Yesterday morning my computer decided it no longer felt the need to access any site that uses https. Upshot: No gmail, no facebook, pretty much no access to anything requiring a login. So I've been able to follow what's going on but not able to comment. Today I finally remembered that I still had Kait's old computer. It's on its last legs, but I got it running long enough to catch up on messages.
And now my computer is randomly working again. So I'll try to update while I have a chance.
Yesterday
Today
The news wires are making a big deal out of Blaise "dissolving" the government, but that's less of a big deal than it seems to westerners. After every presidential election, the government is dissolved and new ministers are appointed; rather, most of the ministers are re-appointed, but those who didn't perform to the President's satisfaction are replaced. In other words, this dissolution is a sign that heads WILL roll, but it's not quite the drastic move it may seem.
This is an ugly situation. But I am ok. So far my neighborhood has remained calm. And in case any family of current volunteers are reading this, as usual Peace Corps is taking excellent care of them, and anyway none of this has spread outside of Ouaga.
If anyone wants to get in touch with me, let's assume email won't work since I don't know what caused my connection problem nor do I know what fixed it. Facebook should be reliable since I changed my connection settings, but as always the only sure bet is to give me a call. +226.75.90.71.83
Du courage to all of us.
16 April 2011
17 March 2011
Events haven't warranted
All has been calm since Tuesday, and what actually happened on Tuesday remains unclear. The students gathered in Zogona/Zone du Bois, but the military made it very clear that renewed demonstrations were not welcome. That there were injuries is certain, and I have a first-hand report of shots fired in the area...but the extent of casualties isn't being reported anywhere. Not too surprising given the treatment of journalists during the Friday march (Anglophones: I think that bit only showed up in one of the French articles I linked. At least one journalist says police struck him and took his camera; others have claimed they were chased away).
For some reason, all the news outlets seem to think that the University closure is the biggest part of the story, but while that's a big deal (though I recently read that the universities haven't been functioning for a year anyway because of unofficial professorial striking; frustratingly, I can't find that link again), it overlooks the equally important closure of ALL schools. This is ... indescribably unfair.
The life of a student in Burkina Faso is HARD. I had students who biked 15km every morning to come to class. Some of them didn't really have any family in our village, so their options at lunch were to bike home or go hungry - they certainly didn't have the money to buy food. In theory, the school had a canteen to serve lunch to just that population; in practice, said canteen was open for about a week and a half of the school year. Many of the students had no one to speak French with at home, so they barely spoke the language they were being taught in. Above the homework we professors gave, they have penurious chores, like hauling water 2 km or more in calabashes on their heads, or in certain seasons getting up at 3 in the morning to work the harvest. Often sick from malnutrition or contaminated water, students who miss class face more than just the loss of points for whatever assignments happened to be due that day - they will likely also receive a penalty deduction of more points. That can be avoided by going to the doctor and getting a note - but when you're sick, biking 15km is not an attractive option. And on top of all of that, many of the students aren't getting any support at home - a sad fact is many students are not only not encouraged to attend school, they are forced by their families to drop out so that they have more time to plant the fields, or work in their father's shops, or help their mothers cook for the passel of young children in the courtyard.
That's not all the challenges. Just some of the major ones, enough to make my point. Which is this: if you see a student in your class, they REALLY WANT TO BE THERE.
Apologies. In the next post I'll take a step back from the editorializing and get back to letting my friends and family know what's going on.
For some reason, all the news outlets seem to think that the University closure is the biggest part of the story, but while that's a big deal (though I recently read that the universities haven't been functioning for a year anyway because of unofficial professorial striking; frustratingly, I can't find that link again), it overlooks the equally important closure of ALL schools. This is ... indescribably unfair.
The life of a student in Burkina Faso is HARD. I had students who biked 15km every morning to come to class. Some of them didn't really have any family in our village, so their options at lunch were to bike home or go hungry - they certainly didn't have the money to buy food. In theory, the school had a canteen to serve lunch to just that population; in practice, said canteen was open for about a week and a half of the school year. Many of the students had no one to speak French with at home, so they barely spoke the language they were being taught in. Above the homework we professors gave, they have penurious chores, like hauling water 2 km or more in calabashes on their heads, or in certain seasons getting up at 3 in the morning to work the harvest. Often sick from malnutrition or contaminated water, students who miss class face more than just the loss of points for whatever assignments happened to be due that day - they will likely also receive a penalty deduction of more points. That can be avoided by going to the doctor and getting a note - but when you're sick, biking 15km is not an attractive option. And on top of all of that, many of the students aren't getting any support at home - a sad fact is many students are not only not encouraged to attend school, they are forced by their families to drop out so that they have more time to plant the fields, or work in their father's shops, or help their mothers cook for the passel of young children in the courtyard.
That's not all the challenges. Just some of the major ones, enough to make my point. Which is this: if you see a student in your class, they REALLY WANT TO BE THERE.
Apologies. In the next post I'll take a step back from the editorializing and get back to letting my friends and family know what's going on.
14 March 2011
Quiet today.
An impressively thorough report on Friday's protests. Even for you non-francophones, check out the video at bottom to get some idea of the scale of the march.
It's hard to know what will happen tomorrow. The report above says there will be a meeting at the university. The professor I met yesterday said the teachers would demonstrate. Various expats I've talked to have said that they've heard the students will try to march again, specifically to take the road that they were prevented from taking Friday (which would have led to the police headquarters). Some say it's calm today because they're all regrouping.
Updates as events warrant.
It's hard to know what will happen tomorrow. The report above says there will be a meeting at the university. The professor I met yesterday said the teachers would demonstrate. Various expats I've talked to have said that they've heard the students will try to march again, specifically to take the road that they were prevented from taking Friday (which would have led to the police headquarters). Some say it's calm today because they're all regrouping.
Updates as events warrant.
12 March 2011
It's not over...
Friday was quite a day. We had an interesting moment in the office as I and two of my coworkers compared our reactions. Without revealing who was who, as we watched smoke rise in the not-distant distance, one of us expressed annoyance at the logistical problems being caused by road shutdowns, another nervousness at the prospect of widespread violence, and the third excitement for the Burkinabé people asserting their rights.
The short version.
The long version (fair warning, some of these links are in French):
Despite my assurances in my last post, all has not been quiet in Burkina.
As I mentioned there, it all started on Feb. 22 with the death of a student in police custody in Koudougou. The police claim it was illness, the students claim it was brutality. I have no independent information to confirm or deny either cause; I can only say that either is entirely credible.
From there, protests quickly spread, many following the Koudougou example of violence and the burning of government buildings. The word on the street here is that in at least 20 towns buildings have burned. I sat down with a Burkinabé friend, and between the two of us we could list 13 of which we'd heard news reports or first-hand accounts:
Koudougou, Kongoussi, Kaya, Ouahigouya, Léo, Boura, Koupela, Pouytenga, Diapaga, Gourcy, Dori, Yako, and one I can't remember.
Above that number, I can name several more where I know there were protests or riots, but I don't know whether there were injuries or damages: Tougan, Sabou, Bogandé, Boulsa, Fada, Bobo, Tenkodogo, Gaoua, and Po.
In short, this thing is big. In response, university students in Ouaga planned a massive "peaceful" march for last Wednesday. However, other groups wished to join in (unfortunately, I've lost the link to that story), so the march got moved to Friday. There was also some disagreement about the route to be taken.
Yesterday, the roads were lined with police. The students marched, peacefully as planned, up until the intersection where the two routes (one proposed by the protesters, the other by the mayor) diverged; at that point, the students that tried to take their chosen route were teargassed. The smoke we saw from my office was the result of tire fires, which the students lit along their entire route - driving from work last night and back in this morning, I noticed at least a dozen charred spots along the roads (one exactly 2 blocks from my house!). From friends scattered around Ouaga, I heard about similar fires in Zone du Bois, Zogona, Zad, and possibly Pissy.
Other than that, I didn't hear about any injuries until this morning, when I stopped by my aforementioned friend's kiosk. In my neighborhood at least one kid was injured when another selling drinks hit him with a bottle. The news reports say there was at least one death yesterday, and that protests continue around the country, though I saw nothing driving into town.
There will be more Monday. While sitting with my friend, a fellow who works at the University joined the conversation and expressed in no uncertain terms his and his colleagues' anger with the government, both in general and specifically with their handling of this situation.
Last week was the students. Next week, the teachers. It's not over.
I admit it. Of the three of us in the office Friday, I was the nervous one.
The short version.
The long version (fair warning, some of these links are in French):
Despite my assurances in my last post, all has not been quiet in Burkina.
As I mentioned there, it all started on Feb. 22 with the death of a student in police custody in Koudougou. The police claim it was illness, the students claim it was brutality. I have no independent information to confirm or deny either cause; I can only say that either is entirely credible.
From there, protests quickly spread, many following the Koudougou example of violence and the burning of government buildings. The word on the street here is that in at least 20 towns buildings have burned. I sat down with a Burkinabé friend, and between the two of us we could list 13 of which we'd heard news reports or first-hand accounts:
Koudougou, Kongoussi, Kaya, Ouahigouya, Léo, Boura, Koupela, Pouytenga, Diapaga, Gourcy, Dori, Yako, and one I can't remember.
Above that number, I can name several more where I know there were protests or riots, but I don't know whether there were injuries or damages: Tougan, Sabou, Bogandé, Boulsa, Fada, Bobo, Tenkodogo, Gaoua, and Po.
In short, this thing is big. In response, university students in Ouaga planned a massive "peaceful" march for last Wednesday. However, other groups wished to join in (unfortunately, I've lost the link to that story), so the march got moved to Friday. There was also some disagreement about the route to be taken.
Yesterday, the roads were lined with police. The students marched, peacefully as planned, up until the intersection where the two routes (one proposed by the protesters, the other by the mayor) diverged; at that point, the students that tried to take their chosen route were teargassed. The smoke we saw from my office was the result of tire fires, which the students lit along their entire route - driving from work last night and back in this morning, I noticed at least a dozen charred spots along the roads (one exactly 2 blocks from my house!). From friends scattered around Ouaga, I heard about similar fires in Zone du Bois, Zogona, Zad, and possibly Pissy.
Other than that, I didn't hear about any injuries until this morning, when I stopped by my aforementioned friend's kiosk. In my neighborhood at least one kid was injured when another selling drinks hit him with a bottle. The news reports say there was at least one death yesterday, and that protests continue around the country, though I saw nothing driving into town.
There will be more Monday. While sitting with my friend, a fellow who works at the University joined the conversation and expressed in no uncertain terms his and his colleagues' anger with the government, both in general and specifically with their handling of this situation.
Last week was the students. Next week, the teachers. It's not over.
I admit it. Of the three of us in the office Friday, I was the nervous one.
26 February 2011
Who knew I'd post LESS once moving to Ouaga?
In the news:
Egypt is awesome. Gaddafi (or whatever spelling is currently in vogue) is a terrible human being. Cote d'Ivoire is on the brink of civil war. And in a surprise move, the New York Times has actually chosen to give Burkina a bit of coverage. Naturally about violent protests. I hasten to add that they are a) far from here, b) not related (directly) to the unrest in other countries, and c) demonstrably not in great danger of spreading (there was already a sympathy protest here in Ouaga that was entirely peaceful in nature).
In other news, I have a new address. I can finally stop using my Volunteer friend as my mule (for all the good that's done; my brother sent me something a month ago and she still hasn't gotten it).
David Duckworth
06 BP 10539
Ouagadougou 06
Burkina Faso
I now have about 10 minutes left to actually talk about my life. Fortunately, I have little enough to say...
The job goes on. Soon I will be entering negotiations for a second year. Both my boss and I will make a good faith effort to come up with something, I think - I like the job and she likes how I'm doing at it - but it is entirely possible she won't be able to come up with enough money for staying here to be the right career move for me. So we'll see, and that's all I can say on the matter at this point.
Two weeks ago I played poker with a mixed crowd of embassy and missionary types. I lost. Depressingly quickly. The next game is tonight, so hopefully I'll perform to a somewhat higher standard. That was pretty much the first time I'd hung out with anyone other than PCVs. Which is neither here nor there, just the way things are.
I now have a pool table at my house. I've had a Wii for a while. I'm on the brink of getting internet. Soon all the Volunteers will love me! I'm not above buying friends, don't judge me.
And now I'm out of time. I'll close with one of my new favorite quotes; it's great for both its cynicism and its perverse vanity:
"I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am." - by Johnson, Samuel
Egypt is awesome. Gaddafi (or whatever spelling is currently in vogue) is a terrible human being. Cote d'Ivoire is on the brink of civil war. And in a surprise move, the New York Times has actually chosen to give Burkina a bit of coverage. Naturally about violent protests. I hasten to add that they are a) far from here, b) not related (directly) to the unrest in other countries, and c) demonstrably not in great danger of spreading (there was already a sympathy protest here in Ouaga that was entirely peaceful in nature).
In other news, I have a new address. I can finally stop using my Volunteer friend as my mule (for all the good that's done; my brother sent me something a month ago and she still hasn't gotten it).
David Duckworth
06 BP 10539
Ouagadougou 06
Burkina Faso
I now have about 10 minutes left to actually talk about my life. Fortunately, I have little enough to say...
The job goes on. Soon I will be entering negotiations for a second year. Both my boss and I will make a good faith effort to come up with something, I think - I like the job and she likes how I'm doing at it - but it is entirely possible she won't be able to come up with enough money for staying here to be the right career move for me. So we'll see, and that's all I can say on the matter at this point.
Two weeks ago I played poker with a mixed crowd of embassy and missionary types. I lost. Depressingly quickly. The next game is tonight, so hopefully I'll perform to a somewhat higher standard. That was pretty much the first time I'd hung out with anyone other than PCVs. Which is neither here nor there, just the way things are.
I now have a pool table at my house. I've had a Wii for a while. I'm on the brink of getting internet. Soon all the Volunteers will love me! I'm not above buying friends, don't judge me.
And now I'm out of time. I'll close with one of my new favorite quotes; it's great for both its cynicism and its perverse vanity:
"I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am." - by Johnson, Samuel
07 January 2011
New Year's Update!
Apologies to the parents, who requested I do this, well, actually on New Year's.
Further apologies to any reader who may already have seen my description below of New Year festivities, since I've used variations of it in a couple emails.
Happy New Year! My best wishes! May God grand you lots of prosperity, health, and all the good things in life!
Saying something resembling the above is more or less mandatory in this country the first time you see someone after Jan 1. Until at least about March. It is also typical-almost-to-the-point-of-being-rude-if-you-don't to send text messages with something like that to anyone you may not see in that time frame. My favorite this year came from my best student last year, one of the few I had who moved on to high school this year:
Je vous envoi un chèque de 100 ans qui je serai payé à la banque de santé,situé sur l'avenue prospérité,rue de la paix,porte du bonheur,guichet 2011.Bonne fète.
(For what it's worth, I didn't teach his French class. Don't blame me.)
But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Spent Christmas in Bobo. Two years ago I spent New Year's there. This time we didn't go out to a fancy dinner and show, though; we cooked. We also each introduced everyone in the group to one of our Christmas traditions. I hope my mom will forgive me for the one I chose: I made peanut butter balls. I think she will, considering that there were almost nothing like the ones we make at home. The peanut butter was the local stuff (no sugar, preservatives, emulsifiers...just ground peanut and oil), and the chocolate was melted candy bars - no semi-sweet baker's chocolate to be found here! Nothing I could use to temper it! Which meant I had to keep them in the fridge. But they tasted yummy all the same. We also did Secret Santa pagne stockings. I received a new cap that I love (the attentive reader will notice that I got a hat last time I was there, too...new tradition?), in a stocking my mom would love - it says "Jesus est né" all over.
Did little during the lull between the holidays, and loved every minute of it. I went to work for a couple days and taught myself a bit about MS Excel pivot tables, but mostly I just goofed off. For several days, my friend E stayed in Kait's* room (yep, that's still how I refer to it. I've even heard some of my friends refer to my place as "Kait's house"!), so it was a lovely week of good company and no responsibilities.
Then New Year's itself rolled around. And in all honesty, I was considering skipping it. It's not at all my favorite holiday, staying up that late seems more like a chore than anything else these days. But I'm glad I didn't, we ended up having a crazy good time. Every time we hit a snag in the plan, it turned out to make the evening EVEN BETTER:
BAD: We couldn't find a cab.
GOOD: But the bus stopped for us even though we weren't at a stop.
BAD: But the bus wasn't going where we planned on going.
GOOD: But It was going to a different nice restaurant.
BAD: But it's a restaurant usually very full of tourists and with a snooty yet inefficient staff.
GOOD: But even though there were very full, the staff was on the ball, seated us right away, and was on top of our orders the whole night.
So from there we decided to go to our favorite bar, a little place run by a French guy who loves Americans and always has jazz or motown playing.
BAD: It was 1130 and they don't open 'til 1 AM.
GOOD: But he served us anyway, and we rang in the New Year shooting tequila with the owner.
Then, we decided to go dancing, by which I mean the pretty girls decided to go dancing and we guys decided that following them was better than drinking with each other.
BAD: They picked my absolute least favorite club.
GOOD: But there were no hookers in sight (seriously, that's why I hate that club, it's just depressing, I tell anyone who will listen that the hallway to the bathroom reeks of cheap perfume and broken dreams), the music was higher quality than usual, I danced with a very attractive non-hooker (um...probably, anyway), and there was a group of French guys who were hilarious and wearing crazy wigs. One kept insisting on unbuttoning my shirt.
So that was my holiday. It was a good one. Sorry, no photos - I still haven't visited my old village (shame on me), and my camera is still packed away in one of my trunks. Er, I hope.
*Wondering why in this case I broke my no-name rule? Because Kait is back in the States now, sad face, which means no discussion of her time here is likely to lead to badness. Miss you, Kait!
Further apologies to any reader who may already have seen my description below of New Year festivities, since I've used variations of it in a couple emails.
Happy New Year! My best wishes! May God grand you lots of prosperity, health, and all the good things in life!
Saying something resembling the above is more or less mandatory in this country the first time you see someone after Jan 1. Until at least about March. It is also typical-almost-to-the-point-of-being-rude-if-you-don't to send text messages with something like that to anyone you may not see in that time frame. My favorite this year came from my best student last year, one of the few I had who moved on to high school this year:
Je vous envoi un chèque de 100 ans qui je serai payé à la banque de santé,situé sur l'avenue prospérité,rue de la paix,porte du bonheur,guichet 2011.Bonne fète.
(For what it's worth, I didn't teach his French class. Don't blame me.)
But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Spent Christmas in Bobo. Two years ago I spent New Year's there. This time we didn't go out to a fancy dinner and show, though; we cooked. We also each introduced everyone in the group to one of our Christmas traditions. I hope my mom will forgive me for the one I chose: I made peanut butter balls. I think she will, considering that there were almost nothing like the ones we make at home. The peanut butter was the local stuff (no sugar, preservatives, emulsifiers...just ground peanut and oil), and the chocolate was melted candy bars - no semi-sweet baker's chocolate to be found here! Nothing I could use to temper it! Which meant I had to keep them in the fridge. But they tasted yummy all the same. We also did Secret Santa pagne stockings. I received a new cap that I love (the attentive reader will notice that I got a hat last time I was there, too...new tradition?), in a stocking my mom would love - it says "Jesus est né" all over.
