enough space to live in, but not enough to really unpack anything. But at this point there is only a month left until we swear in, so as much as I want to stop living out a suitcase, I can suck it up for one more month. Our family here has a mom and dad and probably about 8-ish kids who live here, but I know the couple only has 5, and 2 of those are in Ouaga. I think the other kids are nieces and nephews, but who knows. Our dad also introduces everyone as his “petit frère” or little brother, so family is pretty loosely defined here. Our mom doesn’t speak French though, only Mooré, the most common local language in Burkina. So unfortunately, I’m not able to talk much with her. Paula is learning Moore though, so they are able to communicate a little.
This past week was our first week of model school! Because it was the first week, the stagiaires didn’t teach, we just watched the current volunteers or Burkinabe teachers. But we start tomorrow, and I have to say I really am nervous. I am teaching Physics/Chemistry for the 3rd class (which is the last year of college). After 3rd, there is a big test that the students have to pass if they want to continue on to 2nd, so there is more pressure on teachers and students in that class. Most volunteers try not to teach 3rd for that reason, but because I will be the only P/C teacher at my school, there isn’t much choice. So my nervousness stems from a number of the contributing factors here: that I’ll be teaching a subject that I’m not entirely comfortable with, I’ll be teaching French, and there’s more pressure on that class to do well. That last one doesn’t really apply to model school, but it will in a couple months when school starts!
And to top it all off, I am still sick :( I’m starting to feel better, but still need to rush off to the bathroom more frequently than I’d like. So hopefully that doesn’t happen tomorrow at school! But I definitely am getting an appetite back, after a couple of days of not really wanting to eat anything, so that’s good! The hotel we stayed at for a few days before coming to the host families didn’t have toilets, so that was my first time have to deal with being sick and only having a hole in the ground. But my host family has a toilet, so I’m getting spoiled again here :) Talking to other people, it sounds like quite a few have toilets, so maybe this city just has the infrastructure available that other cities don’t.
But I will certainly let you all know how model school goes! Wish me luck!
So for about the past week we have been in our new training city, and I have to say it is definitely not as hot as Ouahigouya was! This last week I even wore my jacket! It also poured for a couple days, which does wonders in bringing down the temperature! I don’t have a thermometer like I did at my host family, so I don’t really know what temp we’re down to, but certainly cooler. I am definitely not looking forward to the hot season next spring, when it won’t rain for about 2+ months. And from what I hear, everyone just gets really crabby. But I’ve got plenty of time to worry about that. :)
We are now in our new host families! We are doubled up, two people to a family, just because they didn’t have very much time to find families. My roommate is Paula, a woman from the Girl’s Empowerment and Education sector, and she’s super nice. We share a room that is a little bigger than my old room, so definitely enough space to live in, but not enough to really unpack anything. But at this point there is only a month left until we swear in, so as much as I want to stop living out a suitcase, I can suck it up for one more month. Our family here has a mom and dad and probably about 8-ish kids who live here, but I know the couple only has 5, and 2 of those are in Ouaga. I think the other kids are nieces and nephews, but who knows. Our dad also introduces everyone as his “petit frère” or little brother, so family is pretty loosely defined here. Our mom doesn’t speak French though, only Mooré, the most common local language in Burkina. So unfortunately, I’m not able to talk much with her. Paula is learning Moore though, so they are able to communicate a little.
This past week was our first week of model school! Because it was the first week, the stagiaires didn’t teach, we just watched the current volunteers or Burkinabe teachers. But we start tomorrow, and I have to say I really am nervous. I am teaching Physics/Chemistry for the 3rd class (which is the last year of college). After 3rd, there is a big test that the students have to pass if they want to continue on to 2nd, so there is more pressure on teachers and students in that class. Most volunteers try not to teach 3rd for that reason, but because I will be the only P/C teacher at my school, there isn’t much choice. So my nervousness stems from a number of the contributing factors here: that I’ll be teaching a subject that I’m not entirely comfortable with, I’ll be teaching French, and there’s more pressure on that class to do well. That last one doesn’t really apply to model school, but it will in a couple months when school starts!
And to top it all off, I am still sick :( I’m starting to feel better, but still need to rush off to the bathroom more frequently than I’d like. So hopefully that doesn’t happen tomorrow at school! But I definitely am getting an appetite back, after a couple of days of not really wanting to eat anything, so that’s good! The hotel we stayed at for a few days before coming to the host families didn’t have toilets, so that was my first time have to deal with being sick and only having a hole in the ground. But my host family has a toilet, so I’m getting spoiled again here :) Talking to other people, it sounds like quite a few have toilets, so maybe this city just has the infrastructure available that other cities don’t.
But I will certainly let you all know how model school goes! Wish me luck!
