It's Sunday morning right now at about 9:30am. (I'm only 4 hours ahead of you so it's 5:30am on the east coast.) I slept in this morning which means I got out of bed at 7:30am rather than 6:30am - slightly different than my sleep schedule back in the States.
I guess I'll start with my host family. Now that I've been living here for exactly 2 weeks, I have a much clearer picture of who's who in the family. The first few days were a little confusing because there were always people visiting and I wasn't really sure who was part of the family and who wasn't. There are 3 daughters and there ages are 13, 8, and 2. There is also a servant girl who's either 15 or 16. Servant may not be exactly the right word. I believe she's somehow related to the father and that she used to live in one of the villages. I think they let her live here in the city and go to school in exchange for being like a maid. From what I understand, this isn't too uncommon.
Things are going good with the family. The meal rotation has stayed pretty much the same and the communication has gotten 'slightly' better - I still have a long ways to go. I was able to provide some entertainment to the family when I asked the Mom to show me how to do my laundry. I think they got a kick out of it in a couple of ways. One was seeing a male doing his own laundry and the other was just how bad I was at it.
Speaking of communication, my French is getting a little better. The majority of my training time is spent in language training - 21 hours this past week. There are 10 different language levels. At the beginning, I tested in at Novice Low which is the lowest level. By the end of training, I need to be at the Intermediate High level which is the 5th level in order to swear in as a volunteer. I get tested 2 more times - once about halfway through training and then at the end on the 19th of August. I've also learned a few of the greetings in one of the local languages (Moore), but I really need to focus on my French since that's what I'm going to be tested on and using to teach. As a matter of fact, first thing tomorrow morning I need to prepare and teach a 10 minute math lesson in French - should be interesting.
There's nothing too eventful to note from this past week - mostly just more training. We did get to meet the governor of the region this past Friday night. He provided cold drinks to us (Coke, Sprite, Fanta, beer) which was a nice treat. I've still been very lucky with my health and haven't had any problems at all. Quite a few of the other volunteers have gotten sick by now including a few cases of e coli. If someone is sick, they're very on top of getting the person tested and treating whatever it is. We did receive another vaccination this past week which brings the grand total up to 10 shots so far and still counting. This isn't including when we had to prick ourselves in order to make a couple of practice blood slides for malaria testing. We were given kits both for doing malaria slides and for stool samples - luckily we only had to practice the malaria slides.
As far as the beer is concerned - there appears to be 5 different brands. They are Castel, Flag, So.b.bra, Beer du Burkina, and Guinness. I've tried them all except for the Guinness which I believe is the stought rather than the draught that we're used to having at bars at home. I think Castel and Flag are the more premium brands with So.b.bra and Beer du Burkina being the local 'Budweisers'. The beer bottles are about twice the size of the ones in the US and cost about 500 francs each which is about a $1.
I have taken some pictures that I would like to post, but that's probably going to have to wait until I can get on a better internet connection. The one I use here is like a slow dial-up connection at best. I think they may have a decent connection at the Peace Corps office in the capital which I think we may visit during week 5. If I can, I'll try and post pictures then.
I would also like to revise my earlier statement about not sending anything but letters. If anyone ever feels up to sending a care package, they would always be greatly appreciated. I definitely have all the gadgets I could possibly use, but any type of snacks or drink mixes from home would be great. Drinking a few liters of 95 degree water a day gets a little old after a while.
Also, I just want to say a quick thanks for both the comments on the blog and for the emails. It's always great to have new stuff to read from people when I get a chance to bike over to the internet cafe. Ok, that's it for now - hope everyone's week is off to a good start!
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Now that I've been here for a few days, I figured I'd give you an idea of what a typical day is for me. Most days I get out of bed about 6:30am. However, I'm usually woken up MANY times before that during the night because of all the animal noises - dogs, goats, donkeys, cows, chickens, roosters, various other birds. It's pretty much impossible to sleep straight through the night where I'm living now. After I get out of bed, it's bucket bath time. There's a tap that comes out of the ground in the backyard that I use to fill up my bucket and then I proceed to the 'shower' area. Yes, we do actually have running water! However, that just means there's a tap that the water comes out of. It's still a bucket bath and then the 'latrine' does consist of a hole in the ground. After showering and getting dressed, I'll usually sit down for breakfast with either the father, the mother, or both. Breakfast always consists of a piece of french bread with a little mayo and Nescafe (instant coffee).
After breakfast, I head off to the training center which is only a 5 minute bike ride away. Quite a few of the other 32 trainees live in the small surrounding villages so they have a bike ride of a few miles and they definitely don't have running water. The morning consists of 2 training sessions that vary each day. Either technical teaching seminars, language, medical, safety and security, or cultural cross training. Usually I'll eat lunch at the training center - some type of salad or spaghetti.
The afternoon consists of another 2 sessions from the items I mentioned above and then we wrap up about 5:15pm. I'll usually stay a little longer and work on my French and then head home about 6ish. When I get home, one of the World Cup matches is almost always on. Oh yeah, I have electricity where I live too! The World Cup is huge here - there are 3 West African teams playing: Ivory Coast (who most people here root for), Togo, and Ghana. Having the World Cup on has been a BIG help. Since I can't communicate very well with the family, having the game on is a way to sit down together and not say very much, but still not feel too uncomfortable.
Dinner is usually served either during or right after the soccer game. The meals so far have been good. It's varied between couscous, spaghetti, to (traditional meal here - I'll talk more about it later, pronounced 'toe'), rice with beans, fish stew. Usually there will be some type of meat sauce, but I typically don't really know what the meat is. The only 'challenging' meal so far has been the fish stew. It consisted of peas and a few large pieces of fish. I lucked out and won the jackpot and found the head of the fish staring at me in my bowl. I couldn't actually bring myself to eat the entire fish head, but I did my best to eat around it. After dinner, there's often some type of fruit for dessert - mango, pineapple, melon. It's mango season right now so they're everywhere.
At this point, it's usually about 9 or 10 and I head off to bed and either study, read a little, or write. Between classes and the heat, I'm fairly exhausted by this point so I'm usually asleep under my mosquito net around 11ish.
That's a rundown of what most days here for me are like. During my training, I'll most likely try and put up a post every week or 2. There's plenty more to write about, however if you have any specific questions about anything here - please either post a comment or email me the question and I'll do my best to answer. Tomorrow's Sunday so there's no training and I get to just relax for the day. :)
After breakfast, I head off to the training center which is only a 5 minute bike ride away. Quite a few of the other 32 trainees live in the small surrounding villages so they have a bike ride of a few miles and they definitely don't have running water. The morning consists of 2 training sessions that vary each day. Either technical teaching seminars, language, medical, safety and security, or cultural cross training. Usually I'll eat lunch at the training center - some type of salad or spaghetti.
The afternoon consists of another 2 sessions from the items I mentioned above and then we wrap up about 5:15pm. I'll usually stay a little longer and work on my French and then head home about 6ish. When I get home, one of the World Cup matches is almost always on. Oh yeah, I have electricity where I live too! The World Cup is huge here - there are 3 West African teams playing: Ivory Coast (who most people here root for), Togo, and Ghana. Having the World Cup on has been a BIG help. Since I can't communicate very well with the family, having the game on is a way to sit down together and not say very much, but still not feel too uncomfortable.
Dinner is usually served either during or right after the soccer game. The meals so far have been good. It's varied between couscous, spaghetti, to (traditional meal here - I'll talk more about it later, pronounced 'toe'), rice with beans, fish stew. Usually there will be some type of meat sauce, but I typically don't really know what the meat is. The only 'challenging' meal so far has been the fish stew. It consisted of peas and a few large pieces of fish. I lucked out and won the jackpot and found the head of the fish staring at me in my bowl. I couldn't actually bring myself to eat the entire fish head, but I did my best to eat around it. After dinner, there's often some type of fruit for dessert - mango, pineapple, melon. It's mango season right now so they're everywhere.
At this point, it's usually about 9 or 10 and I head off to bed and either study, read a little, or write. Between classes and the heat, I'm fairly exhausted by this point so I'm usually asleep under my mosquito net around 11ish.
