My New Family In Burkina

Thursday, October 21, 2010 (began writing)

Saturday, October 23, 2010 (completed writing)

As of today, I have been in Burkina for one week! In only seven days, I have had the most intense emotional roller coaster of my life. As you can tell from my prior blog post (written on Monday), I experienced a low point for a while and today I would say I am at a mid to high point.

On Tuesday night, we were “adopted” by our host families. Leading up to the ceremony, we were all really nervous about being separated from each other. In only a week, we have become a family- we all rely on each other for support and a lot of laughter. The first night with our families was very intimidating because of the varying cultural customs and the language barrier. We all refer to our host families as our family- so my host mom is my mom here etc. I just wanted to warn my family that I haven’t replaced you when I refer to them as my family!

Everyone in my host family has very long, complicated names. This is what I have gotten out of it so far, but it could be really wrong.

My father is Alain and my mother is Cecil. Francoise Aulie, 24 years old, is my older sister who is in school to become a vet. I have two brothers, Sidoin and Jean. I don’t know how old they are but they are probably around my age. One of them told me that he is going to the university right now and he is studying English. I have three younger sisters. Elise is 12 years old, Marie Fidel is 11 years old and Clarisse is 6 years old. They all speak French except for Clarisse. Elise is the most comfortable with me and we talk sometimes. Even though they speak French, it varies immensely from the French we were taught in the US deriving from France. My fellow trainees who are fluent in French say they are having trouble communicating with their host families too.

After a few days, I have figured out a little more about my family. My father is an entrepreneur- he raises chickens (interesting connection because my dad grew up on a chicken ranch!). There are tons of chickens and roosters walking freely around the courtyard. They also make noise at all hours of the day, night and morning. I wake up to rooster noises probably once an hour. My family also has a donkey and at least two goats. Sometimes I dream that I am living on a farm because of all of the noises throughout the night and I guess I technically am. My mother sells cold water and beverages because we are one of few families that own a refrigerator. However, I can’t drink this cold water because it isn’t filtered (I miss anything cold)! I’m still not sure what my siblings do during the day. I think some of them go to school.

My host family is really nice and they seem to want to be around me…except for my youngest sister, Clarisse. Elise told me that Clarisse is afraid of me! My family is trying to teach me some Moore (the local language), but it is difficult because I’m still trying to understand the French they are using. When I first arrived at the house, it was very awkward. They sat me down in a chair in the middle of the courtyard and I had one little sister on each side. They just stared at me and didn’t say anything, so I stared back. Then, I decided to start asking them questions and they would respond with an answer that somewhat meant they understood what I was saying. But then my older sister Francoise got home and walked up to me with a little cooler. She showed me some medicine in a bottle and then pulled out a needle. Then she said “vaccination” and started to fill the needle. I thought she was trying to give me a vaccination and I thought that there was no way the Peace Corps would put my sister in charge of my vaccinations. When she saw the look of terror on my face and when I started saying “non, non, non” my family started laughing hysterically. So, I guess it was a joke! Then, a few minutes later, she brought an upside down chicken over to me and said “Tu dois preparer le diner” (You must prepare dinner). Then I said “uh, uh, uh, j’ai besoin de tuer le poule?!” (umm I have to kill the chicken?!) and the whole family laughed again. The Peace Corps totally prepared us for this- they said just laugh a lot when you don’t understand and everyone will love you here. So, I never understand what is going on and I just laugh, then my family laughs and all seems well!

My family really wants me to feel at home and they are so nice but there are problems with the language barrier. On the first night they asked what I liked to eat. They began naming random items and I would say yes or no. The next morning at breakfast, they brought out a cardboard box filled with everything I said yes to. They put it on the table and told me to use it all…at the same time. I paused with confusion, so my father took a baguette and filled it with The Laughing Cow Cheese, honey, eggs and tomatoes. Then they made me coffee, tea, powdered milk mixed with hot water and condensed milk. They also gave me a bushel of five bananas (all to be eaten immediately of course) and two oranges. When I didn’t finish it all, it was packed up for me to finish during class. This is only the beginning of the bizarre foods I have been fed (for dinner I had a peanut sauce with dried fish in it- scales, bones and all). I could write an entire blog solely on the food in Burkina.

My family ate inside on Friday night for dinner. When I say family, I mean me and my father and my sister Elise. Everybody else eats separately after we finish eating. I am not sure why Elise gets to eat with us. I think it may have to do with something I said when I first arrived. I asked her who I would be eating with out of curiosity because we were told that eating placement and order varied among different families. I think this was misinterpreted as a request for her to eat with me at all meals. I hope the other sisters are not mad at me for this! Anyways, on Friday night there was a bat trapped in the room we were dining in. So my dad took this long stick and was swatting at the bat while calling it a vampire (he thought this was very clever and chuckled whenever he said it), which then made it swoop down to my head repeatedly. Of course I am screaming every time it hits me or flies past my face. After five minutes of this, my dad tells me I must leave the room because I am too scared! Later, my little sister Clarisse walks out carrying the dead bat. When she saw my horrified face, she pretended to throw it in my direction and then everyone laughed hysterically at my reaction. There are many stories and more to come of me making a fool of myself in order to assimilate.

On Friday, I mentioned to my family that I would like to go to the tailor this weekend if we have time to have some Burkinabe clothing made. I also told them that I would not be coming home directly after school because I wanted to hang out with my friends and maybe go to a cyber café. So, I guess my father did not understand what I was saying because the next morning he told me to follow him on my bike at 7am. I thought we were going to school, but we started going down back roads that I did not recognize in the opposite direction. Then, we arrived at the tailor where he had me measured. He told me to give them my fabric but I didn’t have any with me because I thought I was just going to school. So he told me that I must return with fabric later and we left. So, with school starting in half an hour, I thought we were heading there. But we were not. We then went further in the opposite direction and stopped at an internet café. My father told me that I needed to go inside and I said I didn’t have time. After arguing over this for 5 minutes, I said I must go now or I will be late and I got on my bike and rode away. One would think that my dad simply forgot I had school because it was Saturday…but no. He asked me over breakfast if I had school today and I said yes, I have school at 8 this morning.

On Saturday night, I got to help cook dinner. Elise and Marie Fidel took me with them down the road to buy some wood. Then they made a small wooden fire surrounded my three large rocks. Something resembling a wok pan was balanced on the rocks over the fire and used to heat up oil. The Burkinabe cook absolutely everything in palm oil, so the food is really greasy. We then fried some patates (it is a vegetable similar to a potato but with a more starchy consistency and oblong shape). We also had some pasta with a tomato and meat sauce. My family has a lot of food at mealtime and they all eat a large quantity at a quick pace! I always eat a little bit and repeatedly say that I am full, but they insist “Il faut manger, il faut terminer” (You must eat, you must finish). It is a battle that we have every single meal! They want me to eat copious amounts but I can’t stomach it. I don’t understand how they can eat so much food! The local food is becoming monotonous and it has only been a little over a week. There is a lot of bread, sometimes eggs, tomatoes, meat (but it has a different flavor and tough texture that I don’t like so I’m not eating it when possible), pasta, rice and a local food called tô. So meals consist of egg or meat sandwiches, pasta with sauce, rice with sauce or tô with sauce. I really don’t know how to describe it but things taste much different here although they sound familiar. The dishes taste like heavy starches drenched in oil, which is very different than I am used to.