Site Visit!!
written around 7/18/10
So last week, I was able to go to my site and see where I am going to be living and working for the next two years!! And I have to say, I loved it! The village is in an area that is a lot greener than what we have seen so far, and there were hills! (I will call them mountains, but they aren’t real mountains…) The parts we’ve seen of Burkina up to this point have been very flat, dry and red. So seeing parts of the country that were hilly, had little lakes and rivers, and very green, definitely won me over :) I realize that we are in the wet season right now, and that I probably won’t have green and lakes the entire year, but to have them at all is pretty sweet.
I saw my house and have some pictures up on photo section down to the right (I’ll put some below as well). It is a small house with 3 rooms, a salon and two bedrooms. I’m not really sure what I’m going to use the second bedroom for yet, maybe the kitchen area, maybe just more of a storage area. I have an outdoor latrine and an outdoor shower area (aka a cement slab with walls around it). None of the houses have electricity or running water, but there are several water pumps throughout the village. I’ll have to take bucket baths for my two years there, but I have to say, when it is really hot, an outdoor shower is really quite nice. I don’t have it now, but there will be a hangar in my courtyard, and I hope to make small garden somewhere. I don’t know if I’ll actually try to grow vegetables, but even just some flowers will spruce the place up.
As for the no electricity part, I may invest in some solar panels. I ate my meals with my counterpart and he had solar panels that he used to charge up car batteries, then would run lights, the TV, radio and satellite dish. He said that each battery lasted about a day, and I think he had 3 or 4 of them. But before I decided to do that, I want to see how common it is. If only the director of the school is able to afford it, I don’t want to make myself a target for theft by getting it, too. My house is also pretty close to the center of town while my director lives right on the edge of town near the school.
The village has two primary schools and the college (middle school) where I will work. A college has grades 6-3, while a lycee has all the grades. Also, the grades here count down instead of up. We also discussed what classes I will probably teach, and it looks like I will be doing more physics/chemistry than math. I will have two classes of P/C and one of math. I almost had a class of biology too, but I talked my way out of it because it was definitely more than what is recommended for your first year.
My village only has market every five days, as opposed to the larger cities where they have market every day. That just means that I will have to be a little more proactive with planning out my meals. There is a mini-market every day, but they really only had a few small ingredients mostly for making sauces.
There is a CSPS, health center, in the village and it’s actually pretty close to my house. There isn’t a police station or a gendarmerie there, but we have both a Prefet and a Mayor. I’m not entirely sure what the equivalents to these things are in America, but there you go.
After the site visit, we all met in the capitol and were able to see the Peace Corps Office and the US Embassy. The Embassy is off in a new part of the city called Ouaga 2000. The building is super new and I think they’ve only been there for a few months. After the visits, we went to the American Rec Center where we all very much enjoyed eating an American lunch!! They even had milkshakes!! And ranch dressing!
We are now in our new training city, and will put in new host families by the end of the week. I’m really excited to be back with host families, and hope that I can actually get settled in for the month or so before we get sworn in! We counted and between all the moves, we will have packed and unpacked our things about 10 times, which is getting a little old :) Another unfortunately side effect of site visit, is that my body had gotten used the food in the bigger cities, and I still haven’t really recovered from something I ate in village. But I realized today that it only hurts when I eat, so I’ll just have to stop doing that :P
Well, here are a couple pictures, but also check the link to the right, I think the new picture I added made it to the album!!
So last week, I was able to go to my site and see where I am going to be living and working for the next two years!! And I have to say, I loved it! The village is in an area that is a lot greener than what we have seen so far, and there were hills! (I will call them mountains, but they aren’t real mountains…) The parts we’ve seen of Burkina up to this point have been very flat, dry and red. So seeing parts of the country that were hilly, had little lakes and rivers, and very green, definitely won me over :) I realize that we are in the wet season right now, and that I probably won’t have green and lakes the entire year, but to have them at all is pretty sweet.
I saw my house and have some pictures up on photo section down to the right (I’ll put some below as well). It is a small house with 3 rooms, a salon and two bedrooms. I’m not really sure what I’m going to use the second bedroom for yet, maybe the kitchen area, maybe just more of a storage area. I have an outdoor latrine and an outdoor shower area (aka a cement slab with walls around it). None of the houses have electricity or running water, but there are several water pumps throughout the village. I’ll have to take bucket baths for my two years there, but I have to say, when it is really hot, an outdoor shower is really quite nice. I don’t have it now, but there will be a hangar in my courtyard, and I hope to make small garden somewhere. I don’t know if I’ll actually try to grow vegetables, but even just some flowers will spruce the place up.
As for the no electricity part, I may invest in some solar panels. I ate my meals with my counterpart and he had solar panels that he used to charge up car batteries, then would run lights, the TV, radio and satellite dish. He said that each battery lasted about a day, and I think he had 3 or 4 of them. But before I decided to do that, I want to see how common it is. If only the director of the school is able to afford it, I don’t want to make myself a target for theft by getting it, too. My house is also pretty close to the center of town while my director lives right on the edge of town near the school.