Did little during the lull between the holidays, and loved every minute of it. I went to work for a couple days and taught myself a bit about MS Excel pivot tables, but mostly I just goofed off. For several days, my friend E stayed in Kait's* room (yep, that's still how I refer to it. I've even heard some of my friends refer to my place as "Kait's house"!), so it was a lovely week of good company and no responsibilities.
Then New Year's itself rolled around. And in all honesty, I was considering skipping it. It's not at all my favorite holiday, staying up that late seems more like a chore than anything else these days. But I'm glad I didn't, we ended up having a crazy good time. Every time we hit a snag in the plan, it turned out to make the evening EVEN BETTER:
BAD: We couldn't find a cab.
GOOD: But the bus stopped for us even though we weren't at a stop.
BAD: But the bus wasn't going where we planned on going.
GOOD: But It was going to a different nice restaurant.
BAD: But it's a restaurant usually very full of tourists and with a snooty yet inefficient staff.
GOOD: But even though there were very full, the staff was on the ball, seated us right away, and was on top of our orders the whole night.
So from there we decided to go to our favorite bar, a little place run by a French guy who loves Americans and always has jazz or motown playing.
BAD: It was 1130 and they don't open 'til 1 AM.
GOOD: But he served us anyway, and we rang in the New Year shooting tequila with the owner.
Then, we decided to go dancing, by which I mean the pretty girls decided to go dancing and we guys decided that following them was better than drinking with each other.
BAD: They picked my absolute least favorite club.
GOOD: But there were no hookers in sight (seriously, that's why I hate that club, it's just depressing, I tell anyone who will listen that the hallway to the bathroom reeks of cheap perfume and broken dreams), the music was higher quality than usual, I danced with a very attractive non-hooker (um...probably, anyway), and there was a group of French guys who were hilarious and wearing crazy wigs. One kept insisting on unbuttoning my shirt.
So that was my holiday. It was a good one. Sorry, no photos - I still haven't visited my old village (shame on me), and my camera is still packed away in one of my trunks. Er, I hope.
*Wondering why in this case I broke my no-name rule? Because Kait is back in the States now, sad face, which means no discussion of her time here is likely to lead to badness. Miss you, Kait!
02 December 2010
We'll need ADP, LTP, ESA and DPM to approve the RAP, including an inventory of PAPs, to meet the CP.
UPDATE 3 Dec 2010: I forgot to mention that the above sentence could also be "We'll need PDA, PSF, DEES and PD+ to approve the PR, including an inventory of PAPs, to meet the CP." And it means exactly the same thing in exactly the same order.
+It's a question of whether the abbreviations are French or English. The reason I flagged this one is that I got it backwards - I used the French abbreviation in the title where all the others are English, so in this update I put the English abbreviation in where all the others are French. This demonstrates pretty clearly how confusing this can be. Also worth noting is that even when speaking English, I pronounce the string DPM as the French letters.
That's my world these days. Never mind what it means, though in fact in MCC/MCA-speak it's a perfectly cromulent sentence.
For the last two weeks, I've been neck deep in the contract that controls 9/10 of our entire diversified agriculture project. No, scratch neck deep. I've been in way over my head. But, with the necessary parties finally mostly signing off, it looks like I can stop having nightmares* soon. Until the next fire that needs putting out, anyway.
Other than that...well, there isn't much other than that. I've worked every day since Tabaski, though on Thanksgiving I was able to get off a couple hours early. It's been pretty intense. Hopefully, in 4 years we'll look back on the project and see that yes, it was all worth it. Not that I'm currently in the habit of looking four years ahead. It's a good morning when I have an idea of what meetings I'll have after lunch that day.
But things are going well for all that. On the nights I don't have to work late, there's usually a Volunteer friend or two in town I can spend time with. I've gained weight thanks to the much better variety of food in Ouaga, which should thrill my mom no end. Though I need to get a gym membership so I don't gain any more - enough's enough! Finding time to actually use such a membership will be its own challenge, but ça va aller.
Anyway, the short version of all this is that I don't have much to say, I've been too busy working to do much that would spark a reader's interest. Just wanted to update so everyone knows I'm still here.
*Literally. I had a dream in which a friend asked me to join her for lunch. I explained to her that the four-page document she'd submitted to me describing said lunch really needed a lot of work on its timelines and deliverables before I could accept.
+It's a question of whether the abbreviations are French or English. The reason I flagged this one is that I got it backwards - I used the French abbreviation in the title where all the others are English, so in this update I put the English abbreviation in where all the others are French. This demonstrates pretty clearly how confusing this can be. Also worth noting is that even when speaking English, I pronounce the string DPM as the French letters.
That's my world these days. Never mind what it means, though in fact in MCC/MCA-speak it's a perfectly cromulent sentence.
For the last two weeks, I've been neck deep in the contract that controls 9/10 of our entire diversified agriculture project. No, scratch neck deep. I've been in way over my head. But, with the necessary parties finally mostly signing off, it looks like I can stop having nightmares* soon. Until the next fire that needs putting out, anyway.
Other than that...well, there isn't much other than that. I've worked every day since Tabaski, though on Thanksgiving I was able to get off a couple hours early. It's been pretty intense. Hopefully, in 4 years we'll look back on the project and see that yes, it was all worth it. Not that I'm currently in the habit of looking four years ahead. It's a good morning when I have an idea of what meetings I'll have after lunch that day.
But things are going well for all that. On the nights I don't have to work late, there's usually a Volunteer friend or two in town I can spend time with. I've gained weight thanks to the much better variety of food in Ouaga, which should thrill my mom no end. Though I need to get a gym membership so I don't gain any more - enough's enough! Finding time to actually use such a membership will be its own challenge, but ça va aller.
Anyway, the short version of all this is that I don't have much to say, I've been too busy working to do much that would spark a reader's interest. Just wanted to update so everyone knows I'm still here.
*Literally. I had a dream in which a friend asked me to join her for lunch. I explained to her that the four-page document she'd submitted to me describing said lunch really needed a lot of work on its timelines and deliverables before I could accept.
29 October 2010
In memoriam
Early this week, my APCD from Peace Corps, Sebraogo Kiendrebeogo, passed away after fighting cancer for several months. He was 40 years old. He leaves behind his wife and two young children.
I don't think I ever really talked about Seb here. I mostly talked about my fieldwork. Oh heck, let's be honest: I mostly talked about myself. But let me tell you about my boss, Seb, who was one of the greatest bosses I've ever had - and I've been fortunate enough in my career to work for some pretty amazing people.
Seb had been a teacher here in Burkina himself before working with the Peace Corps. He then worked with the Peace Corps for several years, first as a technical coordinator for stagiares for both Secondary Education and Girls' Education and Empowerment, and finally as the APCD for Secondary Education. But that's just his resumé. It tells you that he had the knowledge, but it doesn't begin to convey how he used it, how devoted he was to his colleagues, how ardent he was about helping people.
I chose that last adjective with care; I'd originally written "...how serious he was about helping people." Not that he didn't take his work seriously, but it's hard to use the word "serious" to describe someone whose smile and whose laugh were so infectious. And who did both so very, very often. You couldn't stay in a bad mood when Seb was in the room.
Peace Corps is a tough job, and how much a Volunteer enjoys it, and how successful she or he is, depends in no small part on the support he or she receives from the main office. The Peace Corps Burkina office is an incredibly supportive group of people. Everyone there goes out of his or her way to help the Volunteers, often working long hours and well outside of their written job descriptions to do whatever it takes. And even among such a group of supportive, wonderful people, Seb stood out.
Goodbye, Seb. The world's a better place for your having been in it.
I don't think I ever really talked about Seb here. I mostly talked about my fieldwork. Oh heck, let's be honest: I mostly talked about myself. But let me tell you about my boss, Seb, who was one of the greatest bosses I've ever had - and I've been fortunate enough in my career to work for some pretty amazing people.
Seb had been a teacher here in Burkina himself before working with the Peace Corps. He then worked with the Peace Corps for several years, first as a technical coordinator for stagiares for both Secondary Education and Girls' Education and Empowerment, and finally as the APCD for Secondary Education. But that's just his resumé. It tells you that he had the knowledge, but it doesn't begin to convey how he used it, how devoted he was to his colleagues, how ardent he was about helping people.
I chose that last adjective with care; I'd originally written "...how serious he was about helping people." Not that he didn't take his work seriously, but it's hard to use the word "serious" to describe someone whose smile and whose laugh were so infectious. And who did both so very, very often. You couldn't stay in a bad mood when Seb was in the room.
Peace Corps is a tough job, and how much a Volunteer enjoys it, and how successful she or he is, depends in no small part on the support he or she receives from the main office. The Peace Corps Burkina office is an incredibly supportive group of people. Everyone there goes out of his or her way to help the Volunteers, often working long hours and well outside of their written job descriptions to do whatever it takes. And even among such a group of supportive, wonderful people, Seb stood out.
Goodbye, Seb. The world's a better place for your having been in it.
18 October 2010
Voulez-vous que je fasse une entrée en français?
D'accord.
Ce weekend passé, moi et ma co-locataire, K, nous sommes allés à Kaya pour rendre visite des amis. Plus précisement, des anciens voisins. Il y a je ne sais quoi de ce province-là qui m'inspire à trop boire...
Quand même, le voyage s'est passé très bien. Nous avions programmé d'aller à la piscine, mais malheureusement ceci était trop sale puisque l'appareil de filtrer était tombé en panne. Et alors, contre le chaleur il n'y restait qu'une seule option : la bière. Dont nous buvions beaucoup. Et puis du vin. Et vu que nous ayons apporté notre narguilé, il nous semblait très ridicule de le laisser inutilisé!
