Third Year Update

Hello again. As you may know, I had decided to say adieu to this blog at the end of last year. My two contracted years of service with Peace Corps had finished, and although I would be returning to Burkina for another year, I thought it high time for a change. Moving from my small village in the North to my new home in the capital city of Ouagadougou warranted a break from cyberspace as I began to get habituated to my new surroundings, my new job, and my new life (for 2011). It has been about six months since the move, and I feel obliged to at least bequeath some small sort of update to those of you still reading this blog. If you would like me to continue to update this on a more recurrent basis, please let me know. Otherwise, you will have to take what you can get. With that, let’s get everyone up to date.

I moved to Ouaga at the end of January, after a month long vacation in America. For those who don’t know, Ouaga(dougou) is the capital of Burkina Faso. The city is about as Western as Burkina can get. Situated smack dab in the middle of the country, it boasts a population of 1.5 million people, and has pretty much anything you could possibly want (if you know where to look). I don’t like taking my camera out around the city but I’m sure if you Google image search Ouagadougou, you will get a better idea of what it looks like. It’s actually quite large, as it takes me at least 45 minutes and a change of taxis to get from one end of the city (i.e., my house) to the other (i.e., Peace Corps office). Luckily taxis, green and usually dilapidated, are fairly plentiful, and most days it isn’t hard to snag one heading in your direction. Downtown, there are lots of great restaurants and cafes, which I try to avoid as much as possible to save money, though I have been known to splurge from time to time. There are also a couple fairly decent supermarkets downtown, which have lots of the luxuries of the West (I’m thinking cheese, meat, wine, etc), but I try not to break the bank there either. Other places around town to spend money at include Eurotex, the large textile warehouse (think Project Runway) to buy fabric to have clothes made, as well as several home stores like Orca, an amazing four-story building that’s the closest thing to a Bed, Bath, and Beyond that this country has.

If you head southwest of the city center and just keep going, after twenty minutes or so, you will hit my neighborhood, a slice of Sector 17 known as Kouritenga. It is here on the edge of town where I live and work. My humble abode is pretty amazing for Burkina (and Peace Corps) standards. I have a private courtyard, which just means my house is completely walled in and has a large metal door at its entrance. Most homes are gated in the city, for safety and privacy, I suppose. Upon entering my house, you see a fairly spacious living room (20’ x 10’) which I have furnished as best as possible on my limited means with a bookshelf, a coffee table, a “couch,” and a few end tables and a chair. By “couch,” I am actually referring to something that more resembles a wooden park bench with cushions on it. Beyond the living room is a smaller-sized kitchen with a double sink and a good-sized countertop. I have added to it a gas stovetop, a small refrigerator, and a few cabinets for dishes and glasses. Off the living room are two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. I have made the bedroom closest to the front of the house the master bedroom since the bathroom is a wee bit larger, and I use the other bedroom for storage. In addition to the living room furniture, I had a carpenter build a full-sized bed and two bedside tables, and I bought a build-it-yourself armoire from some vendor on the street. My bathroom has a shower (no hot water), a sink, and a real flushing toilet (good riddance, hole in the ground!). Let’s just hope everything stays in working order. My entire house has white tile floors, which makes regular mopping necessary yet easy. I have hired a young woman named Balguissa to come to my house twice a week, once to mop and tidy up and another time to wash my laundry. I pay her 8,000cfa (roughly $16) a month, and she does a fairly decent job at it, especially considering the wrecking ball of a creature that is my kitten. Every morning she (who I have dubbed Lady Waga) has serious fits of friskiness which can only be expressed by tearing up my house and clawing on my curtains. To say she is spoiled is an understatement. Living with a cat has certainly taught me one thing – I am definitely a dog person.