The village has two primary schools and the college (middle school) where I will work. A college has grades 6-3, while a lycee has all the grades. Also, the grades here count down instead of up. We also discussed what classes I will probably teach, and it looks like I will be doing more physics/chemistry than math. I will have two classes of P/C and one of math. I almost had a class of biology too, but I talked my way out of it because it was definitely more than what is recommended for your first year.
My village only has market every five days, as opposed to the larger cities where they have market every day. That just means that I will have to be a little more proactive with planning out my meals. There is a mini-market every day, but they really only had a few small ingredients mostly for making sauces.
There is a CSPS, health center, in the village and it’s actually pretty close to my house. There isn’t a police station or a gendarmerie there, but we have both a Prefet and a Mayor. I’m not entirely sure what the equivalents to these things are in America, but there you go.
After the site visit, we all met in the capitol and were able to see the Peace Corps Office and the US Embassy. The Embassy is off in a new part of the city called Ouaga 2000. The building is super new and I think they’ve only been there for a few months. After the visits, we went to the American Rec Center where we all very much enjoyed eating an American lunch!! They even had milkshakes!! And ranch dressing!
We are now in our new training city, and will put in new host families by the end of the week. I’m really excited to be back with host families, and hope that I can actually get settled in for the month or so before we get sworn in! We counted and between all the moves, we will have packed and unpacked our things about 10 times, which is getting a little old :) Another unfortunately side effect of site visit, is that my body had gotten used the food in the bigger cities, and I still haven’t really recovered from something I ate in village. But I realized today that it only hurts when I eat, so I’ll just have to stop doing that :P
Well, here are a couple pictures, but also check the link to the right, I think the new picture I added made it to the album!!
Friday, July 9, 2010
Site announcement!
Things have been a little crazy around here the past week or so!! because of some things that had happened in burkina, we were all pulled out of our host families and moved into a hotel. We hope to move to a new city soon, but right now, we are all just rolling with the punches :)
We missed a couple days of classes in the move, meaning site announcement was moved from wednesday to today!! (we were a little nervous that would happen, but two days wasn't the end of the world :P) I have been instructed not share my location on such a public forum, but i can tell you that i will be north of Bobo-Dioulasso (or just Bobo) and south of Degoudou (it is on my facebook, because i have higher controls on who can see my info there, if you're really curious!! or just send me an email and i'll let you know)
I know that i will be the first education volunteer, and i think the first volunteer there at all!! I believe there have been health volunteers in the area before, but not in my city/village. The region i described is part of the cotton bowl of burkina, meaning it is greener than the parts of the country i have seen so far!! I did find out that i will NOT have electricity. that definitely makes a minority in my sector, but i knew it was certainly a possibility. I am certain that i will have more to write on that after i've lived there for a while. But right now, i'm at a hotel with free wi-fi, so that is a little hard to imagine a life without electricity at the moment.
Next week we have our counterpart workshop next week which means that we all get to meet the person from our sites who will be our go-to person for the next two years!! For teachers, our counterpart is typically another teacher at the school or a parent on the PTA (APE in french). After the workshop, i get to go to my site!! For five days next week, i will get to take a bus, a bush-taxi and my bike out to my site. i'll get to see my school, meet all the important people, see my house (hopefully) and get a feel for what the village is like. I will hopefully also get an idea of what subjects are not being taught at my school, which typically translates into what subjects i will teach! I'm super excited to get a little bit of independence and see how things work here when i'm not being chauffeured around in air-conditioned government vehicles. (not that i don't enjoy air-conditioned vehicles!)
Well, that's all i've got for now! i think my next update will be after my site visit, and i'll let you know how everything went! Also, today is the one month mark of landing in burkina, and i can't describe how crazy it seems that i've only been gone a month!! it seems like so much longer (but in a good way!)
as always, miss you all and love all the little updates and messages i've gotten. they really mean a lot! :)
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
feeling hot, hot, hot!
Bonjour, toute le monde! I am now into week three!! This weekend the rest of my stage arrived here in Ouahigouya, and wow, there are a lot of them!! My group of secondary ed people came two weeks earlier, and there are only 22 of us, and now we have 57 new friends (whose names we might not know yet…)! But they few I’ve talked to seem as awesome as the rest of our group, so hopefully as they get settled and we actually have a session or two with them, I will get to know some of them better. They won’t be in any of my language or technical sessions, so it will only be once or twice a week where I’ll spend maybe two hours with them.
Sorry for the lame title, but for this little blog post, I wanted to discuss weather. I am amazed at how quickly I’ve gotten used to be in the heat! Every day when I wake up, the little thermometer in our living room says it is 30C, or about 86F. (I’m trying to get my head used to Celsius, but I’ll use Fahrenheit here for you guys :P) Right now, (5:30pm) it is 35C, or about 95F. And I can tell that things are cooling off by this time of day. 95F feels cool!! One of the guys in my group has a watch with a thermometer, and around lunch it is typically over 40C.
