Banfourth of July

I feel like I should be in a confessional right now: ¨Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been one month since my last blog post.¨ I wish I had more of a reason for this procrastination, but isn't that reason enough. The rains have finally arrived, with two good showers this week. I have planted some trees in my courtyard and have also begun growing 40 moringa trees from seeds that I will eventually distribute out to the population as part of a nutrition training. It is really awesome to finally see more green in this semi-desert where I call home. Patches of grass have sprouted around the shallow pools of rainwater that collect throughout the village, each reminding me of a tiny oasis which beckons the sheep and goats to indulge themselves. Unfortunately, my courtyard has yet to see any grass and seems content in staying a muddy mess.

This morning we have a really great rain that lasted several hours. I am often in awe of the storms that come in, never realizing what a storm in the desert looks like. Inevitable, before the rains ever arrive, the winds sweep through carrying brown clouds of dust and sand. I saw an enormous one come through today at least four or five stories high, swallowing several villagers running back to their homes. It reminded me of The Mummy, when the airplane is being chased by the wall of sand created by Imhotep. I always have to run inside my house to close my windows in order to keep my house from looking like a dig site at Pompeii. Visibility is literally only a few feet in front of you at times, and if you are unluckily caught outside for any period of time, sand gets trapped in your hair, your mouth and everyone else you could imagine. But then, only a few minutes behind, the water soon catches up and pulls down with it all the dust in the air. The times when it is raining are some of my favorite times in Burkina. It often cools down over twenty degrees, dropping into the low 70s within a few minutes time. And when it really pours, the sheets of water on the ground reflect the white sky and it looks like a thin layer of snow if you squint your eyes. Of course, trying to bike into town immediately after the rain has fallen can prove frustrating for the impatient. This afternoon, I had to actually get off my bike and walk with it for fifteen minutes, as I trudged through ankle patches of mud and puddles of rainwater. I eventually made it, albeit through a different path than I normally take. I kept having to ask each person I saw ¨Ouahigouya sure?¨ (¨The path to Ouahigouya?¨) Luckily, I was not lacking in help, for everybody was outside working the fields as I passed by on my muddy bike.

I am now on my way to our Fourth of July celebration, taking place in the lush southern region of the country in a place call Banfora. Probably the more touristy side of Burkina, Banfora is home to one of our greatest natural treasures here, several beautiful waterfalls which everyone says I cannot miss. I will be reuniting with several other PCV friends for an Independence Day I surely will not forget. Now if only somebody brought sparklers.

Ghana Pics: Part 2

By some stroke of luck (or Karma), the internet is not only free today (yes, free), it is also fairly fast. So in an effort to pay it forward, I have dedicated this post to more pics from Ghana. Enjoy!

We tried to get some Dixcove kids to pose in a canoe. I don't think everyone understood.

Each canoe is actually made the old-fashioned way: hollowing it out of one really big tree.

Voilà moi, after hiking up the top of the mountain overlooking Busua Beach (evidently the property we were on with this great view and several bungalows is own by a German man who runs the local gold mine. Danke schön.)

Ghanaian man in traditional dress walking across the beach. You definitely see more Western-style clothing here than in Burkina.

Christy in the role of monkey, when our canoe trip proved simian-less.


Relaxing on our canoe ride while our guides to all the work. Thanks William & Mary Crew Team!

After our trip up river, we learned how palm wine is made.


Christy, showing off the latest trend in footwear on the runways of Milan.

Me, standing in front of giant bamboo stalks. It was a pretty cool site to see.

Nighttime on the beach.

Karma

No, I am not talking about the Hindu cause and effect cycle in which the effects of all life's deeds actively shape the past, present, and future. Today, I am referring to one of my three satellite villages, those villages which lack a health clinic and must share the CSPS in my village. Because these other villages do not have their own health clinic, it is usually the case that they are much more motivated and interested than the village with the CSPS. Because they often receive little attention from the health clinic besides monthly vaccinations, these are great places to focus one's attention. This weekend was all about Karma.

I had mentioned to my major that I would like to do sensibilizations (health demonstrations) in my satellite villages for said reasons, so he helped plan a few activities with my nearest village, Karma. Karma is located about 3 or 4km away and is another Mooré-speaking village. I had been there a few times to help out with vaccinations and was eager to return for more activities.

This Friday, we had our own vaccination campaign in Aorema which took up most of the morning. When this wrapped up, I ate a quick lunch (lettuce, cucumber and cheese sandwiches) and then headed of to Karma with my major around midday. The destination was an alphabetization class, one of the learn-how-to-read-Mooré classes for illiterate women. When we arrived we were greeted by around thirty-five women clapping their hands and singing us a welcome song. Their appreciation was immediately palpable. The major introduced ourselves and we got to work by asking the women what they want to learn. We ended up with a list that included family planning, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and meningitis. This was going to be a long afternoon.

So we took the priority topic - family planning - and my major began talking about the different options women had for ¨spacing their pregnancies,¨ which had all the women amazed. And then he handed the floor over to me, as he took the role of translator. Using a handy picture book (called a boite à image in French) with images related to family planning, I began telling the story of ¨our family,¨ who has five children and one on the way and suffers from the constant stress, sadness, and poverty that comes with having too many kids to take care of. It was great to see the women were into the discussion. At one point I showed a picture of a woman breastfeeding her child and asked ¨What do you see in this picture?¨ One woman answered ¨A healthy mother breastfeeding her baby.¨ I said, ¨Yes, and do you think this is a form of contraception?¨ Immediately, the group began quietly discussing this among themselves. After a few minutes, the same woman responded: ¨No, it is not.¨ When I told them that they were wrong and that by continuously breastfeeding their baby, day and night, they could not get pregnant again for about six months, they were all in complete shock. The woman who had answered for the group clapped her hands together in surprise and began giggling from excitement. It was really nice to see that these women actually learned something completely new that day. We continued with the rest of the topics and several hours later, we finished, and another round of songs began, this time thanking us. I made it back home feeling really great about it all.

Saturday morning, I awoke early. We left my village at around 7am to head back to Karma. Today we had another sensibilization on a much larger scale. Our focus today was solely HIV/AIDS, and it was geared towards the entire community. We had a theater troop come in from another neighboring village, and my friend and fellow volunteer Christina from that same village also came to help out. By the time we began our presentation, after setting up all the seating and sound equipment, there were at least 150 people there. Overall, I think it went really well. I couldn't follow much from the theater group since it was all in local language but I did catch the phrase Mam data fo (¨I want you¨) during a chat between the main guy and girl and the girl refusing his advances. The people seemed to really enjoy it, and along with talks and demonstrations from my major, Christina and I, I think they definitely took a lot away from our presentation.

It was great to see so many people interested in what we were doing. You could tell that for the majority of these people, most of this information was new to them. I am excited to have another year and a half to prepare several more sensibilizations and other activities with Karma and the other villages. But after all the work this weekend, all I really want to do right now is crash. Until next time. Peace.

Snapshots from Ghana

So I don't have much news to talk about. Rains are beginning to come, which means it is slightly cooler but much more humid here. I gave my major a ware game board (a game played across Africa under various names using seeds or stones which one ¨sows¨ around the board; also known as mancala) as a gift from Ghana, but now everyone comes over to play against the whitie. Most have no clue that I played the game a lot when I was younger and can manage well on my own (¨A banga ware,¨ they say, ¨He understands ware¨). Besides that, not much else is new, so I thought I would take a moment to give you a glimpse at some of the funny (and often awkward) moments from my recent vacation from Ghana, while they are still relatively fresh in my mind. Shall we begin with the awkward:

• Christy and I were eating one day at a restaurant with margaritas on the menu and I have been that I wanted one for a long time. I also know after living in Africa, that just because it is written, doesn't make it true. I also read somewhere in my guidebook about negatives in Ghanaian English, but I didn't pay much attention. So I walked up to the waitress and the conversation went something like this: ¨Hi, can you make margaritas?¨ ¨No, we can't.¨ ¨Oh, so you don't have any?¨ ¨Yes.¨ ¨Oh . . . you do have them.¨ ¨No, we don't.¨ ¨Oh . . . OK.¨(Cut to me walking away awkwardly)
• When we were in the reserve looking for monkeys, our tour guide was quite entertaining. Every time we heard a monkey howl, we stopped but when we didn't see anything, he felt the need to point some random thing out as a sort of consolation prize for the lack of monkeys. ¨Look at this tree.¨ ¨Look, a bird.¨ ¨See here (pointing to his arm), mosquito.¨
• This same guide forced Christy and I to put on large and rather painful rubber boots which I could tell Christy wasn't too excited about. Neither was I. But half an hour into the trek we came across thousands and thousands of black ants that were crossing the path in front of us. There were so many, it looked like a stream of oil several feet wide in our way. Our guide said ¨Now we have to trot,¨ as we all ran across to the other side. Our guide then turns to us with a smile. ¨Now you should be glad you had the boots.¨
• One time in a tro-tro on the way to the beach, we met a man named Joe. Now Joe was a really nice guy who was very helpful for us. He even helped the blind man in our van when he had to go to the bathroom. The blind man is another anecdote altogether (he couldn't see to keep his arms and hands to himself and almost got to second base with Christy accidentally). Now Joe lived in Spain for five years and so he spoke Spanish. We had a small conversation in Spanish, as I tried to switch my brain from French. It was a rather basic conversation, where has asked me about my work and what not. He told me he loved Enrique Inglesias (I said I prefered Shakira) and then he said ¨Oh, Enrique is so good-looking, isn't he?¨ ¨Um . . . OK.¨ Lessen learned: don't speak Spanish in Ghanaian tro-tros.
• Now the currency of Ghana can get confusing since they recently revalued it but people still use the old way and it can be especially confusing if you are use to dealing in CFAs like us. We were in Kumasi and went to a public restroom. I waited outside and when Christy came out, the man said, ¨You owe 1,000 pesewa.¨ ¨1,000! What! I hope you like taking Obruni (whitie) money!¨ She handed him a cedi (about one dollar, or 10,000 pesewas) and was about to leave when he told her to get her change. 1,000 is actually only ten cents, not a dollar as she thought he was demanding.
• There was a bar/restaurant near our hotel on the beach that we ate at a couple times. It was a Rastafarian place with big pictures of Bob Marley and marijuana leaves painted on the walls. And I don't think it was a coincidence that the cook's name was Stone.
• On our walk to Dixcove, we passed by an old woman near the fort. She stopped us and said in broken English ¨This man, he be putting me down.¨ So I turn to the guy and say ¨Hey, that's not cool. She is a nice lady.¨ And then the old woman started cracking up and grabbed my hand yelling ¨I am a nice woman! I am a nice woman!¨ Then she asked for some money. Ha, not that nice.
• We walked to Butre three km away we had to climb up a pretty steep hill. It has just rained and so the pathway was not only steep but also muddy. By the time when we got to the top our feet, mostly Christy's, were covered in mud. We told our canoe trip tour guides about it later, to which they replied, ¨You didn't take the stairs?¨ Needless to say, we took the stairs on the way down.

Hope you enjoyed this. I had hoped to put up some more pics but the internet is running really slow today, but I will try next time.

Ghana!

After the longest bus ride of my life, I am happy to say I have returned safe and sound to Burkina after spending my first real vacation since I arrived six months ago. My friend and neighbor during training Christy, and I spent one week gallivanting across Ghana, travelling by bus and tro-tro (bush taxi) from the northern border all the way south to the gorgeous palm-lined shores of Busua Beach (which lies just west of Takoradi where the coast comes to a point).

It started last Wednesday as every good vacation should: with a 16-hour bus ride, from Ouagadougou to Kumasi, the capital of the Asante kingdom. The bus was actually the nicest I have been on in Africa with relatively comfortable seats and air conditioning, but it could not make up for stopping every twenty-minutes for police checkpoints and bathroom breaks. But we finally pulled into the Kumasi station at around 12:30am on Thursday morning. We got a cab and headed straight for the PC Suboffice which is used as a hostel for PC Ghana volunteers as well as those PCVs from neighboring countries. We crept into the house and hit the sack right away. If you did not think we were torturing ourselves at that point, we awoke the next morning only to begin part two of our trip: another 6 hours hopping from tro-tro to tro-tro, making our way to the beach. We finally arrived Thursday evening and were lucky to find very few tourists, so it was easy to snatch up a hotel room from a nice place named Dadson Lodge for 12 cedis a night (about $12, 1 cedi = $1)


The next three days we spent relaxing on the beach and exploring the surroundings. The water was beautiful and the waves were supposedly some of the best in Ghana for surfing. We thought at first we were the only whities (called obrunis, in the local language Twi) on the beach, but we eventually discovered that they were all at the other end of the beach where the nice resorts were located. It still felt like we had the whole beach to ourselves, and it was great getting to know the locals rather than other tourists. It was a pleasant change to have the mutual understanding that comes with visiting an English-speaking country. We ate at several nice restaurants and sampled the street fare as well. Staples include kenkey with shito sauce, fufu in groundnut sauce, rice, and beans, but Ghana is also known for such delights as fried chicken and fried rice, which I packed myself full of, not to mention fresh seafood like tuna and shrimp, which is hard to come by in land-locked Burkina.


We also took one day exploring the neighboring fishing village of Dixcove, which still harbors a17th-century British fort and another day trekking to Butre, a village 3km in the opposite direction, where we took a canoe trip in search of monkeys. We didn't find any monkeys, but we befriended the two river guides that accompanied us. (One said he was certified in CPR and First-Aid, in case of emergency; the other told us he was certified to "entertain people.") When we asked about palm wine, the traditional hooch of the area, they took us on a walk through the bush to meet a friend of theirs who actually makes the goods. We were able to get a look at how they make palm wine and got to sample some as well (which I actually prefer to our local Burkina brew known as dolo, or millet beer).

After the beach we headed back up by tro-tro to Kumasi, home of the Asante people, the largest market in West Africa, and a record number of bootlegged DVDs. We only stayed here for a day and a half, and it definitely wasn't enough time to get comfortable enough with the city. It is the closest thing to America that I have seen in six months, reminding me a bit of San Francisco with its steep hills (vis-a-vis Ouaga's flat terrain), and the entire vibe of the place is much more western and much more developed, which I think can actually be said for the whole country in comparison to Burkina. The market was overwhelming to say the least. Sprawled out across several city blocks, we continuously seemed to get lost in its labyrinthine passageways. It was an experience if nothing else. Coincidentally, we ran into a Swedish/French couple at the market that we meet the week before in Ouaga while applying for our Ghanaian visas. Our last day we actually left the city and went on a half-hour ride west to the small Owabi Wildlife Sanctuary where we actually did see (and hear) monkeys, as well as many species of birds and butterflies. Then we headed back to the city and got together our things to start the long journey home, which ended up taking nineteen hours (two hours of which was waiting for the border to open and then another hour and a half getting through the border). But it is nice to be home again, to familiarity, where I don't have to think in English anymore when talking to Africans (never learned how to do that) and the money makes sense to me. At least I have ten "new" movies to watch when I am back. Here are just a few pics from our vacation:

Fishing boats at Busua Beach

Me and a palm tree, the only shady place on the entire beach

We we told a local guy we found a shady spot to chill on the shore, he responded: "Oh, you mean the palm tree." Obviously, it has a reputation.

British fort built in the 1600s in the village of Dixcove

View of Dixcove from said fort

Christy and I in Butre

Learning how to make palm wine from our guides/friends (blue shirt and white shirt)

Man carrying sugarcane down the beach

Fishing canoes in various stages of production (each is carved from a single huge tree)

My Current Situation

I have one hour and four minutes before this machine kicks me off and the ¨z¨ button has been replaced with a ¨w,¨ so now there are two buttons for ¨w¨ and I keep hitting the wrong one because the ¨z¨ on the French keyboard is actually in the exact spot where the ¨w¨ is on the American one. Please replace any ¨z¨ you see with a ¨w¨ from here on out, unless otherwise noted and forgive the typos that will inevitably follow.

It has been a week or so since my last post. Throughout the week I always find myself thinking about different things to write about when I get to the cyberposte here in town, but then I arrive and forget everything I wanted to say. I really should start writing things down. Thank you for all the Easter greetings. I celebrated with my fellow volunteers in the area and my major and his wife. Like every holiday here in Burkina, this one involved the routine trips from home to home where we wined and dined until late. It was fun, but boy was I tired the next morning.

My boss, the Health APCD, arrived on Wednesday for a site visit in Aorema. It was a really nice visit, where I was able to show her my house (which she called mignon and I agreed) and the CSPS, and she met with my major and some of the French-speaking CoGes members to discuss my life, my home, my adjustment, and our plans for the future. It was a nice change to be able to express my concerns and thoughts fully with someone who 1) speaks English and 2) understands as much as possible what we are going through. They even drove me the 2km to my market, which was trop gentile.

I am always afraid to write things done here, knowing that often things don't work out the way they are supposed to here. For instance, I have know since I arrived in January that my village would eventually be getting electricity. I haven't really talked about that because who honestly knows when that will happen. We have had the poles in place since before I came, but these things never commence as planned. But now, two neighboring villages have been hooked up with current and Aorema is slated to be next. I have in fact heard that the village 2km away Youba where my market is located is receiving free power until Aorema's is installed. This would tell me that we should be getting electricity relatively soon, as in a matter of weeks. At the moment, no health volunteers have elctricity in their homes, so you can imagine how interesting this situation is. I think it would really be a win-win-win for everyone. The CSPS would have power to have lights for nighttime births, etc.; I would have outlets for a much needed fan, as well as lights to read at night and a way to charge my phone, computer, etc.; and you all will have better blog posts to read because I will have more than an hour and four minutes to write something up. I believe each outlet will cost about 3.000CFA, which is about $6, and they plan on putting 2 outlets in my house. After that I can not imagine paying more than 3.000CFA each month for the power. A small price to pay. Let's hope I did not jinx the whole thing by writing it, and that it will be realized (there's the z) relatively soon.

In other news, I am leaving with a friend on the 29th to go on a short vacation in Ghana. I am super excited to be able to see the ocean and escape the heat for a few days. I should be able to post one more blog before heading out, so until that time, I will leave you with this anecdote:

A villager asked my major why we only vaccinate little children, and my major told him: ¨Think about a tree. When it is a small sapling, you need to water it regularly to make sure it grows strong and healthy. But when it is fully grown, do you still need to water it?¨ The man shook his head, no. My major continued, ¨No, you do not. People are like the trees, and we need to water the saplings.¨ (I thought it was a really insightful way of explaining things)

The Project Rock

So some how I have made it through the long three weeks that was IST, or In-Service Training. As you know, I spent one week working on language here in Ouahigouya, a second week in the capital, and a third week back in Ouahigouya again. It was an exhausting training and I am glad to be back in village (even if I don't know exactly how to start).

The problem is like this. We are of course in the hot season where temperatures reach in the triple digits. This will last for about another month or two. And then the rainy season comes. And during this time, everybody is working in the fields with their crops. It is their livelihood here, so you can imagine how busy people are during this time. Thus, it is very very difficult to do any grandiose projects because nobody will come and everyone is too tired. So basically the best time to start these larger projects is after the rains and thus in the fall. So basically I have until June-ish to do any projects that I want to do before rainy season. Also I am going on a much needed vacation at the end of this month to Ghana for a week, which understandably cuts into my time but also is drastically needed. So where does that leave me?

It leaves me confused with little time to figure out what I need to do. But I do have ideas about what I want the next few months to look like, my ¨plan d'action¨ so to speak.

• I want to go on Monday and talk to the director of my primary school in village about setting up some times when I can come in and talk a little about health topics that relate to the students. I think this si easiest for me because the older kids should understand French enough that I don't need to bring someone to translate. Perhaps if I can get a twice-monthly health class going, that should give me several discussions before school gets out for summer.
• I want to find and interview the several women's groups that supposedly exist in Aorema to discover what their greatest needs are. I have become very interested in the formation of small savings and credit clubs, which teach groups to save and loan money among themselves. Because right now people have very little money (foods supplies are running short and their harvests don't come until the fall), it would make sense to wait until they have more money to start this, but I would like to at least get to know these groups and discuss their options for after the rains.
• The one good thing to do during the rains, obviously, is gardening because you don't need to water anything (though most people are actually too busy in the fields to take advantage of this). So my plan is when I get back from vacation to start hardcore growing of moringa seedlings. For those of you that do not know, moringa (known as ¨arzen tiiga¨ or paradise tree in Mooré) is an amazing plant that has highly nutritious leaves and is ideal for hot climates such as in Burkina. It is great to add to sauces and children's meals to add extra nutrients, since malnutrition is a huge problem here. So I want to start growing a lot of morninga and possibly start my own vegetable garden in my courtyard when the rains come.

Those are the main things I want to work on in the next few months. I also hope to work with my CSPS staff during their vaccination campaigns , baby weighing, and the other regular activities at the clinic. I think once things get going, it will be alot easier to keep the momentum going, but right now it feels like I am try to push a boulder that won't budge, an enormous rock that has never moved an inch.

Anyway, I'm here in Ouahigouya for the weekend, hopefully celebrating Easter with my major, one of the handful of people from my village who celebrate it. Hopefully, I can figure out how to get this boulder rolling when I get back. Happy Easter and Passover to all! Until next time!