Ghana Vacation!

Actually, I have plenty to update about before I get to the vacation, so I may end up not doing it justice...

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Franglais

This isn't the first time I've brought up the phenomenon, I believe. My favorite kind is when we use French grammar but English words. In Burkina French, the most common way to expressive possessive is with the preposition "pour," "for." To say, "That's mine," I'd say, "ça, ç'est pour moi." A group of us went out to a nearby bar, and someone had the clever idea of bringing a bottle opener from the transit house since waitstaff sometimes have the perplexing habit of bringing beer and then not opening it until asked. When someone asked her if it was hers, she said, "No, it's for the house."

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Girl's Camp!

I spent the better part of a week assisting other volunteers at a "girl's camp" they were running. Girl's camps are a really common secondary project for volunteers from all 4 sectors here, the goal in general being to encourage the girls to get as much education as they can and to try to take control of their own lives (and to live them responsibly...like not getting pregnant at 14 for instance). I helped in several sessions, and led one on first aid and origami (the process of how those two things got thrown together is still opaque to me). It was cute how the class of 25 girls chose their seating arrangement: the desks here fit three students normally, and they were in a classroom with enough desks they could even have sat one per desk and still had room to spare. Instead, they squeezed in 4 and 5 to a desk. The youngest girls we called the "cupcakes," cause they were tiny and so cute you just wanted to eat them up.

Autrement, the funniest thing that happened was the session led by a Burkinabé on family planning. His main argument for spacing out children? So that the wife will be available more often for sex, and therefore the husband less likely to cheat! In the same session, he talked about the price of condoms, and the fact that they're so cheap that even if you're using FOUR PER NIGHT you're not spending much.

One of the projects during the camp was to have the girls make liquid soap, then wander around town to sell it, having groups compete to see who could sell it the fastest. The idea was to teach them about marketing, costs and profits, etc. Can you tell this camp was run by a Small Enterprise Development volunteer? Anyway, it struck us as we were discussing the plan that it's one of the nice things about living here that it's perfectly acceptable to have 12 year old girls wandering around town. Imagine trying a similar project in the US! Although as it turns out, the girls didn't wander at all - as soon as we gave them the bottles they gave us money! It turns out they'd already talked to their family and neighbors and collected money from them to buy the soap! They told us that this, too, was a form of marketing, and we couldn't disagree.

I missed the last day, when the girls performed skits they'd written during the week. And I'm sorry I did, as there was one in which a girl got pregnant, tried to get a back-alley abortion (abortions are illegal here), then when that didn't work drank a potion to do it herself which ended up killing her. At the end they all said in unison, "Just say NO to abortion!" Hm, not EXACTLY the take-home message we were hoping for...

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Old technology

In a conversation about research, I mentioned to my friend something or other about microfiche. She said many people her age (she's 24) probably don't even know what that is, and I was really dating myself. To which I immediately responded that I may as well date myself, as no one else has recently shown any interest in doing so.

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Birthday

My second African birthday was celebrated at a German restaraunt in Ouaga. I ordered a steak roquefort, and for the first time since arriving here was asked how I wanted it cooked! I wonder, gentle reader, if you can really appreciate how big a deal that was. It was a wonderful way to spend my birthday. Then we all went to a bar where my friends bought me and my birthday buddy (one of my neighbors from the group that just swore in shares my birthday!) shots of Johnny Walker. Good steak, then good whisky. Yes, I was very content that night.

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Swear In

Went great! We now have 32 awesome new volunteers. I prepared an informal powerpoint presentation describing the SE program that was run during the reception after the ceremony; likewise other volunteers prepared presentations describing their own sectors. I was very happy with our finished product, but it was completely ignored by nearly everyone there in favor of the table we set up selling moringa products. Oh well, it's nice to see such a strong interest in moringa! Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the outfit I wore (a bright yellow boubou, a traditional Muslim garment here that looks like nothing else so much as a nightgown with pants underneath) but there ARE pictures, I made sure someone took some. I just haven't gotten them yet. Afterwards, as we were catching a bus early the next morning for GHANA(!!!), we decided to basically stay out all night dancing. Which I did with shameless abandon.

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Ghana Vacation!

Wow. Just, wow. Without any exaggeration whatsoever, the moment you cross the border from Burkina into Ghana, the difference is profound. Thanks to their port and their well established tourism, Ghana's level of development is miles, light years ahead of ours. We felt like we'd gone back to the States - though I know full well if I'd come straight from Atlanta to Ghana I wouldn't see it that way at all. Really, though, I lack the words to describe the difference. But that's never stopped me before! Ok, I'll give a couple of examples. Technology: On the BF side of the border, the process to record your passport is to fill out the salient details in a notebook. On the Ghana side, your passport is scanned into a computer. Literacy: In Burkina, I have to come to Ouaga to find a bookstore, and pretty much any signage on the road outside the capital is for an association or government office. In Ghana bookstores abound; almost every hotel we stayed at had a bookshelf in the reception where you could trade a book you'd read for a new one; and there are billboards for everything from adverts for phone companies to signs urging you to do your part to stop domestic violence. Environment: In Burkina, the world is your garbage can. In Ghana, there are civic garbage cans even in the smaller towns.

I have NEVER seen a sign like this in BF.

Ok, I'll stop dwelling on that point now and instead bask in the memory of how awesomely great the vacation was.

With a few exceptions, I found Ghanaians to be less exuberant than Burkinabé. I don't mean less friendly, exactly, just less imposing with their friendliness. I've seen Ghana described as "Africa for beginners," and I can understand why. If you are considering an Africa trip but worry about culture shock, you should really consider Ghana. A few interesting quirks of the language: people say "You are welcome" to actually mean that you are welcome, as in they're glad you're there. But when someone just randomly says that to you, you can't help but think, "Was I supposed to just thank him for something?" Also, I find it absolutely endearing that when answering a yes-or-no question in the affirmative, they will say "Yes, please": "Do you have Castle Milk Stout?" "Yes, please. How many would you like?" Speaking of, CMS is a beer that would be well-received in America it's so good. Finally, the signs in the hotels cracked me up: they say basically that the hotel isn't responsible for items stolen from your room, so if you have something you're worried about you should check it with the front desk. The phrase they actually use is "You must hand over valuables to the front desk." Ha!

We started off by stopping in the second-largest city in Ghana, Kumasi, which has (arguably) the largest market in West Africa. It's dazzling, intense, confusing, and wonderful. We got completely lost, of course, but that just meant we got to walk around all the more.

A small fraction of the Kumasi market

From there we went down to Cape Coast, site of the Cape Coast Castle, an old British slave-trading fort. The tour would have been more interesting, I think, if we hadn't been with a group of rowdy Ivoirians who in my opinion really didn't show the proper respect to what was a horrible time in their neighbors' (and their own) not-so-distant past. Also, the tour guide was pretty pissy ("People, can you PLEASE be quiet so I can continue the tour?"). But still, it was a sight worth seeing (and one, it turns out, that President Obama saw on his recent visit to Ghana).

This is one of the NICER rooms.

From there, we made a trip to Kakum National Park, a rainforest reserve about 30km north of the coast. We went on the "canopy walk," a series of rope bridges and platforms built 30-40 meters (90-120 feet) over the floor of the forest. Naturally, you get a pretty incredible view from that high up. And while they're described as "rope" bridges, to be entirely accurate you'd have to call them rope and metal and wood and steel cable bridges. My comment to my traveling companion, K, was that they are rockety, but not rickety.

Not recommended for the agoraphobic.

After that adventure, we decided to take a break - we'd been traveling almost every day of our trip. We went to the beach in Busua and stayed for four nights and did nothing but lounge in hammocks by the beach (it was kind of cold, and the surf wasn't high enough to convince us it was worth being that cold to barely body surf), read, and eat ridiculously delicious seafood. K at one point found some Fulfulde speakers and chatted with them - I am forever complaining to her how jealous I am of her for that, but she DID already speak French when we got here, to be fair. It was neat seeing the way the surf swirled the very fine sand as it hit the shore - prosaicly, it reminded me of what my laundry water looks like after a full load.

The view from the rooftop bar across the street from our cabin on the beach.

On our way back up to Burkina, we stopped in Kumasi again. We went back to the restaurant we'd loved the first time through, but knowing the town a little better I took us by a different root. I bragged to K that I was glad I knew the town better and could take us around this other road so we could avoid all of the faux types; naturally the echo of my voice hadn't even died away when we were approached by a guy trying to sell us the same mediocre acrylic paintings that everyone else in that area wanted to sell us. Sigh.