This is not the hottest part of the year, either. We are actually in the rainy season right now. “Rainy season” is used pretty loosely though, even now we’re lucky to get rain once a week. And rain is always a good omen. It rained our first night in Ouagadougou, and the next morning everyone was all excited for us, because it’s a really good sign! But the hot season is in March-April, where it will goes days on end at 120F or 50C and doesn’t rain once in those two months. I think they purposely have stage start right after the hot season, so we’ve been here as long as possible before having to experience that :P The cold season coincides with our winter, but I don’t think I’ve heard exactly what ‘cold’ means here. I’ll let you know in a few months.
A note about sleeping in the heat: I have only used a blanket/sheet twice since living with my host family. If you remember, I have a fan, meaning my room is significantly colder than my counterparts without one. But even with my fan, I sweat every night. I don’t have the circle of dried sweat on my sheets that some of my fellow stagiaires talk about, but I noticed that the tank-top I sleep in gets salty from dried sweat. (that is probably an over-share…) I no longer flip my pillow over to get to the cold side, I flip it over to get to the dry side! But it is crazy hot at night. And my room doesn’t get much of a natural breeze because it is about 3 feet from our courtyard wall. I do not look forward to sleeping in the hot season. At all. I have not slept outside yet, but I can guarantee you that without my fan, I think I would have been out there after one night.
Last Friday, I had my first little dust storm! We were sitting outside for class and the wind really picked up and things started to get really hazy. I have some pictures below, so hopefully you can see the difference. After about 10 minutes of dusty, windy stuff, it started to rain!! And the temperature dropped like crazy! We all loved it, I think it was the first time I felt anything close to cool since I got here. But some of the PCVFs (current volunteers who run our training) were practically shivering in the 23C temp (73F). But after the rain stopped, it got back up to 28C (80F-ish) within the hour. But it stayed pretty cool the rest of the weekend (in the lower 30Cs). Today got back up to a normal temp though…
When it was crazy dusty:
Sorry for the lame title, but for this little blog post, I wanted to discuss weather. I am amazed at how quickly I’ve gotten used to be in the heat! Every day when I wake up, the little thermometer in our living room says it is 30C, or about 86F. (I’m trying to get my head used to Celsius, but I’ll use Fahrenheit here for you guys :P) Right now, (5:30pm) it is 35C, or about 95F. And I can tell that things are cooling off by this time of day. 95F feels cool!! One of the guys in my group has a watch with a thermometer, and around lunch it is typically over 40C.
This is not the hottest part of the year, either. We are actually in the rainy season right now. “Rainy season” is used pretty loosely though, even now we’re lucky to get rain once a week. And rain is always a good omen. It rained our first night in Ouagadougou, and the next morning everyone was all excited for us, because it’s a really good sign! But the hot season is in March-April, where it will goes days on end at 120F or 50C and doesn’t rain once in those two months. I think they purposely have stage start right after the hot season, so we’ve been here as long as possible before having to experience that :P The cold season coincides with our winter, but I don’t think I’ve heard exactly what ‘cold’ means here. I’ll let you know in a few months.
A note about sleeping in the heat: I have only used a blanket/sheet twice since living with my host family. If you remember, I have a fan, meaning my room is significantly colder than my counterparts without one. But even with my fan, I sweat every night. I don’t have the circle of dried sweat on my sheets that some of my fellow stagiaires talk about, but I noticed that the tank-top I sleep in gets salty from dried sweat. (that is probably an over-share…) I no longer flip my pillow over to get to the cold side, I flip it over to get to the dry side! But it is crazy hot at night. And my room doesn’t get much of a natural breeze because it is about 3 feet from our courtyard wall. I do not look forward to sleeping in the hot season. At all. I have not slept outside yet, but I can guarantee you that without my fan, I think I would have been out there after one night.
Last Friday, I had my first little dust storm! We were sitting outside for class and the wind really picked up and things started to get really hazy. I have some pictures below, so hopefully you can see the difference. After about 10 minutes of dusty, windy stuff, it started to rain!! And the temperature dropped like crazy! We all loved it, I think it was the first time I felt anything close to cool since I got here. But some of the PCVFs (current volunteers who run our training) were practically shivering in the 23C temp (73F). But after the rain stopped, it got back up to 28C (80F-ish) within the hour. But it stayed pretty cool the rest of the weekend (in the lower 30Cs). Today got back up to a normal temp though…
When it was crazy dusty:
10 minutes later in the same courtyard, when it started to rain.
A couple exciting things coming up: this Sunday all 79 of the stagiaires are having a 4th of July party!! I’m not sure what that entails right now, but I’m sure it will be awesome.
And even more exciting: next Wednesday I find out my site placement!!!! CRAZY! I have a bit of an idea based on the local language I was assigned, but I’ll keep you all in suspense until I find out, hahaha! People ask if there is somewhere I really want to go, and to be honest, not really. At first, I really wanted to be in the south, but when I asked myself why, the only answer I could come up with was because everyone else seemed to want to go to there (that extra ‘to’ is for you, annakay!). For me, I’m more excited to find out who I will be near. Because everything can be awesome if I’m with good people. So, my plan is to update again after next Wednesday with my site assignment!
Monday, June 21, 2010
The important stuff: FOOD!
Well, I just got back from my first visit to the market (marche). It was crazy busy there and they had just about everything under the sun available. I went with my two host sisters and while I didn’t get anything myself, it was nice to see what they buy and how they buy it. For example, they bought little baggies of both oil and tomato paste. These are very popular ingredients in food here, but most people don’t buy them by the can or bottle because they don’t have anywhere to store what they don’t use. So, they only buy what they need, but have to go to the marche more often. I asked my sisters and they said they go to the marche everyday.
There was also a wider variety of fresh produce than I was expecting. They bought tomatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, and peppers. I also saw a variety of fruit, including mangoes and liane, and guavas. I had never had liane before, but it is a sort of sour fruit that you crack open, then you suck the juice off of the seeds. There isn’t actually a lot that gets eaten, but it was good in an acidic tangy sort of way. (liane is the French word for it, it’s called weda in Moore, and I have no idea what it is in English. I looked it up and it translated from French as “creeper,” but I feel like that isn’t right.)
As for the types of dishes we have here, most of what I’ve eaten is rice based, but the more common local dish is To (pronounced toe). It is essentially just flour and water boiled together until it becomes a sort of flavorless gelatin. My family uses corn flour, but I think millet is more common. It reminds me of gravy that just came out of the refrigerator, but thicker and more Jell-O like. And like I said, flavorless. My family eats it with baobab sauce, which is made out of baobab leaves and okra. (fun fact for you all: baobab, the iconic African tree, isn’t a tree at all. It’s closer to celery than it is to a tree.) Though, I have to admit that it is the only sauce that I don’t like so far, mostly because it has a really slimy texture that I can’t handle.
Other dishes I’ve had: riz sauce d’arachide (rice with peanut sauce)
Couscous avec sauce tomate (delicious)
Spaghetti (instead of cooking the sauce seperately, they make it a little thinner and cook the noodles in the sauce)
Des Haricots (Beans. This was also delicious and pretty close to chili)
Benga (actually a Moore word, but it is beans and rice, I can buy a baggie of it for 100CFA or 20 cents)
Omelette (More of a fried-egg sandwich than an omelette we would think of, but they mix in onions or on special days green pepper and it is awesome !)
Riz sauce vert (Rice and green sauce. I actually haven’t had this yet, but if it’s like baobab sauce, i probs won’t like it)
Riz gras (Fat Rice. I think this is my favorite dish! Like the spaghetti, they make the sauce first, then cook the rice in the oily, tomatoey, flavorful liquid, and make another thicker sauce on the side. It’s things like this that are the reason they warn us we probably won’t lose weight while we’re here.)
A note on meat: There is no specific meat that typically goes with any of these dishes. I’ve had fish in just about everything. And it is just a chunk of the fish that hasn’t been cleaned. So when I see fish in food, I typically pick the skin off, pull the bones out and break it up into smaller chunks in my sauce. When I first found fish in a dish, I was a little nervous, because Burkina is a landlocked country and I was curious where the heck the fish came from and how it was stored, but dried, salted fish is very very common. I even saw it in the market today! They were just entire fish, salted up and very brown. I’ve also had unidentified dark meat a lot of my food at the host family that I think is pigeon. They raise pigeons and I was around one night when they were catching one for dinner. I don’t ask a lot of questions though…
They also have chicken here, but they are definitely not as big as chickens in the US, they have a lot less meat on them. I’ve also seen goats, sheep and even a few cows around town, but as far as I know, I haven’t eaten any of them. Well, actually that’s probably not true, haha. I ordered a hamburger the other day, and while it definitely wasn’t a hamburger like I’m used to, I think it was beef. But as I said, I don’t ask a lot of questions.
While discussing food, I think it is appropriate to discuss water. My host family’s house has running water, at both the faucet in the yard and in their indoor shower. (like I said, I’m getting spoiled here). Even though they have easily accessed running water, I can’t drink it. It is full of amoebas and parasites that my body won’t like. So the Peace Corps provides us with these nifty water filters. There are made out of two buckets, two filters, and a spigot. The water goes in top, through one filter (which I think mostly cleans the water) directly into the second filter (which I think purifies the water. It has those black specks like my filter at home) and then sits in the bottom bucket until I’m ready to use it. But even after the double filter, we still need to add two drops of bleach to every liter of water to ensure that everything is good and dead.
There was also a wider variety of fresh produce than I was expecting. They bought tomatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, and peppers. I also saw a variety of fruit, including mangoes and liane, and guavas. I had never had liane before, but it is a sort of sour fruit that you crack open, then you suck the juice off of the seeds. There isn’t actually a lot that gets eaten, but it was good in an acidic tangy sort of way. (liane is the French word for it, it’s called weda in Moore, and I have no idea what it is in English. I looked it up and it translated from French as “creeper,” but I feel like that isn’t right.)
