Everybody Loves Free Pencils...

Quotes to live by,

Give a village child a pencil and he might beat it on the ground like a drum or stick it in his ear.

Give a village child a pencil along with an education and he will write and learn, and maybe one day become president and help Burkina.

Or maybe it was about fish and fishing… Anyway.

The past weekend I spent in Balla, my old village working on our garden for the new school year and distributing school supplies sent from their pen pals back in Iowa. I have been helping with my old students and a few interested pen pals from my old high school in Iowa City on a cultural exchange. I presented Burkina to their French class back home and here now we talk about America. They love hearing about different places, mostly with the dreams to leave Burkina and go somewhere else. Most students and even teachers dream of leaving Burkina. Which is pretty sad. Life is not easy here, and the politics here make it worse. But the simplicity of their lives can be attractive when compared to the hustle and bustle of western life. For the most part they are in some ways happier than we are, they live their entire lives with their families close by, their friends rarely move away for new jobs, and they eat simple organic meals they grow themselves. With that considered they have little to no infrastructure, little opportunity to education, and health care. Its not easy and ce n’est pas la meme chose.

Our school garden has finally started with the help of a few good friends back home. The fence is up and we will be planting soon for this school year, which is roughly from October to June in Burkina. The biggest problem in Burkina is lack of water and if our school pump stays in working order we should be able to produce enough to enrich the school lunches. Malnutrition is a common problem here in West Africa and one that even I suffer from time to time. While I was home on vacation I gained about 10 lbs in 2 weeks. Its already gone now.

HIV/AIDS in Burkina

HIV/AIDS is still considered a myth in my village of Bouendé. A while ago I heard from a villager when asked how can someone become infected with HIV, "If you eat uncooked chicken." So yes, I instantly thought here is where I can do some work. Africa and HIV/AIDS are synonymous today and living there it is easy to see why.First and foremost is ignorance. Like my village friend who thinks you can get HIV from eating raw chicken. The average Burkinabé is ignorant to how are transmitted. She was correct that some diseases can be transmitted from uncooked foods just confused on which ones. This ignorance is not their fault and is an understandable problem. Around 75% of the Burkinabe are illiterate, that’s nation wide. In a village like mine it is closer to 95%. So it is very reasonable that people don’t understand disease transmission.

(The United Nations Development Program Report used to place Burkina Faso as the most illiterate country in the world, with only 12.8% in 1990. With the consistent effort of the government in making schooling more accessible and affordable, however, the literacy rate has doubled and is now at 25.3% of the population.)

So in summary most rural Africans don’t understand the diseases that plague them. Which is why AIDS in this example, is so dangerous. As I have said before, when someone asks how some one died, the common answer is that he was sick. Period.

Second, if someone does understand how HIV/AIDS is transmitted, the environment in which that person lives makes it hard to make positive choices to prevent infection. Condom use is on the increase in the urban areas but is still taboo in the villages. It is complicated. Elders think that sex education is too modern and should not be talked about in public. Places to buy condoms are very public. This creates and awkward environment for the buyers. People see who buys what, and if you buy condoms you could very well be thought to have the disease, and therefore be shunned or worse. So villagers won’t even buy them out of fear. Stigma is one of the greatest factors in the spread of HIV.

Third, is the problem with testing. Very few people in Burkina are tested. People are ignorant to the treatments available and most think that the disease is fatal. So if you know you can die from it, don’t know of any treatments, and you are really poor, why would you even get tested. This is the greatest problem in Burkina. Most villagers are starting to learn about HIV but are not going to get tested. In some ways I can see their point, but the only way to decrease transmission is to know who has it.

The last factor I will talk about is polygamy. Most Africans are polygamists, they have multiple wives. They often also will have a mistress outside of these official wives and with limited condom use, they easily become infected and in turn infect the rest of their wives or other partners. This is another reason why HIV is so devastating in the African culture.

So all those factors together in my tiny village I decided to start an HIV education program. I applied for a grant with the US Embassy, some money Bush has made available and was accepted. I organized a large AIDS day last month where we had theatre presentations, talks from local and American doctors, and movies on AIDS and the associated stigma. It went off with a great success. The national newspaper was there and a local radio station did interviews on the spot. It was really probably my biggest accomplishment as a health volunteer.

A theater group from Bobo came out to our village and did an hour performance dealing with family life and living with HIV/AIDS. It was interactive and the villagers loved it. A doctor I know who works with the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative came and talked about possible treatments for children for free. And that night we had a condom demonstration along with showing videos in their local language projected on to our clinic wall. It was an all day event that I think made a real difference. I hope.

Here is a link to the newspaper article.

http://www.sidwaya.bf/sidwaya_17-09-08/bobo-arrondiss_3.htm

Here is a link to a recent article on the food crisis in Burkina.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9VbHRv6hOk

http://www.crs.org/burkina-faso/food-crisis-urban-poor/

As for me, I just got back from almost 3 weeks back home in the States. It was a nice vacation, but oddly it felt good to land back in Burkina Faso.

Dogon Country, Mali

The Dogon people are a Malian ethnic group that currently live along the Bandiagara Escarpment in the Malian desert. They use the cliff as protection from the elements and enemies much like the way the Pueblo Native Americans of Mesa Verde in Colorado. After constantly hearing how amazing their culture is from other volunteers, I took a few days off saving babies and headed North into the desert with a few friends to see it for myself. Other people had talked up similar trips so much that I had become skeptical. Having seen many of the National Parks in the states I kept my expectations low. After the first night at the base of the cliffs I was proven wrong and thoroughly impressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon

Tired and covered in dust from the long bush taxi ride north we arrived in Koro, Mali. It’s about 15 hours on various transport means from my house… mountain bike, bus, bush taxi, etc. We met our guide Oumar who has been taking volunteers on tours for over 10 years now and we set off in a beat up station wagon to the first village next to the cliffs. We got there at dusk just as another rainstorm let up. The station wagon couldn’t bring us all the way due to a rising river, so we had to get out and wade across and hike to the village. The evening light made the cliff line appear massive and a roaring waterfall next to the village produced an impulsing beat. Mist rolled over parts of the cliffs hiding their true height and gave the entire village an eerie ancient feel. We got to our compound and had a quick dinner and passed out after a long wet day. I slept hard, but as usual I had to wake up in the middle of the night to use the facilities. This is a nuisance that I have come to accept, but tonight I was grateful for my small bladder. I woke up to a full moon peeking through the clouds. As the rain on top of the cliffs continued a virtual lineup of waterfalls appeared through the fog and ran off the cliffs. The ancient abandoned village under the cliffs was illuminated by the moon as a mist and dull roar encompassed the compound. It was one of the most surreal experiences I have ever seen. I just sat there for what seemed like forever as the village slept. I tried to capture it with my camera, but the moonlight was not sufficient, and I quickly gave up. Film can never capture an entire experience and certain things are more vivid remembered only in the brain. I will always keep this memory. It was amazing. I did get a little clip of footage in the morning of the view, but the waterfalls had already started to cease as the sun came up.

Wanting to get a good view of the cliff line and some good pictures of the sun rising and lighting up the cliffs, I left the camp early and hiked out almost a mile away. I crossed a small stream and continued up some sand dunes to get a better viewpoint. The rain continued up on the cliffs. I was gone only an hour and returned as my stomach started to call for breakfast. I followed my steps back to the village and a small concern that was in back of my mind when I crossed the stream, which was only at my calves an hour before, became a reality. The stream had risen a lot and now was 3 times as wide and possibly over my head. The current was strong and increased at the narrows. Even at its narrowest spot I could never jump it and if I did fall in would be swept away. I walked a ways in both directions but found no solutions. I had to get back to the village to start our tour and decided to try and cross where I had before, as to have a better idea of its depth. Knowing that if I lost my footing and had to swim my camera would be ruined, I decided to wrap it in my shirt and coat and throw it across the stream. It was only about 40 ft and thought the risk of a cushioned impact was less than it getting wet. So I took off my sandals and looked for a soft landing spot in the grass. I threw it as far as I could. The wind caught my coat and slowed it down enough that it bounced off the bank and into the stream. So there I was watching my camera float down the stream slightly wrapped in my coat. I whipped my sandals across the stream and dove in to save my camera. I was carried down stream a bit but managed to get my camera out of the water. Sure that all my photos and camera were ruined I returned to the village soaking wet too scared to open my camera bag. It was obvious to the villagers that I had to swim the stream, and most thought it was pretty funny. In the end my camera and memory cards turned out to be dry, and I had another funny story to add to my journal.

The next few days were spent visiting cliff dwellings from centuries ago, some from the Tellum people who, according to our guide, lived there starting in the 1400’s. They climbed vines that have all been cut down or receded from climate change to build their houses in hard to reach places high on the cliffs. Some of the houses are 100’s of meters high above sheer faces. Other ethnic groups like the Dogon that settled in the region thought that the Tellum people could fly due to the heights and inaccessibility of their settlements. We also visited local hunters, sacred ceremony sites and graveyards. Our guide Oumar was great and his ability to speak English really made it seem like a vacation. I read in Lonely Planet Guide Book and heard from other volunteers that visiting the Dogon Plateau and Escarpment is one of the “Top 10 Things” to do before you die according to some. I am not sure if it should be in that list, but it definitely was close to making my mine.

Le Foyer d’Apprentissage et de Réhabilitation Nutritionnelle (FARN)

Hearth Model (Community Based Nutrition Education)



Most of you probably wonder what I really do as a health volunteer besides help out at our clinic (CSPS). Well here is one of the programs I have just completed to rehabilitate malnourished children in the village. The program is a community based model to improve the health of the entire family while focusing on children. The original concept of the Positive Deviance (PD) / “Hearth Nutrition Model” (FARN in French) was introduced in the 1980s in Haiti and has since been replicated in countries as various as Vietnam, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Mozambique, Mali, and Guinea. In contrast to traditional nutrition interventions which “tend to look for problems in the community that need to be solved, the PD/Hearth approach looks for the positive behaviors and strengths that exist in the community and can be built upon.” It proves that despite poverty, there are local practices, knowledge, and resources that can be exploited to promote positive health practices. Even in the poorest communities, some mothers are still able to raise healthy, well-nourished children. If those “positive deviant mothers” (Mamans Lumière in French-speaking countries) could pass on their feeding and hygiene practices to other mothers in the community, we would see the problems of malnutrition and other childhood illnesses significantly decrease. Moreover, since the solutions focused on in PD/Hearth come from within the community, thus the behaviors are far more sustainable. These “Mamans Lumières” help lead the Hearth program and provide a real example of someone in the same environment with healthy children.

Positive Deviance Webpages
http://www.positivedeviance.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Deviance



In practice, the PD/Hearth intervention brings together between six to ten mothers of malnourished children over a two-week period to learn and practice the healthy nutrition behaviors performed by a local positive deviant mother. Led by myself and the “Maman Lumière” from the community, the Hearth group prepares a healthy local recipe and discusses a health issue of concern to the women and their children every day. All the food used in preparing the meals comes from the village and is affordable for all the women in the program. The health issues are discussed with the assistance of one of our local clinic staff. At the end of the 2 weeks, most children gain weight and often exhibit improvements in mood and energy. Furthermore, qualitative studies suggest that the mothers continue to practice the healthy behaviors learned in the Hearth even after the program has come to a close.

Objectives of Hearth (FARN)
Hearth has three main objectives.

1. To rehabilitate malnourished children. Each day, trainers and participants prepare enriched porridge together. Every woman has at least one liter for her child to eat throughout the day, in addition to his usual food. Over a period of 12 days, participating children can gain moderate to significant amounts of weight.

2. To educate the women on basic health issues (i.e. Hygiene, Vaccinations, HIV, Malaria, etc). Each day, the session leaders address a different health topic. Practical, healthy solutions that are accessible to local women are promoted. They facilitate a discussion with the women addressing their questions and dispelling local myths.