If you leave my house, and walk a block south, you will hit the association with which I am working this year. Yes, I am still a Peace Corps volunteer (as seen by my paychecks), but my primary responsibilities are now concentrated on a local NGO. This organization is called Association Trait d’Union des Jeunes Burkinabe. It really has no good English translation, since trait d’union means hyphen in English, and no one is able to really explain why it’s called that. From here on out, I will call it, as everyone calls, ATUJB (in French, it comes out sounding like “ah-to-ji-bay,” God bless you). At its heart, ATUJB is a youth organization that focuses primarily with kids and young adults who are at risk of HIV/AIDS. While this encompasses many individuals, most fall into one of three categories: street children (enfants de la rue), street vendors (vendeurs/vendeuses ambulants), and sex workers (travailleuses de sexe). Our association, which we often refer to as “the center,” is comprised of a large gazebo in the middle of a courtyard, surrounded by buildings on all four sides. On one side, there is a row of offices where most of us usually work. On another side, there are two large dorm rooms where about two dozen street children sleep every night. The remaining sides house various workshops, where underprivileged young people take apprenticeships in tailoring, motorcycle repair, carpentry, metal work, traditional crafts, etc. The goal of the center is to give kids without homes (or healthy homes), who are at risk of HIV transmission, a place to stay and to provide them the opportunity to go to school and learn a trade so that with time, they will be able to reintegrate into society with the skills necessary to succeed.

The ATUJB team consists of close to 20 full-time employees, some of whom I work with everyday and some of whom I never do. For instance, we are one of 42 associations in Burkina that provides free, confidential, and anonymous HIV testing to anyone who comes in. There are a few individuals who are in charge of testing, but since I work mostly on the prevention side of the fight, I hardly ever work directly with them. Others are in charge of the education programs for the children at the center, which I am not. I would say the team I work most closely with usually consists of about seven individuals, including the president and vice-president of our organization. Our president just got back from a trip to New York City to attend the World HIV/AIDS Summit that happened a few weeks ago, so we are clearly a force of an organization. Both he and our vice-president, a giant of a man, are incredibly nice to work with.

My position at ATUJB is as Technical Support Specialist for its HIV/AIDS program, which sounds more impressive than it is, I’m sure. Basically, I’m involved in two main projects. The first is a UNICEF-funded, two-year long project of HIV awareness activities using peer educators in five different cities throughout the country focusing on high-risk socio-professional groups. We held a training about a month ago entitled “HIV Risk Mapping,” c’est-a-dire, identifying the localities in an area where the risk for HIV transmission is elevated due to a higher concentration of high-risk individuals. The second project is an ongoing PAMAC-funded activity that involves educating prostitutes here in Ouaga on HIV and other STIs. As in any big city, prostitution is a real problem, and the latest information suggests that about 14% of sex workers here are HIV-positive, which means about one in seven are infected. Burkina has been lucky that HIV hasn’t hit the general population as it has in East and Southern Africa, but prevention activities are still paramount to blocking a pandemic in this country. Therefore, ATUJB works with prostitutes to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, other STIs, the importance of condoms (male and female), how to properly use a condom, how to negotiate condom usage with clients, and basically anything related to their sexual health. We also partner with local clinics to provide free health screenings (including STI exams) and distribute as many condoms and sachets of personal lubricant as possible. For the past few days, I’ve been working on brainstorming new strategies of intervention. Since recently many of the brothels in Ouaga have been shut down, unfortunately many woman now simply take to the streets, so where we could have simply planned health talks at the brothels before, now we have to figure out how to reach these women who no longer have a fixed location. It is actually a fairly complicated situation, and one that requires a new strategy on our part. Other activities I had assisted with include interviews with Nigerian sex workers, surveys with area bars and nightclubs on their clientele, and follow-up and evaluation on various HIV trainings in different cities. I also act as a liaison between ATUJB and UNICEF (who actually interviewed and hired me), documenting for them our association’s activities that they fund.

All in all, I am enjoying my final year in Burkina. There have been ups and downs as with any experience, but hopefully when I look back at 2011, I will be content with my decision to stay. It has not been without challenges. Not to go too deep into detail, but beginning in February, Burkina Faso began experiencing political protests that resulted in military mutiny, a coup, and a complete restructuring of the country’s government. If you want to know more, I’m sure Google would be able to help you out once more. But basically, this means that from February until May or so, the country was under various national curfews and saw destructive protests by everyone from the military, students, and merchants. And since Peace Corps’s number one duty is to protect its volunteers, my life was made complicated for several months as PC placed its own curfews and restrictions on us, which made a daily routine rather difficult, especially here in Ouaga, the epicenter of it all. Also all of our activities at work were for all intents and purposes blocked by sponsors who insisted on waiting out the situation before making the funds available to us. But now things have seemed to calm down considerably, enough to dive into work without wondering when the next protest will happen. And as the political climate gradually cools down in Burkina, so too is the actual temperature, which makes me especially happy. It seemed as though this year’s hot season was much more intense than the previous year and lasted longer. It is still fairly hot, but a few weeks ago, the rains finally began. Now we are averaging perhaps a good rain every three days or so, which often comes with a nice chill in the air. Hopefully in the weeks to come, we will see it raining every other day. Although the rain brings mosquitoes and mud, the benefit of not sweating all the time greatly outweighs any downside. I am excited to finally say I’ve survived my last hot season in Burkina and look forward to more temperate temperatures until the conclusion of my service.