Au travail, ça va. Comme on dit en Mooré, bilf-bilfu, qui veut dire petit à petit. Il y a toujours des petits problèmes informatiques, et on pourrait bien dire qu'il y a toujours des crises de toutes sortes, mais rien d'impossible à maîtriser. Au moins, ce n'est jamais ennuyeux...
Et en parlant du travail, il faut que j'y aille. À tout à l'heure, chers amis.
Ce weekend passé, moi et ma co-locataire, K, nous sommes allés à Kaya pour rendre visite des amis. Plus précisement, des anciens voisins. Il y a je ne sais quoi de ce province-là qui m'inspire à trop boire...
Quand même, le voyage s'est passé très bien. Nous avions programmé d'aller à la piscine, mais malheureusement ceci était trop sale puisque l'appareil de filtrer était tombé en panne. Et alors, contre le chaleur il n'y restait qu'une seule option : la bière. Dont nous buvions beaucoup. Et puis du vin. Et vu que nous ayons apporté notre narguilé, il nous semblait très ridicule de le laisser inutilisé!
Au travail, ça va. Comme on dit en Mooré, bilf-bilfu, qui veut dire petit à petit. Il y a toujours des petits problèmes informatiques, et on pourrait bien dire qu'il y a toujours des crises de toutes sortes, mais rien d'impossible à maîtriser. Au moins, ce n'est jamais ennuyeux...
Et en parlant du travail, il faut que j'y aille. À tout à l'heure, chers amis.
08 October 2010
On living overseas
I'm posting this from my computer. The work computer that I couldn't get to work on Blogger before. The problem, it turns out, is IE's unreasonable assumption that if it can't load a page in 30 seconds, it can't be loaded. Not that it's entirely appropriate to use my work computer to blog in any case, but hey, I'm on my lunch break. And since no one in this country has administrative privileges to this computer anyway, were I to log off no one else would be able to log on.
I won't be paid for September until mid-October. This would be much less frustrating (which is not to say it would be ENTIRELY without frustration) if I'd had some advanced warning. It has to do with the end of the fiscal year, and the way my contract works...and the fact that I live 4 timezones away from my employer's headquarters. Which is, incidentally, another reason why no one else could use this computer if I weren't - the embassy closes at 1230, so my MCC (remember, that's the American side of the organization) coworkers have left. But MCA (the Burkina side) doesn't shut down, and there's a weekly phone call with the Washington folks at noon their time. 1600 our time...but then, I should save my complaining until early November, when you clever folks in the US (most of you, anyway) go on Daylight Savings and I don't. By the way, did you know, dear reader, that while both the US and most European countries use Daylight Savings, we don't switch on the same day? There will be a couple weeks in late October when I'm only an hour off from Paris time (instead of the two I have been), but am still at the same time difference with respect to home. Sheesh.
The inspiration of the title of this post is the phone call I just had with the lending institution to which I owe rather more money than is prudent thanks to a desire whilst in grad school to be able to pay for things like gas and groceries. Ah yes, our higher education and student loan system is a clever one. Anyway, they called me (actually, my parents) a couple weeks after I closed my Peace Corps service to let me know that my loans would go back into repayment. By the way, kudos to you Citibank for giving me a grace month. It's not enough for many freshly returning PCVs, but it's frankly one month more than I expected. Since, upon answering, my parents very modestly admitted to not being me, the loan officer gave them a rather cryptic message for me (have him call this number, then use this code. Very cloak and dagger sounding, no?). I called the number and gave them the code (which was just a string of letters and numbers; I don't see any fundamental reason why it couldn't be something like, "The raven calls at midnight when the full moon is in view," but then I guess romantics make lousy loan officers. At least from the point of view of the bank), and during the conversation mentioned to them that to avoid such back-and-forth in the future, they should just call my phone here (I might have also made this suggestion because since I'm already paying them so much, I feel no need to pay fifty cents a minute to call them when they have a message for me). They agreed. Hooray, problem solved, pack it in, let's go home.
Or not.
I've been trying for two days to log onto their site and pay. The above-mentioned internet problem reared its head - their site is clearly not optimized for speed - so today I brought my personal computer to work. Because, you know, it's nice having a computer that I can adjust basic things on, like how long my browser will try to load a site before timing out. Or adding printers. (**Side rant. Look, USG, I appreciate good security. I'd even go so far as to say I'm more aware of it than many of your employees. Make me change my password because you know I won't otherwise, that's fine. Restrict my access, that's fine I guess, as long as we're both on the same page that it's a little bit insulting to my intelligence, because if you honestly believe I have evil intent then you know that physical access is everything and after spending 20 minutes of googling I could own this machine even though I know nothing about hacking currently, so you have to either be worried that I'm susceptible to social engineering hacks, or worse, you simply think I'm too dumb to be allowed full access because I'd break something. Whoops, that was a side rant to the side rant. Backing up, what I'm getting at is that it's just silly to run an overseas post where EXACTLY ZERO PEOPLE have administrative access to my computer. I'm not irritated [much] that I can't add the office printer to my laptop myself. I'm THOROUGHLY frustrated that NO ONE here can do it and I have to call someone in Washington so they can remotely access my machine to do something so trivial.**) So I finally manage to load up the page...and I can't see my account info because, it says, I need to update my phone number. Whisky Tango et cetera. I call (more money being spent just so I can be allowed to pay them), and find out - after many, many minutes on hold (yet more money I'm spending just to convince Citibank to let me pay them...hm, do they own stock in my cell phone provider?) - that the problem is my new phone number. It's not in the US. Their system can't handle that.
Seriously.
So, long story short, sorry Mom and Dad, you're going to continue to get phone calls about my loans, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to pay them. Which would leave me getting the phone calls, not you, but they'd be much less pleasant ones.
I won't be paid for September until mid-October. This would be much less frustrating (which is not to say it would be ENTIRELY without frustration) if I'd had some advanced warning. It has to do with the end of the fiscal year, and the way my contract works...and the fact that I live 4 timezones away from my employer's headquarters. Which is, incidentally, another reason why no one else could use this computer if I weren't - the embassy closes at 1230, so my MCC (remember, that's the American side of the organization) coworkers have left. But MCA (the Burkina side) doesn't shut down, and there's a weekly phone call with the Washington folks at noon their time. 1600 our time...but then, I should save my complaining until early November, when you clever folks in the US (most of you, anyway) go on Daylight Savings and I don't. By the way, did you know, dear reader, that while both the US and most European countries use Daylight Savings, we don't switch on the same day? There will be a couple weeks in late October when I'm only an hour off from Paris time (instead of the two I have been), but am still at the same time difference with respect to home. Sheesh.
The inspiration of the title of this post is the phone call I just had with the lending institution to which I owe rather more money than is prudent thanks to a desire whilst in grad school to be able to pay for things like gas and groceries. Ah yes, our higher education and student loan system is a clever one. Anyway, they called me (actually, my parents) a couple weeks after I closed my Peace Corps service to let me know that my loans would go back into repayment. By the way, kudos to you Citibank for giving me a grace month. It's not enough for many freshly returning PCVs, but it's frankly one month more than I expected. Since, upon answering, my parents very modestly admitted to not being me, the loan officer gave them a rather cryptic message for me (have him call this number, then use this code. Very cloak and dagger sounding, no?). I called the number and gave them the code (which was just a string of letters and numbers; I don't see any fundamental reason why it couldn't be something like, "The raven calls at midnight when the full moon is in view," but then I guess romantics make lousy loan officers. At least from the point of view of the bank), and during the conversation mentioned to them that to avoid such back-and-forth in the future, they should just call my phone here (I might have also made this suggestion because since I'm already paying them so much, I feel no need to pay fifty cents a minute to call them when they have a message for me). They agreed. Hooray, problem solved, pack it in, let's go home.
Or not.
I've been trying for two days to log onto their site and pay. The above-mentioned internet problem reared its head - their site is clearly not optimized for speed - so today I brought my personal computer to work. Because, you know, it's nice having a computer that I can adjust basic things on, like how long my browser will try to load a site before timing out. Or adding printers. (**Side rant. Look, USG, I appreciate good security. I'd even go so far as to say I'm more aware of it than many of your employees. Make me change my password because you know I won't otherwise, that's fine. Restrict my access, that's fine I guess, as long as we're both on the same page that it's a little bit insulting to my intelligence, because if you honestly believe I have evil intent then you know that physical access is everything and after spending 20 minutes of googling I could own this machine even though I know nothing about hacking currently, so you have to either be worried that I'm susceptible to social engineering hacks, or worse, you simply think I'm too dumb to be allowed full access because I'd break something. Whoops, that was a side rant to the side rant. Backing up, what I'm getting at is that it's just silly to run an overseas post where EXACTLY ZERO PEOPLE have administrative access to my computer. I'm not irritated [much] that I can't add the office printer to my laptop myself. I'm THOROUGHLY frustrated that NO ONE here can do it and I have to call someone in Washington so they can remotely access my machine to do something so trivial.**) So I finally manage to load up the page...and I can't see my account info because, it says, I need to update my phone number. Whisky Tango et cetera. I call (more money being spent just so I can be allowed to pay them), and find out - after many, many minutes on hold (yet more money I'm spending just to convince Citibank to let me pay them...hm, do they own stock in my cell phone provider?) - that the problem is my new phone number. It's not in the US. Their system can't handle that.
Seriously.
So, long story short, sorry Mom and Dad, you're going to continue to get phone calls about my loans, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to pay them. Which would leave me getting the phone calls, not you, but they'd be much less pleasant ones.
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