I finally have a chance to pull out my laptop when I have access to electricity to type up a longer post. I get very little free time when I’m in Ouahigouya so its hard to get to the internet café. Once I’m there, its very slow and has French keyboards so its hard to write much. Now I have the day completely free with no plans other than to visit the pool this afternoon at the fancy hotel in town. I haven’t gone yet but many of my fellow trainees went last weekend while I stayed in the village with my host family.
I’m doing great in Burkina and am slowly adjusting to a completely new way of life. I know this won’t last for long though since we have six more weeks of training and everything will be shook up again when I move to my permanent site where I’ll be living for two years. We’ve only been here less than 3 weeks but it feels like several months. The days are long and busy and it feels like they are trying to pack so much into training. We have between 2-6 hours of language class a day yet my French is not improving very quickly. The teaching method isn’t working so well for me but I figure I also need to take more initiative on my own part to study more. Its hard since I feel so tired by the time we’re done with classes and I’m usually sitting in the dark while 30 children stare at me. I try to practice French at home but many of the kids only speak Moore. Along with language classes we have had lots of medical sessions including ones about sexual assault and HIV/AIDS last week. They are very concerned about our health and safety over the next few years and we’ve gotten lots of advice on prevention.
Our technical training has focused on information about the Burkina Faso health care system and collaborating with Community Based Organizations (CBOs). All of the health volunteers will be assigned to a village health center (CSPS) that is run by an elected board of community members (COGES). Most CSPS’s have a head nurse, assistant nurse, and midwife who are assigned to work there along with a pharmacist, village midwife, and guard that come from the community. The reality among CSPS’s and COGES’s seem to vary greatly. We have visited the CSPS in the village I am currently living and met with several COGES members and the assistant nurse. I think we will start doing more hands-on activities and trainings over the next few weeks.
I have learned a little bit more about my host family but still can’t understand the relationships between mom, dads, and children. I’m not sure who sleeps where or any other simple concepts of core families. All of the children play together and I think eat in groups but I haven’t been able to spend enough time with them or have the language skills to understand the reality of the situation in my home. Everyone is great and I love the kids. They make me feel so welcome when I come home from training and love to sit in my courtyard and watch anything I do. My host dad speaks very little French and I speak only a bit of French and very little Moore yet we are able to communicate somehow. He always makes a point to great me in the morning and evenings and seems happy to have me staying at his home.
I can’t remember what I wrote about the house before so I’ll try to describe it a bit now. Its so unlike anywhere I have ever been so I find it difficult to describe but here is my best shot. We have a large walled compound with a long hallway that is open to the sky. There are at least 30 goats that live in this hallway. On either side of the hallway are doorways leading into small courtyards and rooms off of the courtyards. My courtyard and two rooms are at the end of the hallway. The walls are made out of mud or dung bricks and the courtyards have dirt floors. My rooms have cement floors but I’m not sure about the others. Its hard to tell what my roof is made of because they have black plastic nailed up on inside ceiling. In one corner, this is falling and it looks like the roof is made of small tree branches about an inch in diameter.
I would say there are about 8 of these courtyards and several rooms off each courtyard. Since there are walls about 5 feet high, its hard for me to really tell what is going on in the other courtyards other than peaking through the doorways. The rooms are pretty small but I don’t think people spend much time in them other than to store there few possessions and probably sleep during the cooler season. I think many people sleep outside now but I pretty much stay in my own courtyard once I’m home so am not sure how it works. My sister brings me meals and I eat in the courtyard. Off of my courtyard is my latrine and bathing area. Basically there is a wall in one corner with a latrine hole and a drain for me to take a bucket bath. Its dusk or already dark when I get home so I have gotten used to bathing under the stars. Its an amazing experience! I have seen more shooting starts in the last 3 weeks than I ever have in my life! I have slept inside every night at my host family just because its easier even though its very hot in my room and I sweat all night long! My bucket baths are great after a sweaty day of classes and biking and after a sweaty night! This is what the locals call “the mini-hot season” and it should be cooling down within the next few weeks. It is nice outside at night but at least in the high 90s in the middle of the day.
To get to my village from Ouahigouya I have to bike for 45-60 minutes on a long red dirt road. It is full of lots of ruts and in parts has loose gravel and dirt that is difficult to bike through. Whenever vehicles or motorcycles pass us on the road which is very frequently, we are covered in huge clouds of dust. The ride is not easy for me at this point but I keep telling myself it will get better as I continue to bike more. I don’t mind biking at 7 am because it is still fairly cool out but I’m usually a sweaty, red dust covered mess when I get to training. We spend at least one night a week in Ouahigouya in order to have time to get to the internet, market, or run other errands in the big city. We have class until 5:15 and need to leave immediately in order to have any chance of making it home before dark. The sun begins to set around 5:45 and its completely dark by 6:15 each evening. It rises at 6 am every morning and I usually get up around 5:45 without an alarm just as it is getting lighter out. I wake up early because I go to bed by around 9 pm each night and also because there are lots of donkeys, goats, sheep, cows, roosters, and other animals that make noise all night long and eventually its just not worth trying to sleep any longer. I never realized how loud donkeys are! I have woken up in the middle of the night several times thinking someone was dieing only to realize it was just a donkey “hee-hawing.”
I spent Wed-Sat on Demystification. This is the PC term for visiting a current volunteer and removing the mystery around PC life. I stayed with Becky, a volunteer in a small village about 40 km outside of Ouaga. The capital city is so close you can see a haze of lights at night from outside her courtyard but transport is unreliable so she feels very rural. I loved spending time with her and found her to be very inspiring. She has been in country about a year and is so well integrated into her community and its obvious they love having her there. She came in with no language but easily communicates in French and Moore. She has a theatre group that recently received a grant for a week-long training and supplies. They had their first performance since the training while we were there so we enjoyed seeing them perform a skit about HIV/AIDS followed by a discussion about prevention at another nearby village. I can’t imagine having two years of training and living with my host family but I can imagine living and working as Becky is. She has a private courtyard and two room house which she has decorated nicely. I’m excited to learn about my site in a week and a half!
There have been lots of questions about food, culture, etc but I think I need to wait to write more about these topics until I learn more myself. Please keep sending questions and I will do the best I can to address them when I get a chance. My processing of what I am seeing and learning is slower here so it takes me longer to communicate what I am experiencing. Thanks for your patience!
Today I received two birthday cards which is super exciting since its still two weeks away! Mail arrival seems to vary since I received a card today from my mom that was sent Oct 16 but know she sent one Oct 6 that I still haven’t gotten.
Sorry if this is a bit disjointed! I hope that its not too long and boring but I figured I’d try to get everything out that I could think of since I have the time to write now. Love and miss you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment