togo à go-go

Togo!! I went there for our spring break (whoo!) with a group of seven other volunteers, and we spent the entire five days on the beach. It was amazing. Completely un-Peace Corps; we did nothing constructive except teaching the hotel guys how to play beer pong, which is obviously the second goal of the Peace Corps: teaching about American culture. We're putting that in our quarterly reports.
So we swam, and ate, and... yeah, that's about it. Which was perfect. I know I should go sightseeing, and explore, and have adventures, but I'm pretty okay with a legit vacation once in a while with good people in a beautiful place. Pictures to come, maybe next weekend.
And now, back to reality. Or whatever version of reality it is that I live here. School starts again next week, and the trimester is only about six weeks long. That means that I have 54 hours of class left this year, over the course of which I have to write, review for, administer, grade, hand back and do in-class corrections for six tests. Plus actually teach. Teacher challenge!! Not looking forward to all that.

4

Okay, last post! This past Monday was March 8th, International Women's Day! It was a day off of school, and I got to participate in a couple of activities that I surprisingly enjoyed a lot. Surprisingly, because one of them involved me, in front of my entire village, attempting to play football. There was a women vs. men match, and I was recruited. I would have felt super lame if I'd refused, as much as I wanted to sit it out. So I played, and was terrible, obviously, but it was Not a true competitive match, and my skills were possibly on par with those of the other women. We had a couple of men dressed in pagnes (skirts) on our team, and after a while the game devolved into a sort of rugby match with the women throwing the ball into the goal. It was a really fun time and I learned just how awesome the women in my village are (answer: extremely awesome.)
Second event: a women's dinner, with dancing afterwards. And again, me, dancing, in front of many, many people. Not something I would generally attempt. But I think I may be getting over my self-consciousness, or just accepting embarrassment as inevitable, because I did, in fact, dance. And I enjoyed it. As did the other women. P.S. Turns out dance circles are universal- who knew?

Overall, great 8 Mars, and I've certainly felt more integrated into my village because of it- I've gotten many, many, many comments on my football skills and amazing dance moves.

3

I started my girls' club!! It's made up of the girls from my 4eme (8th grade) class, and since there are only twelve (out of almost seventy kids, which is a ridiculous proportion) it's a really good size for a club. And these girls are awesome. The club itself is nothing special- every Saturday morning we drink tea and hang out and draw and paint our nails and maybe practice some english, and I lead an activity on self-esteem or gender roles or whatever else I think they might be interested in. Basically what I love is just talking to them and learning about their lives, what they think about school, what they want to do in the future (I've got several nurses and doctors, a journalist, and a government minister) and it's very illuminating. Last week they got to sharing war stories from the beatings they received in elementary school (it was apparently worst on days when the teacher was drunk.) I told them that in the US a teacher would be put in prison for that, and they thought that was pretty cool. [I know I don't normally write negative things about Burkina on this blog, but that was one of those conversations where I stopped feeling at home here and started feeling a little overwhelmed and depressed about the state of things. Those conversations happen occasionally, and I don't want to dwell on them too much when I'm sharing my experiences with you all, but it is a part of my life.]
But these girls are wonderful and I love spending time with them, and Saturday mornings are quickly becoming the best time of my week.

2

I got to learn how to make pottery! My friend knows a lady who makes clay jars, so I went over to her house one morning and she taught me how to do it. It makes a lot of sense when you see it. There are these rounded basins in the ground, in all different sizes, and you put the clay in a basin and pound it with a smooth rock until it's thin and pottery-like. Then you sort of stand it on end and add more clay in the basin, and pound that out. So eventually you get a jar shape, and you can cut holes in the sides if it's going to be a water dish for chickens or you can add a neck if it's going to be for holding drinking water, then you let it dry before baking it. I made two: one for chickens/my cat, and one for cooling my water.












Because these pots are the most beautiful invention ever, and I'll tell you why. I even taught this in physics, that's how cool it is. The walls of a cannari (I have no idea how to spell it, or even what language it is- it means clay pot) are very porous, so the water that you put inside can evaporate through the walls. And since that process requires energy, it takes the necessary energy in form of heat from the water inside the jar, making the water that remains significantly cooler. So, on a hot afternoon, when all the water in my house is at room temperature (invariably higher than my body temperature) I can drink beautifully cool water from my cannari. And you can call me a nerd for loving this concept, but only after you drink hot water all day every day for a month or two.

1

I'm alive! I'm pretty sure a dead person wouldn't sweat this much. Sorry about the lack of blogging- since my Taiwanese friends left I haven't had much access to internet. So... exciting life events:

Water faucet news: They put in eight of them in a row next to the school, for all the students who came for the conference, then the day after the conference they took ALL of them out. Which just seems spiteful to me- I mean, the work was already done. It was more work for them to take them out again. Fortunately the principal managed to get them to put one back in, so I now have a water faucet I can see from my house! I walk my bike over to it with my bidons (water jugs) and then put them on my bike one at a time to walk back to my house. SO much easier. And yes, there has been a marked improvement in my garden's health as well as in my hygiene level .

NEW!! PHOTO: The view from my house- the faucet is by the woman in the burqa


Also: I met the president. My closest neighbor Dylan came down to Bagre in the hopes of seeing Blaise, and what a success! We were at the fish farm Sunday morning just to hang out, since Eddie (from Taiwan) invited us, when Blaise made a surprise visit. So we were in grungy clothes (Dylan was even wearing shorts- shocking!) and I hadn't showered in two days, so I think we made a pretty good impression. Maybe it was true to the spirit of Peace Corps? Minus the cultural appropriateness part. But it was kind of cool (for my true feelings on the political situation in Burkina, give me a call) in a historical sense at least and we got to shake Blaise's hand. Here's a picture of the visit!



Basically, that was the weirdest day ever, topped off by Eddie giving us squid to use for dinner (he was leaving the next day, so he was cleaning out his freezer.) So for dinner that night I thawed and cooked up some Szechuan squid, learning how Not to cut up a squid in the process. Getting inked by a squid in a village in Burkina Faso the day I met the president was just one of those moments, you know?

thanks, Blaise!!

I'm in Ouaga (again), for another meeting/training session, and there's not a lot to tell about my life this month. But something noteworthy is happening in Bagre: the president of Burkina, Blaise Compaore, is coming to my village! There's a youth conference there this week, with something like fifteen thousand "jeunes" coming to check out the eco-tourism center, the fish farm, the rice irrigation system, etc, and have sessions on agro-business. They'll be staying at every single public facility in the region, including my school, so no classes this week.

And Bagre has gone Insane. A helicopter flew over my house the other day. (This is in an area where there aren't even jet trails in the sky, because there are no airplanes.) There have been trucks constantly driving by, dozens every day. They've repaired the road, shipped in dirt to fill the potholes, electrified the final building at the lycee, installed power fixtures and run wires at my school (they're using a generator for this week, then maybe next year we'll get permanent electricity), and. The most exciting thing of all. This isn't completely certain- as I'm not there, I don't know. But I think I'm getting... a water faucet outside my courtyard.

This does not seem like an exciting thing. I'm aware of that. And it's not in my house, or even in my courtyard. But what I usually have to do is bike half a kilometer to the nearest pump, fill a bidon (water jug) with water, then attach it to my bike and bring it back to my house. Which isn't the most inconvenient thing in the world, but since it's the only way to get all of the water I use it makes me hate to do laundry, or water my garden, or wash my dishes. So if I get a robinet (water faucet) just outside my courtyard, I'm going to be just about the happiest kid in the world. Or, I guess, the kids in my neighborhood who have to get all the water for their families every day will be the happiest kids in the world. But I will be happy. It looked like they had started digging the trench for the pipes before I left, so I'm hopeful. I vow that if I have easier access to water I will wash my dishes at least once a week.

travelrama!

So, Christmas! Was wonderful. If I couldn't be home for christmas, this was the absolute next best thing. I went to my lovely, dear friend Leah's house (with a number of other volunteers and some of her village friends) for the holiday, in Orodara, which is really far southwest in the country. We had a traditional... Ukranian? Christmas eve meal, which was really meaningful and it was nice to celebrate with her family traditions. And we went caroling around her neighborhood (some of us very reluctantly, but it turned out to be really cute and fun,)and did stockings, and a white elephant gift exchange (Yankee swap!) Then, in a Christmas miracle, we had pizza and salad for our Christmas day lunch.



After Christmas, seven of us went on a bike tour of the area as our winter break vacation. We biked to Banfora, where there are waterfalls and "the domes," which are very cool natural rock formations. Okay. Honestly, Burkina's not the most beautiful country. It's not lush, it's not mountainous, it's not along the water. Like, it's the Sahel. It's kind of scrubby and dusty. But the southwest region of the country is more tropical than the rest, and the difference between the Orodara-Banfora area and my site was pretty remarkable. There were trees everywhere, tall trees, that made it feel forested. There were also rice fields (okay, I have those) and sugar cane fields and tons of fruit trees. It was a seriously beautiful bike trip. I'm really glad I got to experience a much different Burkina than I'm used to. Except for the fact that we camped out a lot, and I about froze to death. Not used to that.



And the last super-exciting and potentially life-threatening activity of our trip was the visit to the hippo lake! I believe I mentioned this. Well, we (seven of us and two guides) went out in a charming, small, slightly leaky wooden canoe onto a lake (Tangrila, like Shangri-la) in which there were a number of alleged hippos. As we approached the area where they were supposed to be, one of the guides started knocking the side of the boat with the wooden paddle, making a lovely resonant thudding noise, to scare the hippos out of the water.
I wish typing could convey the tone of my voice right now. I'm trying to express some intense horror and "this is a terrible, terrible idea"-ness regarding this idea. Let's try again. They were hitting the side of the boat, to scare. the hippos. really dangerous hippos. out of the water. so they would come up and look at us. When there were five hippos (including a mother and baby) with their heads out of the water, STARING AT US, I got slightly nervous. One of those moments where you joke to everybody about what a bad idea it is, and how cool it would be to be killed by hippos, but also kind of thinking that it could potentially really happen and that you're in the middle of a really stupid life choice. But it turned out perfectly fine, and very cool, and we saw hippos and got waterlily crowns and had a lovely time overall. I took pictures, but the hippos are mostly underwater.

and... hippo!