As for the types of dishes we have here, most of what I’ve eaten is rice based, but the more common local dish is To (pronounced toe). It is essentially just flour and water boiled together until it becomes a sort of flavorless gelatin. My family uses corn flour, but I think millet is more common. It reminds me of gravy that just came out of the refrigerator, but thicker and more Jell-O like. And like I said, flavorless. My family eats it with baobab sauce, which is made out of baobab leaves and okra. (fun fact for you all: baobab, the iconic African tree, isn’t a tree at all. It’s closer to celery than it is to a tree.) Though, I have to admit that it is the only sauce that I don’t like so far, mostly because it has a really slimy texture that I can’t handle.
Other dishes I’ve had: riz sauce d’arachide (rice with peanut sauce)
Couscous avec sauce tomate (delicious)
Spaghetti (instead of cooking the sauce seperately, they make it a little thinner and cook the noodles in the sauce)
Des Haricots (Beans. This was also delicious and pretty close to chili)
Benga (actually a Moore word, but it is beans and rice, I can buy a baggie of it for 100CFA or 20 cents)
Omelette (More of a fried-egg sandwich than an omelette we would think of, but they mix in onions or on special days green pepper and it is awesome !)
Riz sauce vert (Rice and green sauce. I actually haven’t had this yet, but if it’s like baobab sauce, i probs won’t like it)
Riz gras (Fat Rice. I think this is my favorite dish! Like the spaghetti, they make the sauce first, then cook the rice in the oily, tomatoey, flavorful liquid, and make another thicker sauce on the side. It’s things like this that are the reason they warn us we probably won’t lose weight while we’re here.)
A note on meat: There is no specific meat that typically goes with any of these dishes. I’ve had fish in just about everything. And it is just a chunk of the fish that hasn’t been cleaned. So when I see fish in food, I typically pick the skin off, pull the bones out and break it up into smaller chunks in my sauce. When I first found fish in a dish, I was a little nervous, because Burkina is a landlocked country and I was curious where the heck the fish came from and how it was stored, but dried, salted fish is very very common. I even saw it in the market today! They were just entire fish, salted up and very brown. I’ve also had unidentified dark meat a lot of my food at the host family that I think is pigeon. They raise pigeons and I was around one night when they were catching one for dinner. I don’t ask a lot of questions though…
They also have chicken here, but they are definitely not as big as chickens in the US, they have a lot less meat on them. I’ve also seen goats, sheep and even a few cows around town, but as far as I know, I haven’t eaten any of them. Well, actually that’s probably not true, haha. I ordered a hamburger the other day, and while it definitely wasn’t a hamburger like I’m used to, I think it was beef. But as I said, I don’t ask a lot of questions.
While discussing food, I think it is appropriate to discuss water. My host family’s house has running water, at both the faucet in the yard and in their indoor shower. (like I said, I’m getting spoiled here). Even though they have easily accessed running water, I can’t drink it. It is full of amoebas and parasites that my body won’t like. So the Peace Corps provides us with these nifty water filters. There are made out of two buckets, two filters, and a spigot. The water goes in top, through one filter (which I think mostly cleans the water) directly into the second filter (which I think purifies the water. It has those black specks like my filter at home) and then sits in the bottom bucket until I’m ready to use it. But even after the double filter, we still need to add two drops of bleach to every liter of water to ensure that everything is good and dead.
There aren’t too many drinks that are unique to Burkina or even West Africa. Mostly we drink Coke and beer. I think I’ve had Brakina the most. It’s the Burkina national beer. They also have SOB-Bra, Flag, Beaufort, Castel and even the occasional Heineken. The first three listed, along with Brakina are the main choices, and really they all fall about somewhere between a PBR and Old Style. But they’re cold and therefore delicious.
Other than cheap beer, there is one new drink I’ve discovered: bissap. It is brewed from habiscis flowers, but then chilled and mixed with ginger and sometimes other juices. It’s served cold and it’s pretty delicious. My host sisters make and sell bissap frozen in baggies (saches). (Yes, my family owns a freezer. Yes, i am losing friends because of how spoiled i am at my host house. But whenever i bring icewater to class i always share, so i'm not losing too many friends :P) I usually can’t drink the bissap as strong as they make it, but watered down a little, it is awesome!
Well, there is a look at food and drink in Burkina. I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to add when I actually have to cook for myself. Or maybe I’ll just continue to buy baggies of benga and never actually cook :)
Thursday, June 17, 2010
An Intro to Stage
Bonjour! Well, believe it or not, today was only our second official day as stagieres. (trainees). Last week was week zero, so we are now in week one!