And that about sums up my experience so far this year. We are already at the halfway mark, and I can feel the sands in the hourglass falling swiftly. It won’t be long before I am planning my returning to the States (with a possible side trip along the way), so I need to remind myself to take everything in that I possibly can, to suck the marrow out of every experience left here.

(Let it be known that my internet connection is through a usb key that runs off of the cell phone network, so uploading photos will be very difficult, but if I get the change to have a faster connection, I’ll try sticking up a few photos too)

A Change Is Gonna Come

It’s been two years since I came to Burkina Faso. I have learned a lot and have experienced so much – good and bad – during this time. I have but one more week left in my village, one week to say goodbye, to pack up and leave. As the sands in the hourglass continue to fall, I am feeling good about this transition. I have given a lot to this community and they have given me just as much back, but I am ready to step aside and pass the torch to another volunteer. When I leave, a newly sworn-in volunteer will replace me at my site, bringing another point of view and another skill set to offer, which I think is beneficial to everyone.

Still, it will be very difficult to say goodbye. There are many people in my village – friends, colleagues, and neighbors – that I will honestly miss. As I start telling people I am leaving, the overwhelming reaction is the same: Don’t go. No matter how I explain it, people want me stay here, which warms my heart and makes these conversations all the more difficult. Of course, I know they will embrace the new volunteer just the same.

So what’s the next chapter in this story? Usually, once you serve your two years in Peace Corps, your contract is finished and they send you home for good. Well, my situation is a bit different. I have yet to mention it before as everything was still iffy, but it looks like I will be staying in Burkina Faso one more year. Yep, you heard right. I have extended my contract until January 2012. So what do this mean? I will still be heading home in about two weeks but for one-month vacation, not for good. In mid-January, I will return to Burkina to start my new job in Ouagadougou, the capital, the big city. I will still be considered a Peace Corps Volunteer and still receive my living stipend from PC but I will be working in a partnership with UNICEF and a local NGO called Association Trait d’Union des Jeunes Burkinabe (ATUJB), an organization focused on HIV/AIDS prevention among at-risk youth and sex workers in Ouaga. I will work with ATUJB for a one-year contract, helping to develop prevention activities, to perform qualitative studies on various risk factors, and to creatively document the work of the NGO. All the while, I will be living in a house provided by them in Ouaga.

I have known for several months that I wanted to stay for a third year, but didn’t want to stay anything until I knew for sure. It was a long, long process of applications, interviews, and waiting, but I am happy to say it is finally official. I am really excited to start my new job next year. As someone who is often afraid of change, it feels right. I will be using the skills I have acquired these past two years, technical and language, in a new environment. It will give me a chance to explore development work as a possible career path and keep me from having a panic attack looking for a job in America (at least for one more year). It should also be a nice transition back into American life, as I will be living and working in a large city atmosphere, much, much different from my life in Aorema. All in all, I am very content with how things have worked out and am looking forward to next year. There are also about half a dozen others from my training group who have also decided to stay another year, throughout the country, so I am not alone.

As for this blog, I am not sure what will happen. I know I have slowed down posting this year, but I would consider continuing if people are still interested. So let me know if you want to hear from me next year. Peace.

Ça Fait Deux Jours

So it's been awhile, or as we say here, ¨it's been two days.¨ Unfortunately, I can't really discuss the catalyst for my hiatus on this blog, but rest assured, all is well and fine chez moi. If you would like to know more about it, shoot me an e-mail or message.

With that said, let's try to do some major catching up.

1) Benin & Togo Vacation: I had an amazing 16-day trip down through Benin and then up through Togo. We had some great days on the beach, some really cool hiking experiences, several trips to amazing supermarkets, and enough funny (and often awkward) moments to last for years. If I ever get motivated enough, I'll try to type up a more detailed trip report, but until that moment arrives, enjoy these few vacation snapshots:

Christy and me, spending the day swimming around a beautiful waterfall in Benin

Our beach in Benin

It takes a village...to move a boat...