3. To demonstrate that raising well-nourished and healthy children is possible even with limited means. By showing that positive change is possible and by teaching women information about their own basic health, women will be inspired to continue positive health behaviors after the training.

This past weekend I completed my second Hearth Model Workshop (FARN) with women from my village. The malnourished children were chosen from information gathered from our clinic at monthly baby weighing. The workshop was held at the “Mama Lumiere’s” courtyard or foyer. At the end of the two weeks all but two children gained substantial weight, one passed away from Malaria, and one decreased after getting over a respiratory infection. At the end of the program each mother received a Moringa sapling that I have been growing in my courtyard. My courtyard has become a mini-nursery and I have been working with my friends from village to incorporate the Moringa in their diets and as a means of reforestation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa
http://www.moringagardencircle.org/tree.html
http://www.treesforlife.org/



Remember rural Burkina Faso is poor, really poor. I constantly hear with the “World Food Crisis” that people are complaining about the rising prices of basic goods like rice. Most villagers in Burkina can never even afford to eat rice. They may get a plate of rice a few times a year, and as I found out while teaching last year from my students, they may only get one bottle of Coke a year. So all my recipes used in the 2 week program used village resources. Most were porridges based on sorghum (millet), corn, beans, peanuts, fish, local leaves and mangoes. Every day I ate with the kids to encourage them, and yeah I even gained a little weight myself, which I could use. I am planning on doing other FARNs in the surrounding villages in the months to come.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/indepth/080702_food_crisis.shtml

"Ligi ligi" and Pneumonia

Farming Burkina Style

People say the best form of birth control in Burkina Faso is the mass introduction of mechanical farming equipment. Basically tractors equal less need for children. After the past week I have come to understand the exact meaning of this idea. Group farming in Burkina Faso is ridiculously fun and now I understand what it really means to farm by hand. The average family size in Burkina is about 5-8 children per mother, and with polygamy in almost all rural areas, that equals about 3 women per man… around 15-20 children per family. My nearest neighbor and host family has 17 children and 3 wives. Last week I was introduced to Ligi ligi, which means group farming in Jula. I had been cultivating before, but this was a whole new experience. I was told the day before that there might be dolo and beer, along with music. When I got to the field around 10 am the group was well on their way to having a “good time”. I made it there to work just enough for the blisters to form on my hands before the morning porridge break. After that we worked until 2pm and then had lunch with as much Dolo as anyone could handle. Pork was the meat of the day and everyone had their fill of To. Then we worked till around 5pm and my hands, back and neck were a mess. Throughout the entire day the ballafone only stopped for a mere 15 mins, and that was only for the musicians to eat. All and all we weeded about 3 hectares of millet.

Weeding massive fields with a two foot long hoe may seem like a pretty cavemanish idea, and yes I too had similar first impressions. But once you realize how tough and rocky the soil is here, you soon realize after centuries of evolution, it most definitely is the best way to unearth weeds growing in the fields. A longer handle would make sense if the soil was soft, allowing you to stand up right and work in a more relaxing position, but you would get no where and it would not nearly be as efficient. Once you get a new Daba, (Jula for hoe) in your hands and a few liters of dolo in you the work just seems to fly by. The field owners will organize basically a small party in their fields to attract as many able bodies in need of booze fix. They also will kill a goat, sheep or pig for the day. The wives will be busy the few days before preparing local millet beer and enough food to feed the masses, also hard alcohol is bought along with beer depending on the means of the proprietor. Basically it amounts to a massive music filled festival in the fields, with dirt flying and dolo sloshing all day long. It was my first experience seeing this type of group farming and the results were pretty amazing. It motivates others to work harder and longer, while building community relations. The calluses on my hands are coming in nicely and all the villagers are in awe that the white guy CAN work with a Daba and keep up with the young folks… they are proud of their Toubabou (white guy).

On a more serious note, now that the rainy/growing season in full swing, villagers spend most of their time in the fields with their children with them. This colder/wetter season provides a great environment for children to catch colds. This is often overlooked by the importance of completing field work in such a short growing season. The work has to be done, if not the villagers won’t eat next year, so often children are left unattended and not sufficiently protected from the cold.