Monday night was my first night with my host family and it went really well! I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I have to admit the family was more modern than I was anticipating. They have a TV and computer in their living room. And I am one of the more spoiled stagieres, I even have a fan in my bedroom. My host father is the director at a lycee (school) and he is actually Congolais, not Burkinabe. My host mom is Burkinabe though, and I’m pretty sure she is from Ouhigouya. But because my father isn’t from here, he doesn’t speak the local language, meaning French is the common language for the family, so even their daughter speaks it really well, when most five year olds haven’t really started learning French yet. Their daughter’s name is Love and she is adorable by the way. I’ll have to get some pictures up here (I’ll have to start taking some pictures!!) My host father speaks English as well as French, which is really nice, because he is able to correct my French, which I definitely need. I tested lower in French than I had hoped, but even after my first night with the host family, I felt much more confident. We have French for at least 2 sessions a day, 6 days a week. By the end of Stage, I will have about 128 hours of language and I think an additional 15 hours of technical language (the vocabulary needed to teach each of our subjects). I have to reach a certain level in French, and once I reach that point, I will switch over to my local language.
Other than just language, Stage is when we learn everything we need to know for the next two years. We have sessions on medical, security, culture, our technical area as well as language. So far we have learned how to prepare our own blood slides to test for malaria and how to prepare a stool sample to test for parasites (We had to practice the blood slide, but thankfully, not the stool sample :P). We haven’t really started the technical sessions yet, but had an intro where they explained the process.
I can’t really believe that I’ve been gone for less than two weeks at this point, it seems like we’ve been here for about a month, but I’m still getting used to little things. Like being sweaty all the time, having to use a pit latrine (both my host family and where we have classes have a pit latrine, but the one at school has bigger hole, it’s nicer for beginners, haha!), and having to be careful about what I eat. I haven’t had anything I don’t like yet, but we just have to be careful that all the fresh produce we eat has been cleaned properly. So far it’s been a lot of rice, beans and sauce or egg sandwiches.
So, there is a little look at Stage. It will be the hardest part of being a PC volunteer, but I’m still really excited to be here! I’ll explain some of the other areas in detail as we learn more, but for now, I’m just hoping to improve my French!
I hope you are all doing well! Miss you all!
Monday night was my first night with my host family and it went really well! I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I have to admit the family was more modern than I was anticipating. They have a TV and computer in their living room. And I am one of the more spoiled stagieres, I even have a fan in my bedroom. My host father is the director at a lycee (school) and he is actually Congolais, not Burkinabe. My host mom is Burkinabe though, and I’m pretty sure she is from Ouhigouya. But because my father isn’t from here, he doesn’t speak the local language, meaning French is the common language for the family, so even their daughter speaks it really well, when most five year olds haven’t really started learning French yet. Their daughter’s name is Love and she is adorable by the way. I’ll have to get some pictures up here (I’ll have to start taking some pictures!!) My host father speaks English as well as French, which is really nice, because he is able to correct my French, which I definitely need. I tested lower in French than I had hoped, but even after my first night with the host family, I felt much more confident. We have French for at least 2 sessions a day, 6 days a week. By the end of Stage, I will have about 128 hours of language and I think an additional 15 hours of technical language (the vocabulary needed to teach each of our subjects). I have to reach a certain level in French, and once I reach that point, I will switch over to my local language.
Other than just language, Stage is when we learn everything we need to know for the next two years. We have sessions on medical, security, culture, our technical area as well as language. So far we have learned how to prepare our own blood slides to test for malaria and how to prepare a stool sample to test for parasites (We had to practice the blood slide, but thankfully, not the stool sample :P). We haven’t really started the technical sessions yet, but had an intro where they explained the process.
I can’t really believe that I’ve been gone for less than two weeks at this point, it seems like we’ve been here for about a month, but I’m still getting used to little things. Like being sweaty all the time, having to use a pit latrine (both my host family and where we have classes have a pit latrine, but the one at school has bigger hole, it’s nicer for beginners, haha!), and having to be careful about what I eat. I haven’t had anything I don’t like yet, but we just have to be careful that all the fresh produce we eat has been cleaned properly. So far it’s been a lot of rice, beans and sauce or egg sandwiches.
So, there is a little look at Stage. It will be the hardest part of being a PC volunteer, but I’m still really excited to be here! I’ll explain some of the other areas in detail as we learn more, but for now, I’m just hoping to improve my French!
I hope you are all doing well! Miss you all!
Monday, June 14, 2010
i'm here!
well, i have about 4 minutes left of my internet time, but i just wanted to say i'm alive; i'm in burkina faso and i think i have about the coolest group possible with me!!
it's been a crazy week (only a week!) and tonight we meet our host families; more to come soon!
miss you all!
it's been a crazy week (only a week!) and tonight we meet our host families; more to come soon!
miss you all!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
address!!