We made a stop at a monkey reserve before leaving. In the towns of Baobeng and Fiera, monkeys are sacred, and if a person is found to have brought harm to one, the same harm is brought to him or her. So the monkeys are very habituated to people. The Colobus monkeys stay in the treetops, but the Mona monkeys will come down, and if you have a bit of patience, will take food right out of your hands! One actually held my hand for a few seconds.

YOU try taking a picture while feeding a monkey!

This one I don't have as good an excuse for, just that my flash takes forever.

The ficus is a parasitic tree that eventually kills its host, leaving a hollow mesh structure you can climb.

Our last adventure of the trip was the result of a misunderstanding. After the monkey reserve, we didn't have time to get any farther than Techiman, which is a large enough town but not touristy, so we didn't know where to stay (there's nothing in the guide book, and no one we know had ever stopped there - though it DOES have the largest cloth market in the country, which we unfortunately missed by no more than an hour). We asked the cab driver to bring us to a "cheap" guest house. Well, it turns out there's a guest house named "C. Guest House," which is what he thought we said. It was indeed cheap. It was also indeed the chosen guest house for a large group of merchants who had decided to hire some prostitutes to blow off some steam before leaving after the big market. Quite a switch from the Presbyterian Mission we'd stayed at in Kumasi the night before! The first thing said to me when I walked into the office by a guy who was hanging out (waiting his turn?) was "What's your name, white man? I like your style!"

The last two days of the trip were a series of bad transport taken in an effort to go somewhere we finally decided we just couldn't get to without going crazy. But in the end we got back into Burkina, a day earlier than planned even (you see, we knew going in that the aforementioned destination might be dicey to get to), which was great because it meant we didn't miss the going away party for a really cool volunteer who is by now trekking through Uganda in search of mountain gorillas. I could say so much more about the trip than I have, but enough's enough.

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So, it's been a hell of a summer, and I'm both glad I had it AND glad it's almost over. I'm exhausted! Soon I'll be going back to site, where I hope to stay for a long time and settle in (well, I may do some day trips to neighboring villages before school starts). So it will be some time before I can update you on my exploits. Oh! Almost forgot the shoutout. Tonight (I've spent several hours on this post, it's late!) the shoutout is for Vernon and Nancy, two friends of my mom's who have been very supportive both of me, and, more importantly, her! Cheers, ladies!

I'll start this post out with a shout-out to Carson, since he's first on my list of notes. I really appreciate the steady stream of mail, man, especially considering how lousy I am at writing back.

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Chemistry in Burkina
I recently got the chance to read two real-for-true chemistry articles. The first came compliments of Carson, who read a non-technical review of an article which interested him and decided to send me the actual 30-page article! It was a treat to geek out for a half hour. I don't know what journal it came from, the printout didn't say. Think of how shocked I was to receive a letter that thick!

Soon after, I spent some time with the other chemist from my stage, and as it turned out she had brought back from her recent trip to the states an article her boyfriend had published. So I got to geek out AGAIN. I miss reading research. I do NOT miss performing it.

Bump start
I read that term recently to refer to what I'd always heard previously described as a push start: the process of pushing a vehicle (I've mostly done it with motorcycles), preferably down an incline, until you get enough speed to drop the clutch and turn the engine over to get it started. Well, on a trip to Ouaga recently I got to help - with all of the other passengers - push a BUS to start it this way. I don't think they actually expected me to help, but come on, was I really going to miss being able to tell that story? Fortunately, at the intermediate stops on the several-hour route, the bus stayed running and we didn't need to repeat the process.

Who would win in tug-of-war, a donkey or a cow?
You might think the cow, it's certainly got the weight...but there's a reason you see donkeys pulling plows and not cows. A couple weeks ago I saw a donkey pulling a cart that had a cow tied to it...and wheresoever the donkey was taking it, it was a place the cow did NOT want to go. That cow was pulling just as hard as it could against its lead rope trying to stop the cart, feet dug into the ground...and that donkey just kept plodding along as if it weren't tied to anything at all. The cow's feet left furrows in the road until it gave up. Winner: donkey.

Cranium games
You know they have a whole line of them. One of them is named Cluzzle. I argue that the "u" should be pronounced as in the word "puzzle," so that the "Cl" could be interpreted to come both from "clue" and from "clay" (the idea is to give people a clue about the word or phrase you want to represent using clay), But I was in a minority of one - everyone else pronounced it "clue-zzle." Anyway, it's a reasonably fun game.

Lost in translation
While working at stage again, we had a session at which all trainees and staff were present. At one point, I asked a question of the sesson leader (a Burkinabe), and after responding he asked me to translate for him. I thought this was weird both because most of the staff speak English anyway AND his French is of course better than mine, but I started - only to be stopped by the stagiares who patiently explained to me that the leader had already SAID it in French, and it would be much more helpful if I could translate it to English, please. Oops.

Style tips
When your t-shirt says something in a language you don't know, find someone who speaks that language and ask them to translate it. Or you might end up looking to someone who speaks that language like the buff 30-year old Burkinabe man wearing an "Active girl" t-shirt did to me.

Apologies to stagiare S, who should in fact be commended for getting hair extensions braided in a very popular Burkinabe fashion. I'm sorry that my first response was just to say your name and laugh for several minutes.

The new me
Not as in I'm changing anything dramatically; as in there is a person in this stage, M, who reminds me of me - he's kind of a smartass cynic. Here is a rough representation of a dialogue he had with the aforementioned S (before her transformational hair decision that I in all honesty really do think is cool, it was just SUCH a change) after she had performed a needs assessment with her class...

S: Wow, that was so great! When we split off the girls from the boys, all of the boys listed as needs these material things, like books and desks and bicycles. The girls, on the other hand, seemed to really recognize some deep issues, like that they need equal rights, and to be respected as much as boys, and -
M: So basically the boys asked for real things and the girls spouted cliches.
S: I am going to kill you while you sleep.

Technically, that last line wasn't spoken, it's an interpretation of the look she gave him. Don't worry, it was all in good fun, and the odds of one stagiare killing another are low (if non-zero).

Dream job
Why, oh why oh why, couldn't this have come up around this time NEXT year?
LEGO Education Development Specialist

Dentist
We're in the midst of our mid-service medical exams, which includes a trip to the dentist for an exam and getting our teeth cleaned. The backs of my front teeth where I couldn't see with a mirror were really gross - I'm never skipping a yearly cleaning again. All is well, though, no cavities.

Good luck!
I've had crazy good luck booking work that ends up helping out my personal schedule. After a week of being a PCVF at stage, I stayed in town for an extra couple of days to be a guest speaker for the Food Security Committee...and the day we (myself and a co-chair of the committee who joined me) did that, we were asked to stay an extra day to be guest speakers for a session on survival in Burkina (a hodgepodge of topics that PCVs think it is useful/convenient/necessary for the new PCVs to know; we talked about topics from phone plans and check writing to how to maintain a latrine free of flies). Which meant my dead day between working stage and having to be in Ouaga for a meeting became a day on which I had a free place to stay and was paid to be there. AND it meant I got a ride in a PC car down to Ouaga. And now, thanks to another job, I get to be in town for the last couple of days of my friend C's service, AND I've got an impossible-otherwise-to-get spot at the transit house for the Swearing In ceremony of the new volunteers!

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Right then, off to start the groundwork for getting something made for Swear In. And to buy cheese. REAL cheese. Ouaga is spoiling me.

These are the people I "run" with

Just to give you an idea of the caliber of person we have in Peace Corps Burkina Faso:

Ronkonkoma, N.Y. Resident and Peace Corps Volunteer Places First in Burkina Faso Marathon

I am humbled to be counted in their ranks.

I can't say I'm a fan of July

For one thing, it's the month my brother was born. Ugh. Just kidding! (Or am I?) But really, I am feeling sorry for myself as most of our second-year SE and GEE volunteers pack it in and prepare to move back or move on. Good for them, of course, but it's a loss for us. You will be missed, folks.

Ok, enough of the touchy-feely crap. I'm back in Ouaga, working again. Most of my secondary projects seem to be more involved with the infrastructure of Peace Corps Burkina Faso than with the development of resources for Host Country Nationals. This is not good or bad in and of itself, it's just the milieu I am most comfortable in. But it does make for bad numbers on my quarterly reports, which focus on number of HCNs served and have no place to discuss how our work might be of aid to current and future volunteers. Anyway, on to the format I've found works best for me: random paragraphs!


Sheep

Yes, sheep and goats are different. You can tell by the tail. Usually, that's the ONLY way you can tell here. But recently I saw a sheep that actually had wool on it! A first for me here in Burkina. It still wasn't covered all over, but it had a good clump over its front haunches.