I watched two kids die last Friday from Pneumonia. They were brought to our clinic after being sick for about a week. When they got there, there was little we could do to help them. Even with prescribed antibiotics and all the meds we could muster, we sat and watched their lungs fill with fluid. We tried to suction as much as we could with the simple tools we had, but in the end it was just an endless battle against time. It was again one of those experiences you really can’t explain. The hardest thing for me was after the children passed away, the mother just attached the child to her back as if it was still alive; the way most African women carry their children, and had to walk the 3 or 4 miles with her dead son on her back. It was a tough day.

Often it’s not appropriate to photograph the experiences that make the biggest difference on me here in Burkina. Most of these I would never want to… and I am sure you would not want to see them. This is not to say that I won’t try to explain them to the best of my abilities. It has been a tough few weeks, but an amazing few weeks. I am starting my second malnourishment program next week in a nearby village. I will explain later and hope to add more photos.

Last night a good friend of mine (Erica) was bitten by a poisonous snake while walking home from dinner in Bobo. She had not seen it in the dark on the path and had stepped on its back. Ben and I killed the snake and brought it back to our office. Her foot swelled up and went numb as she felt the venom migrate up her leg. She was taken to a clinic and within in an hour or so an anti-venom IV was started with anti-biotics. She is fine now but it was a bit of a scare for us all. Never a dull moment.

Malnourished Children

Last week another 3 year old died from malnutrition in our village clinic. Malnutrition is a problem in my region of Burkina Faso. Over the past few months, when we go out on vaccination rounds in the other smaller surrounding villages we weigh the children. This monthly weighing is an easy way to see trends in weight and notify parents of malnourished children. (Ex: 23 months old at 4.400 kg = less than 10 lbs) This is where my work comes in and I will discus with the family better nutritional and hygiene practices, and a demonstration on how to make an enriched porridge with local produce. Over the past four months this child who recently passed away was continually losing weight. His family was warned of the problematic trend. They seemed not to care too much, until this last visit when their child was obviously severely malnourished. I don’t need to attach a photo here; you’ve seen similar kids on TV. He couldn’t walk, distended belly, cracked bleeding lips, chapped and swollen feet and hands, sunken eyes barely open. We took him to the clinic and tried recuperating him with IV’s and feedings. It was just too late. He passed away the next day from complications due to malnutrition. His body systems just basically shut down. You could see in his eyes he was so tired, he just wanted to die; to stop his suffering.

His mother is currently pregnant, and his father has 3 wives and couldn’t afford to pay for all of them to be properly fed. Life is looked at differently here, especially the lives of children. Like I said before he will have no funeral, and no ceremony. The family will just have more children, hoping that the next child with better economic times this will survive. The hardest thing for me to grasp here is the cultural regard to life. It’s hard for me to imagine living a life that is so difficult you have to think of only yourself.

Friends ask me, “Are you making a difference over there?” It’s a question I ask myself a lot. I know I am making a difference, to what extent I will never know. A very similar child to the one above has regained weight is eating well and is healthy. When I first met the little guy he was in bad shape and I thought he would not make it, but after spending a lot of time with the family and mother he was recuperated. So maybe I saved one kid. That makes a difference right? So yeah I am. His mother participated in my Nutrition Project and has now become a role model for other mothers with malnourished children. Last week while we were playing with her now healthy and happy kid, she told me “Awenice”, Merci Beaucoup.

On a way lighter note, I got a new puppy. His name is Kisira, (“Chief of the Courtyard” in Sambla.) Same name as my old dog, just a new language. There are 66 different native languages in Burkina. If he can’t make it home with me, he will be better off than my last one. This ethnic group doesn’t eat dog.

