Okay, here's my issue. I'm trying to write interesting things, but the problem is that things that may seem remarkable back at home are usually completely unremarkable here. And I feel as though if I write about them I'm being culturally insensitive and making a show out of Burkina. Like, it would seem like I was being all shocked and amazed at a perfectly normal way of life for the people here. I know that that's not necessarily the case, but I think there's a line there that I'm trying to figure out. So if I'm not writing about the fact that, oh, there are no flush toilets, or... I don't even know now. The fact that there are roosters in my yard that crow most of the night? The fact that there are donkey carts competing with overloaded trucks competing with me on my bike on the main road? The complete lack of cheese in this country? The children (and occasionally adults) that are constantly yelling "Nassara" (foreigner) at me?
We all talk about these things here sometimes, just because we've been thrown into this new environment all together, but as time goes on we've started talking about them differently. Like, how clean are the latrines at this restaurant? Or, what do you do if you have bats living in yours? Or, so will I be able to hire a donkey cart to move my furniture to my house next month?
I know that one of the goals (maybe the main goal) of the Peace Corps is cultural exchange. And I don't want to be too hesitant about sharing my perspective of this culture, coming from an American background. But if I'm not telling all of the colorful details of my life here, it's because I want to understand it better before spouting off some random judgments about the country, especially when there's so much misinformation about Africa in general already.
Not that I'm trying to be all deep on this random blog that basically just exists so I can stay in contact with people at home. But I feel a little better about having this disclaimer about what I write.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
ah, memories
I apologize- I have been so remiss in my blogging duties lately. But it's kind of become a trend to go out for a drink in the evenings after classes, then hurry home for dinner, then write lesson plans while watching my Brazilian soap opera, Au Coeur du Peche, then go to bed. That's right, I said lesson plans! I used to be kind of skeptical of my elementary education friends in college, with all of their "lesson planning" and "early mornings," but now I know. These are real things, that must be done. Because we started model school! It's a summer course for kids who want to get ahead in the coming school year (or whose parents want them to get ahead in the coming school year) and we're just finishing up our second week of teaching. I've been teaching the 6ème SVT (sciences de la vie et de la terre) class, which is about the equivalent of sixth grade biology, and I've actually been having some good fun with it. Tomorrow we're dissecting peanuts. And it's certainly making me feel a lot more comfortable with the idea of being in charge of entire classes on my own. But it's also pretty tiring, and I'm looking forward to being done in two more weeks.
So now for fun things. Uh, wait. Okay. I told you I was tired. I remember now. We've been having a ton of birthdays lately (birthday season!) and doing cute things for those, and for Lorena's birthday I baked a cake! It was all chocolatey and frenchy and stuff, and it was delightful. Or I think it was- there wasn't quite enough for me to have a piece- but it was so nice to get to bake. I don't remember if I've written this before, but my plan for the first month at site, before school starts, is to spend all of my time in my house, baking and listening to music and painting the walls and lesson planning. I'm very excited about this.
What else. A couple of my friends who are in GEE came over to my house and we hung out and had a sleepover and watched The Office on my laptop, which was totally fun. Except that watching it made me crave sandwiches. You know, I don't know that product placement ever really affected me that much at home, but it's amazing what it does to you once you know you can never have any of the placed products, ever. Or, in the forseeable future. Or, right now. For this, I hate Subway. I tried eating a "meat" sandwich today and was just not satisfied.
So now for fun things. Uh, wait. Okay. I told you I was tired. I remember now. We've been having a ton of birthdays lately (birthday season!) and doing cute things for those, and for Lorena's birthday I baked a cake! It was all chocolatey and frenchy and stuff, and it was delightful. Or I think it was- there wasn't quite enough for me to have a piece- but it was so nice to get to bake. I don't remember if I've written this before, but my plan for the first month at site, before school starts, is to spend all of my time in my house, baking and listening to music and painting the walls and lesson planning. I'm very excited about this.
What else. A couple of my friends who are in GEE came over to my house and we hung out and had a sleepover and watched The Office on my laptop, which was totally fun. Except that watching it made me crave sandwiches. You know, I don't know that product placement ever really affected me that much at home, but it's amazing what it does to you once you know you can never have any of the placed products, ever. Or, in the forseeable future. Or, right now. For this, I hate Subway. I tried eating a "meat" sandwich today and was just not satisfied.
Friday, July 24, 2009
books! are heavy and expensive to mail
Sorry for monster post just now. Here is my newest list of ways to earn my eternal love, through the mail.
- drink mixes (the boring kind: crystal light, etc. I don't think I can find tequila here.)
- catalogs
- magazines
- books! (west african birds, flora, fauna, insects)
- star charts/books
- cookbooks (uh, for basic ingredients)
where there are lions
There are no lions. But that's what Bagré means. I'll take it.
So. Bagré. I went to there. And it was amazing. Seriously, riding out to my village in the bush taxi I hardly even noticed the smoke pouring from the engine into the cabin because the countryside was painfully picturesque. I felt like I was in magic land, with the green rolling hills and trees and occasional mud-walled compounds of little houses with round thatched roofs. Not too frequent, mind you. I'd say perfectly spaced out from one another.
The bush taxi stopped in Bagré village first. It's a smaller village, with no power lines and not many people. It is, however, where the big market takes place every third day. It's maybe 7km from my house, I think. Then we got to Bagré town (my stop!) The town is a bit bigger, and many places have electricity, and it has a lycée (high school) and a CSPS (health center.) And the town also has a smaller market, but it's there every day and apparently has most of the things I would want from a market anyways. I'm in a fabulous area, with the dam and all, so there's plenty of water to grow fruits and vegetables year round. There are also huge numbers of rice fields which produce some of the best rice you'll ever find.
I live a tiny bit further along the road, next to the new lycée. Unfortunately, this is not my lycée. My lycée is, as they say, "en brousse." You may be able to guess what that translates to. I'll tell you. It means "in the bush." So it's along the road between Bagré town and Bagré village, but significantly closer to the village. I think it's about 6km from my house, so I'm going to be a rockin cyclist by the time I'm done with my service. It should actually be really good for me: health-wise, happiness-wise, and birdwatching-wise. (I'm really excited about that part- the wildlife in my area is pretty much limited to birds, but these birds are amazing.) The only thing I'm not looking forward to is April. My region is really temperate, and even cold sometimes in December, but the hot season peaks in April and it's killer no matter where you are in the country.
Okay, so region, school... house!!!! I'm so spoiled. I'm going to be living in fonctionnaire housing, which means government worker housing. But unlike in the US, where government housing on, say, military bases is not necessarily fabulous, the government workers here are pretty well taken care of. My house is concrete, with high ceilings and a (still high) false ceiling underneath to help with the heat. I have a huge main room, two bedrooms, and a closet that would have been a shower had the builders actually installed plumbing. And, beautifully, I have electricity. They didn't actually wire my house, but they're going to, and until then they've just sniped power from the neighbors, which works for me!
Now, this is why I'm really spoiled. I'm replacing another volunteer, Liz, who's leaving this month. So she was there for my entire visit, and I got to talk with her for almost three entire days. And now I feel like I know everything about everything, because she's awesome. And she cooked amazing food, and will be leaving furniture and a cat (Jack) and a dog (Turtle) and a garden (vegetable) for me, and she introduced me to fabulous people: neighbors, friends, really fun Taiwanese NGO workers who have wireless internet, etc. And another Taiwanese man, Eddie, who is incredibly friendly and great and drove us around the countryside so I could see the dam and the rice fields and neighboring villages. And who gave me a ballin trucker hat.
So, long story short (too late!) I feel incredibly prepared to go live in my new home. I know:
where to find things
what I can find in village/town
who to go to with questions or problems
what I need to buy for my house
And so much more!
And I wanna go right now. Oh training.
So. Bagré. I went to there. And it was amazing. Seriously, riding out to my village in the bush taxi I hardly even noticed the smoke pouring from the engine into the cabin because the countryside was painfully picturesque. I felt like I was in magic land, with the green rolling hills and trees and occasional mud-walled compounds of little houses with round thatched roofs. Not too frequent, mind you. I'd say perfectly spaced out from one another.
The bush taxi stopped in Bagré village first. It's a smaller village, with no power lines and not many people. It is, however, where the big market takes place every third day. It's maybe 7km from my house, I think. Then we got to Bagré town (my stop!) The town is a bit bigger, and many places have electricity, and it has a lycée (high school) and a CSPS (health center.) And the town also has a smaller market, but it's there every day and apparently has most of the things I would want from a market anyways. I'm in a fabulous area, with the dam and all, so there's plenty of water to grow fruits and vegetables year round. There are also huge numbers of rice fields which produce some of the best rice you'll ever find.
I live a tiny bit further along the road, next to the new lycée. Unfortunately, this is not my lycée. My lycée is, as they say, "en brousse." You may be able to guess what that translates to. I'll tell you. It means "in the bush." So it's along the road between Bagré town and Bagré village, but significantly closer to the village. I think it's about 6km from my house, so I'm going to be a rockin cyclist by the time I'm done with my service. It should actually be really good for me: health-wise, happiness-wise, and birdwatching-wise. (I'm really excited about that part- the wildlife in my area is pretty much limited to birds, but these birds are amazing.) The only thing I'm not looking forward to is April. My region is really temperate, and even cold sometimes in December, but the hot season peaks in April and it's killer no matter where you are in the country.
Okay, so region, school... house!!!! I'm so spoiled. I'm going to be living in fonctionnaire housing, which means government worker housing. But unlike in the US, where government housing on, say, military bases is not necessarily fabulous, the government workers here are pretty well taken care of. My house is concrete, with high ceilings and a (still high) false ceiling underneath to help with the heat. I have a huge main room, two bedrooms, and a closet that would have been a shower had the builders actually installed plumbing. And, beautifully, I have electricity. They didn't actually wire my house, but they're going to, and until then they've just sniped power from the neighbors, which works for me!
Now, this is why I'm really spoiled. I'm replacing another volunteer, Liz, who's leaving this month. So she was there for my entire visit, and I got to talk with her for almost three entire days. And now I feel like I know everything about everything, because she's awesome. And she cooked amazing food, and will be leaving furniture and a cat (Jack) and a dog (Turtle) and a garden (vegetable) for me, and she introduced me to fabulous people: neighbors, friends, really fun Taiwanese NGO workers who have wireless internet, etc. And another Taiwanese man, Eddie, who is incredibly friendly and great and drove us around the countryside so I could see the dam and the rice fields and neighboring villages. And who gave me a ballin trucker hat.
So, long story short (too late!) I feel incredibly prepared to go live in my new home. I know:
where to find things
what I can find in village/town
who to go to with questions or problems
what I need to buy for my house
And so much more!
And I wanna go right now. Oh training.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
cat, dog, and garden
I'm going to Bagré!! This means nothing to anyone. But it's actually unbelievably exciting. Bagré is a largeish village in the southeastern region of Burkina, pretty close to the borders of both Ghana and Togo. It's mostly known for the huge dammed-up lake right next to it. The way I find it on my map is by looking for the symbol of the hippo, by the big blue region (lake) and I'm right next to it. Hippopotames!
And what I'm most excited about, honestly, are the few particulars I've learned by texting the volunteer who lives there now. I'll be replacing her when she ends her service, which means I'll work at her school and even move into her house, inheriting certain items. Such as: a cat, a dog, and a garden!!! I told our education advisor/boss/generally awesome guy, Seb, that I was hoping to be somewhere friendly (climate and people) with potential for vegetables. And he seriously hooked me up. With bonus lake!