Interior decorating

When it comes to style, folks here take a relaxed attitude to ideas like "clashing," or "loudness," or "appropriateness." The last time I left site was in a taxi brousse; the driver had decided to spice things up by using shelf liner as a decorative adhesive over every surface to which it would stick. A lovely floral print.


Game day

Last month, a HUGE soccer match took place in Ouaga: Burkina vs. Cote d'Ivoire. This was a big deal because of our group of four, we are the two contenders to earn a spot in the 2010 World Cup. I attended the game against Guinea a few months earlier, and was looking forward to attending this one too. Unfortunately, due to safety issues the Peace Corps office decided at the last minute to ban volunteers from attending, but I came to Ouaga anyway, to at least watch the game on a good TV. Ouaga during an important soccer match is like Mardi Gras! People were honking their horns driving down the streets, screaming, waving huge flags on the back of tiny mopeds; it was great. One guy had even painted his face and body in Burkina colors - a really cool idea, but somewhat ill-advised given the lack of availability of paints made for said purpose here. I suspect his choice was an acrylic-based paint that is popular for coating the mud walls found in village construction. Whatever it was, he was more or less incapable of moving his mouth due to the paint on his face. Like I said, a cool idea...but I worry about that guy.


Unfortunately, we didn't win the game, but it was still a blast to watch - which many of us did on a big-screen LCD TV in a bar named Titis (and yes, we pronounce it in the most offensive way possible). My favorite player Pitroipa, number 11, had some fancy moves - but coolest move of the night goes to the goalie, who would routinely throw the ball to his teammates while performing a flip. I was unimpressed with Cote d'Ivoire's number 11, Drogba, the most internationally well-known of the players there. But it's entirely possible I'm just bitter. But even though we lost, we held our own against a team that won its last match 5-0. And with the collapse of a wall in Abidjan's stadium, it looks like our rematch will not be held in Cote d'Ivoire, but in neighboring Ghana. Which slightly increases the chances that we could still end up in the World Cup. I'm not holding my breath (not least because that match isn't until September).

Tradition

It's interesting how traditions persist in a society that is, in many ways, moving forward so quickly. On a bus sitting in front of me was a woman who was functionnaire through and through; she had the clothes, the attitude, and the French. My point is that this woman was well educated. And she still had a penny-sized sack of burlap pinned to her hair: some fetish to protect or aid her magically. Its copper coloring matched her outfit; I wonder if she has several to accesorize with.


Working stage

They're a great group! I do have a couple of funny stories, but I won't crack jokes at their expense in so public a forum. Instead I will simply say that I very much enjoyed working with them, look forward to doing so again, and even more look forward to working with them after they become Volunteers.

An aside that fits here only because it happened while I was in Ouahigouya - while I clearly can and do go weeks at a time sans computer, when there's one available the addiction comes right back. Once while at the PCVF house alone, I actually caught myself about to turn on the laptop someone had brought just to play solitaire - when there was a deck of cards right next to me.


The Sunday after I worked at training, I went to hang out at the pool - a common hangout for both PCVFs and PCTs. For the first time in this country, I saw a monkey! Some guys had one on a chain outside of the pool. I don't know why. Just for kicks, I guess. I didn't get too close because it seemed rather nervous about white people. Go figure.


Leaving stage

I'd done laundry a couple days before my week with the trainees was done, and left it out to dry (atypically, it took more than 24 hours, due to high humidity. Ah, rainy season.) When I got back from the pool, it was gone! I searched high and low, convinced that my peers had decided to pull one over on me. My mistake was looking inside. As it turns out, there was no practical joke - one of the staff had kindly pulled my clothes off the line and put them under shelter...but respecting our privacy, she didn't want to go inside, so she put them in the garage. In short, one person's kindness had me thinking that all my colleagues were jerks.

Bus trouble

Leaving was itself a two-day ordeal. The first bus I wanted to take was so late that a)I'd have perforce travelled at night, and b)even if I'd been willing to break that rule, it would have gotten trapped by rain halfway to my destination thanks to its running late. So after spending a night more than intended, I took morning transport the next morning. And took 12 hours to go 113 km (I could have biked it in 6).

First step: arrive at bus station, discuss disposition of bike with kind of shady guy who insists on calling me "mon blanc" and further insists that I respond "mon negro" (he actually corrected me after I overcame my embarassment at the possessive pronoun enough to say "mon noir"!). Yeah, THAT's not intensely uncomfortable for someone from the States. I try to explain that this sort of exchange would be entirely unacceptable in the US, but he is uninterested.
Second step: wait two hours for bus to arrive.
Third step: push, shove, but stop short of elbowing and biting people to get on bus in order to reserve seat. Normally I hate this step and will take slower bus companies to avoid it, but for this trip there was no choice - and frankly I was ready to take out some aggression anyway. That feeling would prove to increase all day.
I'll stop numbering them now. Next: Stop for...well, I don't know. Though I'm pretty sure everyone else on the bus did. Some guy was either hurt or sick. We waited for about 45 minutes for...well, I don't know that either. Something changed. Maybe someone from a nearby village arrived to help him. Maybe 45 minutes is just the culturally appropriate time for a bus to wait for someone to see if he'll get better. Presumably he didn't, since we left him. Or hell, maybe that was his stop. Things like this happen all the time - and by "things like this," I don't mean people dropping their pants to rub toothpaste on their legs (something he did while we were waiting); I mean things that everyone around us understands intuitively but that we don't even have the basic knowledge to ask the right questions to find out what's going on.
Next: Stop again, this time to switch buses. The route is blocked because at a place where it is only one-lane (because of a new bridge being built), a mango truck has possibly broken down and definitely dumped its load of mangoes all over the road. This in itself should only cause maybe a half-hour delay...
Next: Get to bus on other side of mango truck to discover that it's not being reloaded, because the staff have decided to take this opportunity of its lack of cargo to change the leaf spring. This turns out to be an unfortunate decision, since there is no replacement handy. Four hours later, they've found one, reinstalled it, and we're ready to go again. One moment of levity: while reloading, the staff are trying to lift a motor scooter onto the roof of the bus, and unlike at the station they have no platform to do it from. There is one guy alone on the roof to pull it up after the three on the ground have managed to lift it over their heads. One of those three, as soon as the weight was being held by the one on the roof, ran as fast as he could, certain (as I was) that the roof guy was going to drop it. He didn't - but the runner and I shared a laugh.

When we stopped, I should have just biked on; but by then it was three in the afternoon and I'd eaten nothing all day (there's a lack of opportunity to eat when your bus is stopped in the middle of nowhere for repairs). Naturally by then I was frustrated, tired, hungry, and generally grumpy - and I knew that if I tred to bike anything more than 5km I'd be sick at the other end of it. Imagine how thrilled I was to discover upon our recommencement that we were, in fact, less than 5km from the next village.

Fortunately, the only other incident of note during that trip was that at one stop, my seat neighbor bought me a Fanta. When buying food or drink on the bus, it's typical to either buy a small piece of food or sachet of water for your neighbor (at the very least, you should offer to share what you've bought for yourself), but a soda is more expensive and a very nice gesture.

With friends
I spent the next couple of days with friends, which was relaxing, and there's nothing to report except that I have awesome friends.

4th of July
First, the 3rd-
The plan: if we can't find transport, bike with my friend Y from Djibo to a small village 40km away. This plan surprised me, since up until a couple months ago Y was vehemently opposed to biking if she could avoid it. But I was game.
The execution: We got a bit less than 20km down the road (but I couldn't accurately judge as we're going Y's pace, not my own). At that point we should have passed another village, but it had yet to appear. Y made the crack, "Do you think we made a wrong turn?" She thought this was funny because there's only the one road; there ARE no turns. And yet, her comment made me think...was this really the right road out of Djibo? Now that I think of it, it wasn't really the right direction...So I made a call, and sure enough, I'd led us down't the wrong road. Clever me! It's not that I hadn't TRIED to verify that I knew the right road, just that I hadn't quite asked in the right way when I did, and so thought that the directions I was given jibed with the road I thought I should take. Anyway, we turned around and went back, and basically biked 40km just to end up where we started.

And then, Y said let's just try again! She was willing to bike 40km again the same day! I was shocked - but again, game. Fortunately, there WAS transport on the correct road, and we were spared an 80km day. We got to C's (have you noticed I keep mentioning the same people...er, letters...in this blog? I'm nothing if not consistent) in time for dinner, a wonderful beef stew prepared by D. Not me D, another one. I did, in fact, prepare lunch the next day, but it was not wonderful, merely passable.

