Public Transport

The road from my village to my regional capital, Kaya, is unpaved with quite a few inclines on the way. So, I recently looked into alternatives to get to Kaya instead of biking (which can take an hour and fifteen minutes to over two hours depending on the speed and direction of the wind). So, I asked one of my coworkers at the health center what my options were. He asked around and said there was a “car” coming at 4 o’clock. I asked him where to go and he said to just stand on the side of the road and wait.

So, like a typical American showing up for transport a little early just in case, I got to the side of the road a little before 4. This waiting location is an excellent spot to stand if you want to greet every single member of the village…which was not on the top of my to-do list at the moment. It’s our “main road” in village because it’s the road to Kaya. On one side is the health center and on the other side is the school and little boutiques where people hang out. Along the road there are some women selling fried dough and millet cakes. I stood there, waiting, greeting every single person that went by.

An hour later, when daylight was starting to disappear, a giant truck starting coming towards me on the road. This truck was a small semi-truck transporting everything you could possibly think of. I flagged down the driver and he slowed down a bit, but never quite stopped. The back doors flung open and a Burkinabe man reached his arm out to me and pulled me into the back with my bag. Then, another man jumped out and grabbed my bike and threw it into the back, then ran to catch up with the truck and jumped in himself. The back of the truck was completely full. There were enormous, white rice sacks full of various vegetables and grains. On top of these sacks there were piles of people’s belongings and piles of people themselves. I had to climb over mountains of crap with people helping push me along the way, until I was in the middle of the car sitting on top of 3 sacks piled up so high that my head was touching the ceiling of the truck. The truck was so full that people were hanging out of the open sides. Every time another car would pass us on the road, everyone’s heads would promptly swing inside in unison to avoid being hit. Those of us on the top of the piles had to shield our heads from hitting the roof, which was common on this bumpy, unpaved road. This was a great way to experience public transport for the first time by myself in Burkina.

Unfortunately, this uncomfortable and inconvenient semi-truck is not always available and never predictable. It leaves on random days, at random times. So, on my way back from Kaya it wasn’t available. Instead, I went to the bus station and found a bush taxi. A bush taxi is typically a broken down mini-van. The concept of a bush taxi is a lot like the game where you see how many people you can fit into a car or a telephone booth in London. In this particular bush taxi we fit 34 people inside the car. On top of the car everyone’s luggage and bikes were strapped together, along with 5 additional people sitting on top of our belongings. I was given a seat in the middle of the van leaning against the window. I had an older man in front of me leaning back onto my chest, a small child to my side leaning his head on my shoulder and a woman with a child on her lap behind me, kicking me constantly (and at one point this kid fell asleep on my back and drooled on me).

With this many people in the mini-van, we were driving around 10 mph the entire way to my village. And with all of the weight, we had to lighten the load each time we encountered an incline or decline in the road (which is pretty often on my road). So, every ten minutes, half of the van would get out and walk next to it for a while, then pile back inside. And did I mention that the door was broken, so each time this had to happen, someone had to jump off the top of the van and take off the entire door to the van to let everyone out, then put the door back on before the car moved forward? I could have walked to my village faster than this bush taxi trip. I got to my village by nighttime and immediately went home and took a bucket bath to remove the sweat, dirt and drool from myself.

I think I might be sticking to biking from now on?

Some Suggested Reading!

Life in Burkina moves slowly. Nobody is ever in a rush to get anywhere or to finish anything. When you get somewhere, you get there. When you finish something, you finish it. There’s no hustle and bustle like back home. There’s no need to rush. There’s no pressure. Burkinabe just live and that’s life. This is one of the most difficult cultural obstacles for volunteers. We’re so used to having schedules and deadlines, places to be. So what does one do with all of this free time? There are a few options. Sometimes I study the local language, brainstorm future projects, or spend time with my neighbors. A lot of the time, I read. In one month, I’ve almost read ten books. Back home, I never had time to read like that. There were always other things to get done. In village, when its pitch black by 6pm, I’m in my hut by myself by 7 or 8pm reading with my headlamp for a few hours.

I recently read The Poisonwood Bible. I really enjoyed it because there were so many familiarities in the author’s descriptions of village life in the Congo. I found myself wishing I could have described the cultural sights as well as Barbara Kingsolver. So, I thought I would recommend it to my friends and family because she has a way of saying things so much more beautifully than I can! I wanted to point out some of the commonalities between my village and the one depicted in the book…

“…all the world’s a stage of hard red dirt under bare foot- where tired thin women in every thinkable state of dress and disrepair poke sticks into their little fires and cook. Clumps of children stonethrowing outflowing rush upon terrified small goats, scattering them across the road so that the goats may tiptoe back and be chased again. Men sit on buckets and stare at whatsoever passes by. The usual bypasser is a woman sauntering slowly down the road with bundles upon bundles balanced on her head. These women are pillars of wonder, defying gravity while wearing the hohum aspect of perfect tedium. They can sit, stand, talk, shake a stick at a drunk man, reach around their backs to fetch forth a baby to nurse, all without dropping their piled-high bundles upon bundles. They are like ballet dancers entirely unaware they are on stage. I cannot take my eyes from them” (P31).

“The cloths are brightly printed and worn together in jangling mixtures that ring in my ears: pink gingham with orange plaid, for example. Loose-joint breaking-point colors, and whether you find them beautiful or find them appalling, they do make the women seem more festive, and less exhausted” (P31-32).

“The women wear a sarong made of one fabric, with another big square of a different fabric wrapped over the top of it. Never jeans or trousers- not on your life. Bosoms may wave in the breeze, mind you, but legs must be strictly hidden, top secret” (P43).

“We see village women constantly sweeping their huts and the barren clearings in front of their homes with palm-frond brooms…” (P60).

“’Ko ko ko!’ which is what people in Kilanga shout in someone’s doorway when they come visiting, since generally there is no door to knock on” (P75).

“Cooking meals here requires half the day, and cleaning takes up the other half” (P76).

“From everywhere within walking distance, every fifth day, people with hands full or empty appeared in our village to saunter and haggle their way up and down the long rows where women laid out produce on mats on the ground. The vendor ladies squatted, scowling, resting their chins on their crossed arms, behind fortresses of stacked kola nuts, bundles of fragrant sticks, piles of charcoal, salvaged bottles and cans, or displays of dried animal parts” (P88).

“’Fire’ meant gathering up a pile of sticks in a village that had already been gathering firewood for all the years since God was a child, picking its grounds clean of combustibles as efficiently as an animal combing itself for lice. So ‘fire’ meant longer and longer forays into the forest, stealing fallen branches…Every small effort at hygiene was magnified by hours of labor spent procuring the simplest elements: water, heat, anything that might pass for disinfectant” (P92).

“There seemed to be no food to speak of, even on a market day when everybody came around to make the tallest possible pile out of what they had. It didn’t seem to stack up to enough sustenance for the two dozen families in our village…”

“After we first arrived, the children congregated outside our house each and every morning, which confused us. We thought there must be something peculiar, such as a baboon, on our roof. Then we realized the peculiar thing was us. They were attracted to our family for the same reason people will pull over to watch a house afire or a car wreck. We didn’t have to do a thing in the world to be fascinating but move around in our house, speak, wear pants, boil our water” (P104).

“Women, usually, carrying the world on their heads: a huge glass demijohn full of palm wine, with a calabash bowl perched on top like an upside-down hat; or a bundle of firewood tied up with elephant grass, topped off with a big enamel tub full of greens. The Congolese sense of balance is spectacular” (P107).

“Most of the girls my age, or even younger, have babies. They appear way too young to be married…And the younger girls- if they are too young to be married and too old to be strapped on someone’s back (which is not a wide margin)…” (P107).

“The little babies take one look and burst out crying” (P108).

“Also sometimes we’ll see a witch doctor with aspirins, pink pills, yellow pills, and animal pieces all laid out neat in rows on a black velvet cloth. He listens to your ailments, then tells you whether you need to buy a pill, a good-luck charm, or just go home and forget about it” (P108).

