This post was written last Sunday (July 23rd). The internet just came back online today so it was down for a total of 2 weeks. I’ll probably write some more tomorrow and post it within the next couple of days.
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First, let me start by mentioning that Internet access has been down in the city for the last week so that’s the primary reason that there hasn’t been an update in the last couple of weeks. There are 2 main cyber cafes in Ouahigouya – one at the Post Office and the other at one of the high schools. The one at the Post Office is being renovated and I think the one at the high school was struck by lightning. As far as I know, the one at the high school is now back in business.
So the week of the 9th was spent both in the capital, Ouaga, and visiting the site of a current volunteer. We were in Ouaga for the first couple of days when we arrived in the country, however this was our first real opportunity to go out and explore the city. The purpose of being in Ouaga was for a 2-day counterpart workshop where we got to meet the person who will be our counterpart at our sites. My counterpart seemed nice, he teaches French and English at the school where I’ll be teaching. While in Ouaga, I got to check out the rec room at the American embassy, the Peace Corps hostel, and the Peace Corps bureau. The embassy was pretty cool – they had air-conditioning, a good sized television with current movies you could rent, a pool, a pool table, tennis court, and a restaurant where you could order things like milkshakes and hamburgers – not your typical burkinabe cuisine. The hostel is where volunteers stay when they’re in the capital. I think I heard a few people refer to it as Real World Burkina. It was a pretty nice building with room to sleep quite a few people and a decent library to borrow books from. (We didn’t stay there during our trip, we stayed at a hotel in the city.) Finally, the bureau (Peace Corps offices) was cool to check out too. Another place with air-conditioning and they have 3 computers for volunteers to use with a pretty fast internet connection.
After staying in Ouaga for 3 nights, I went to the site of a current volunteer for 4 nights along with 2 of the other trainees. They tried to have people visit sites that were close to where the trainees are going to be located. The site that I visited wasn’t very close to my actual site (it was somewhere in the middle of the country), however it was still a good experience to see the site of a current volunteer and how she lives. While we were visiting the site, there was a ceremony held for a newly elected mayor in the village. It was a pretty impressive 2-hour long ceremony with speeches, music, and dancing. There were probably a thousand or so people there with everyone that came from all of the surrounding villages. The only unsettling part were the people walking around with what looked like rifles from back in the early 1900’s that they’d fire up in the air every so often. I’m fairly positive they were only packing them with gunpowder, but it still makes you jump when you hear a gunshot go off 20 feet away.
The volunteer actually had some pets too – a couple of dogs and a cat. The dogs even acted like American dogs in that they were friendly and you could actually pat them. (you couldn’t see their ribs either which is pretty unusual) She actually wants to give one of the dogs away, but she’s trying to find someone that she can give it to where she doesn’t think it’ll be eaten. Another interesting thing from the site visit was when we visited a ‘river’ that was about 1-kilometer outside the village. I guess during this time of year, the river is usually about 20 yards wide and they have a boat that goes back and forth for people to get across. Well, you could jump across the river right now – it was maybe 3 or 4 feet across. I think some parts of the country aren’t getting much rain this year. It’s not a problem now, but could be next year when they need to rely on the crops that they’re currently planting.
The last thing I’ll mention about site visit is what I learned about the importance of learning the local language as well as French. In most villages there are very few people that speak French beyond the other teachers and maybe a few others. If you want to communicate with the villagers, you really have to learn the local language too. The local language in my village is called Fulfulde. This is not the main local language in the country (Moore). I start this week with some lessons in the local language in addition to French. French is definitely still the focus as that’s what I’ll be teaching in, but when I get to village at the end of August I’ll definitely be putting a good amount of time into learning the local language too.
One other thing to mention about being in Ouaga was that we received our last 2 shots of training – numbers 11 and 12. So in case you’re interested, here’s what I’ve received immunizations for: Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Rabies, Polio, Typhoid Fever, Diptheria-tetanus, Meningitis, Yellow Fever, and MMR (Measles-Mumps-Rubella). Some of them require multiple shots so that’s why there were 12 in total. There will be a few more shots later on (flu in the Fall and more hepatitis shots at some point), but that’s it for now.
Keeping with the medical theme, my health has still been great. The majority of the other trainees have gotten sick at least once, but I’ve still been pretty lucky. It’s a little surprising in that I do eat out a lot and try a lot of different things so I would have expected to have gotten sick from something at this point. A couple of interesting stats: Burkina Faso leads African Peace Corps countries in cases of diarrhea. Also, during their service the majority of males tend to lose weight and the majority of females tend to gain weight. I guess this has something to do with the diet here being so heavily based on carbs. Guys tend to lose muscle mass because of this and I guess it causes females to gain weight. There are a few people in training who have lost a dramatic amount of weight, but that’s mostly been because they’ve been sick. I weighed myself the other day and I weigh pretty much the same. If anything, I eat more here than I did back in the States.
Finally, I did manage to get a cell phone this past Monday. In case anyone wants to give it a try, my number from the States is 011-226-76122793. I really have no idea how easy or hard it is to get through. (If you do try and call, it’s probably best to try on Sunday or anytime after 2pm EST during the week when training is over for the day. Keep in mind that I’m 4 hours ahead of eastern standard time.) There are telephone cards that you can get online that will let you call Africa for anywhere from $.12 to $.20 a minute. I think there a few different sites that offer this, I’ll try and find some out and post them when I get a chance. I believe it costs me a small fortune if I try and call the States from the cell phone. I can also send and receive text messages which are free for me to receive and don’t cost too much to send either. Although I don’t think they always go through and I think they can take anywhere from a couple minutes to a few days. I’m not sure if I’ll have reception in village or not, but here in Ouahigouya I always have reception. It’s kind of amazing to think that if you go back just 4 or 5 years – there was no cell phone service here, no internet access, and most villages didn’t even have telecenters. It’s amazing how connected everything is now even in one of the poorest countries in the world. Communication wise, it’s definitely a much different experience now as a volunteer than even a few years ago…
The past week was back to the regular training schedule in Ouahigouya. It’s amazing how time is flying now. I only have 4 weeks remaining left with my host family. So for the next 4 weeks, I have model school every day. I’ll be teaching at least one class for an hour every morning in front of real students. The students actually paid money to be taught by people who speak broken French. Anyhow, it’s going to make for a pretty busy 4 weeks as I’ll be spending a lot of time each day preparing for the next day’s class. Ok, that’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll be able to write again next weekend…
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
The big news from this past week is that we had our Site Announcement ceremony. It was a pretty jam packed week so I’ll try and touch on a bunch of stuff. Right now, it’s Saturday evening. I’m hoping to post this message sometime tomorrow when I’m in the capital, Ouaga.
The first thing I’ll mention is the result of my language interview yesterday. (I really should have paid more attention to Sr, Audette, Miss Michaud, Mr. Villeneuve, and Mr. Bretton.) I tested at Novice High which is the 8th level so I am making progress. As I mentioned before, at the end of training I need to be at Intermediate High. (the 5th level) If you’re not at that level at the end of training, they will work with you to get you there. So it’s not like they’ll put you back on the next plane to the USA. Although I definitely have a lot more work to do. Right now, I think the 2-year old in my family speaks better French than I do. (but I can count to 10 in French better than she can) My host Mom and Dad do speak a very little English. The Dad will almost never use it since I think the Peace Corps pretty much told them not to speak any English. If the Dad’s not around, the Mom will try and use a little English since she really wants to communicate. She’ll also ask how to say stuff in English so it works out good since I learn the French words and she picks up the English words.
For the 4th of July, most of the trainees in the city made their way out to one of the villages where we had a little get together. The rumor of hamburgers didn’t pan out, but we did get some hot dogs, chili, mac and cheese, and cold soda so it turned out pretty good. (we each chipped in 2,000 francs for the meal - $4) There are 33 total trainees – 16 in the Secondary Education program and 17 in the Girls Education and Empowerment program. All of the Secondary Education trainees live in the city (Ouahigouya) and all of the Girls Education and Empowerment trainees live in one of four different villages. (We probably see them once or twice a week.) I think the villages are about 5 – 8 kilometers from Ouahigouya. City life and village life are very different so the 4th of July outing was my first real exposure to village life which is much closer to what I’ll be experiencing once training is over.