World Food Crisis

It seems like everyone I talk to in Burkina is discussing how “La vie est cher” and how everything here has become more expensive. Everyday on the BBC, I hear of new disasters in the world causing further price increases in everything from gas back home in the states to rice in my tiny village. It seems like this year will one of the hardest for Africans. Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Chad, Malawi, Zimbabwe and even South Africa all have political problems that are constantly in the news. This compounded with the rising food costs should make for a tough next year chez nous. I have obviously not kept up with world news back home as much as I do here in Burkina, but I have this overwhelming sense that the world is really pretty messed up. All I hear about are disasters in Asia, famine in Africa with continual political corruption, war, and even flooding now back home in the Midwest. I wonder how the flooding will effect food production back home on the Iowa farms and resulting market prices. Basically life for the ‘bottom billion’ just got a whole lot worse, and seeing it first hand from the viewpoint of a small West African village makes it all the more powerful. It is interesting how the rising costs of food have affected different classes differently. The upper class people, who buy their own grains and oils, are more affected than those in the lower class, who farm their own crops. So from the village perspective the increase in food price is not as bad for those in the villages. Villagers in my region are so poor that they are almost completely self sufficient and live independently from the markets. Even before the increases in food prices, they couldn’t afford to pay for rice. They only eat To everyday, and even produce their own oil from shea butter. In the long run the rise in food costs will obviously affect all economic aspects, increasing petrol and other needs for the villagers. But today it is evident that the world food crisis is affecting those who don’t cultivate their own food. Strikes and demonstrations against the governments to increase pay are continuing around Africa and I feel that they will not be slowing down until the prices plateau.

Life as a Health Volunteer

Recently I have finished a two week program working with a small group of mothers with malnourished children in my village. Every morning for 2 weeks mothers bring their kids to a designated courtyard and we work together to make an enriched porridge from locally grown and available produce, discussing complete pediatric nutrition. We weigh the children before and after the two weeks and will continue to evaluate their weight gain. Along with this nutritional lesson provided, we incorporate a lesson on local health problems. Topics included basic hygiene, potable drinking water, malaria, HIV/AIDS, proper birth techniques, proper weaning and family planning or birth control. The lessons where taught by myself along with our clinic staff in the local language. It was a great experience and the majority of the children gained considerable weight. Those who didn’t were plagued with malaria, diarrhea or other infectious diseases that undermined the nutritional benefits of the two week program. I am planning on continuing this program with more groups of women in the months to come, as about 30% of the children in my village are malnourished.

Village Life

My new village is tiny. No market, no transport to or from the village, no restaurant. This makes life a little different than my last set up. I am eating more with families and definitely living on a lower level. I have definitely become a real villager. I spend on average about three or four dollars a week in village. That’s for everything. Recently the rains have started and now everyday the village is empty. All the villagers are out in the fields planting their crops; millet, corn, peanuts and cotton mostly. Cotton is their only real cash crop and therefore is associated with the most risk. Based on this years cotton prices fewer people are planting cotton this year. All the farms are plowed and planted by hand. I have not seen a tractor in my region yet. Some of the more prosperous families have cows and plows to work the land, but still most do everything my hand. I again tried my luck at farming. It didn’t last long, about an hour and a half into planting millet my hands blistered and I about passed out in the relentless sun. I ended up sitting in the shade pounding as much water as I could hold while the others kept working for hours. It is remarkable how calloused their hands are and the quantity of land they can seed in a day.
Also, as the growing season has started the village elders have started their ceremonial sacrifices to ensure a good growing season. I have had the rare opportunity to record some of these ceremonies with my camera. I will have to show you all when I get back. Some of the video clips are a bit graphic and too long to upload. Overall things in my new village are going well and I am enjoying my new work, although I do miss teaching and the classroom environment.

As the growing season gets underway, people invest all there money and time in preparing their feilds for the coming rains. Natrually this causes a lot of stress on farmers. Also as the rains come the first new growth sprouts and all the animals who have been basically starving in the dry season eat everything green in sight. This can cause massive problems between farmers and the hearders, usually from different ethnic groups. I heard on the radio last week that an arguement broke out between a group of farmers and hearders. The herders' cows had eaten a large amount of the farmers' new corn. The farmers went and killed a few of the cows in retaliation, this event escilated the situation and it became violent. Overall 15 people were killed in the dispute in southern Burkina. It must not of been a pretty site, axes, hoes and machetes. I am not sure if it made BBC, but was on our local radio from Bobo.