...and pull in the fishing nets

Beautiful church in a voodoo town, visited by Pope John Paul II on his visit

On one of our hikes in the mountains, our guide showed us how to find traditional paints from different plants, like the yellow pigment under the bark of this tree.

He also showed us lots of creepy crawlies, like this brightly colored grasshopper.

Our beautiful pool with a swim-up bar in Kpalimé, Togo

We built a sand-whale on our last beach day in Lomé. Passers-by were literally in awe of us. One guy actually told us, ¨Je vous adore.¨

2) During our vacances, the new group of trainees arrived in country, something like 78 of them. It is the largest training group ever in Burkina to date. I actually went down to their training site, a town called Koudougou, for most of July to help facilitate. It was quite the overwhelming experience but was also a lot of fun. It really made me think about what it was like when I was in their place. Overall, I think the training went really well, albeit exhausting, but it gave me the chance to meet a lot of cool new people and connect closer with old friends. Their swear-in was two weeks ago in Ouagadougou at the US Embassy and greatly surpassed any swear-in ceremony in the past in terms of swank. All of us facilitators were given jobs to do during the event; mine was as an invitee checker, which was cool because I got to see everyone who came in. The First Lady of Burkina, Chantal Compaore actually attended the event, gave a speech, and mingled among us volunteers at the reception. And talk about a reception - the embassy generously provided, out of their own budget, free wine (from bottles not boxes) and beer (on tap). It was a lot of fun and a great way to celebrate 76 new volunteers. Way to go everyone!

3) Since coming back to village, things have been slow. Its rainy season still, so people are out in the fields working most days, which makes it feel like a ghost town most of the time. I have taken advantage of this and gone into the fields to help, which always gets the funniest looks from everyone around, but you can tell people are really impressed that I am actually out there at all.
Yesterday, we partied hard as Ramadan, the month when devote Muslims fast from sunrise till sunset came to an end. On this final day, known to Muslims around the world as Eid al-Fitr, everyone congregated to the center of the village for a huge prayer at 9am. Even though I am not Muslim, I really enjoy going to these kinds of events, if not solely for the integration aspect; everyone in the village goes and it is a great social gathering. After prayer ends, the rest of the day is spent relaxing and eating 5and eating and eating). You basically go from one house to the next, wishing people a bonne fete, and you are expected to sit down each time and eat. This can get pretty crazy after you have stopped by four or five friends' houses. I went to see my good friend Ynoussa, who gave me a huge bag full of raw beef to cook up for myself later, and then he took me to say hello to the vieux, a respected old man in their family compound who then fed me macaroni and liver (yum!). I then went and ate with another friend Haoua and then with my major. I had bought a bottle of sparkling wine that my major, my friend Ynoussa, and I shared as well (Ynoussa, although the only Muslim in the trio, is not so strict a Muslim as to pass up a free drink). All in all, it was a really nice celebration, despite eating way too much. Hope everyone else had a wonderful Ramadan!

Benin and Togo!

For those of you still reading, I will be out of Burkina for a two-week vacation through Benin and Togo, from hiking and waterfalls to sandy beaches to the origins of voodoo, and I will have details and photos up at the end of the month. Bon voyage à moi!

Noewadi?

I’m writing from village today, taking advantage of the cool weather that has followed the good rain that swept through the region the day before last. I have repeatedly opined that we have reached Burkina’s hottest point of the year, only to experience yet another spike in the thermometer the following week, but I truly believe we have hit the zenith. Not to say that I’ll be pulling out the sweaters anytime soon – we may not be in Hell anymore, but we’re still in the waiting room. And that’s what everyone seems to be doing, waiting – waiting for the rains to arrive, waiting for their work to begin. While the rest of the country seems to be getting regular showers now, we have really only seen two good rainfalls so far, definitely not enough to start cultivating.

