Demystification

Written November 2, 2010

This weekend we went on demystification. This is when you go with a small group of trainees to visit a current volunteer’s site. It gives you a better idea of what living in your village will be like. I went with 3 other trainees and our 2 Language and Cultural Facilitators (LCF’s) to visit a current volunteer Ilana. Ilana has been in Burkina Faso for 2 years now and she is having her Close of Service (COS’ing) in January.Ilana was one of the first PCV’s that we met. She helped with the first week of our training in Ouaga and Koudougou. She answered our millions of questions and was really helpful with our initial adjustment to this country. Her site is located in the north, about 7K past Ouahigouya in a small, Muslim village.

Each PCV’s site is very different. Ilana lives in a Mossi village that is set up in family compounds. Each compound has several houses and courtyards of varying family members. Her village has numerous compounds next to each other. Ilana’s house was located inside of a family compound. She has her own house with 2 rooms, a nice courtyard with a wall around it, a latrine and a bucket shower area. Her site had a sense of security because her house’s location made her a part of one of the families within the village. There is not much surrounding her site. Since it is up north, it is a much hotter region, which means there is not much foliage. The little bit of green that we did see in the landscape was being harvested and the remnants will soon be swept away by the wind storms coming up.

All health volunteers are placed into very rural locations because those are the ones in need of improved health. Ilana’s village did not have much within it. There were simply mud huts, courtyards, fields and animals. There was no market to purchase food and no stores to purchase any goods. Whenever she needs something, she has to bike to Ouahigouya to get it. We had our first experience with public transport to get to Ouahigouya. Public transport in Burkina is like nothing I have ever seen before. We had to get to take a green taxi to get to the station. This is a small green car that looks like it cannot run- I mean there are literally strips of rubber holding the door on, the steering wheel is coming out of nothing because the dashboard is missing, the windows cannot roll down (except for the ones that have a metal pipe sticking out of them as the crank), and they are all manual, which adds even more jolting back forth while the driver is changing gears. The worst part is that they will fit as many people as possible into these death traps. We had six of us in one green taxi, 5 bikes strapped to the roof, and 5 frame packs loaded into the trunk, which couldn’t close so it was flapping open and closed as we drove. The streets of Burkina are mostly unpaved with tons of green taxis, motorcycles, bicycles, trucks and buses. We have already had 2 lectures on the safest ways to travel here. However, you can only be so safe with such limited options. In the buses, we were told multiple places where we were not supposed to sit- what remained were like 4 seats in the entire bus. And if they’re taken, c’est la vie. These buses also carry as many people as can possibly fit (standing or sitting), motorcycles, bicycles, and livestock (yes- actual chickens and goats will be loaded under the bus or next to you in your seat).

Well we finally made it to the station and got onto our bus. The bus drivers blast really loud music the entire time and it is ridiculously hot. So, we tried our best to pass out and sleep the majority of the way. At one point, we were all suddenly awoken by a ridiculous volume increase when an American rap song came on the stereo. We finally made it to Ouahigouya where Ilana met us. While we were eating lunch we planned what we were going to eat for the weekend. Since there is no market in her village we had to plan ahead and buy all of our food in Ouahigouya. We were all so excited to finally cook for ourselves. When you’re living with a host family, you have no control over your meals and you get tired of rice and sauce every night. We cooked amazing food considering we were cooking with headlamps on because there’s no electricity with a camping stove and whatever local ingredients we could find. With no refrigeration, we could not purchase a lot of produce, so we had to be sure that we would eat everything we bought. On the first night we made spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce, salad and garlic bread. On the second night, I cooked Mexican food; we had Spanish rice, sautéed onions and bell peppers, homemade pico de gallo and a corn and chickpea salad. On the third night, we made a curry sauce with eggplant, green beans and potatoes. We got to eat delicious food and we introduced our Burkinabe LCF’s to American cuisine!  It made me very excited to be at my own site- I can’t wait to have my own house and to be able to cook for myself.

Ilana created a program with some of the mothers in her village to educate them on malnutrition for their babies. She selected mothers and their children to join the group based on the severity of malnutrition of each child. For meetings, Ilana would show the women how to cook something nutritious with local ingredients. While the food was cooling, she would talk to them about the importance of nutrition for their babies. Then they would eat together. Ilana tracked their progress by weighing the babies and measuring the width of their arms. We got to meet one of her groups and help take their statistics. A lot of the babies were still severely malnourished, but some showed improvements. The children here look a lot younger than they are due to a lack of healthy development. There are a lot of babies who are afraid of us because we’re white (they’ve just never seen white skin before).  So some of them cry hysterically when they see us. One woman had to cover her son’s face with a blanket so he couldn’t see us any longer. It’s kind of sad, but they’re just babies and they don’t understand what is going on. But even when they’re crying, the babies here are adorable! The older kids in the village are fascinated by our cameras. They absolutely love having their pictures taken and they all laugh when we show them the image on the display screen. Once we started taking photos of kids around Ilana’s house, they followed us everywhere we went waiting for the next picture we would take of them.

Another project Ilana started was an income generating project for a group of women in her village. She taught them how to make soap, which they can sell in their village to make some money. Ilana also taught the women’s group how to keep a record of their expenses and revenues, so they also have a credits and savings club. The women in her village taught us how to make liquid soap. It was pretty simple; it just requires a lot of stirring and they all take turns. Whenever Burkinabe teach us how to do something, they say we’re doing it wrong and they finish it for us. This was the same with the soap. They wanted us to try to help stirring, and then they said we looked tired and they’d grab the stick from us and finish it. This happens to us a lot! They also tend to think we get exhausted easily…probably because we do at first since we’re not used to the heat. After a few minutes of labor, they’ll ask us if we need a rest because we look tired.

While on Demyst, we had our first Halloween in Burkina! They don’t celebrate it here, so there was no trick or treating or dressing up (very sad for me since you all know how much I love costumes!). However, we did have an amazing impromptu dance party with the older women in the village, which was absolutely amazing. We played Shakira’s “Waka Waka” for them and I taught them the dance that my mom, grandma and I learned in our zumba class at home. Then, in honor of Halloween we played Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and taught them the parts of the dance we knew. They also love Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” and the dance for that. We tried our best to remember the dances, but when we didn’t know a move, we just made it up. After a while, the women wanted to show us some of their dances and songs. They sang for us and we all got into a circle and they taught us some traditional dances, which involved a lot of stomping and jumping. It was so much fun! All of the women in the village speak Moore and don’t understand any French; so even though we couldn’t communicate through words, we communicated with our body motions and through dancing. It goes to show that language isn’t the only form of communication. At the end of the night, the women surprised us with a thank you song. They sang in Moore and it was a song welcoming us to their country and village and thanking us for being here. When they finished they asked if we had an equivalent song in English. For some strange reason, the only song the 4 of us could come up with was “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound of Music. So, we sang it for them and they clapped and cheered and wanted an encore. Then, we sang a song from The Backstreet Boys and finished with Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” (Burkinabe love Celine Dion). This night is definitely one of my fondest memories in Burkina so far!

Visiting Ilana’s sight made me so excited to know where I am going! We find out on Monday and I cannot wait J I’m learning Moore, which is the most common language in Burkina, so I could be going anywhere. They may also change my language once my site is decided.