This past week we also had the 30-minute microteach session where I had to teach for 30-minutes in French in front of students for the first time. The topic I chose was geometric figures – the rectangle, square, and diamond. It was definitely not something I was looking forward to, but I survived it. I also had to work on our journal for this past week which sucked up even more of what little extra time I have. (Every week of training, 4 different trainees put together a newsletter.) There’s a quote in one of the multitude of books that they have given us that describes Peace Corps Training like this: (the book is sarcastically titled “A Few Minor Adjustments”)
Peace Corps training is like no other training in the world, having something in common with college life, officer’s training, Marine basic training, and a ninety-day jail sentence.
--Moritz Thomsen
Living Poor
While definitely a little on the dramatic side, I can see where this person was coming from.
Ok, I should probably get to the most exciting news from the past week – Site Announcements. It was supposed to be on Wednesday, but ended up being on Thursday since the lady in charge of our program was sick on Wednesday. The ceremony was pretty cool. They had a huge map of Burkina and we were called one by one and given the name of our village and a picture of ourself that we would put on the map next to our village so we could see where everyone was in relation to each other. They had some cold drinks and brownies too which added to the festivities. So the name of my village is Baraboule. If you can find a map of Burkina, it’s a little northwest of Djibo up in the Sahel. From looking at the map, I would say that I’m only about 15-miles from the border of Mali. Of all the Secondary Education trainees, my site is the furthest north in the country. Unfortunately, I won’t actually get to see the site till after training is over and one of the Peace Corps jeeps drops me and my belongings off there. They have had volunteers there in the past, but not for over a year now. (There was supposed to be someone going there from the training group last year, but she didn’t stick it out.) Anyhow, from everything I’ve heard I’m pretty excited about the site. Here’s the brief description that they gave me:
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You will be teaching at the CEG de Baraboule. It is a relatively small school with approximately 175 students and 75 in the largest class. They have requested teachers in all subjects, so you should be able to stick with Math in the first year. However, during your second year, once you’re more comfortable with your French level, they might also ask you to take on SVT.
Your house is located within a family courtyard. The head of the family is the president of the APE, who is very excited to be hosting a new Volunteer. The Directeur of the CEG is equally excited as they have worked with Peace Corps Volunteers in the past. The last volunteer there was a woman named Angela and, by all accounts, she absolutely loved her community.
Your closest neighbors are Manik Koldhekar (SED) in Djibo (also your regional capital) and Nathalie Boittin (GEE) in Borguinde.
In Baraboule you are about 30 km outside of Djibo. There is transport to Djibo on Monday’s and Wednesday’s and Wednesday is the big market day in Djibo (it is a very well-known market where you can get most anything you need). It’s not a bad bike ride in to Djibo.
Angela, the previous PCV in Baraboule, did leave some “stuff” for her replacement and they have kept them locked up at the school.
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Here’s a description of some of the acronyms you might not be familiar with:
CEG – this is the name for a school that’s like a junior high school. The grades are roughly equivalent to 6th through 9th grades in the States.
SVT – this is one of the subjects. I think it’s a combination of Biology and Geology.
APE – this is the parent association kind of like the PTA in the States.
SED – small-enterprise development. One of the four Peace Corps programs in Burkina Faso in addition to Secondary Education, Girls Education and Empowerment, and Health.
GEE – girls education and empowerment.
PCV – Peace Corps Volunteer
Ok, it’s getting pretty late and I need to start packing for the next week. I leave Sunday morning for a counterpart workshop in Ouaga where we will meet our Burkinabe counterpart from our site. After that, on Wednesday we split into small groups and visit the site of a current volunteer. I’ll be going with 2 other trainees to a village called Kirsi. Then on Sunday we return back to Ouahigouya. I’ll try and write again when I get back next weekend.