“On other days when there’s no market, people just congregate in the main square for one thing and another: hairdos, shoe repair, or just gossiping in the shade. There’s a tailor who sets up his foot-pedal sewing machine under the tree and takes their orders, simple as that. Hairdos are another matter, surprisingly complicated, given that women have no real hair to speak of…If they’ve got an inch or two to work with, the hairdresser will wrap sprigs of it in black thread so it stands up in little spikes…”(P109).

“He has scars all over his face. Not accident scars, but thin little lines, the type that some of them here get done to them on purpose, like a tattoo” (P125).

More to come… J

Taking a Sick Day

Being sick in Burkina is not easy. None of the usual comforts of home are available. All I wanted to do was curl up under my down comforter in my big, comfy bed at home and watch movies all day and eat soup and saltines! I missed my parents and grandma checking in on me and my dad bringing me hot and sour soup. When you’re sick in village, it’s really difficult to explain to the villagers. Burkinabe don’t share the same concept of sickness. When a Burkinabe is sick, they have a really bad case of malaria where their bodies are shutting down. There is no in between- you’re either extremely ill, or you’re still fine to work. Burkinabe work really hard, so naturally, they work through illnesses where we would normally be inclined to take a sick day in bed or go see a doctor. So, trying to explain to my village that I’m really sick, I can’t continue with normal daily activities and no, I don’t want one million visitors today, was nearly impossible.

I was first sick after attending my neighbor’s wedding in village. We ate and drank family style with most of the village. All of this sharing and a lack of any hand washing led to two weeks of misery. I got a bacterial infection over New Years. After some rounds of antibiotics, I was feeling better right in time for my birthday, which turned out to be a great celebration! After one blissful week of good health and contentedness, I went to a nearby city for a training session. The second I got there, my New Year’s symptoms returned and I became a squatter in my friend’s apartment because I was too sick to return to site.

So, that’s how my first sick leave in the capital began. I’m recovering from my second bacterial infection in my stomach this month, so I was brought in to see one of the Peace Corps medical officers (PCMO’s). I realized that something needs to change in my village life because I can’t be sick like this anymore. I need to get my health under control so I can be a better volunteer. It’s a challenge being happy and outgoing in village when you’re feeling sick. My sicknesses are most likely caused by my family style meals with my neighbors. There are twenty people eating tô and sauce out of the same bowls with their hands- and these hands do a lot of work and come into contact with a lot of germs throughout the day. Washing hands when they’re dirty is such a simple concept to us, but it’s a foreign concept to my village because soap is a luxury, not a necessity. So, my first little project is going to be educating my neighbors on hygiene and healthy lifestyles. I’m not sure what I’m going to do exactly, but I’ll keep you updated! I need to find a balance between integrating well in to the community and not giving up my own health to do it.

I’m feeling a lot better now and I’m ready to head back to village!

A Look Into My Village

Written January 5, 2011

At the end of stage I felt nothing but ready to be thrown into any village. I had put all fears aside and was so ready to leave stage to see what it would be like for me. I had heard people talk about their experiences and what I might expect, but that it is different for every village. I was just ready to see for myself already. Now that I’ve been in village for 20 days, I have often felt that I’d give anything to be back in stage. I used to complain about my host family with nothing but fondness, missing them. The faults I used to drive me crazy seem so silly to me now. They understood what the Peace Corps is and what I am doing here. They took care of me, were patient and gave me space when I wanted it.

I don’t think anything can really prepare you for village and adapting. What we learned in stage helped a lot with what to expect, but with such new and strange things, my reaction could not be prepared ahead of time. I’m feeling a little lost and unsure of my role here.

My village is pretty scarce. There is a Marché every 3 days. The Marché has vendors selling secondhand clothing, pagnes, flashlights, some small trinkets and minimal food. Women sell fried dough, fried millet cakes, fried fish, and dried, hard dehydrated peanut butter balls. You can also find some vendors with rice and sauce. A big seller on market days is dolo (local millet alcohol). It’s served out of giant garbage cans on wheelbarrows into calabashes shared by everyone- dried gourds cut in half like a giant bowl. I was expecting to be able to find some vegetables or fruits on market days, but I have only seen one woman selling wilted cabbage and one woman selling a tuberous root called patates. I can’t even find onions or tomatoes, which are generally the bare minimum you can find at a Marché here.