If you remember, last month I was planning a three-day regional conference on Maternal and Child Health for six volunteers and 12 counterparts in local language. While the planning was arduous at times, I believe it was worth it. On the first day, we discussed malnutrition – its kinds, causes, and consequences – and learned how to identify malnourished children, allowing our participants the opportunity to use baby scales, arm measurement bands, and charts that follow a child’s age, height, and weight. We also learned about the preventative behaviors against malnutrition, including proper nutrition, hygiene, and breastfeeding practices. At the end of the day, we took a field trip to our local CREN (Centre de Réhabilitation et d’Education Nutritionnelle), where severely malnourished children are referred for hospitalization and rehabilitation. We were given a quick tour of the facility and afterwards had a Q&A with the nurses and mothers about their own experiences. On the second day, we dove into the FARN (Foyer d’Apprentissage et de Réhabilitation Nutritionnelle), the 12-day activity that I performed with a group of mothers and children in my village, where we make an enriched porridge from local ingredients and discuss a different health topic each day. After describing the basics of the program in the conference room, we headed outside to practice cooking different kinds of enriched porridge. Later on, those of us who had already performed the FARN described our experiences – our struggles, our successes, and our suggestions. On the last day, we headed back to the CREN, and the participants, separated into three groups of four, presented to the mothers present a health topic that they had planned the day before. It was quite useful for the counterparts to experience talking in front of a group, and I think most really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we wound the conference down, briefly hitting upon follow-up steps for the FARN, working side-by-side with NGOs in village, and several other maternal health issues not yet covered. We closed with a slideshow of all the photos taken during the conference. All in all, I really see this as a successful undertaking, as both the volunteers and the counterparts took a lot away from it. I know that many, upon their return, have already started or have planned nutrition activities in their own villages.

Unfortunately, I have had little time in village lately to get any large projects off the ground. I went to Ouaga earlier this month for a meeting with an NGO, and I will be going back to the capital on Sunday for three days of training for PSDN (Peer Support and Diversity Network), a PC committee I’ve joined, whose charge it is to empower fellow volunteers by supporting their emotional needs and providing an ear to discuss issues in a nonjudgmental and confidential manner. The week after that, I will be in Ouahigouya for a week of training to be a facilitator for the incoming group of new trainees, who arrive in June. We will be having the largest group of newbies that PC Burkina, I believe, has ever seen at one time – over 75 in total (more than double my group). Everyone is really excited for their arrival but you can imagine how crazy logistics are for so many people. If that were not enough, there will be another group of thirty or so that will arrive in October. Basically, training will be going on for the remainder of my service.

At least I have finally been able to begin Fulfuldé lessons, as I have wanted to do for some time now. To refresh your memory, French is the national language of Burkina and the language I use most often when working or in bigger towns and cities. Mooré is the language of the Mossi, the largest ethnic group and the people that dominate my region; I use Mooré when speaking to people in my village, playing with the children, and shopping in the market. The next most predominant language spoken around me is Fulfuldé, spoken by the Peuhl community. My health clinic services one Peuhl village (called Lembnogo Peuhl, actually), as well as a small cluster of huts on the outskirts of my own village (called Bouna Peuhl). The Peuhls, to the best of my understanding, are mostly a herding community (as opposed to the agrarian Mossi), with a culture and language very distinct from the Mossi majority. Aesthetically, the Peuhls have much more Middle Eastern features with tall, slender bodies, thin noses, large ears, and lighter skin. People often joke that Barack Obama is a Peuhl, and I can absolutely see their point. Linguistically, their voices are usually much higher in pitch, and to be honest the women often sound something like Minnie Mouse. Unfortunately, I have heard and seen firsthand discrimination between the ethnic groups, and the Peuhls are often overlooked or disregarded when it comes to healthcare services. As my market is also one of the larger cattle markets in the area, there are always Peuhls everywhere, and I have always felt, if not shame, then perhaps guilt that I cannot even greet someone in Fulfuldé.

So last month I asked my friend Tall Amadou (at least 90% of the Peuhls in my area have Tall as their family name) from Lembnogo Peuhl to tutor me. We had fixed a date for him to come a few weeks ago, but unfortunately it happened to be the exact day of the bizarre orange dust bowl we experienced (see my previous post), and thus he never came. After that, I was working and moving around so much and the fact that his cell phone was broken and he lived in another village made it difficult to reconnect. But finally, he was able to come by last evening for our first lesson. Although I usually only see Amadou when we do our monthly vaccination campaign to the surrounding villages when he acts as Fulfuldé translator or when he is dropping off/picking up someone from the clinic, he always gives off a really friendly aura, and I like hanging out with him. He spent half the time during our lesson laughing in amazement by the white kid speaking (really poorly pronounced) Fulfuldé and managed to accidentally call another volunteer multiple times on my phone when he was searching for the volume. Nevertheless, we covered a lot in a short amount of time. There are definitely several sounds that are not in English, French, or Mooré (or Spanish or Japanese, for that matter), but some are similar to Arabic sounds, which makes me thankful for those two semesters in college. Still, I know I will always sound like Fez (from That 70’s Show) to them. It was almost impossible to transliterate some of what he said, as 26 letters don’t always cut it, so I was forced to guess a lot when taking notes. I actually took a walk this morning to the Peuhl part of our village (a good hour and a quarter walk from my house) to practice what I’ve learned. I think I really impressed people until the greetings finished and they kept talking and all I could do was smile and nod. At least nearly all of them speak Mooré too, so I could always fall back on that. I was able to ask the kids (who didn’t seem phased at all by their new white buddy) what their names were, and they seemed to understand me fine. Afterwards, I came home, and my Mossi neighbor kids showed me a picture from a magazine I gave them. It was a photo of one those crane games, the kind where you move the metal claw to grab a stuffed animal. They asked me to explain this to them in Mooré. Ha! Nice try.

To give you an idea of what Fulfuldé is like, here’s a short list of things I learned from my first lesson (of course, the spelling is all my own)*:

Good Morning: Djamwaali
Response: Afinyedjam
Second Response: Basifuwaalai or Djamni

Good Afternoon: Awetidjam (to 1 person) or Onwetidjam (to 2+ people)
Response: Noewetirrda (to 1 person) or Noewetirrdon (to 2+ people)
Second Response: Basifuwetai or Djamni

Good Evening: Djamnyali (to 1 person) or Djamnyalodon (to 2+ people)
Response: Noenyalirrda (to 1 person) or Noenyalirrdon (to 2+ people)
Second Response: Basifunyalai or Djamni

Good Night: Ahiridjam (to 1 person) or Onhiridjam (to 2+ people)
Response: Noehirrduda (to 1 person) or Noehirrdudon (to 2+ people)
Second Response: Basifuhirai or Djamni

How’s it going?: Noewadi?
Response: Wala

What’s your name?: Noewieteda? or Noewuni indema?
My name is Erik: Erik wietemi. or Erik wuni inde am.

What do you want?: Dome hadyada?
I want food: Mihadya nyamde.

What do you do (work)?: Dome gollata?
I work at the health clinic: Doctorore gollanmi.

Where are you from?: Tue yurata?
I’m from America: Amerik yuranmi.
I live in Aorema: Aorema wudom.

*The “d”s that I have bolded are not actually pronounced like a “d”, but it’s the closest and easiest approximation. They are more a mix of “d” and “th” produced in the back of the throat. Also, the “rr” is meant to be rolled similar to the Spanish way but further back in the mouth. No an easy language.

If that were not enough, I leave you with a couple snapshots from hanging out with the Peuhls in my village. Enjoy!

The kid in yellow was hilarious. He was fascinated with my camera. He also tried to bite all the other kids. He's going to be a handful.

BFBFFs, Burkina Faso Best Friends Forever

One woman invited me into her home to "see how the Peulhs live." Her bed here looked really comfortable actually.

I Spy With My Little Eye Something . . . Orange

The end of April is close at hand, and I feel this month has flown by in an instant. I have been steadily preparing for a training conference on maternal and child health that I have been asked to help organize in Ouahigouya starting on Tuesday. For the past several weeks, we’ve had to make multiple trips to Ouahigouya, as well as the capital Ouaga and another town named Gourcy, where our formatrice (the woman who will be conducting the majority of the sessions) works. The actual conference runs for three days starting the 27th and will focus primarily on nutrition and malnutrition as it relates to rural Burkina. It will bring together six volunteers and 12 village counterparts to discuss successes, challenges, and strategies for the future. If all goes well, it should really be advantageous to all the participants.

Unfortunately, I feel like I have not done many activities in village lately like I would have liked to do aside from my regular soap-making with the women, but I am certain once this is over, I will be able to direct my concentration back on my own projects. At least I can say I’ve survived my second April in Burkina with only a couple sweaty t-shirts as battle scars of hot season (which is more than I can say of my poor papaya tree). I would guess that I’ve drinking about 4-5 liters of water on average everyday, even more on those scorching 120° days and haven’t lit my stove save once or twice in the past three weeks. I’ve avoided the stove (which raises the temperature in my house a good 5-10 degrees) by changing my diet to that of a woodland creature. A lot of raw veggies or vegetable sandwiches – cucumbers, tomatoes, and green peppers make a great sandwich – plus as many mangoes as I can manage. I try to eat a bag of peanuts each day for the protein but every once in a while, I’ll supplement that with tuna or chicken packets from home. Every market day, I also buy something known as acheke (pronounced a-check-ay or a-keck-ay) which is made from cassava root, with a small piece of fish for lunch.