The first thing I’ll mention is the result of my language interview yesterday. (I really should have paid more attention to Sr, Audette, Miss Michaud, Mr. Villeneuve, and Mr. Bretton.) I tested at Novice High which is the 8th level so I am making progress. As I mentioned before, at the end of training I need to be at Intermediate High. (the 5th level) If you’re not at that level at the end of training, they will work with you to get you there. So it’s not like they’ll put you back on the next plane to the USA. Although I definitely have a lot more work to do. Right now, I think the 2-year old in my family speaks better French than I do. (but I can count to 10 in French better than she can) My host Mom and Dad do speak a very little English. The Dad will almost never use it since I think the Peace Corps pretty much told them not to speak any English. If the Dad’s not around, the Mom will try and use a little English since she really wants to communicate. She’ll also ask how to say stuff in English so it works out good since I learn the French words and she picks up the English words.
For the 4th of July, most of the trainees in the city made their way out to one of the villages where we had a little get together. The rumor of hamburgers didn’t pan out, but we did get some hot dogs, chili, mac and cheese, and cold soda so it turned out pretty good. (we each chipped in 2,000 francs for the meal - $4) There are 33 total trainees – 16 in the Secondary Education program and 17 in the Girls Education and Empowerment program. All of the Secondary Education trainees live in the city (Ouahigouya) and all of the Girls Education and Empowerment trainees live in one of four different villages. (We probably see them once or twice a week.) I think the villages are about 5 – 8 kilometers from Ouahigouya. City life and village life are very different so the 4th of July outing was my first real exposure to village life which is much closer to what I’ll be experiencing once training is over.
This past week we also had the 30-minute microteach session where I had to teach for 30-minutes in French in front of students for the first time. The topic I chose was geometric figures – the rectangle, square, and diamond. It was definitely not something I was looking forward to, but I survived it. I also had to work on our journal for this past week which sucked up even more of what little extra time I have. (Every week of training, 4 different trainees put together a newsletter.) There’s a quote in one of the multitude of books that they have given us that describes Peace Corps Training like this: (the book is sarcastically titled “A Few Minor Adjustments”)
Peace Corps training is like no other training in the world, having something in common with college life, officer’s training, Marine basic training, and a ninety-day jail sentence.
--Moritz Thomsen
Living Poor
While definitely a little on the dramatic side, I can see where this person was coming from.
Ok, I should probably get to the most exciting news from the past week – Site Announcements. It was supposed to be on Wednesday, but ended up being on Thursday since the lady in charge of our program was sick on Wednesday. The ceremony was pretty cool. They had a huge map of Burkina and we were called one by one and given the name of our village and a picture of ourself that we would put on the map next to our village so we could see where everyone was in relation to each other. They had some cold drinks and brownies too which added to the festivities. So the name of my village is Baraboule. If you can find a map of Burkina, it’s a little northwest of Djibo up in the Sahel. From looking at the map, I would say that I’m only about 15-miles from the border of Mali. Of all the Secondary Education trainees, my site is the furthest north in the country. Unfortunately, I won’t actually get to see the site till after training is over and one of the Peace Corps jeeps drops me and my belongings off there. They have had volunteers there in the past, but not for over a year now. (There was supposed to be someone going there from the training group last year, but she didn’t stick it out.) Anyhow, from everything I’ve heard I’m pretty excited about the site. Here’s the brief description that they gave me:
----------
You will be teaching at the CEG de Baraboule. It is a relatively small school with approximately 175 students and 75 in the largest class. They have requested teachers in all subjects, so you should be able to stick with Math in the first year. However, during your second year, once you’re more comfortable with your French level, they might also ask you to take on SVT.
Your house is located within a family courtyard. The head of the family is the president of the APE, who is very excited to be hosting a new Volunteer. The Directeur of the CEG is equally excited as they have worked with Peace Corps Volunteers in the past. The last volunteer there was a woman named Angela and, by all accounts, she absolutely loved her community.
Your closest neighbors are Manik Koldhekar (SED) in Djibo (also your regional capital) and Nathalie Boittin (GEE) in Borguinde.
In Baraboule you are about 30 km outside of Djibo. There is transport to Djibo on Monday’s and Wednesday’s and Wednesday is the big market day in Djibo (it is a very well-known market where you can get most anything you need). It’s not a bad bike ride in to Djibo.
Angela, the previous PCV in Baraboule, did leave some “stuff” for her replacement and they have kept them locked up at the school.
----------
Here’s a description of some of the acronyms you might not be familiar with:
CEG – this is the name for a school that’s like a junior high school. The grades are roughly equivalent to 6th through 9th grades in the States.
SVT – this is one of the subjects. I think it’s a combination of Biology and Geology.
APE – this is the parent association kind of like the PTA in the States.
SED – small-enterprise development. One of the four Peace Corps programs in Burkina Faso in addition to Secondary Education, Girls Education and Empowerment, and Health.
GEE – girls education and empowerment.
PCV – Peace Corps Volunteer
Ok, it’s getting pretty late and I need to start packing for the next week. I leave Sunday morning for a counterpart workshop in Ouaga where we will meet our Burkinabe counterpart from our site. After that, on Wednesday we split into small groups and visit the site of a current volunteer. I’ll be going with 2 other trainees to a village called Kirsi. Then on Sunday we return back to Ouahigouya. I’ll try and write again when I get back next weekend.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
This week has been a little tough communication wise. I tried using the internet café a couple of times during the week, but couldn’t get onto my email either time. It can be a little frustrating since you often have to wait for 30-45 minutes just to get on a computer and then you can’t even do anything when you get on. The internet café that I use is at the high school and it has 4 computers total, not all of which are working at the same time. There’s another internet café at the post office, but that one seems even worse connection wise.
I did make some progress on getting a cell phone. I know where to go to buy one and also how much it will cost. (35,000 francs for the phone; 3,000 francs for the SIM card; and then I’ll probably charge it with about 5,000 francs – the plans here are all prepaid. So it’s about $86 total.) The only stumbling block now is getting access to my money. There’s 2 ATMs in the city, neither of which wanted to work for me last week. There’s also 1 place that I know of to exchange US dollars, but it’s never been open when I’ve gone by. Business hours are shorter here since a lot of places will close for a while after noontime because of the heat. The phone I’m getting actually has a flashlight built into the top of it which I guess can come in handy when you’re out at a bar or restaurant and you’re trying to make your way to the latrine. Anyhow, getting almost anything done here is an exercise in patience.
I think the highlight of the past week is that I survived teaching for 10 minutes in French. I also had a chance to play a little soccer after classes one of the days with some of the other trainees and some local Burkinabe. As you can probably imagine, the local Burkinable pretty much ran circles around us on the field. There’s a lot going on here for the next week or 2. This Wednesday I have another ‘microteach’ session where I need to teach in French for 30 minutes. (not sure what the topic is going to be, last week I chose ‘triangles’) After that session, the Secondary Education trainees have their site announcements where we find out where we’ll be living for the next 2 years after training is over. We each had individual interviews this past week where we met with the lady in charge of the Secondary Education program. She asked us a few different questions on what type of site we would prefer – size of the village, living in a family compound or by yourself, how far you would be willing to bike, subjects you want to teach. I pretty much told her that I don’t have much of preference so it’ll be interesting to see where I end up. Then Friday we have our mid-training language test so that we can have an idea of how we’re progressing. Also, after the test they’ll mix up the language classes again by level – usually there’s between 3-5 people per teacher.
Next Sunday, the Secondary Education trainees leave Ouahigouya for the week where we’ve been training. We head down to the capital, Ouaga, for a couple of days for a counterpart workshop where we’ll meet the person who has been designated as our counterpart at our sites. After that, on the 12th we’ll be splitting into small groups and visiting the site of a current volunteer to get an idea of what life is like by yourself at site. The following Sunday we return to Ouahigouya and continue with the regular training sessions. So it seems like it’s going to be a pretty busy couple of weeks.
Ok, now a few random topics…
I do have toilet paper here. There’s a few shops that you can buy it in, although I think they sell it just for the ‘nasara’. (white people) I’m pretty sure almost all the local people use the left-hand with water method.
I am lucky in that my host family speaks French with each other. If you’re in the village, this definitely isn’t the case and it isn’t always the case in the city here either. The Mom and Dad at the house are 2 different ethnicities (Moore and Bissa) so I think French is their common language.