Now, the 4th-
This trip was only part vacation, it was also part work. More so for D and another volunteer, E, who were there at C's village helping all week with a girls' camp (a common secondary project for volunteers during the rainy season, with the goal of encouraging girls generally to take more ownership in their lives and specifically to pursue their education), but I helped too for one session. I led a session teaching the girls origami. I enjoyed it so much that I agreed to work at another girls' camp in a few weeks. I was very impressed with the girls - for young girls from a small African village, they had very good French and were very willing to laugh and help each other and work with me (once they got over being shy with me, which took almost no time at all). Clearly, C has had an impact in that village - and credit where it's due, it was equally clear that the (male) teacher she was working with made a point to encourage these girls. Rare here, and gratifying to see.

In the evening, we had another great dinner prepared by D, this time chili. And fireworks. Kind of. For the second day in a row, a sarcastic comment saved the day (the first one I'm referring to is Y's wrong turn comment). We were sitting on the porch when Y heard a small popping sound and said, "What's that?" I noticed that the inside of the house seemed brighter than before, and I half-jokingly said "C, is your house on fire?" She ran inside and screamed, "YES!!" A candle had caught her bookcase on fire. Fortunately, there were buckets of water available and nothing important was burned. Though it was a close thing - there was a lot of money nearby, and the closest item which would have probably caught in less than a minute was a tube of rubber cement marked "highly inflammable."

Then we watched Breakfast at Tiffany's, and really I just don't get it. Audrey Hepburn's character is just AWFUL. And the male lead isn't much better - sure, he's a nice guy in his way, but given Holly GoLightly's personality, there can really be only one reason he likes her so much - she's beautiful. How is this movie so popular? One character who has devoted her life to using people, and the other is as shallow as an uninflated kiddie pool. I can't deny we laughed at it, but not for reasons I suspect its creators would approve of. I know I have at least one friend that I'm going to catch all kinds of crap from for not liking this movie, but I'm sorry. I don't.

Return trip
We biked it. This time in the right direction (my colleagues very helpfully pointed many, many times to make sure I turned the right way on the one road that runs through C's village.) It was a pleasant ride, though the wind slowed us. Y can most certainly not claim to be a non-biker anymore.

Being white
A couple of times recently someone has shouted some form of greeting to which I've responded only to find they weren't talking to me. Because, being white, they almost always ARE for me. It's downright offputting when they're not!

More bus travails
Ever been kneed in the neck? I have. On the way from Djibo down to Ouaga for my current project, a kid working for the bus was clambering down the aisle as best he could (it was full of people) by walking along the armrests. And naturally we hit a bump as he passed me. Bus travel here is something I would strongly recommend to anyone with a masochistic streak. Or a sadistic streak for that matter, you could get your own in pretty readily.

Current project
And what am I back in Ouaga for? This time, I'm working with another volunteer and an APCD to prepare an agriculture manual for PCBF. Actually, we're putting together a couple of documents, but that's the big one. Our main resource is a similar document for a neighboring country, but we're adapting other materials also. It's an exciting project, and our hope is that our work will lay the groundwork for eventually introducing an agriculture or environment sector into the country. Of course, that's an administrative decision and thus I can't comment on its likelihood. But I can say that from the volunteers' view on the ground, it would be a worthwhile endeavor. This country is struggling with desertification and crop failures in a major way.

Whew! Another long post with no overarching theme. Hope you had more fun reading it than I did writing it! Today I find out who my new neighbors will be, but I won't bother waiting for that before posting this, since I make it a policy not to share information on other volunteers' placements (nor even their names, generally. That may seem hypocritical given that I have names attached to the blogs I link to, but in each case I checked to see that they themselves share that information in their blogs. At least, I *think* I did - if you happen to read those and know that I'm wrong, do let me know and I'll change link names as appropriate.) Also, I hope you like my new PC banner on the right. I thought it was pretty nifty.

Happy 1-Year Anniversary!

Yep, it's officially been a year as of today. One year ago a group of 30 of us flew into Ouagadougou with precious little idea of what to expect, and even less of an idea of how we would adapt.

And now here we are.

Today is also the day that the NEW stagiares arrive. Although I am in Ouaga, I will not meet them while they're here - the Training Manager keeps very strict rules concerning access to the new folks, and I'm not working with them until Week 2 of their stage. If any of their parents happen to be reading this, a) don't worry, the people who will be meeting them are capable volunteers and extremely good choices for helping them through their first couple of nights, and b) don't be surprised if you don't hear from them right away. They probably won't have a chance to hit a telecentre to call until they get up to the city they'll be training in.

Now then, this post won't be as comprehensive as the last one, because this time I neglected to keep notes on what I wanted to write about for the most part. I'm working from memory. And shoddy tools give a shoddy result...

Professeur Principal
This is the name of the professor in charge of a class, and in most situations Peace Corps volunteers don't do it. But when you're in a school with four teachers for five classes, there just aren't that many options. It generated a small amount of extra work for me at the end of each trimester, but I had no idea just how much work it required for the end of the year. My last week in school was by far the busiest I've ever been in this country, and that's counting a week when aside from preparing and teaching classes I had to grade 400 of my own tests PLUS 70 practice nationally-required exams for a class I've never taught. I've kind of been winding down ever since.

Formations
A decent translation of that would be workshops, I guess. At the same time I was doing all that PP stuff, my homologue and I gave a VIH/SIDA (that's the French way of saying HIV/AIDS) sensibilisation (you can get the flavor of that word without translation) to about 150 students aged 12-24 at our school. It went well, thanks in large part to some presentation materials that one of our volunteer committees managed to get for all volunteers. I still owe them a report on that, actually. I also gave the agricultural workshop I mentioned in my last post, and that went really well I feel. Though I haven't checked back in with my farmers to see if they're using the techniques we talked about. I still owe a report on that one, too...

Secret Meetings
Once my school obligations were finally finished, I went to hang out with a nearby volunteer friend. Turns out some of the fonctionnaires in his village (that's the catch-all term for government workers, everything from the military to teachers to doctors. Pretty much any job that is not farming or selling things is some sort of fonctionnaire position.) have a secret club - and he'd only recently started being invited. He got me an invitation as well. Now, I say club, but I don't mean they have a secret handshake or plot world domination...it's just an excuse for some guys (it's all men) to hang out, eat some chicken, and drink some sodas, without having to invite everyone and their brother. It was a good time.

Not so Hardcore
I haven't made my 140km bike ride yet, but I have reached a new high mark - 125km. Unfortunately, the trip did not go smoothly. I was two hours late getting out, and because I was late I hit a headwind that started up right as I was leaving; between those two problems, instead of arriving at my destination at 9am as planned, I got there at 1pm. Which means I was biking through the hottest part of the day. The upshot is that a ride that should have taken 6 hours took 9, and one that should have ended when the temp was about 90 degrees in fact continued for a significant time in 115 degrees. I ended up having massive heartburn and couldn't participate in the party that was my reason for making the trip. All in all though, I got off light for being so hard-headed - at any point in that ride I could have pulled over and waited for a bus or taxi brousse to pass, there were many.

Once There...and Well Again
While I didn't get to party (and it was a cool party, local music and dancing, and great food), I did get to explore my friend's village the next day. It's always interesting to see how others live here. Her village is much larger than mine, but still small in the grand scheme of things. The people were very friendly, and many stopped by the day after the party to make sure I was feeling better. For the first time ever, I played Bocce Ball. Kind of a strange place to do it.

On to Ouaga
After that, I came to the capital to hang out with some friends who were in town for a meeting of the Peer-Support and Diversity Network (PSDN). This has caused many volunteers to ask if I'm on that committee, which continues to shock me - don't you people KNOW me? I am many things, but a supportive peer is not one of them. Ok, that's not actually the case, I can be supportive when I want to be, but I'm not a good choice to encourage people I don't know well through their difficulties - my sarcastic wit tends to make me seem insensitive to those who don't know me. I'm not warm and fuzzy, is what I'm saying. However, for whatever reason, two of my favorite people in the country ARE on the committee, and I enjoyed getting to hang out with them.

And then to Fada
And one of those favorite people asked me if I would like to accompany her to Fada. She's leaving soon, and wanted to visit parts of Burkina we hadn't seen yet. Naturally I said yes - in fact, I've traveled with her before, this is Y from the New Year's trip I took. We acted like tourists, visiting the sacred hill (great view of the city) and a baobab with horseshoe-shaped marks in its trunk, traditionally explained as having been made by an ancient chief who actually rode his horse up the tree to hide from an invading tribe. And then we got our sand read.
Most cultures have some sort of tradition of divination, I think. Tarot, numerology, tea-leaves, that sort of thing. The Gourmantche in eastern BF read sand. Y and I found a guy who both does this and speaks French (a rare combination), and he took us out into the bush, took off his pants (to reveal that he had another pair on underneath, but we certainly had a moment of shock before that became obvious), sat us down, and told us to ask him questions and the sand would answer them. Y's reading was more interesting than mine, but of course it's not my place to share hers. Mine included some interesting tidbits, namely that both my brother AND my sister would come visit me - surprising enough - and then the doozie - I'm going to marry an African. Actually, after he said that, he backpedalled and said that the sand didn't actually say where she was from, but that she has dark skin. Y asked probing questions (she's arguably more concerned about my romantic well-being than I am...and having written that I feel that I've made an implication that is not true - she likes to see her friends in relationships, that's all) and we found that my future bride could be indian or hispanic; not necessarily VERY dark-skinned, just not white. Hm. Oh, but we'll date for 6 years first, because while in my heart I want a relationship, in my head I don't, I really just want a friend. That part rang true, at least. Y's remark was "Wow, she must be very patient."

Training of Trainers
After that, up to a city I know well, though I haven't been there in nearly a year. Stage this year is being held in the same place as ours was, and so was our ToT, the event where those of us who will be PCVFs (the PCVs who work at stage) receive training. I got to visit my host family and hang out with some volunteers I don't get to see much of otherwise. I also got very sick, fortunately only for a day. Something about that place.

Djibo
Another city I had not yet visited - it's where they held the aforementioned "hardcore party" that I missed in April - and a town near another of my very favorite people in the country (my other volunteer traveling-companion from New Year's, C). I got to see several volunteers who live in that region, and had a blast with them. I also discovered and bought my new favorite shirt - a bright blue-and-red-striped soccer jersey with a giant picture of Obama. When I wear it, people don't yell "Nasara," they yell "Barack Obama!". It's pretty great.

And Ouaga Again
And now I'm working with a few other math teachers developing critical-thinking exercises to compile into a book to give to all PCBF math education volunteers. That work is going pretty well, but it's not terribly exciting stuff. Saturday I return to my village, but only for a week - come June 21, I'll be working at stage! So I'll get to meet all the new hip, cool, with-it young beautiful people who have come to show us old farts how it's done. Perhaps most exciting about the timing is that I have a rock-solid excuse to be in Ouaga on the 20th, so I'll get to see our football (that's soccer, remember) match against Cote d'Ivoire! That's gonna be intense. If we beat them, we have a real shot at getting into the 2010 World Cup games.

Shout Out
Hi, folks at St. Columb's! My mom has informed me that probably several more of you will be reading my blog. Hope you enjoy it!

A month at site, a long bike ride, and why Burkina is like the South

As a part of the wheeling and dealing that got me approved to work that stint in Ouaga at the end of March, I agreed not to leave my site at all during the month of April. The hottest, driest month of the year. Which means I missed the "hardcore party," a fête thrown by the crew of volunteers in the hottest, driest part of the country. I was pretty bummed about that, not so much because I feel the need to prove I'm hardcore (I feel like I kind of am, as evidenced by...well, I'll get to that), but because many of my friends were there - I'm not in the Sahel, but that's the crowd I run with. Anyway, a month at site may not lead to the same kinds of excitement that comes with the constant chance of getting run over or mugged in Ouaga, but it went smoothly enough, and I've had plenty of free time to think about what to write about. Unfortunately, I didn't really spend any of that time thinking about how to link my many disparate thoughts, so while this post will be long, I suspect it will be somewhat disjointed.

Burkinabé and Jesus
The Peace Corps has a very clear policy: volunteers do NOT proselytize. My question is, is there a policy on how to respond when locals do it? It's surprising the number of times I've found people who want to talk to me about how much they love Jesus. Really, it makes me feel like I never left the South.

Everchanging hair
The fu-manchu finally became more trouble than the joke was worth, and like the rest of my hair it is now slowly becoming compost in my yard. Our country director claims he's never seen me with the same hair twice. This reflects somewhat more on the frequency we see each other than on my hair, but it IS true that my hair has gone through more phases in the last 10 months than in a typical decade of my life.

A New/Old Hobby
One reason it became more trouble (all right, at least ONE segue!) is that I've started regularly practicing my cornet. I don't know how people do that with facial hair, it's a real hassle. I try to get in at least an hour an evening. For some reason I have the damndest time remembering that the A flat scale has a D flat. Anyway, one side effect means that I now have a crowd of visitors under the age of 5 every night. They're good kids, and a couple speak a smattering of French. For some reason, they love to greet me anew every 5 minutes or so, which makes playing continuously a bit difficult, but they're cute. My goal is to play in the Ole Miss alumni band and really scream...but it's slow going building my lip back up. Unfortunately, one of my spit-valve pads is pretty worn and I have to adjust it every time I use it to get a good seal. On the plus side, the climate is so dry that I don't use it that much.

Gardening
If I quit, it won't be because of the heat, vicious though it can be. It will be because of the insects. The flies and the ants DRIVE ME INSANE here. So I have a request. It may not be entirely legal to send foreign plant seeds, but it's pretty routinely done without a problem. I don't want genetically modified tomatos or fast-growing squashes. If you really want my undying gratitude, send me Venus fly-trap and pitcher plant seeds. I think these plants require a lot of water, but believe me, if you send them, they will be WELL cared for. Totally worth the water expenditure for the joy of vengeance whenever I see one of those pods closed. As for the ants, I'd love to import some ant lions, but that I think would be a little too difficult.

Irony, Thy Name is Dabilgou
At least, my being named Dabilgou is ironic. I've known for a while that Dabilgou, while a Mooré name, is kind of local to my area - often, Mossi in Ouaga don't recognize it, though I've met Dabilgous as far away as my friend K's site around 100km away. It turns out it's a VERY local name - it originated in my village. And its origin is this: when the French colonists first arrived in Zege (I can only imagine they were just passing through), they sat in the shade of a baobab tree with the village elders and said that they could show them how to live a better life. The elders responded "We already know how to live, don't tell us what we already know." And the Mooré for "don't tell me what I already know" is da bilgi. Thus the name of these men (and as it happens the tree they sat under) became Dabilgou. So here I am, another whitey trying to help the people of Zege live a better life...and my name is their negative reaction to the first whites who tried the same (or claimed to, at least).

A Night in Niounougou
Months ago now, on a weekend that I planned to visit Ouaga, I decided to bike that Thursday evening 45km to a friend's site on the main road, the idea being I could take a morning bus the next day without having to get up early enough to bike 2 hours before catching it. I didn't get out until 5 in the evening, and I had no bike light, but I decided that shouldn't be a problem because as I just said, the trip only takes about 2 hours, so I could just use my cell-phone LED for the last couple kilometers I would still be out when night fell. In fact, I had high hopes of making the trip in UNDER two hours, as it was windy: that road runs northwest, and the wind is nearly always from the east, so I planned on it pushing me along. Well, it turned out that the wind was freakishly blowing from the wrong way, and after two hours it was fully dark and I was only HALFWAY THERE. Fortunately for me, as I passed through the small village at the halfway mark, a man passed me on a moto, stopped, and came back. I could tell from his hat that he was a chief; as it turns out, he was the chief of the even smaller village just on the other side of the one we were in, and he invited me to spend the night with him. Now, if he hadn't been a chief, I probably would have said no, but I figured I could trust a chief, and I'm glad I did. He set me up basically my own room made of straw walls in his courtyard, and even covered my bed with a mosquito net. This was one of those moments when I thought to myself, "Wow, I am really in the Peace Corps." So now I stop by whenever I'm biking to or from site...on those rare occasions when i'm not doing so in the small hours of the morning at least.

Trinkets and Novels
During my New Year's trip, as I've mentioned, I acquired a small wooden elephant and later named him Bogart. Later, my companions from that trip bought me a small wooden duck keychain. I have finally named the duck - he's Camus. Because I'm (very, very slowly) reading La Chute by Albert Camus, and it's the first time I've read a French book that I haven't hated every second of and given up after three paragraphs. It's still excruciatingly slow going - I have to stop every third word, and Camus uses words that don't even appear in my smallish dictionary - but the writing is so good that I don't mind (though I don't do much at a time because it's tiring). I'm learning not to hate French (I still don't think it's a pretty language all told) at least.

Secondary Projects
Confirmed: I will be working stage, the training of new SE volunteers. Related, I will be developing a session for that stage on the Food Security Committee. I have started work on my school's library*. I will be hosting two formations this month in village, one on an agricultural technique known as "zai holes," the other on HIV/AIDS. I will also be working on developing critical-thinking lesson plans for the math curriculum to keep in the PC office. Not confirmed: I plan on applying for a program to teach English for 5 weeks in Ouaga. Well, I think I will...I like the idea of it, but it would mean a large amount of time away from my site, so I'm internally debating - and even if I decide to apply, I may be turned down on exactly those grounds. Well, we'll see.
*Funny story there. As a reward to students who helped me move all the books, I let each of them check out one book. Most chose dictionaries, or illustrated encyclopedias, and a few chose novels. One chose a translation of a Danielle Steele book. I'm looking forward to hearing how he liked it.