This can now be found over on the right under contact info, but my address for the next 3 mos is:
Danielle Parshall, PCT
s/c Corps de la Paix
01 B. P. 6031
Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso
Tomorrow we actually fly to Burkina! This morning i left MN for staging, which has been mostly policies and getting to know some of my fellow trainees. They seem like a pretty cool bunch :)
well, i think i'm going to give my luggage one last go over before the long flight, and maybe try to get a little more sleep than the 2 hours i got last night!
miss you already!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
it's go time!!
so, roughly 30 hours from now i will be driving down to msp airport to begin this adventure!
my last day at work was just over a week ago, so i've had most of this week to just hang out and get ready. I would say i did a better job at the hanging out part and not so much with the getting ready. :)
I did have a few productive days though: tuesday i went to the bank and got all monetary issues taken care of. Thursday we had extended family portraits taken and i finished off the evening fill out all (most? i should probably check that again) of the paper work sent to me by the US government over 3 mos ago... And friday was a little bit crazy with a dentist appt (where they told me that my sudden sensitivity in one tooth was nothing. not quite what i wanted hear, especially since it's acting up again today), I signed my power of attorney stuff, and worked at my job at the church, where i managed to pull this off:
I was playing SPUD and part of the games includes running until someone yells Spud!, at which point you need to freeze! Well i attempted to stop, but the gravel under my feet had other plans and this was the consequence. To be honest, this past week or so i have been paranoid that i will break a bone and not being able to go to the peace corps. So, i'm just happy that there are no broken bones!! unfortunately the buckle from my sandals really got my ankle, so sandals aren't much fun right now.
But today i finally got down to packing!! so, i have decided to include my packing list because people have asked about it and it seems to be a peace corps blog tradition (which i have found very helpful!!)
Luggage/Gear:
55L backpack (if you're buying a backpack for the peace corps, 55L is probably too small to be very useful. but i already had it and buying another seemed silly. it has a 20L daypack that zips off, but i already had a daypack)
30L backpack
large suitcase
bug hut (screen tent)
sleeping mat
mesh bags for packing
Clothes:
4 skirts
4 skirts
2 pairs pants
1 pair jeans
2 pair shorts (pajamas)
1 pair capris
7 nice shirts (i'm sure this is too many, but i just did one shirt per skirt/pants. and by 'nice,' i mean not screen printed.)
2 tee-shirts (pajamas)
1 long sleeve tee
1 light rain jacket
lots of underwear
bras and sports bras
2 pairs socks
swim suit (they tell us there is a pool at a hotel in the capital that some volunteers use)
belt
hiking shoes
chacos
dress sandals
flip flops
General:
2 water bottles
small camelbak pack
2 pair sunglasses
map of USA
map of MN
map of the world
scissors
games (skipbo, phase 10, bananagrams, frisbee)
journal
pens/markers
photo album
sheets (twin size and for my sleeping mat)
pillow/pillow case
bike helmet
Kitchen:
2 knives
small skillet
small sauce pan
can opener
pot holder
dish towel
ziplock bags
Electronics:
computer
camera
extra SD card
solar charger
ipod
speakers
shortwave radio
usb drive
headlamp
rechargeable batteries (AA & AAA)
power converter/adapter
calculator
Toiletries:
deodorant
shampoo
conditioner
body soap
face soap
tooth paste
tooth brush
hair brush
hair binders
headbands (for my bangs, as they grow out)
nail clippers
nail file
sunscreen
neosporin (see photo above :P)
bandaids
lady products
mascara/concealer
razors
tweezers
Food:
spices: chili packets, italian seasoning, pesto mixes, cinnamon
dried fruit
granola bars
tortillas
(i might add more food like tortillas, that are more like part of meal than snacks)
Maybe not terribly exciting for some of you, but hopefully it gives a glimpse into what's to come. From talking to some friends currently in the program, I am sure that I am bringing too much. But from this side of things, that is really hard for me to grasp. so i try my best to not bring everything now, and a year (or less) from now, i will once again admit, that i brought too much.
here are some more pictures!
ok, so there doesn't appear to be too much different between the two pictures above, but the second one is zoomed in more and there was another shopping trip in between! :)
I haven't tried to shut it yet, but i'm confident it will happen. and if you notice above, most of this suitcase is just my sleeping mat, so it shouldn't be too heavy either! i know the mat is big, but i decided that if i do end up sleeping on it most of the time, i might as well get a thicker one.
i did receive a few emails this week telling us a little bit about what to expect our first few days. i knew we fly into ouagadougou (the capital) and have training in ouahigouya (another large city, and actually both these cities are on the map to the right), but i found out that we are actually in the capital for a couple days and will have a little bit of our orientation there. we won't actually get to ouahigouya until friday. i know we have homestays during training, but looking at the schedule, we must start those sometime after friday.
well, i probably won't update this again tomorrow, so i want to thank everyone for their love and support as i head out on this journey!! i will miss you all and look forward to hearing how things are going stateside! and i promise to update when i can! i know these first few days will be crazy, but we are in the bigger cities, so hopefully i can get to an internet connection to let you all know i arrived safe and sound!
miss you already! :)
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