So this week we have a workshop here in Ouahi with our homologues: our host country national counterparts who are from our village and will be our guides/advisors/cultural references/saviors when we move to site. We'll meet them and do conference-y things for two days, then they'll bring us to our respective sites for a several-day tour. I'll probably be staying with the current volunteer, and then during the day go out into the community with my homologue to meet future co-workers, the chief of police, the village chief, and other important people to know. And I'll finally get a visual on what my life will be like for these two years, and even some concrete information! I'm hoping I'll be inspired to work super hard through the rest of training, but I think it's more likely that I'll just be more stir-crazy stuck here in Ouahi and antsy to get started with my life already.
I'm already a little bit like that because I finally took a trip out to the villages where half of us are living right now. I was expecting villages to be smaller than where I live, with more basic houses and lots of children, but I was not expecting it to be so beautiful. The bike ride out is gorgeous, with a little dirt road leading through fields and very slight hills and a surprisingly green landscape (rainy season) dotted with trees. Then you get to village and it's all very clean and neat, with little cluster mazes of courtyards kind of scattered across the area. In between the clusters of houses are more fields and little dirt paths and baobab trees. Which are amazing. When we got into village we didn't know where we were going, so we asked for the nassaras (white people) and some kids took us over to the baobab where Emily and Julie had spent the entire day, reading and hanging out on a mat in the shade of the tree. Which is overly idyllic, I know, but it was still lovely. Then all of us who came, maybe 3/4 of our stage, had dinner in Emily's courtyard. The sky was clear and starry, but in the distance there was lightning so a few of us walked into the field to watch the storm roll in. Because of the rain we had to split off into a few people's houses to sleep, instead of all of us sleeping outside in one courtyard. It was an excellent slumber party and great experience and the people in village are so welcoming and lovely and I want to move to a village right now. I'm definitely starting to see how I can actually become a part of this country. Stars in my eyes, but I'm okay with idealism right now.
And what I'm most excited about, honestly, are the few particulars I've learned by texting the volunteer who lives there now. I'll be replacing her when she ends her service, which means I'll work at her school and even move into her house, inheriting certain items. Such as: a cat, a dog, and a garden!!! I told our education advisor/boss/generally awesome guy, Seb, that I was hoping to be somewhere friendly (climate and people) with potential for vegetables. And he seriously hooked me up. With bonus lake!
So this week we have a workshop here in Ouahi with our homologues: our host country national counterparts who are from our village and will be our guides/advisors/cultural references/saviors when we move to site. We'll meet them and do conference-y things for two days, then they'll bring us to our respective sites for a several-day tour. I'll probably be staying with the current volunteer, and then during the day go out into the community with my homologue to meet future co-workers, the chief of police, the village chief, and other important people to know. And I'll finally get a visual on what my life will be like for these two years, and even some concrete information! I'm hoping I'll be inspired to work super hard through the rest of training, but I think it's more likely that I'll just be more stir-crazy stuck here in Ouahi and antsy to get started with my life already.
I'm already a little bit like that because I finally took a trip out to the villages where half of us are living right now. I was expecting villages to be smaller than where I live, with more basic houses and lots of children, but I was not expecting it to be so beautiful. The bike ride out is gorgeous, with a little dirt road leading through fields and very slight hills and a surprisingly green landscape (rainy season) dotted with trees. Then you get to village and it's all very clean and neat, with little cluster mazes of courtyards kind of scattered across the area. In between the clusters of houses are more fields and little dirt paths and baobab trees. Which are amazing. When we got into village we didn't know where we were going, so we asked for the nassaras (white people) and some kids took us over to the baobab where Emily and Julie had spent the entire day, reading and hanging out on a mat in the shade of the tree. Which is overly idyllic, I know, but it was still lovely. Then all of us who came, maybe 3/4 of our stage, had dinner in Emily's courtyard. The sky was clear and starry, but in the distance there was lightning so a few of us walked into the field to watch the storm roll in. Because of the rain we had to split off into a few people's houses to sleep, instead of all of us sleeping outside in one courtyard. It was an excellent slumber party and great experience and the people in village are so welcoming and lovely and I want to move to a village right now. I'm definitely starting to see how I can actually become a part of this country. Stars in my eyes, but I'm okay with idealism right now.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
happy america
Okay, quick post today. Mostly because we have SITE ANNOUNCEMENT tomorrow, which means I find out where I'm going to live for the next two years, so I'll probably have significantly more to tell then. I can't even think about anything else right now. I want it to be tomorrow, like, right now.