As far as transportation, I use my Peace Corps supplied bike to get pretty much everywhere. It’s pretty nice, a brand new Trek mountain bike with front shocks. As far as the local Burkinabe – mopeds, motorcycles, and bikes are far and away the most common form of transportation. You might see 1 car for every 20 – 30 two-wheeled vehicles you see. The rules of the road are pretty straightforward – if you have a bigger vehicle then you have the right of the way. Obviously, this puts pedestrians on the bottom of the transportation totem pole. Most of the roads aren’t paved. The main road that goes through the city which leads south to the capital and north to Mali is paved. Also, there a few other roads that are paved for at least a little bit, but for the most past you’re biking on dirt roads.
The garbage situation is a little interesting. I guess in the capital, Ouaga, they have trash pickup and a landfill, but there isn’t anything like this in other parts of the country. It’s pretty much acceptable here to just toss your trash on the ground since there really isn’t any other place for it to go. So it really seems like there’s only 2 options for trash here – either you burn it or you just throw it on the ground. As you can imagine, this makes for there being a good amount of trash just lying about.
As far as the cross-cultural training, there haven’t been any really big surprises. There’s the obvious like don’t use your left-hand to exchange things. Then there’s other things like comparing and contrasting American culture and Burkinabe culture. Americans tend to be more individualistic and future-oriented where Burkinabe tend to be more group-oriented and past-oriented. Some of the trainees who live in the villages have had a tough time because here it’s considered to be a bad thing to be alone. So if you try and get away to study or read a book for a little bit by yourself, someone will come with you just so that you’re not alone. They don’t really understand the concept of needing some personal time by yourself.
The rainy season has just begun and it goes through about September. This means that we get some rain here about every 2-3 days right now. The dust storms and rain storms are pretty impressive – one of them knocked down my family’s hangar/porch the other week. They seem to come on pretty quickly and you definitely don’t want to get caught outside in one or the wind will practically knock you over. A good rule of thumb is that if you see the locals start to run for cover, it’s a pretty good time to start thinking about finding some shelter yourself. The rain does usually cool things off for a little bit which is good, but unfortunately it also brings with it an abundance of flies. There’s not much more annoying than sitting down and sweating in the afternoon heat with about 15 flies buzzing around you. From what I understand, the months to look forward to are December through about February. I guess it doesn’t get much higher than the mid-80s during these months so you can get through the day without barely breaking a sweat.
The last thing I’ll write is a quick lesson in Moore – the primary local language that’s spoken here. So if you ever find yourself talking to someone from Burkina and you want to ask, ‘what’s up?’ the equivalent expression in Moore is ‘mana wana?’ That’s about the extent of my Moore language skills so far so whatever anyone responds means absolutely nothing to me.
Ok, hope everyone has a good 4th of July! For the most part, I think it’s just a regular training day for me. Although I think they may be trying to organize something for the evening. I’ve even heard rumors of hamburgers, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
I did make some progress on getting a cell phone. I know where to go to buy one and also how much it will cost. (35,000 francs for the phone; 3,000 francs for the SIM card; and then I’ll probably charge it with about 5,000 francs – the plans here are all prepaid. So it’s about $86 total.) The only stumbling block now is getting access to my money. There’s 2 ATMs in the city, neither of which wanted to work for me last week. There’s also 1 place that I know of to exchange US dollars, but it’s never been open when I’ve gone by. Business hours are shorter here since a lot of places will close for a while after noontime because of the heat. The phone I’m getting actually has a flashlight built into the top of it which I guess can come in handy when you’re out at a bar or restaurant and you’re trying to make your way to the latrine. Anyhow, getting almost anything done here is an exercise in patience.
I think the highlight of the past week is that I survived teaching for 10 minutes in French. I also had a chance to play a little soccer after classes one of the days with some of the other trainees and some local Burkinabe. As you can probably imagine, the local Burkinable pretty much ran circles around us on the field. There’s a lot going on here for the next week or 2. This Wednesday I have another ‘microteach’ session where I need to teach in French for 30 minutes. (not sure what the topic is going to be, last week I chose ‘triangles’) After that session, the Secondary Education trainees have their site announcements where we find out where we’ll be living for the next 2 years after training is over. We each had individual interviews this past week where we met with the lady in charge of the Secondary Education program. She asked us a few different questions on what type of site we would prefer – size of the village, living in a family compound or by yourself, how far you would be willing to bike, subjects you want to teach. I pretty much told her that I don’t have much of preference so it’ll be interesting to see where I end up. Then Friday we have our mid-training language test so that we can have an idea of how we’re progressing. Also, after the test they’ll mix up the language classes again by level – usually there’s between 3-5 people per teacher.
Next Sunday, the Secondary Education trainees leave Ouahigouya for the week where we’ve been training. We head down to the capital, Ouaga, for a couple of days for a counterpart workshop where we’ll meet the person who has been designated as our counterpart at our sites. After that, on the 12th we’ll be splitting into small groups and visiting the site of a current volunteer to get an idea of what life is like by yourself at site. The following Sunday we return to Ouahigouya and continue with the regular training sessions. So it seems like it’s going to be a pretty busy couple of weeks.
Ok, now a few random topics…
I do have toilet paper here. There’s a few shops that you can buy it in, although I think they sell it just for the ‘nasara’. (white people) I’m pretty sure almost all the local people use the left-hand with water method.
I am lucky in that my host family speaks French with each other. If you’re in the village, this definitely isn’t the case and it isn’t always the case in the city here either. The Mom and Dad at the house are 2 different ethnicities (Moore and Bissa) so I think French is their common language.
As far as transportation, I use my Peace Corps supplied bike to get pretty much everywhere. It’s pretty nice, a brand new Trek mountain bike with front shocks. As far as the local Burkinabe – mopeds, motorcycles, and bikes are far and away the most common form of transportation. You might see 1 car for every 20 – 30 two-wheeled vehicles you see. The rules of the road are pretty straightforward – if you have a bigger vehicle then you have the right of the way. Obviously, this puts pedestrians on the bottom of the transportation totem pole. Most of the roads aren’t paved. The main road that goes through the city which leads south to the capital and north to Mali is paved. Also, there a few other roads that are paved for at least a little bit, but for the most past you’re biking on dirt roads.
The garbage situation is a little interesting. I guess in the capital, Ouaga, they have trash pickup and a landfill, but there isn’t anything like this in other parts of the country. It’s pretty much acceptable here to just toss your trash on the ground since there really isn’t any other place for it to go. So it really seems like there’s only 2 options for trash here – either you burn it or you just throw it on the ground. As you can imagine, this makes for there being a good amount of trash just lying about.
As far as the cross-cultural training, there haven’t been any really big surprises. There’s the obvious like don’t use your left-hand to exchange things. Then there’s other things like comparing and contrasting American culture and Burkinabe culture. Americans tend to be more individualistic and future-oriented where Burkinabe tend to be more group-oriented and past-oriented. Some of the trainees who live in the villages have had a tough time because here it’s considered to be a bad thing to be alone. So if you try and get away to study or read a book for a little bit by yourself, someone will come with you just so that you’re not alone. They don’t really understand the concept of needing some personal time by yourself.
The rainy season has just begun and it goes through about September. This means that we get some rain here about every 2-3 days right now. The dust storms and rain storms are pretty impressive – one of them knocked down my family’s hangar/porch the other week. They seem to come on pretty quickly and you definitely don’t want to get caught outside in one or the wind will practically knock you over. A good rule of thumb is that if you see the locals start to run for cover, it’s a pretty good time to start thinking about finding some shelter yourself. The rain does usually cool things off for a little bit which is good, but unfortunately it also brings with it an abundance of flies. There’s not much more annoying than sitting down and sweating in the afternoon heat with about 15 flies buzzing around you. From what I understand, the months to look forward to are December through about February. I guess it doesn’t get much higher than the mid-80s during these months so you can get through the day without barely breaking a sweat.
The last thing I’ll write is a quick lesson in Moore – the primary local language that’s spoken here. So if you ever find yourself talking to someone from Burkina and you want to ask, ‘what’s up?’ the equivalent expression in Moore is ‘mana wana?’ That’s about the extent of my Moore language skills so far so whatever anyone responds means absolutely nothing to me.
Ok, hope everyone has a good 4th of July! For the most part, I think it’s just a regular training day for me. Although I think they may be trying to organize something for the evening. I’ve even heard rumors of hamburgers, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
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