Grading
In mid-April, I was very stressed by all the grading I had to do. Not only did I have 400 of my own tests to grade, I was also asked to grade the math section of 70 practice BEPCs, the exam required to pass from 9th to 10th grade. It was really hard work, considering I don't teach that class, but I feel like I was fair to the students. Too bad they mostly failed.

Birthday
Ok, I've already asked for one thing to be sent in this post, but I have a second request. There's a book I really, really want. It's called (in English) "Trees, Shrubs and Vines of the West African Dry Zones", and it's a really kick-ass field guide that would be really fun to have here. But it's expensive, around $100. So rather than asking any one person to send it for my birthday, I'd like it if maybe everyone who was planning on buying me something pooled together to get that.

Chess
I convinced a friend to play chess with me via text, that was a lot of fun. Then I visited my nearest neighbor, and we played. He checkmated me when I was up by FIFTEEN POINTS. I was up a queen, a rook, and two pawns. Seriously need to work on my end game! And my opening and middle game, but never mind that.

I'm Kind of Hardcore
100km in a bit over five hours! As soon as my semi-self-imposed exile was over, I biked 100km to visit my friend K. The weird thing is that by the end of it, I wasn't exhausted - I wanted to keep going! So if my workshops fall into place at the right times, I'm hoping later this month to bike 140km to visit another friend, Y (one of my traveling companions during the New Year). She's leaving soon (sad for us, happy for her).

Reggae
There's probably a reggae cover of every song ever made. In fact, there's probably several, because it seems like even every reggae song has a reggae cover. Well, today I heard a reggae cover of the reggae song "Different Colors, One People." How do I know it wasn't the original? Because the original didn't work the theme from Super Mario Brothers into its chorus, that's how.

This Time It Wasn't My Fault That I Lost It
No, not my pocket knife. My razor. My dad had a really nice adjustable safety razor, and at my request he sent it to me here (safety razor blades are really easy to get here). Well, I had left it along with my other toiletries in one of the bathrooms in the Transit House while I was staying there last March, and it disappeared. I was very disappointed that someone will take it. Well, someone did - but it was an honest mistake. Weirdly, someone else here had EXACTLY THE SAME RAZOR. Small wonder he just assumed it was his when he saw it - what are the odds? He eventually realized he had 2 and brought mine back and left it where he'd found it...but unfortunately I wasn't around for a very long time and presumably due to its apparent lack of ownership in the eyes of the cleaning staff it is no longer there. I don't know whether I'll ever see it again, and this makes me sad. I get by with a local 3-piece razor, one much like the travel safety razor my dad gave me at the same time as the nice one. I've gotten to where I don't cut myself with it. Much.

And that's it. Long and disjointed, as promised. Off to a night of debauchery. Anyway, a beer or two. When are you coming to visit me? That's right, I'm talking to YOU.

An interlude in Ouaga

This week is what we volunteers refer to as "spring break." It's the 11-day break between the second and third trimesters. Most folks have used it as vacation time. Too bad I didn't go with them - there are some good stories from the volunteers who went on safari. But you'll have to look elsewhere for those stories. I've been working in Ouaga.


I've been working on collecting information on agroforestry in Burkina Faso. The Peace Corps does agroforestry in other countries, but not here, so I've been talking mostly to different people in the Burkinabe government and a bit with people working with ONGs (sorry, that's NGO in English). Not much on the latter because of the difficulty of the former...

I'm staying about 10 km outside of Ouaga. I suppose I could take a cab in, but that adds up, and overall it's easier to have my bike with me than not, so I bike in everyday. So unlike every other stay I've had in Ouaga, I'm not gaining any weight! Tuesday in particular I biked a lot - I'd guess at least 40 km in all, and much of it in 110 degree heat. That day I started off by heading to the main office of the Ministry of the Environment. It turns out there's no general secretary, so there wasn't anyone there to help me figure out who I needed to talk to. Fortunately, I'd anticipated that I had a good idea of which divisions within the ministry I needed to visit. UNfortunately, neither of the two divisions I wanted to talk to have offices in the main building. The secretary of one of the other departments gave me directions to the other two. I'm willing to accept the theory that the reason these directions were so useless was in large part due to my French, but whatever the cause I wandered downtown for an hour looking for the first place she'd tried to direct me to. I eventually gave up and went looking for the second, in hopes that when I found that one, over and above helping me with my project they could direct me to the office I couldn't find. This second office took an hour and a half to find. My directions were "Go straight down the Avenue d'Independence, and it's behind the BCAO building." Sounds straightforward, right? Problem: it turns out that by "go straight" what she meant was "turn twice." Solution: Fortunately, I know this area of town slightly, and was able to figure that out reasonably quickly. Problem: The BCAO building is entirely unmarked. Solution: Ask around about the giant building with no signs and a big wall around it. Consensus is that it's the BCAO building. Problem: Which side is "behind"? Solution: ...Probably the side opposite the side on the main road? No one seems really clear about this. Problem: There's no Ministry of the Environment building on ANY side of BCAO. Solution: There's an office for a different ministry on one side. Maybe they'll know. Problem: Nope, they have no idea. Solution: Ask at a coffee stand outside. Problem: The directions they give me send me...nowhere in particular. Solution: Ask yet more people as I wander around. Finally, some folks know about a Ministry of the Environment office nearby. It's not the one I'm looking for, but maybe they'll know. I find them, and go in...and despite the fact that their sign lists a different division, this IS the office I was looking for. Problem: They can't, in fact, give me the information I need!

So that was a frustrating morning. On the plus side, they were able to direct me to two OTHER offices, both of which proved more fruitful (and one of which was the one I couldn't find earlier). At least as good for my state of mind at that point, they were also both on the way back to the Transit House (where I'm not staying, but I'm not above napping on a couch). Then that afternoon, I biked basically all the way across town (laterally to the direction of the place I'm staying at, so it didn't save me a whole lot with regard to my trip back) to another office. Fortunately, that office was also helpful - so much so that I went back the next morning. So I was glad to go...it was just an awful lot of biking.

Anyway, I still don't love Ouaga, but I do feel more comfortable here now, and I definitely have learned my way around better. I alternate between eating expensive and eating cheap. Today I plan on trying a place that claims to have Big Macs on its sign (it's not a McDonald's, there aren't any here).

And now I'm going to try to start collating the massive amounts of information I've collected. Whew!

The LIST

Which is not going to be riduculously informative, certainly not a definitive packing list; just some stuff I use and stuff I don't.

As for that bike ride, I survived...but I could barely stand up by the time I got back to my site. Whew! I haven't tried anything that long again, just my relatively tame 45km to get transport.

Ok, here we go. First, the stuff I brought and use a lot:

• Nonstick cookware. It's gettable here, but I hear it's not worth anything. I use mine a lot.
• Serrated kitchen knives. For some reason, it's really hard to find serrated knives. You won't have a problem finding smooth blades of all sizes. And in fact, I HAVE found one serrated knife here. One.
• Pocket knives/multi-tools. Love these. I have a multi-tool for travel and one for home. I've also been through a few pocket knives, but that's because I lose them, not because I wear them out.
• Camp shovel. This one's also a multi-tool. I've used the saw side, the hammer, and the actual spade. All of these are gettable here, but I love having this little guy handy.
• A GOOD safety razor. There are blades aplenty here, that's what people use, but you won't find a very good razor for the blades. Also, I recommend learning how to use a safety razor in advance. You will cut yourself at first.
• Security belt. Got this at Wal-mart, and now I feel relatively secure when I travel with larger amounts of money. I'm not talking about an under-the shirt pouch (though I use that too for my passport), but a hold-your-pants-up belt that has a zipper on the underside.
• Nail clippers. Small and handy.
• English-English dictionary. You'd be surprised how often this comes in handy. I was fortunate enough to inherit one from the volunteer I replaced - I didn't think to bring one.
• Shortwave radio. LOVE my Grundig mini300. $30 at RTI, and I hear you get a discount if you're a PC volunteer.
• Mosquito-net tent. Another inheritance, and another thing I use all the time when traveling. Tropic Screens and Bug Huts are the popular models here.
• Mosquito-net hammock. Love this invention, too, and I would bring a hammock again - but I'd switch. Having the mosquito net is nice, but I'd rather have one that's cloth. Unfortunately, my hammock is too hot - nylon doesn't breath. And you could in theory buy a mosquito net (they're easy to find here) and sew it on...
• Spices and drink mixes. Self-explanatory.
• Camera with exchangeable memory. Since I didn't know if I'd be somewhere that I could regularly upload pics (and I'm not) I brought several SD cards. Re: cameras, though, I have a battery problem. See next section.
• mp3 player. Duh.
• Backpack. Gettable here, but if you go that route it'll fall apart. Get a good one, you'll use it a lot.
• Glasses. Go to zennioptical.com and you'll find that you can afford to bring several pairs.

Things I WISH I had but have proven I can live without:

• Thermarest. Great for traveling if you don't like sleeping on the hard-packed ground, and who does? Still, the one time I really needed one I was able to borrow someone's.
• Thermometer. Some days I get home and wonder what temperature I can brag about having survived. But I just don't know.
• Pillow. Gettable here, but your options are either crappy or crazy expensive. I'm getting by on a tiny travel pillow.

Stuff I brought but could get here or go without:

• Toiletries. Toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, kleenex, floss. All gettable in the market (or from the PC Medical Officers in the case of floss). Though I'm told the toothbrushes here are terrible.
• Bandannas. You don't buy clothes here; you buy material and have it tailored. You could easily have bandannas made too. But all the same I'd bring them again, they're small and lightweight and softer than something you'd have made here.
• Rechargeable batteries and solar chargers. Batteries are available; this is really a question of how environmentally conscious you want to be. Me, I like NOT dumping cadmium into the ground water. Not that there's much of that.
• Sandals. I got some nice Clark's, but they're about worn out after 9 months. I'll be buying something local next. If you DO want to bring sandals, GET CHACO'S. If they wear out, you can get them replaced for free. If I had it to do over again...
• Headlamp. I use it, but it's not critical. A locally-bought flashlight serves for most purposes.
• NON-non-stick cookware. Save the space and weight. Buy it here.
• Hats. Love my hats. I'm a hat guy. But you can buy them here easily.
• Briefcase. I'm going to replace the one I brought, there are really nice leather ones here.
• French-English dictionary. PC will lend you one. Though I do have a technical one that WILL come in handy if I teach anything other than math next year.

Things I NEVER use:

• Twine. I just use the local plastic line.
• Pop-up hamper. Ok, it's not true. I DO use this. But it simply wouldn't change my life in the slightest if it disappeared.
• Flint. Although I like having it if I ever get stranded and just have to have a fire.
• Emergency blanket. With the flint, something I've never had call for but am still glad to have.
• Undershirts. Men here do wear button-ups, and in the states, with a button-up you wear an undershirt. Here, you don't. Leave 'em.

Things I get here:

• OTC medicine. The PC will take care of you there. I brought a ton of ibuprofen just in case, but I really needn't have worried. Of course, you're young and beautiful and in your prime and don't have to worry about joint aches after exercising. Lucky you.
• Books. Our house in Ouaga is full of them. Though no Terry Pratchett, tough luck for me.
• Wallet. I brought a couple, but the one I use I bought here. It's goat leather.
• Coffee pot. I considered bringing one, but it's good that I didn't. You can get a stovetop coffeepot here for pretty cheap. My morning coffee and chicory is kind of my touchstone to my old life.

Specialized to me:

• Fishing gear. I LOVE having my stuff...but you can go the cane-pole route here if you want to save space. That's assuming fishing is a big deal to you to begin with.
• Musical instruments. I brought harmonicas and a cornet. I'm not good at either, though. These I would not be able to get here if I'd later decided to take something up.
• Binocs and a star guide. Again things I wouldn't be able to get here, and the star-gazing here is really great some nights, as you can imagine. For instance, from here you can see the second-brightest star after Sirius, Canopus, which is too far south to be visible from anywhere in the US.

That's it. I never made an inventory of my stuff, so there are probably omissions. Feel free to comment with questions if you know I've forgotten something, or you are the at least one future volunteer who is reading this and are wondering if something you have is worth bringing.

No news is good news

Nothing much to report. No problems at site. Decided to make a day trip to Boulsa to check mail and the like. A day trip...as in 70 km round trip by bike in one day. Am I crazy? Nope, I'm PRACTICING.

I've decided that this spring I'm going to do a Tour du Sahel. Dori to Ouahigouya - or possibly the other direction, it's too soon to tell. In total, a distance of 300 km, give or take (more if we do a side tour to visit one volunteer out of the way). But for the most part, there are volunteer sites about every 50km, so the individual days won't be awful, though the heat will be brutal. But there is one stretch of 100km with no one's house to stay at between. Camping is a possibility, but so is making the whole stretch in one day. So it would be nice to know that I can do it without dying. Of course, conditions are MUCH easier right now - it's so cold I was biking until 10 o'clock and I barely broke a sweat.

I may actually tack on another 150km by biking from my site to Dori as well, if we end up going that direction. The reason for that is that in late my we have a mask festival chez moi, and the two volunteers who have expressed an interest in biking the Sahel with me have also expressed an interest in attending said festival. And I'll have to be in Ouahigouya in early June anyway for training, if I get a spot working the next stage. Unfortunately, while I should know whether I've been accepted for that sometime in March or April, the way holidays work here I won't know the date of the mask festival until just a couple weeks before it happens. We'll see.

Oh, I DO have news, it's just not site-related. I have been accepted on the Food Security Committee, and my job is to coordinate tree-planting projects, both to fight desertification and to improve crop yields. I'm very excited by this job! I will probably also work pretty heavily on preparing educational materials in Mooré, once my language is up to snuff. There's a nice synergy going on between my interests and my responsibilities right now.

And now lunch. I need to eat a lot. I do still have 35km to bike today!

Coming soon: Have you applied to the Peace Corps? Are you coming to West Africa? I actually don't know whether or not anyone fitting that description reads this blog, but my next planned post may be interesting to friends and family as well. I'm going to make a list of what I've brought or had sent that has been really useful, and what was a complete waste of luggage space. Stay tuned!

Vacation continued

First, I would just like to point out that while I have mentioned more than once how cool C and Y are, it needs saying that C's friends, J, S, and M are also awesome. M had spent a few months in Ghana studying turtles (how freakin' cool is that); S and J had never before been to Africa. And none of them speak French. Yet they were fearless during this trip.


Dec 31, Day 5: New Year's in Bobo


We got up early and took the bush taxi back into Banfora. Fortunately, we didn't go by the same bus stop as before, so I didn't see my new faux type fan. We hung out at the gare waiting for the bus, and as it was a long wait some of us decided to go for a walk. J, S, and M went off by themselves (see how cool they are? No French, but they just went wandering without any of us with them to interpret. And they got by just fine), C went to find a phone to call a friend, and I wandered about too. Y (and another volunteer, K, and her RPCV boyfriend, B, who had joined us; sorry that I forgot to mention them sooner.) stayed with the bags. On my perambulation, I found McDonald's, which I'd heard about before. It's not a part of the fast food chain, but still it's a funny name here, and to add to the strangeness their decor is mostly Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. I also stopped in a "Chinese Health Store" because I was curious what such a place might sell. Mostly erection-enhancement pills with incredibly graphic pictures on the boxes, if you were wondering.


After we were safely on our way to Bobo, I texted my new boyfriend to tell him that I'd left Banfora and wouldn't be back for a long time, as I live very far away. He still calls. Thank goodness and Nokia for number screening.


After arriving in Bobo, we tried to stay at a place called La Pacha (I don't know what that means), but they were jerks so we instead chose to stay at Casa Africa, which was definitely the better way to go. We found that several other volunteers were staying there too (so of the 9 rooms, PCVs had at least 4 of them). Dinner was great, though I found my steak to be incredibly tough compared to everyone else's - until I realized that they had gotten actual steak knives and I had a butter knife.


I tried to take a nap, as all the others were doing, so that we could stay up for the New Year, but just couldn't get to sleep. So I ambled into the lobby and started looking at the carvings and musical instruments on sale there. I met the man who makes them, and when I told him I was a Peace Corps volunteer, he became downright effusive. He loves the PC, it turns out. Since Casa Africa is a common place for volunteers visiting the region (or those who live nearby taking a weekend trip to Bobo), he has many friends who are current and returned volunteers. Apparently, one even ordered jewelry from him and sold it in the states for him, and the profits were enough for him to buy a motorcycle. He said that now, whenever a volunteer finishes service, if they want to use a moto to travel Africa, they can always borrow his, because it's an American moto. Then, he said that since I was a volunteer and it was a holiday, he would give me a gift - a small wooden elephant, which is now a permanent fixture in my pocket. He promised to teach me how to play a game that looked similar to Mancala the next day.