Oh, but I can talk about this past weekend, and that grand American holiday, the fourth of July. On which date (as I explained to my host parents) we declared our independence from the tyrannical King George of England and his exploitative taxation policies. In... 1775? I'm pretty sure that's wrong. 1776? Well, the general idea is right. I'm teaching science.
But we, as stageaires (PC trainees), celebrated in grand fashion. Sans fireworks, but with hamburgers and pasta salad and Brakina (a local beer.) And hand-crafted pin the ___ on the ___ games, including my personal favorite, pin the Peace Corps Love on the Obama. It is currently hanging on my wall.
Okay, last information. Packages cost me like nothing to receive, so feel free to send them! I would be particularly grateful for: chocolate, drink mixes, candy, chocolate candy, any candy, granola bars, trail mixes, anything, chocolate. They can be sent to that one address I gave, and from there will eventually get to me.
And if you want to call, you can do so during my lunch, 12:30-2:00, or anytime after school (5:15-10.) And I'm pretty sure the time difference is 4 hours ahead of EST- I think we're on GMT here.
MORE INFORMATION TO COME. VERY SOON. MAYBE NOT TOMORROW, BUT DEFINITELY WITHIN SEVERAL DAYS.
Oh, but I can talk about this past weekend, and that grand American holiday, the fourth of July. On which date (as I explained to my host parents) we declared our independence from the tyrannical King George of England and his exploitative taxation policies. In... 1775? I'm pretty sure that's wrong. 1776? Well, the general idea is right. I'm teaching science.
But we, as stageaires (PC trainees), celebrated in grand fashion. Sans fireworks, but with hamburgers and pasta salad and Brakina (a local beer.) And hand-crafted pin the ___ on the ___ games, including my personal favorite, pin the Peace Corps Love on the Obama. It is currently hanging on my wall.
Okay, last information. Packages cost me like nothing to receive, so feel free to send them! I would be particularly grateful for: chocolate, drink mixes, candy, chocolate candy, any candy, granola bars, trail mixes, anything, chocolate. They can be sent to that one address I gave, and from there will eventually get to me.
And if you want to call, you can do so during my lunch, 12:30-2:00, or anytime after school (5:15-10.) And I'm pretty sure the time difference is 4 hours ahead of EST- I think we're on GMT here.
MORE INFORMATION TO COME. VERY SOON. MAYBE NOT TOMORROW, BUT DEFINITELY WITHIN SEVERAL DAYS.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
rain down in afrika
So, it's rainy season, and this morning I experienced it full force. I got up and the sky had kind of a funny orange-ish tinge, and then was completely orange, and then the wind started blowing and slamming windows and doors, and then the rain came. In torrents. I watched cartoons with my family for a while, then decided I should try to venture out and bike to language class. And when I opened the front gate, I just started laughing. Like, our road was a river. So my dad suggested that I take a different route, a better route. And I took this new route, and then remembered that I'm terrible at figuring out directions. A dozen wrong turns and forty minutes later, I finally stumbled onto a road that I recognized. I was covered in orange mud, soaked through, and cursing loudly (in between gasps for breath) when I rolled into school. But overall, it was a pretty hilarious adventure, and I will treasure the memory of it always. Or until I realize that this is going to happen to me every week, at which point I'll either invest in some serious waders and galoshes or head home. Pretty much a toss-up.
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