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!