Tour du Faso!

So what is the Burkina Bike Tour?

The Bike Tour was started last year as a fundraiser for our Gender and Development Committee (GAD). The riders in the tour ask their friends and family back home to make a donation to in support of them biking the tour. The money was then used to fund small grants for volunteers and their communities throughout this past year. All the projects that grant money was used for had to help promote the development of women and girls. (This really awesome project was done by my nearest neighbor, a Girls' Empowerment and Education volunteer who lives about 30km from my village! She used grant money to train some middle school girls to act as "health agents," teaching the community about a variety of topics.)

This year, in addition to using the tour as a fundraiser, the GAD committee wanted to use it as an opportunity to spread awareness about Peace Corps Burkina Faso and about individual projects volunteers are working on. I know this year's route was chosen so that they are passing through as many sites as possible. At some of the sites we pass through, through group will help lead a formation (session? sometimes i forget that words i use aren't really english words...) about hand washing, hygiene, malaria, family planning, or anything else that the volunteer wants to put together. In some villages, we will have a welcome festival and simply enjoying spending time spent eating and dancing.

The Bike Tour is going to cover a total of 1800km (about 1120 miles) over 22 days. I will biking 7 days for a total of 572km (355 miles) for an average of 96km/day! I'm super excited, and I tell myself that 100km is not actually that much; most cars can do it in an hour, so I figure I can do it in a day, right? The tour starts on the south-western corner of the country, and I'm starting at the third little dot. I'm ending at the most northern dot, and if you're curious, my village is just north of the 4th dot.

Yes, there are more dots than sites listed. We are just passing through some villages, and spending the night in others.

So now that you know all about the Bike Tour, consider donating to the GAD committee. I mean, what better way to spend some tax-deductible money than on the development of women in one of the poorest countries in the world. And you do get quite a bang for you buck, too. At the current exchange rate: $8 will buy all the needed supplies for a hand washing station (bucket, spigot, and soap); $10 is enough to buy notebooks and pens for girls' camp of 15 girls; and just $2.50 is enough to feed each of those girls breakfast, lunch, AND dinner for that same week long camp. So without starting to sound like one of those infomercials for sponsoring children, even a little bit goes a long way! If you do donate, make sure to mark GAD Gender and Development in the comments box. Here's the website, and the donation box is on the right hand side.

I will hopefully have at least one update on how the tour is going, but I'm not sure what our internet access is going to be like. If not, I will most definitely write all about it once I'm done :) Also, if you have any other questions about the donations or grants, let me know!

Ghana has the best French Toast!

Ironic if you think about the fact that Burkina is a French speaking country and Ghana isn't...

So back in June I traveled to Ghana with a few friends, Val, Shannon, Celenia and John. We visited Busua, Akwiida, Cape Coast and Kumasi, spending almost all of our time relaxing on the beach. It wasn’t really hot when we were there, but we actually really enjoyed the nice and cool weather after our weeks of 100+ temps in Burkina.

One of the first things we noticed after crossing the border into Ghana was the number of children wearing shoes. Even in a somewhat small village/city. Everyone had shoes, and they were nicer than cheap flip flops!! After a couple more days in country, we started noticing that very few people wore pagne (local fabric) clothes; most people were wearing western style clothing. In Burkina, it is not at all uncommon to see a woman wearing simply a piece of fabric wrapped around as a skirt. Even in the capital city, this is not an uncommon sight. But in Ghana, I think I only saw two women throughout the week who sported the simple pagne skirt.

One thing we often talk about amongst volunteers is how buff Burkinabe are, men and women! Every woman in my village has the most muscled arms you can imagine. And every boy over the age of 8 has a well defined six pack. In Ghana this was not the case: we saw almost no well-toned arms, and everyone seemed to be carrying a few more pounds around the waist. I am certain this difference is due to richer diet and a less physical labor required, but it really struck me how obviously healthier Ghanaians looked.

After living in Burkina for a year, my perceptions of what is “normal” most definitely have changed: What is normal body size, what is normal to expect in a grocery store, what is a normal level of cleanliness for children, etc. And Ghana once again shook up my ideas of all of these. The grocery stores had so much more to offer!! (it still is nowhere near an American store though). It’s funny, because just before leaving we were talking about the movie Green Zone and how everything in the war-torn city looked nicer than Ouaga :P

Because of the big differences we noticed in Ghana, I looked into the gap in income between the two countries. According to CIA World Factbook Ghana’s GDP per capita is $2500 and Burkina’s is $1200 (and the US’s is $47,200). Even more interesting: Ghana’s unemployment rate is 11%, while Burkina’s is 77%!! (US is 9.7%). So it’s one thing to be told I’m living in one of the poorest countries in the world, and it’s another thing all together to think that a country with a per capita GDP of $2500 has it made :P

In Burkina, the common mode of transportation is a small motorcycle (called a moto). In big cities there are enough of these to completely fill the streets and cars are rare. In Ghana there were cars everywhere!! Motos were rare and roads were better condition.

Anyway, back to vacation-y things. One of the days we were staying in Akwiida, three of us biked to the nearby Cape Three Points. The cape claims to be the closest landmass to the intersection of the equator and the prime meridian (0 degrees for both latitude and longitude), aka the center of the world! One look at a map argues that there are probably closer points, but it is certainly one of the closest on the continent! While the bike ride would have been much more fun on bikes that weren’t really crappy, it was still rather enjoyable (and kind of scary going down some of those hills!)