Below is a funeral where villagers dance and play music for days in celebration of a life well lived. The more important and older the person was when he or she died, the bigger the party. Babies and children have no funerals and are just burried, this night was the opposite. He was a pretty big deal.

Volontaire de Sante

Life as a health volunteer is going to be a completely different Peace Corps experience. My first year (June 06- May 07) as a teacher was great and I would never want to give that up, I learned a lot about teaching, discipline and public education in a developing nation, but this next year will bring forth completely new set of problems. As a teacher I was aware of the health problems in Burkina, but never really saw them. Students would mention that they had Palu (Malaria) last week and couldn't make class, or that their little brother was sick with something. It was always like that, but I never really saw the diseases. Even when someone passed away, they never could explain why. They would just say he was sick. We would talk about HIV/AIDS but never really knew who was tested etc. The past month in my new village has been the complete opposite.



The first couple of weeks back in Burkina were spent doing small training sessions learning about the "Health Sector" of the Peace Corps. Since I went through an extensive training period in 2006 to become a teacher, I didn't need to go over the language and cultural components, so this training was specific on ways Peace Corps Volunteers can work with the government village clinics (Centre de Sante et Promotion Sociale = CSPS) to inform rural populations and improve the general health of the community. The CSPS's are small clinics that combat disease and provide a maternity where mother's can give birth in a clinic setting rather than at home. They work at the community level to inform the villagers about disease, hygiene, and proper nutrition. Most of the CSPS disease treatment is simple when thought of from western standards, but the when you are living in these rudimentary rural conditions, proper understanding of the sanitation and endemic diseases is the most efficient way to save lives. The CSPS staff normally includes a couple of nurses, a trained midwife and a pharmacists that runs a small set of government controlled generic medications. The CSPS system is the front line in terms of medical service and they are placed all over the country in some of the smallest most rural areas. This is the case with my new village Bouende, its small, real small, and very remote. Not remote in terms of location from Bobo the regional capital, just remote in terms of commodities. Maybe rustic is a better choice of words. Last year I taught at a middle school, they don't have one here in Bouende, which has a population of around 1200. There are about 2500 people in total who come from the surrounding villages to our CSPS. My old village of Balla had a population of about 5000, and had cold beer and a decent restaurant. Neither are in Bouende, so it feels a bit different.



The past month in Bouende I have seen first hand the health care problems of Burkina Faso, some of which are extremely emoitional. I met this one family while conducting a general door to door informational health study that informed me that they thought one of their children was a bit small for his age. The mother brought him over and he seemed to be in pretty bad shape. After a series of questions with a friend translating from French to Sambla, I found out he was 3 years old, can't walk, about 16 lbs, has chronic diariah and sometimes bloody, has a fever, doesn't eat well, and his mother has stopped producing milk. They don't sleep under a mosquito net, like almost all Burkinabe and probably has a severe case of malaria. It is easy to see that he was severely malnourished and behind in neurological development and will probably die soon. Holding back tears I asked her why she never went to the CSPS, she simply said that she didn't have the money. It is really tough to see some of these things. On an up note, the next day I got a group of women together, all of whom had malnourished children that I had discovered the day before, we discussed proper weaning techniques and hygiene. Then I showed them how to make an enriched porridge from local sustainable resources that are cheap and will improve their childrens nutrition and hope to fatten up the little tykes, and give them some energy to keep on fighting to survive. It was a great example of the importance of a health volunteers' work. These mothers with small children are reluctant to come to the clinic for a number of reasons; money, stigma of having a small child, traditional beliefs, or maybe they don't even know it's a problem. The CSPS is great resource and they could be treated there, but often the villagers feel distant from it and don't understand its purpose and think it is too expensive. My job is to promote western treatment and improve communication from the clinic to the local community. Living at the village level and working directly with the community to recognize and understand the problems in the village, and working together to solve these problems is what I will be doing for the next year or so... and I am excited about the new challenge.

Back in Burkina

Last weekend was my grand return to Balla, my old village where I taught last year at the CEG. My Co-workers and friends from village had been anticipating my return for a long time. I told them when I was leaving that I was coming back, but none actually believed me. But I proved them all wrong after 8 and a half months... to say the least they were surprised. Smiles on their faces were easy indications of who were my real friends. I first arrived at dark and met the old teachers that I worked with and we sat late into the night discussing everything from American politics to the latest village drama. It was great to be back on the same terrace that I had spent some much time just relaxing with my friends and grading mounds of papers. The next morning as I made my return to the center of the village during our market day it was so fun to be back. The surprised smiles were worth more than enough for enduring the lengthy bureaucratic reinstatement process of the Peace Corps.

My students were so excited to receive their Pen Pal letters from America... they wrote back in a few hours and asked so many great questions about the US. They each wanted a photo of themselves with their new "Pen Pals" photo so that I could send it back to the states in proof that they got their letters. After they wrote their letters, I told them that I had a surprise for them in the office. It was then that I showed the few students what I had brought them from the US. I had all the supplies out on out office table and it was there that I taught the few students there how to use a real Microscope. It was their first experience seeing and using technology they had only read about. Those couple of hours were probably the most rewarding of my entire Peace Corps service. Some of the students were so amazed to see and use slides they had only read about and maybe seen drawings of in their textbooks... it made me feel maybe one of these students someday would become a doctor, being motivated from these small science supplies I had brought. Which is a story in itself... teaching never allows you to see your rewards and the changes you make in the students you teach until years later. That being said I have met a couple of current teachers that had Peace Corps Volunteers as teachers years ago that motivated them to help the country develop and go in to teaching.

This was short, but I will have much more in the week to come. I have been all over the country and really busy getting adjusted to my new village and the new health sector. I think the change in work will be a great new eye-opening experience for me. I think that I have learned more in the past month than I have learned in my entire first year here. Big statement but true.

La Deuxieme Fois

Most of you will probably think I am crazy but, after being home for 8 months, and enjoying all the comforts of the good old American way of life (aka my share of hot wings) I have decided to return to Burkina Faso and finish my Peace Corps service. I was discharged from the Peace Corps for shoulder problems on May 15th 2007. Since then I have been occupied with MRI’s, EMG nerve studies, 3 months of pre-operative rehab, surgery, and then 4 months of post-operative rehab. Many thanks here to Dr. Brian Wolf, and Paul Pursley PT, who got me back up to speed quickly.

The reverse culture shock was tough at times, but after a while it was scary to see how easily it is to slip back into our old comfortable western lives. I still have trouble with how much we waste here, but accept it to a certain degree as American. Even this acceptance is troubling to me. Well enough about cultural differences and American problems. My second stint in the Peace Corps is going to be a change of direction and will focus more clearly on my long term goals.

As the school year started in Burkina Faso, and I was still not able to return to Balla my old job teaching had to be replaced. The government replaced me with a new local teacher. I was disappointed to find this out, but started negotiating my return nevertheless. I was able to work out a sector change and return as a health volunteer. I worked this out for many reasons; to stay near my old school, to stay in the same cultural region with the same local language. The sector change is exciting and will be a great opportunity. I will be returning to Burkina shortly and will work in a small village clinic CSPS (Centre de Santé et de Promotion Sociale) or (Center of Health and Social Betterment). Also am going to be assisting the Baylor International Pediatrics AIDS Initiative (BIPAI, see "Cool Links" to the left) in Bobo-Dioulasso with their new Pediatric AIDS clinic. Working in this rural clinic and with these American doctors will be a new experience, and should give firsthand insight on health care development, and how the aid process form western countries can improve health care in developing nations. I will be assisting with HIV/AIDS outreach and education, along with patient follow up. Also, I am going to continue working with my old school in Balla to finish a school garden project I started before I left. I am hoping to finish building a permanent fence to allow for a yearlong garden on the school grounds near our water pump. The fence is to keep out free range animals and proximity to the pump should allow for yearlong produce cultivation to increase the nutritional value of the school lunches. I should be returning to Burkina in the next week and will start posting updates with this blog again. Cheers to all.