Working For Peanuts/Praying For Gold

I know I have been slacking on blog posts lately, but in actuality not much is happening currently. My village is still nowhere to be found, with most people off in the fields harvesting their millet, corn, peanuts, and beans. As no one is around, it is near impossible to plan anything of real significance. But I do have a few activities I am hoping to do once my village repopulates including health funtivities with my primary school and hopefully a malnutrition program as well. This past Tuesday and Wednesday, I went out with one of the nurses on our monthly vaccination campaigns in our satellite villages. In one of our villages, someone gave us a small plot of land for peanuts, so after we finished up, we checked on our crop and did a little harvesting. I had never really known how peanuts were harvested , but it is fairly simple. You just pull them out of the ground, comme ça:

People have given me so many peanuts lately, I don't know what to do with them all. Maybe I should give Planters a call. Anyways, after we checked on our field, we took a hike to see the gold mine nearby. They have discovered a lot of gold throughout our region, which has prompted many people to head to the mines in hopes of getting rich. Unfortunately, the mines are not the safest place to be. Falling into the mines, cave-ins, and mercury poisoning are all plausible dangers while working, and rape and STDs including AIDS are also elevated at these sites as well. Most of the work is done at nighttime when you can more easily see the gold glitter from the lanterns' light, but there were a couple people working when we showed up around 11am. We found this boy from my village sluicing for gold dust that may have been overlooked.

He told us he hadn't found any gold yet.

Our Assistant Nurse, Madame Zongo, is stricken with gold fever.

I feel like the rest of the year is going to be much busier, which will definitely be a nice change. In November I will be going on a mini-vacation to Mali for 4 days, hiking around what is known as Dogon Country (be on the lookout for more pictures). Then just before Thanksgiving, we have a Mid-Service Conference to discuss successes/failures and strategies for the coming year, as well as a medical and dental checkup. I have between then and mid-December to try to realize my 12-day malnutitrion program before leaving on Christmas vacation to America! That's right - I will be home from December 16th through January 6th to see family, friends, and eat some really awesome food. It looks like a busy two months ahead. Until then enjoy these random photos from village:

Isn't there something heavenly about light breaking through the clouds? C'mon, you know there is.

At 6am, while waiting for our nurse to head out for vaccination campaign, I caught these vultures chillin on my major's roof.

One of the last storms of the season

Panorama of the countryside near my village, what we call the brousse (the bush)

End of Rains

The rainy season has come to an end here in Burkina (at least up north) and we have moved into what is often described as the mini hot season. The green grass has gradually reverted to the dry amber that I remember when we first arrived. Last week was, in fact, our one-year anniversary. It is hard to believe that I have been living here that long and that I only have a little longer than a year remaining to make the strongest impact I can. I am actually ready for the rainy season to be over. While the rainfall was a nice change, I have grown tired of the humidity, mud, flies, mosquitos, and other critters (I woke up this morning to find a praying mantis in my house) that come with it. Just the other day, I almost ran over a two-foot long lizard in the middle of the road.

For the past week or so, my village has been basically empty, as everyone is out in the fields harvesting their crops. So I have had little opportunity to do substantial work lately but I am hoping to begin activities with my primary school soon. The most exciting thing that has happened lately is a celebration in my neighboring village of Youba known as Rasandaaga. I asked several people the meaning of the festivities but everyone said there is no significance and that it is just for fun. Anyway, it is the closest thing to a Burkinabe parade, with several groups of men, women, and children dressing up in traditional clothing and marching around the market while people dance, sing, and just have fun. It was really cool to see, as the market fills with people packed shoulder to shoulder to watch and partake. The following photos are from the fete:

The men leading the parade

A group of men walking and bobbing their heads in unison

People would come and slip money in their hats. That's Burkina's highest note 10,000CFA, equivalent to about $20 (i.e. a lot of money).