Our second to last day was when we headed to Cape Coast, and I really wish we would have spent another day there. Yes, it was a little more touristy, but it had a lot of cool things to offer that the smaller places we were staying didn’t have. We did get to see the castle in Cape Coast and we noticed that the part of the castle that you only see from the ocean hadn’t been white washed as recently as the street view side :)

Unfortunately, after our relaxing week, we had to spend over 24 hours in transport getting back in to Burkina. Transport was just as awful on the way there, but this time there wasn’t a beach at the end of it :/

Also, I probably gained about 5 lbs that week from eating, drinking, and relaxing to my heart’s content. And I’d do it again in a second :)

Director's Cup

So, the second event mentioned in the previous post was the Director’s Cup. It is an annual tournament for the CEG (where I work) student’s that is put on and planned by the director (who is also my counterpart). As mentioned a few posts ago, the other professors were boycotting the tournament. These had caused quite the ruckus at my school earlier in the spring, but by now things had (mostly) calmed down. They still didn’t come to tournament, but I did and I had a good time!

The final match was between the 4e and 3e classes (4e=8^th grade, 3e=9^th grade), which were the two classes I taught this year!! I was Prof. Principale for 4e, which means that I was in charge of calculating their grades and I have to deal with them if there are any discipline issues, so I was cheering for them.

They started by having a few warm up laps, after which one of the 3e boys pulls out a wig and puts in it on! Funniest thing ever. I have to admit, while a small silly prank like that would barely draw attention at home, any show of personality is a big deal here. Students from a young age are punished for doing anything creatively or uniquely, meaning that by the time they get to my level a lot of them don’t even try to stand out any more. This mentality it so opposite the current US position on the subject, which I feel encourages adolescents to be themselves a little more.

The game itself wasn’t too interesting, just another soccer game. One exciting moment in the game was when a dog decided wanted he wanted to play, too! He chased the ball up and down the field a few times until they finally paused the came to chase him away. Pretty cute :)

(sorry for the poor quality, i had to zoom it in to show the dog!)

I forget the final score, but 3e won. They were pretty excited about it.

And even more important, 29 out of 42 of my 3e students passed their BEPC! That means they can go on to second cycle or they can get jobs as primary school teachers, nurses, or other medium level government jobs! Doesn’t sound like huge deal at home, but the students who didn’t pass will maybe try again but more likely start the life of a sustenance farmer.

OSEP

There were two recent (or not so recent) at site, both of which ended with a soccer game. The first event was OSEP, and quite honestly, I can’t remember what the acronym stands for… It is an event at the primary school level, between all the schools in my “district” and the “district” next door. Throughout the previous months all 10 ten schools in my area had a tournament and the champion was now playing against the other district’s champion. The students were all about 5-6^th grade level and unfortunately neither of the two Yaho schools won for our district. A week or so earlier I had purchased my OSEP t-shirt, so I was sporting that and jeans in honor of the day.It was my first time wearing jeans in village, and I definitely got some comments about it, haha!

That morning there was supposed to be a theater performance by some of the students that I wanted to see. I went to the school roughly the time I was told, and of course they weren’t set up yet. So I went across the street to hang out at the health center until they were ready. After about an hour and a half, they still hadn’t started, so I finally went over to ask. Apparently nobody had arranged for speakers to be brought to the school, so they were going to do the theater pieces later at the soccer match.

I sat with the men waiting for a while, but when I realized all the women were over making lunch for everyone, I went to hang out with them. They were almost done when I got there, so I ate with them. They had to bring the food over to the men, so they decided I was at least capable of watching their purses and the boiling spaghetti.

That is one thing about living here, in some situations you are treated well above your status (such as being seated with school officials instead of the other profs), and the rest of the time your treated like a child (considered incapable of doing anything actually useful). And unfortunately, by their standards, I am kind of like a child. I don’t have the hand calluses necessary to grab coals or pots off the fire with no protection. I can’t even eat food straight off the fire, it burns my hands. I don’t have the strength to lift 20L pots full of rice or sauce. I also don’t cook the same way they do, so I have to ask how much oil to add (way more than any ever wants to think about), how long to cook the sauce, etc. I’m better left in charge of watching the purses…

Anyway. After eating and serving the men, they fed the players for the two soccer teams (all boys) then had some students (all girls) help clean up and bring some more food to the bar for after the match. At the match, all the official-type people were able to say a few words: congratulating the kids, thanking the sponsors, thanking anyone else who’s put in long hours for this, etc. At this point the prefet (the person in charge of all the government employees in the community) asks to say a few words, and goes on to say how they could have made the event better. Not saying that criticism is bad, but this was not the time or place or audience to be sharing specific ideas. And everyone was talking over him anyway, they just wanted to see the kids play!

Finally, the students did start playing. They even had officially looking uniforms provided by SEMAFO, a gold mining company that mines just north of Yaho.

During half-time the students preformed a couple theater pieces. There was a dance, a monologue, and a wordless skit. All of the pieces were directed by a friend of mine, Mados.

About half way through the second half, the sky got really dark and the wind started to pick up. It even blew the tent over!! But the students were able to finish the game and our district won!!! The whole village was so excited, it was great :)

(Sorry the picture isn't the greatest, as I said, the sky got real crazy just before this!)

After the game some people were invited for a little after party, where I helped serve the snacks. There was supposed to be a dance after the that, but it started raining, so it never happened :/ But I had a really fun day helping out with the event and mostly just watching the kids have a fun time!