We’re back in business

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…