Last week we finally experienced, albeit a month late, that magical event known as “the first rainfall of the year.” Unfortunately, it occurred the same night as something known as “the first time I tried to sleep outside because it got too hot to sleep inside.” So when it started sprinkling around 9pm, I tried to ignore the droplets. I managed to last until around 2am, when it really began coming down, at which point I was forced to drag everything back into my stuffy house.

Speaking of wacky weather, I awoke on Thursday and looked out my screen door to see a sky completely orange. When I stepped outside, the air was saturated in red dust and a thick layer covered everything. I’ve added a couple pictures below to help you understand the sheer level of dustitude. It stayed comme ça for the rest of the day. The words on everybody’s mask-totting lips that day were “Sebgo waogame,” or “There’s too much wind” in Mooré. It took me much of the following day to remove the thin layer of dust that coated everything in my house. The wackiness that day was apparently felt by everyone, human and terrifying flying rodents alike. You see, my latrine was taken over Thursday by a small fidgety bat. I thought it might just be confused about the hazy sky, but evidently coming out during the day is a sign of rabies among bats. I wish I had known that then as I edged closer and closer to the creature to get a decent picture (see the shots below of my new, potentially-rabid friend), but a part of me did want to have a Bruce Wayne experience as it fluttered around me, but I rather not fall into my latrine to do it.

Below are the accompanying photos:

There are usually houses in the background

Hazy view of my CSPS

A layer of dust on everything, even my awesome blue plastic patio chair

The chauve-souris, in the flesh

About to strike

April Shmapril

So we have hit Burkina's most dreadful month. The month where temperatures reach their annual crescendo and where one cannot move without sweating. The mercury began rising through March, usually hitting 110ish degrees at its peak most afternoons. My house hovers around the 100 degree mark most of the day, only cooling down to about 90 in the early morning. Luckily, I am better prepared for the heat this year with a life-saving fan which I rarely turn off. Without that (and the power does routinely cut off), my house becomes an oven with no air flow and suddenly you're sitting in a pool of perspiration and wondering when it will come back on. Even still, I feel like I have handles this hot season much better than the last. Perhaps it is the fan, perhaps I have become habituated to the heat, perhaps we haven't seen the worse yet (I think all three are true, actually) but I am getting by fine. Je me débrouille.

But as life always brings the good with the bad, cushions the difficult with the easy, the hot season here also corresponds to our mango season. Yin meet Yang. Yang, Yin. The country is becoming inundated with these juicy, sweet fruits, and they make the heat slightly less unbearable each year. There are dozens of varieties of mangoes in Burkina, maybe more, and each brings something different to the table. Large or small, stringy or buttery, the subtleties in taste and texture make mango season a good time to be alive. Everyone has their favorite kind and their preferred method of eating. Some people eat the skins and all, others use a knife to cut the meat into cubes. I tend to peel back the skin with my teeth and then dive right in. My plan is start drying a lot soon, so that I can keep the mango goodness well past the end of the season (that is, if I can keep myself from eating them right away).

Last weekend, almost every volunteer (more than 100) showed up in Ouaga for the COS party, our ritual celebration honoring those volunteers who have reached their Closure of Service and are getting ready to head home beginning in June. It was a lot of fun to see all my friends living in other parts of the country with whom I rarely get to hang out. It is weird to think that another group is preparing to leave. Once they have departed, my group will become the new senior volunteers. For logistical reasons, our group's COS conference and party will actually take place in July, much much earlier than normal. It is far too early to consider the end of the road here in Burkina and the prospect of rejoining American society.

In work-related news, not much has changed in village. I am still actively working with the soap group I helped organize (they have made almost 20,000 cfa in a month and a half, i.e. a lot of fric), and I may expand to form a new group in a satellite village. I have also been asked to help coordinate a regional conference on maternal and child health for several volunteers and their village counterparts that will take place in Ouahigouya at the end of the month, so I've been fairly occupied planning the logistics. There's a lot of work still to be done but hopefully the effort put into it will show during the workshop.

Well, that basically sums up everything that's going on right now and my current place in this crazy world, taking life one day, one degree, one mango at a time.