Who knew that African life could become normal? Hence why I haven’t written in a few months. I’m not shocked/amused/interested/disgusted by the same things I used to be- goats in the courtyard, greeting every single person I pass, eating tô with my hands (okay, still a little off-putting). And so I’m not able to relate to you all a lot of the goings on. Life here has developed a rhythm, and as unexciting as that might sound, it’s a peaceful reassurance to realize how adaptable we are to new ways of life.
Having an American visit you during your service, like I did this month, can re-open your eyes to all of the strange things around you. Seeing his reaction to the transportation, the heat, the languages, etc. made me remember how I felt when I first arrived in this country and, in doing so, make me realize that I’ve come a long way!
We were able to see a lot of the country, too. We went on safari at Nazinga where we saw elephants, warthogs, antelope, and water buffalo, and we sat in a canoe a mere 50 feet away from a family of hippos at Lake Tengrela. We also visited the painted village at Tibili!
It’s hot season. Not like Florida hot. Like Africa hot. Like sleep outside in my bughut hot. Like take 3 bucket baths a day hot. To give you an idea of just how hot it is, the Jula name for March is funtenikalo. Funteni means heat and kalo means month. However, March is nothing compared to April, for which the Jula name is funtenibakalo (ba at the end of any word means big). So April is big heat month.
I’ve been in Burkina over 10 months now so I’ve experienced almost every season and I have to say that this is definitely my least favorite so far. Next time around, I will really savor rainy season, with its fireflies and breezy afternoon showers, and the “cold” months, where I get to sleep with sheets AND a blanket. Until then, I’ll be sleeping outside!
I’ve put on two programs for my 6th grade class in the past couple of months, a career fair and a 3-day sexual education/family planning workshop. Both were successes, although nothing went as planned, which I’ve come to expect.
The career fair panelists were a primary school director, a history professor at the college, the secretary of an NGO in Banfora who grew up in the village, a couple of cultivators in the parent-teachers association, and a coffee vendor/photographer. Several of the panelists stressed that being a “functionaire” (i.e. government employee) shouldn’t be thought of as the only career option. The cultivators stressed that you can make a decent living and stay in the village, whether through running a shop, learning a trade (becoming a mason, tailor, mechanic, etc.) or raising animals and cultivating crops.
I thought this was a great message for the students, since there exists such an inferior status for “villageois,” or those who stay in the village. It leads to a broader inferiority complex where people believe that everything good comes from outside the village, outside the country, outside of Africa. The kids who play in my courtyard insult each other in one of two ways: 1) Insulting someone’s mother (turns out yo mama jokes are universal) or 2) Calling someone “villageois”. Once, I asked one of the girls what that meant and she said it means you can’t read. I told her that I was villageoise, since technically I lived in the village, but that I could still read and could even teach people how to read. Then a couple of the other little girls started parading around telling everyone that they were villageoise, too. Needless to say, I think that calling myself villageoise reduced the stigma to some extent. But the reality is that there aren’t enough government jobs to sustain all of the 6e students around the country who want to become teachers and nurses. At the end of the day, at least they’re thinking about their futures, a concept that is completely unheard of in this culture.
Broaching the topic of sexual education is a huge taboo in this country and therefore goes largely ignored. Neither parents nor teachers will address the topic until 3e, when most students have already reached 16 years of age. However, my director informed me that unexpected pregnancy is a huge problem in our village. So I decided to do a 3-day workshop during spring break to talk candidly with girls AND boys in my 6e class (6th grade) about puberty, the sexual reproductive systems of men and women, pregnancy, contraception, family planning, and decision making. There was an “anonymous box” at the front of the room during the workshop where students could pose questions without having to raise their hands and risk being laughed at. I compiled a 15 page manual for each student with diagrams of the male and female sexual anatomies and tons of information and images. We did condom demonstrations and a condom hot potato game where the students had to pop the blown up condom and answer the question inside. Although silly, the kids got comfortable touching condoms (and realized how difficult they are to break, too). I gave a pre and post-test to actually monitor what the students learned in the process. Here are some of the results:
· 27/52 can now define family planning and give 2 advantages
· 41/52 can explain how to avoid early pregnancy, citing condom usage, abstinence, or both
· 14/52 could fully name 3 contraceptive methods and their respective prices
· 52/52 answered correctly multiple choice questions asking at what age a girl could become pregnant and at what age a girl should reach to avoid dangerous complications during pregnancy (On the pre-test, many thought a girl could get pregnant once she developed breasts and that if she had her period, she could deliver a baby without any complications)
Marlow