Everyone else got up, and we went to Bois d'Ebene (Ebony Wood) to celebrate the New Year in style. It was expensive, but we got a four-course meal and a hell of a show. First a band that did traditional music and dance, who played almost entirely for our group as no one else had showed up yet, then a band that played a mix of latin, French, and Burkinabe music, plus one Credence Clearwater Revival song. They were lots of fun.


And here in the story I must pause and direct your attention to my posts from 19 June and 5 July 2008, where I mentioned that I don't enjoy dancing. What I failed to mention was that I enjoy it so little that at the 4th of July party I ranted at someone about not wanting to dance - and it wasn't even one of the people who had been harassing me.


Well, it's a new year. I danced. By choice, without a drop to drink, and in fact without even being asked. *I* asked. I told Y that her new mission is to teach me to dance, and that I wanted to start right then. And we did. And it wasn't awful. I still feel like an uncoordinated fool on the dance floor, I can't change that overnight, but I can decide not to care. So we danced and had a good time. I didn't exactly make dancing a New Year's resolution (my actual resolution is that every day I will use at least one French or Moore word or grammar point that I don't have a good grasp on), but I do plan on going dancing pretty much whenever I get the opportunity so that I can learn. Whether I'll ever love like I've never been hurt or work like I don't need the money remains to be seen. One thing at a time.


Jan 1, Day 6: Sya


We walked around Bobo the next day. Being a holiday, very little was open, but we did discover to our chagrin that faux types don't take a break. It was really ridiculous, it seemed like we couldn't take three steps without ONE of us getting harassed. Mostly the girls, of course. C really went off on one guy, and he still then tried to get me to talk to her to calm her down so he could talk to her some more. I need to learn the French equivalent of "Go piss up a rope."


We hired a guide and walked around Sya, which is the name of the original settlement that became Bobo-Dioulasso, and where people still follow many of the original 14th century traditions of the settlement (with the 19th century addition of Islam into the mix). Often our tour guide answered our questions with "C'est le secret, on n'explique pas," ("That's a secret, we don't discuss it," a response C said she would use the next time a faux type asked her name). Basically, it was a tour of gift shops, but they were some of the coolest gift shops you'd ever hope to see. There was a mask shop with some really fascinating work (out of my price range), a mud-dyed cloth shop (I got a hat), and a bronze worker who makes things that are surprisingly modern-art style and absolutely beautiful and I hate that I didn't take any pictures there. While at the mask booth, C observed that successful shopping in West Africa is much like Zen Buddhism - you must free yourself from wanting.


Walking back to the hotel with the group, I almost got arrested. Apparently, the Burkina flag is lowered twice a day, and when this happens, everyone stops to watch. Well, we don't have a flag in my village. They're usually at the police or gendarme station, and we're so small that we have neither. I'd never, ever heard of this. So we heard a police whistle, glanced over and saw that the policemen were not looking at us, assumed that the whistle was for the traffic they'd been directing and kept walking. About 30 seconds later, a HUGE police officer comes running after us, yelling. We stop and turn, and he points at me with a furious look on his face and tells me that I just disrespected the whole country. Why me and not the other 5? Maybe my silly goatee, maybe my new hat...but most likely the simple fact that I am a man (as is S, but he doesn't speak French, so just as well I was chosen to bear the brunt of this tirade) and therefore the leader of the group (completely untrue, I could never coordinate a trip like this with the suaveness and assuredness of C, our fearless leader). This guy just couldn't wrap his head around the idea that I might not have known what the whistle was about. I apologized profusely and obliquely offered to pay a "fine", because the guy was so upset that I really thought it was going to be that or go to jail. But he was, in fact, truly offended by our not "stopping for the colors," as this practice is called, without being corrupt - after several minutes of haranguing me, he sent us on our way. I've been cagey about hearing whistles ever since.

After a dinner of Africanized curried chicken, I went to bed tired, ready to leave Bobo, and hoping that my new wooden elephant (and J's, she'd gotten one too) would bring us luck at our next stop, Boromo.

Jan 2, Day 7: Koro

But before leaving for Boromo, we decided to bike out to a cliffside dwelling called Koro, a governmentally sponsored tourist locale. In what had by now become the theme of our trip, the bike ride was longer than expected. As to the site itself, if I had it to do over again I'd have lobbied to join K and B visiting the sacred catfish ponds instead. Oh well. There's really not much to say about Koro otherwise. There were some good views, but the tour was very short, and our guide was not very interested. And so neither were we.

From there we caught a Rakieta bus to Boromo, and while we'd seen the scenery before on the way down (dead flower-tree!), the bus itself is worth mentioning. It was like being in America. Large, cushy seats, air conditioning with adjustable vents, drinks sold ON THE BUS, TV screens that folded down from the ceiling, even a BATHROOM! I'd better not ever hear those Southwesterners complain about transport. It was downright bizarre after months of buses crammed with people and animals, stifling hot with all the windows closed (Burkinabe hate opening windows on buses, I don't know why) unless you're lucky enough that one of them is missing. We got into Boromo without incident, and found a hotel. And after lugging around a tent, ThermaRest and blanket the whole trip, I finally had a chance to use them, as it was much easier than taking a room. The staff at this hotel was incredibly helpful, and while they didn't serve food there the proprietor took our orders and went into town and delivered our dinner to us. J, S, and M finally had the chance to experience a bucket bath and a latrine, as this was the first place we'd stayed that did not have toilets and showers.

Jan 3, Day 8: Boromo

I haven't mentioned why we stopped in Boromo, though I've dropped a hint. Why did I hope our wooden elephants would be lucky? Well, for one thing, because that's what they're supposed to do, bring luck. But for another, the reason we'd stopped in Boromo was because there is an animal reserve there with several herds of elephants.

We'd negotiated a price the night before to have a 4x4 pick us up at the hotel at 6 and drive us to, and through, the park. What we GOT was a four-door midsize sedan at 8:30 that drove us to the park and then stopped, as the noise would scare off the elephants. On the plus side, this meant that we payed much less; on the minus side, it meant we - no, not "we," C and Y, have I mentioned how awesome I think they are? - were arguing about the new price right up until we left town. Anyway, we got our tracker and went into the park on foot. We passed by elephant dung, which I considered taking a picture of in case we never saw elephants, so at least prove that we'd been somewhat near them. I decided that I'd take a picture on our way out if it came to that.

There are no pictures of elephant dung on my camera. About a half hour into our walk, the guide stopped and asked if we'd heard that sound. I'd heard nothing, but he said it was an elephant sound and we needed to be quiet. We were, and we followed, deep into grass which had been obviously trampled in parts, until he stopped us and pointed - and just on the edge of visibility due to the high grass, we saw them. A group of a couple dozen, including young elephants (which by the way, makes it a dangerous group to approach, you don't piss any animal moms off if you can help it, and elephants are no exception). We raised our cameras to try to get some pictures, thinking how cool it was to be just a couple hundred yards away, even if we couldn't see them well. After a few minutes, they ran on, and we took a different route to where the guide thought they might go.

He was right, and this time we were both closer and had a better view - maybe 100 yds away. Really, really, really awesome. But it got even better. He'd put us in a place where their path brought them even closer...maybe 50 yds away at the closest. We were just half a football field from real, wild African elephants! Like I said, the best part of the trip. Good job, wooden elephants. A side note - after telling us to be quiet and making us crouch down to avoid scaring the elephants, our guide got A PHONE CALL. And he answered it and talked on the phone, loudly. These elephants aren't all THAT scared of people apparently.

Apparently he'd been talking to another guide; we met up with another group and continued our hunt. Unfortunately for the others, we did not see any other elephants, nor any other animals. They were really upset, and I did feel bad for them, but it was hard to feel too bad after our elation at seeing them ourselves.

That evening we made it back safely to Ouaga, and stayed out ridiculously late dancing. I didn't dance very much this time, but I did some. And a final note on how cool my companions were: when we sat down, everyone got up to dance, except me. J and M noticed and asked why, and I told them someone had to watch the bags. And so they picked all the bags back up and carried them for a song so I could join them. And then I sat back down because by then I was quite drunk (and I didn't enjoy this club as much, too loud and full of, um, ladies of negotiable affections). But a good time was had by all.

End of vacation

Well, for me. As I said, C, J, S and M kept traveling (Y went back to her site), but I have had to stay in Ouaga for IST. Which has been ok, but nothing worth writing home about. I've gotten some great ideas about what I want to do at site over the next couple months, and equally importantly I've gotten some lesson plans from other people, so I'll actually have the time to DO some of those things.

Since I've spent so much time away from site, I probably won't leave again until February, when I will come back to Ouaga for the meeting of a committee I'm applying to be on. Until then, take care, my friends, and if you've texted me and your name is not Joey, be assured that I have not received it. Sorry.