On non-market days, there is not much open. There are some small boutiques where you can purchase tomato paste, pasta, rice, soap, and other small knick knacks. You can also usually find some locally made bread. There is also usually a woman or two selling some fried item on the side of the road.

My house is behind the Marché, past the one school in village. I have a small courtyard with a mud wall around it, but with no gate at the opening so people come and go as they please. I have a small hanger that is falling down with the strong winds that have recently arrived. My house is a small square mud hut with a tin roof and a cement floor. It has 2 small windows and streaks of mud running down the walls where the roof leaked during the last rainy season. I’m doing my best to make my house into my home. I got some furniture made in Kaya (my regional capital) and I’m attempting to paint it a bright blue (a color much happier than the red dirt and dust all around me). My kitchen is a separate circular mud hut with a thatched straw roof that seems to be blowing away a little bit each day.

Across from my house is my neighbors’ family courtyard. The village is divided into family courtyards. There are 5 brothers and their 6 wives (one has two) and all of their children. The men live in mud houses and the women live in circular mud huts. I spend most of my time with my neighbors. I can’t really communicate with them because they all speak Moore and only one wife speaks mediocre French. I hang around while they pound millet, make to and sauce, do each other’s hair, wash the clothing, go to the pump to fetch water or go to the market to sell their goods. These women do a lot of hard labor. They all wear pagnes around their waists folded over in place. They use another pagne to attach their babies to their backs. And a third one wrapped around their head- this one, called a foulard, has many purposes. The foulard is there to be fashionable, to keep their heads warm and to balance and relieve the pressure from carrying so many heavy items on their heads. They put everything on their heads from giant (I mean giant!) sacks of rice to tubs of food they are selling to firewood to plastic containers filled with 50 pounds of water. I’m amazed by what they can balance on their heads and all the while there is always a baby loosely attached to their back.

I recently went out with some of the women to collect wood. They came and got me with axes balancing on their heads, basket in hand and baby on back. Of course my first thought was axe and baby in too close proximity! Then, we found part of a tree that had fallen and they began chipping off chunks with their axes. There were 3 women chopping at once, babies bouncing on their backs with every swing, wood flying everywhere and older toddlers climbing all over the log at the same time. Every time a chunk of wood came close to hitting a kid, the toddler would move for a minute then go right back to the line of fire. At one point, the axe head flew off of Ratmata’s axe nearly hitting a group of kids. She smiled, shrugged, retrieved the head and kept going once she reattached it. I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness I was witnessing. What seemed like such a dangerous situation that would never happen at home to me was just another day’s work to these women. When we finished, they readjusted their baby’s’ pagnes, put the baskets full of wood with each axe on top onto their heads and we walked back.

The women prepare every meal, watch the children, clean and do the laundry and prepare food that they will sell at the market. The men appear to do nothing. I constantly see them sitting around chatting or napping in the shade. Maybe they do more when they cultivate but the harvest took place right before my arrival. They hardly interact with the women. They eat separately and sleep separately from the women and children.

There is also a lack of what we consider childhood here. You are attached to your mother’s back with a pagne until you can walk on your own. Then you are the one attaching your baby brother or sister to your back. There are 5 year olds with 3 year olds attached to them. It seems like there are high expectations for children to continue the laborious life set before them by their ancestry. Little girls are trained at a young age to learn all of the household labor to be done. Little boys are allowed to run around and do whatever they want all day.

Home Sweet Home

Written about Friday, December 17

We were sworn in on Thursday, December 16^th at the ambassador’s house in Ouagadougou. The ceremony was a lot more formal than I was expecting and it was really nice. We all had outfits made with matching pagne material. We looked ridiculous, but it was fun that we were all in the same print. After the ceremony was over, a bunch of us went out to dinner and then dancing. Ouaga is so different than the rest of the country. Its downtown is a lot like places in the US, a few years behind. We ate a restaurant called Moulin Rouge and had pizza…it was real pizza. We almost died of happiness when we saw that you can even get it to go in real pizza take-out boxes. This may not seem like a big deal to you- but we’ve been eating tô and leaf sauces for two months now. So, it’s exciting to have a little taste of home every once in a while. The bar we went to was just like a bar in the US too. It had a nice little dance floor and a DJ booth with a DJ who was playing mostly American music for us. We danced all night and then headed back to the hotel. A few of my friends and I stayed up as late as we could because we knew we would be leaving each other the next morning at 7:30am.