Men playing traditional percussion instruments for the women to dance to

The evening winding down. One thing about a parade in the desert - a lot of dust

Random Pics From Village

Women from Yargo, a neighborhood on the other side of my village

A random woman who wanted her photo taken

Campaign for national identification cards

Just your average bike ride home from town

Mmm . . . village pizza.

Ramadan: Break Fast of Champions

I often forget I live in an all-Muslim village. I live far enough from the mosque that I can only make out on occasion the sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. The absence of swine and alcohol (nevermind the fact that I have taken whiskey shots with my chef de terre in the past) is just a part of life. Never has religion seemed so apparent than during the past few weeks, as the Islamic community celebrates Ramadan. For those of you who don't know, Ramadan is a month-long holiday of fasting from food, drink, smoking and other indulgences from sun-up to sun-down for the sake of God. As I am not Muslim, I am of course not required to fast at all. While I still eat whenever I choose, I have learned very quickly that it is probably best not to do so in public. Every time I go to the market, I usually buy an iced treat, similar to frozen kool-aide. I have found though that now whenever I walk through the stalls savoring my popsicle, I have every single vendor asking me if I am not fasting. But then I think: these guys are bringing the frozen goods every market day from town and they wouldn't keep doing it if I was the only fast-breaking sinner, right? The thing I have about religion here is that it seems no matter what you believe, people do not care. They may be curious, make a joke about it, but everyone here is really accepting, and it is quite refreshing. Just the other day, I was hanging with some men around 4pm, when the call of prayer starts. All the men line up to pray, and afterwards one the men says to me: ¨Why don't you pray?¨ I said it was because I am not Muslim. He then asked me what religion I was, and I replied that I was Christian. He then smiled and said: ¨Oh, OK. It doesn't matter what religion you are. All of them are good.¨ One added bonus for me came from this holiday. While everyone fasts until sunset, it seems that small snacks like cookies and the like are OK to get you through the day, so many people are looking for such snacks. I had been looking throughout my village for someone who makes good gateaux (imagine greasy donuts sans sugar). Thanks to Ramadan, I have found the women who make them. Now it's donuts any day.

On a completely unrelated note, I was suckered into watching a circumcision the other day, which would have been enough there, but it was made 100 times worse by the fact that the patient was 12 years old. During the procedure, the nurse asked me what I as thinking and all I could say was: ¨That is not nice.¨ She said it as common to wait until the boys were older as that is how it was done here. Again I responded: ¨Not nice.¨ And I had always thought it was a quick snip snip procedure, but in fact it takes much longer time than I had thought and involves several shots of anesthesia, scissors, and a needle and thread (as well as a lot more blood than I pictured). It was perhaps a more painful thing for me to watch than that newborn baby a few weeks before, as I could imagine more clearly, unlike the woman giving birth, the pain the boy was feeling (you know that anesthesia doesn't take it all away). But I was impressed - the kid laid there and didn't yell or even cry, while there was a moment when I myself got light-headed just watching it. After seeing that, I really needed a donut.

The Dark Side of the Rain

I have often called the wind a cruel mistress, but I am beginning to think the rain is at least on par with her. Sure, the rain has made the land lush and greener than I imagined Burkina could look and it definitely helps cool the country down, yet we have all experienced the nasty side of the downpour as well. It is clear that the number of bugs has exponentially increased , especially with regard to flies and mosquitoes. This is a huge problem (as opposed to a nuisance in the U.S.) because flies promote diarrheal illnesses and mosquitoes of course bring malaria, two of Burkina's most serious health issues. My village alone has seen over 1,000 cases of malaria this rainy season so far (note that most cases are not considered serious and that over 90% of the cases in Aorema are easily treatable with medication from the CSPS.

Another serious issue with the rain has been flooding. While I have become accustomed to biking in mud and wading through pools of murk to get into town, last week Burkina saw its worst flooding it had seen since apparently 1919. We were told that over 150,000 people in the capital city of Ouagadougou were homeless, that many people were missing, and that at least three people died because of the inodations. For us volunteers it meant that travel was restricted for the time being, which actually prevented me from going to my major's wedding.

Lastly, the extra foliage that the rainy season has brought has become a perfect place for snakes. A few nights ago while a group of us were out watching TV, I hear my midwife yell that there is a serpent in the brush. Everyone cautiously walks over to her, and sure enough we spot a white snake about a meter long. Now I am not a fan of killing animals (even snakes) and if we were in the U.S., I would have entertained the idea of trying to catch it and release it back in the wild. But considering I live in the wild and the nearest antivenom is possibly three hours away, the two-by-four lying on the ground was looking pretty good. At first they tell someone to find a boy to deal with it, as they are all afraid and probably can tell I want little to do with it. But defending what honor and manhood I had left, I picked up the wood and started wailing on the poor critter. It took at least 15 good swings to actually kill the snake, and even after we chopped of its head, it was still slithering.

Thank you rain.

Never Say Never

Isn't that the expression? I said I would never go into the maternity building after dark. For some reason, babies prefer to be born at night. Maybe they have become used to the darkness in the womb. I don't know. Maybe they just want to wake everyone up. Whatever the reason, I know better than to go near that building after sunset. In my village it seems like every night a baby is being delivered, so our clinic's midwife is a busy woman. She almost never leaves village at all; she is too important not to be there.

There is a situation which occurs every few months or so, where for some reason or another all of our three qualified medical professionals in village have left, leaving me alone. Last Friday was just such a night. It is similar to an eclipse, where everything needs to line up perfectly. My major, the head nurse, was out of town, planning his wedding, I think. Madame Zongo, the assistance nurse, was in Ouahigouya for additional training. And Agi, the midwife who never seems to leave. . . seemed to have left, for some reason. It is like the perfect storm, and I am left to man the dinghy alone.

It was probably around 8pm when I hear a knock on our gate. I was in the middle of waching a movie, (Smokin' Aces to be exact) so I paused it to see who it was. A man on a moto was behind the door, a bit shocked I think to find a whitie on the other side. With my basic Mooré skills, I am able to deduce that there is a woman at the maternity whose stomach is hurting. I explain that I am not a doctor and that none of the clinic staff is there tonight. As a Peace Corps volunteer, it is prohibited to give technical medical assistance since we do not receive training for that. After I explain that to him the best I can, he leaves, and I return to my movie.

Perhaps thirty minutes later, I get another knock, this time from two different men. They tell me the same thing, and I tell them there is nothing I can do. They then ask me to come anyway, just to look. I think to myself that if someone is actually in serious danger, I would regret not doing anything. I grab a flashlight and lock my house, and we walk towards the maternity. I try to ask if she is going to have the baby tonight but I don't understand the response. I was nervous, since all I know about delivery babies comes from television shows and movies. As we get to the building the men stop at the doorway, not actaully going to go inside. Another red flag I shouldn't be here. As I enter cautiously, I hear crying, not the crying of a pregnant woman but rather that of a baby. I walk into the delivery room and see a young woman lying down. An older woman is there as well, which comforts me to know I am not the only one. As I get closer, I see the source of the crying - a tiny baby lying on the table between the woman's legs, its cord still attached.

I realize, lucky for me, the baby had already been born. The mother was moaning quietly and looked in pain. I asked, ¨Your stomach is hurting?¨ She says yes, and then I start to worry. Complications? Could something have happened during the delivery? But then I think, she just had a baby. My stomach would hurt too if I had just pushed that out of me! So I go check on the baby. A little pale but crying alot, which I assumed was a healthy sign. The other woman seemed have handled everything well, but now she was searching the room for something. She needed alcohol, but we couldn't find any, so I head over to the main building to get some from the storage closet. When I get back, she saids we need scissors. Luckily, the word scissors sounds the same in French and in Mooré. I walked to a table to see literally more than a dozen pairs of scissors of different sizes and shapes. Now which are the ¨cutting the cord¨ pair? Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I used a strip of fabric to tie a tight knot in the cord a few inches from the baby, held the flashlight, and let the woman do the actually cutting, which proved more difficult that I had imagined. Eventually she was able to cut all the way through. Then we lifted the baby and wrapped him tightly in some cloth. I ask the woman again if her stomach was still hurting, and she said no. The other woman says that we are finished, so I congratulate the new mom and head out. The men are still hanging out outside and I tell them that everything seems to be ok. When I got back home, I was so tired. I went to bed, leaving my movie to be finished the next day.

Although I didn't have to actually deliver the baby, it is as close to it as I would like to get here in Burkina. I checked the next morning and both baby and mother were fine and thankfully the assistant nurse returned that morning, relieving the pressure off me. Never say never.

I bet you never thought I would put up more photos either, but you are wrong. Thanks to suspiciously fast internet, enjoy more photos I have taken in and around my village, Aorèma.

This is one of my moringa trees in my yard. It now reaches a foot or so above the wall. This is the kind of tree that is packed full of nutirents. Through harvesting and adding the dried leaves in sauces and such, it can greatly increase the nutritional value of otherwise less healthy meals.

This is a picture of a frog. Sorry it is not a better shot, but they are actaully smaller than a jelly bean. I have never seen a frog so tiny before. When I first saw them, I wondered how flies could hop.

Found across Africa, the baobab on the other hand can grow to enormous size. The trunks of some are wider than a car. They use the leaves of the baobab to make a sauce used for to, a Burkinabe dish made from millet.
I have to give credit to the makers of Shrek. Never did I know how annoying donkeys could be until I moved here. I have been waken up at all hours by what sounds like an asthmatic horse trying to cough up a hair ball.
Women getting water at the well. Whenever I have my camera out, everyone wants their picture taken.

Kids riding a donkey cart. In Burkina, when you have heavy things to move, you don't call a moving trunk, you call a donkey cart. A pretty reliable system, albeit very very slow.

What do people think of when they think of Africa? Yes, people carrying things on their heads. This is nothing. I have seen women carrying on their craniums firewood in bins the size of large trashcans. Pretty crazy.


Really cool lightning over the clinic. I think my neighbors are used to seeing me with my camera whenever a storm comes.

And I leave you again with another one of my favorite recent shots. Right before a storm comes, the wind picks up, turning the sky brown with dust. When this happens, everyone knows to get home fast before things get worse. I got this photo right in my courtyard looking over the wall, as some kids retreat with a bull into the haze of sand. Until next time!

P.S. I made slight changes to my wish list, so check that out. I really appreciate everything everyone has sent. Thank you.

Photos From Village

So I've been hanging out in the capital this weekend picking up some clothes I had made from the tailor and running errands, so I thought it would be a perfect chance to use free internet time to upload photos. Unfortunately, the internet here is as slow as in Ouahigouya, so after several hours of waiting, I have only a few photos uploaded. Hopefully, I can add others soon, but for now, enjoy these snapshots from my village.

This photo was taken just at the start of rainy season, so it is just beginning to become greener. I really loved the look of this tree for some reason.

With this picture, I tried to bring out the dignity in cows. I'd like to believe he is contemplating the meaning of life, as oppose to contemplating where he is going to relieve himself next.

I walked one day from one end of my village to the other. It took about an hour, but I got some nice pics along the path.

Women at the well. That basin is filled to the brim with water, but girls are trained at a very young age in the art of carrying heavy and awkward things on their heads. Notice how green my desert village has become during the rainy season - a pleasant change of scenery.

One of my favorite pictures I have taken. This is the dam that rests on the edge of my village, the same dam with the crocodiles that I showed in an earlier post. I walked here just in time for a beautiful Burkina sunset. I sat in this exact spot for about half an hour, waiting for the intensity of color to reach its peak before I snagged this shot.