Second Post from Burkina Faso

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

The last week was spent traveling around Burkina. The first part of the week was spent in Ouagadougou, the capital, where we first met our counterparts from each of our villages. Each village school chooses a counterpart that becomes our informant in the village. Their responsibility is primarily to ensure an easy integration and to answer any questions that may come up when we arrive at our village. Most of the counterparts are other teachers or principles of the school. In one case both, since the entire school staff consisted of one person; soon to be two, once the volunteer arrives. My counterpart is one of 5 teachers at my school. He seems like a real nice guy. It seems that my village is excited to get a male volunteer, since the preceding two have been women. And his suggestions for secondary projects all involved construction of something for the school. After a two day seminar to provide our counterparts with information concerning the Peace Corps expectations and rules, I was off to see my first actual Peace Corps site, and meet the people of that village. Stephanie the volunteer who was our guide for the rest of the week is a math teacher at her school. Her village is only about 30km from my village as the crow flies, but there is no actual road between the two villages. There is a swamp/river/lake or something between them with hippos. But the villagers say that it is possible to get there by bike. But a few months ago there was a hippo that attacked a fisherman on shore, the man survived the attack, the village retaliated and everyone ate hippo for the next month. Anyway Stephanie is close bye, but it could be an adventure to make the trip. Also there is some type of river where I can go fishing between the two villages. So I might need to have the rod and reel sent over if there is anything worth catching. Another trainee placed in the west came with me on our site visit. Her name is Radhika, she is 30, and has a PhD in Neuroscience from John Hopkins. It has been comforting meeting so many people with resumes much better than mine, choosing to join the Peace Corps, avoiding corporate America. She is really cool and it was a great person to spend the week with. Anyway the ride from Ouagadougou to the small of village of Padema took the entire day. Padema is small, really small, maybe 1,000 people live there, and I think that my village will be smaller. There is no power in the village, but people use car batteries to run lights, stereos, and TV’s in their houses. They have to take the batteries to a larger village with power about once a week to recharge them for a price. Battery charging is a business here. Padema is much greener than up north in Ouahigouya. The increased rainfall of the south changes many aspects of village life. Agriculture is much easier in the south, and is evident in the prices and quantities of produce at the local market. Needless to say I will most likely be eating better than my fellow volunteers in the northern part of Burkina. Stephanie our host volunteer is dating a Burkinabe and it was very interesting learning about the culture from a local, and observing the villagers impression of a mixed race couple. As we toured the village and school where she taught, we were introduced to everyone. I am beginning to realize the importance of greetings and introductions in this country. In all of our cross cultural sessions during training we learn about the ways of Burkina, they instructors always have stressed that lengthy greetings are almost mandatory. The majority of our time in village was most likely spent introducing ourselves. And these introductions are not just simple “Hellos”. They involve very lengthy questioning, like “Good evening, how is the family, how is the work, etc” and it is that way with every person you meet, and every time you meet them again. And if this script of questions is not asked it can be considered rude. We ate the village food with our hands with the locals, and so far so good. The mangos are still my favorite food of Burkina. Village life is very peaceful and has a very slow pace. Most volunteers say that they read a lot, and perfect a least a few hobbies. I think that Yoga, Guitar and exercising will be the majority of my free time. Not to mention trying my hand at brewing the millet beer, locally called Dolo. Anyway the trip to village was a much needed break from the rigorous training, but now it is back to language classes and tech sessions for 8 hours a day. But there are only 6 more weeks, and I think that the time will fly by with the anticipation of going to my own village. Now off to bed, where I can roll around in my own sweat for eight hours.

Again on the heat, today we observed a Burkinabe teacher in class at the high school today. We were there to observe his teaching techniques and his interaction with the students. The classroom was packed with about a hundred students, which is pretty average, with 3 to a desk. The bench for the desk is about 5 inches wide and is painful to sit on for more than 10 min, but they sit there for hours at a time. Anyway, it was so hot in the classroom it was painful. There was no thermometer in the class but I am sure I wouldn’t have wanted to see it anyway. There was no wind even with the windows open, and the tin roof above us was just radiating heat down on us. I kept thinking of my heat transfer class in ChemE and of all the ways the heat was collecting in the room and being trapped there. And as pools of sweat collected around my elbows on the desk, and my all my clothes became soaked, the local students around me were not even damp. Somehow the Burkinabe have evolved without sweating until there bodies need to, or at least only when it is over 130F. I wondered in physiological terms why I was almost passing out and sweating profusely while all the locals seemed perfectly content. Anyway sorry for the venting session… it’s really hot here.

For those of you financially interested. I have lost 10 lbs so far.