Friday morning was pretty tough. When I first got to Burkina Faso, I had a difficult transition, but I got to experience the rough times with 29 other trainees going through the exact same thing. I finally got comfortable in Koudougou with my host family and all of my friends. So, it was really difficult saying goodbye to everyone. We each had different departure times and even some people who didn’t leave until the next day. So each time a car left with a few volunteers in it headed to different parts of Burkina, we did our circle of goodbye hugs, wished them good luck and even cried a little (mostly because we were afraid that we were the next to leave).

Finally it was my turn to leave and I’ll be completely honest, I cried for the first five minutes of the drive. Then my driver almost hit a herd of goats on the road (she literally missed them by one split second)…and then my tears stopped. My car stopped in Kaya first because my neighbor Grace was being dropped off there and she needed to buy some things for her house. I had to call my major (my counterpart for work) to ask him what kind of gas to buy for my camping stove and he said he didn’t know I was coming today. He thought I was coming to site after Christmas. He said that he wasn’t ready for me and he himself was in Kaya all day. So he made some phone calls to notify people in the village that I’d be there in an hour.

When we got to my village, we had to stop at the CSPS (the health center) to ask for directions to my house and for the keys to get in. After a bit of arguing over who had the keys, they were finally located and someone led us to my home. It’s only 1km away from the CSPS. I have a small courtyard with a wall surrounding it. I have an outdoor latrine and shower area for bucket baths in one corner. In the opposite corner is my bedroom. It’s a small room with two windows and a door. In another corner is a circular mud hut that is my kitchen. I have a small hanger between my kitchen and my house which provides nice shade. Once I get settled in, I’m going to start making my house my home.

On that first day in village, I had a few men stop by and say hello (in Moore so I could barely understand them) but then I was left alone…with about 20 kids in my courtyard…coming and going as they pleased, just staring at me. Whispering to each other in Moore and giggling. My house is in a quarter of the village, but it stands alone. I have neighbors, but I have to go into their family courtyard to see them. I was feeling pretty alone and desperate at this point. All of the Moore I had learned in the last month conveniently disappeared from my head. The villagers also pronounce a lot of words differently than I learned and they use different phrases for greetings.

My loneliness got even worse when I discovered that I have no cell phone reception whatsoever. I was not prepared for that! Towards the end of training when we were all getting worried, we always consoled each other by saying we could talk on the phone when necessary and keep each other updated on our lives in village. I wandered around my house and courtyard trying to find service but had no luck. Then, by a small tree in the corner of my courtyard, I got one bar, but every time I tried to make a call it would disappear.

 It was nighttime so it was pitch black since there’s no electricity, and I was exhausted. My major had not come back from Kaya yet and I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing with my time. I also hadn’t eaten anything all day because we were travelling to site and didn’t get to eat, then I got here and was alone besides the millions of children around me. I wanted to cook something but in Burkinabe culture you have to invite anyone around you to join you and I didn’t have enough food to feed 20 starving children and myself. At this point, I started crying. I was exhausted, confused, lonely, feeling pathetic and hungry.

I decided it would be best to call it a day and just go to sleep…I thought I could wake up and tomorrow would be a new, better day. I locked myself in my house and stared at my non-functioning cell phone. Then, my cell phone battery died. Even though it didn’t work, in my state of desperation I thought that at least having it on was good in case some phone service did surface. So, I’m sitting in my house, no light, no phone, no food….so I started to cry myself to sleep.

Then, someone came into my courtyard and called my name. I attempted to pull myself together, unlocked my door and went outside to find a man. He said he was my neighbor and he was good friends with the two volunteers before me. I was really not in any state to be meeting somebody. But he was so friendly and calming…I tried really hard not to…but I started crying to him. It is not acceptable to cry in Burkinabe culture. It just makes people very uncomfortable because nobody here ever cries. But this guy was different. He said it was okay and that everything would be alright. He had a car battery that could charge my phone and he would help me find phone service tomorrow. He said that he would make sure I ate something tomorrow. He told me that I was safe here and I didn’t need to be afraid. He said he would help talk to the neighbors to let them know that after dark I did not want visitors in my courtyard. He told me he would help me meet my community and he would teach me Moore so I could communicate with them. I felt like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders he made me feel so much better. So, I went to bed and decided that tomorrow would be better.

Saturday was a better day. I woke up, took my bucket bath and got ready. My new friend, Wiugou, came and greeted me. Then, we got on our bikes and went to a little kiosk down the road to get coffee. It tasted like a white mocha from Starbucks…I almost died. It’s nothing I would ever make at home because it seems really unhealthy, but it was delicious. It’s made with some condensed sweetened milk, some powdered instant coffee and hot water. We also ate some village bread, which tastes a lot like the peasant bread that my mom makes at home J Then, Wiugou took me to the CSPS to meet the staff there. My major was there and he said he was very upset that I hadn’t eaten in a day. He sent Wiugou and some other guy to chase a chicken for me. So, they disappeared for 15 minutes and came back with a live chicken that they tied to my bike with a piece of scrap fabric. The major told me to come back at 3pm, so Wiugou and I left to go visit the school.

I attended a meeting with the Association des Parents des Élèves (APE), which is the association of students’ parents. They were collecting money for the school year from each student in the village. There are 513 students and 6 different classes. The meeting took a couple of hours and it was in Moore so I only understood parts of it, but it was interesting. At the end, the gentlemen offered me 2.000cfa (how much it costs to purchase a chicken) as a gift. They said they were very happy to have me here and that they were looking forward to working with me. They were appreciative of me coming to their meeting to participate. It was really nice of them and it made me feel great!

After the meeting, Wiugou and I went back to my house. I told him I didn’t know what to do with a live chicken, so he agreed to prepare it for me. I don’t think I will ever be able to butcher a live animal with ease like everyone here does. He cut the chicken’s throat and after it died slowly, he brought it into the kitchen and put it into a bucket. Then a few seconds later, the still living chicken started squirming. Of course this happened right when I walked by the bucket, so I screamed and jumped backwards. It’s really amusing to Burkinabe when Americans are afraid of things like that. It officially died when Wiugou poured boiling water on it. This was to deplume it easier. It smelled like burning hair, which is not a desirable odor coming off of what you’re about to eat. Once deplumed, he butchered it into pieces and put it into a pot (head, feet, insides and all). He added some water, oil, seasonings and a can of tomato paste. It simmered until the meet was cooked and this is what they consider soup here.

At 3pm, I went back to the CSPS and met with the Agents de Sante Communautaire (ASC) which means community health agents. My village has a CSPS that serves 9 other villages around us called satellite villages. Each satellite village has a community health agent that comes to the CSPS to see what is going on with various health campaigns, and then they bring the information back to their communities. For example, there is a vitamin A campaign happening right now where the CSPS is giving out Vitamin A to all children under 5 years of age. So each ASC came to the CSPS to get the medicine and to learn how to distribute it properly.

On Sunday I biked to Boulsin for the harvest celebration. The celebration was at the market with what seemed like hundreds of people in attendance. I was the only white person there so it was really overwhelming. I drank dolo (local alcohol made out of millet) that everyone drinks out of kalabashes (dried gourds cut in half to make a bowl). People kept offering it to me and I had to accept the bowl out of politeness and take a sip. The entire day I was thinking of all the parasites I could get from sharing this dirty kalabash that hundreds of people and flies touch. But I wanted to be polite and to integrate well, so I chanced it and took some Pepto when I got home. It was really hot and I did the traditional greeting in Moore with hundreds of people, but it was great. It felt like I was starting to get to know my community.

Everyone keeps calling me Allison, the first volunteer. One villager showed me a picture of her- it’s because she’s half Asian but I don’t think we don’t look very similar.

Wiugou told me that people in the community said that they like me and that I’m nice. They said that it’s good that I laugh a lot and that I try to speak Moore. They said I’m going to be a good volunteer and that I will understand Moore in a month. That doesn’t seem like much time but I hope they’re right!