That's a rundown of what most days here for me are like. During my training, I'll most likely try and put up a post every week or 2. There's plenty more to write about, however if you have any specific questions about anything here - please either post a comment or email me the question and I'll do my best to answer. Tomorrow's Sunday so there's no training and I get to just relax for the day. :)
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Hello everyone,
This is my first official post from Africa. As of tomorrow night, I'll have been here for exactly one week. (I'm writing this on Tuesday night, but I probably won't be able to get to the cyber cafe until Wednesday to actually post it.) There's a lot of detail that I could go into, but I'm going to try and tell a little bit about everything that's been going on for the past week. I'll save some of the more detailed information for future posts.
We arrived in the capital, Ouagadougou, about 8pm last Wednesday night. The airport was extremely small - one runway and then what felt like mass hysteria with the 33 of us trying to collect our luggage from the baggage area along with everyone else on the flight. There were Peace Corps folks who met us after we got off the plane and took us away to some compound in the capital where we would stay for the first couple of nights. I don't think it was on purpose, but it felt like they were slowly trying to break us into living in Africa. The compound had a ping pong table, showers, and we had every meal prepared for us. Most of this time was spent doing general administrative stuff - medical interview, language test, bike fitting, getting walk around money, more shots... (7 shots and counting for those keeping track at home.)
On Friday afternoon, we made the trip up to Ouahigouya. This is where I'll be staying for my entire 3 months of training. Ouahigouya is I believe the 3rd or 4th largest city in Burkina. When you think city, think lots pf people living together and a pretty good sized market. There maybe a few buildings that are 2 stories, but that's about as tall as I've seen so far in Ouaigouya. Here, we also stayed together in a dormitory style facility for the first couple of days. This facility also had showers, however the water wasn't running most of the time. Also, we could buy meals at the facility, but we had to pay for them out of our allowance. These 2 days consisted of more safety and security training, language survival skills, orientation on meeting our host families, as well as meeting a traditional African leader. The meeting with the traditional African leader was interesting, however for some reason we met with him in a room where they decided to close all of the doors and the windows. As you can imagine, after 20 or so minutes the room turned into a sauna and I think people were pretty close to passing out by the time the meeting finished.
Sunday night was the 'adoption ceremony' with the host families that we'll be living with for our 3 months of training. I could go into tons of detail about my stay with my host family, but I'm going to save that for sometime in the next few days as it's getting pretty late. For now, I'll just say that they're extremely nice and I think I'm lucky to be staying with them. There's a Dad, Mom, 3 daughters (I'd say the youngest is about 2 and then the other 2 are probably in their teens or early 20s.), a dog, and probably some other animals. Compare this situation with other volunteers in my training group who are living with families of 50 or more people!
Also, for those who placed their bets - I've been here for 6 days and haven't gotten sick yet. (I'm not sure what the Vegas over/under is on that, but I have to be coming pretty close to beating it.) As a matter of act, no one in my training group got sick until after living with their host families for the first night. From what I can understand, it's pretty unusual for it to take that long. I think only 3 or 4 of us have gotten sick and it hasn't been anything beyond diarrhea and vomiting.
My days are pretty packed right now. We have training almost every day except for Sunday and it goes from 8am until 5:15pm. It's consisting of technical training, language training, cross cultural training, and safety and security training. It is extremely hot pretty much all the time and it's definitely not a comfortable, dry heat. You pretty much learn to live your life constantly sweating and sticky. Even at night time, it doesn't cool down very much.
Ok, I think that's it for now. I do want everyone to know that I'm doing good and am being taken very well care of. I'll write again soon, there's plenty more to talk about: my host family, the food, the animals, the traffic, the World Cup, language (or lack thereof), the beer...
If anyone's interested in writing, my address is below. Please don't send anything beyond letters (except for possibly Gatorade packets). I really do have pretty much everything I need at this point. If anything, I feel like I have too much stuff with me. If you do write, I'll definitely get back to you. However, keep in mind that letters take about 2-3 weeks each way and I can only get on email every few days. Oh yeah, I also should have a cell phone sometime within the next few weeks. Ok, hope everyone's doing good! I'll write again soon...
Bryan Chambers, PCT
S/c Corps de la Paix
01 B.P. 6031
Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso
West Africa
This is my first official post from Africa. As of tomorrow night, I'll have been here for exactly one week. (I'm writing this on Tuesday night, but I probably won't be able to get to the cyber cafe until Wednesday to actually post it.) There's a lot of detail that I could go into, but I'm going to try and tell a little bit about everything that's been going on for the past week. I'll save some of the more detailed information for future posts.
We arrived in the capital, Ouagadougou, about 8pm last Wednesday night. The airport was extremely small - one runway and then what felt like mass hysteria with the 33 of us trying to collect our luggage from the baggage area along with everyone else on the flight. There were Peace Corps folks who met us after we got off the plane and took us away to some compound in the capital where we would stay for the first couple of nights. I don't think it was on purpose, but it felt like they were slowly trying to break us into living in Africa. The compound had a ping pong table, showers, and we had every meal prepared for us. Most of this time was spent doing general administrative stuff - medical interview, language test, bike fitting, getting walk around money, more shots... (7 shots and counting for those keeping track at home.)
On Friday afternoon, we made the trip up to Ouahigouya. This is where I'll be staying for my entire 3 months of training. Ouahigouya is I believe the 3rd or 4th largest city in Burkina. When you think city, think lots pf people living together and a pretty good sized market. There maybe a few buildings that are 2 stories, but that's about as tall as I've seen so far in Ouaigouya. Here, we also stayed together in a dormitory style facility for the first couple of days. This facility also had showers, however the water wasn't running most of the time. Also, we could buy meals at the facility, but we had to pay for them out of our allowance. These 2 days consisted of more safety and security training, language survival skills, orientation on meeting our host families, as well as meeting a traditional African leader. The meeting with the traditional African leader was interesting, however for some reason we met with him in a room where they decided to close all of the doors and the windows. As you can imagine, after 20 or so minutes the room turned into a sauna and I think people were pretty close to passing out by the time the meeting finished.
Sunday night was the 'adoption ceremony' with the host families that we'll be living with for our 3 months of training. I could go into tons of detail about my stay with my host family, but I'm going to save that for sometime in the next few days as it's getting pretty late. For now, I'll just say that they're extremely nice and I think I'm lucky to be staying with them. There's a Dad, Mom, 3 daughters (I'd say the youngest is about 2 and then the other 2 are probably in their teens or early 20s.), a dog, and probably some other animals. Compare this situation with other volunteers in my training group who are living with families of 50 or more people!
Also, for those who placed their bets - I've been here for 6 days and haven't gotten sick yet. (I'm not sure what the Vegas over/under is on that, but I have to be coming pretty close to beating it.) As a matter of act, no one in my training group got sick until after living with their host families for the first night. From what I can understand, it's pretty unusual for it to take that long. I think only 3 or 4 of us have gotten sick and it hasn't been anything beyond diarrhea and vomiting.
My days are pretty packed right now. We have training almost every day except for Sunday and it goes from 8am until 5:15pm. It's consisting of technical training, language training, cross cultural training, and safety and security training. It is extremely hot pretty much all the time and it's definitely not a comfortable, dry heat. You pretty much learn to live your life constantly sweating and sticky. Even at night time, it doesn't cool down very much.
Ok, I think that's it for now. I do want everyone to know that I'm doing good and am being taken very well care of. I'll write again soon, there's plenty more to talk about: my host family, the food, the animals, the traffic, the World Cup, language (or lack thereof), the beer...
If anyone's interested in writing, my address is below. Please don't send anything beyond letters (except for possibly Gatorade packets). I really do have pretty much everything I need at this point. If anything, I feel like I have too much stuff with me. If you do write, I'll definitely get back to you. However, keep in mind that letters take about 2-3 weeks each way and I can only get on email every few days. Oh yeah, I also should have a cell phone sometime within the next few weeks. Ok, hope everyone's doing good! I'll write again soon...
Bryan Chambers, PCT
S/c Corps de la Paix
01 B.P. 6031
Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso
West Africa
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Day 1 as a Peace Corps Trainee has come and gone. Spent all last night packing up until the last possible minute. There was a little bit of stress with the realization that there was no possible way I was going to be able to take everything I wanted to with the alloted 80 pounds for checked-in luggage. Flew out of Logan and arrived in Washington DC at a little after 11am. There are 33 people in the staging group headed over to Burkina Faso. (supposed to be 34, but one person wasn't able to make it) So far so good, the afternoon was a high-level overview of various Peace Corps information - nothing very specific about Burkina Faso itself. Tomorrow's another full day of general information and then Wednesday it's shots and off to Africa.
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