Swear In and Affectation!

A ni sogoma! (Good morning, for you non-Julaphones). I thought I’d give you all a quick update on what I’ve been up to since swearing in and becoming a “real” Peace Corps volunteer…

Our swear-in ceremony coincided with the 50^th anniversary of the Peace Corps so it was a huge celebration complete with a fair and lots of publicity. I even got to give an interview in French on national TV and radio! To see the video that was sent to Washington covering the event, go here. The biggest rap star in Burkina, Floby, even wrote a song about the Peace Corps for us. During our swearing in ceremony, the U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso had us raise our right hands and take the oath of office. There’s only one oath for all federal employees so it’s the same one Obama fudged at his swearing in.

So after swearing to uphold the constitution of the United States and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic (I’m not kidding, that’s in there), we were greeted by the first lady of Burkina Faso and spent a few more days in Ouaga to buy things for our new homes.

Yesterday, we were “affectated” (I’m not sure if there is an English word for that), which basically means we are on our own. Some of us are already at our sites and some of us, myself included, are staying at hotels in our provincial capitals picking up a few last minute items (aka lounging at the pool) before Peace Corps takes us to our sites tomorrow.

I’m excited and anxious to begin my service and have no idea what to expect. Having no expectations up until this point has been the best way to go and I hope I continue to be pleasantly surprised. It’s hard to leave the very close friends I have made here who are now scattered all over the country, but I know that they are only a phone call away and that I will see them in three months at in-service training.

My beautiful site makes the whole moving process a lot easier. My neighbor and I rode in on our bus yesterday through the sugarcane hills and palm trees and remembered that we won the lottery when it comes to regions. Even more important, my village is very motivated and happy to have me, and when I need to escape Banfora is only a short bike ride away and has everything I need. Everyone is friendly and helpful and actually talks to me in Jula. I’ve got a lot of great Peace Corps neighbors nearby, too.

So what’s next? Well, for the first three months, my main task is to get integrated into my community. I will be conducting an “etude de milieu”, or a needs assessment. Basically, I’m talking to people to learn about my community and what its development priorities are and building relationships at the same time. Before we can engage in any substantial projects, we have to be integrated (so that people have a reason to listen to us) and we have to build relationships (so that our projects continue even after we’re gone). All of this socializing doesn’t amount to what Americans would consider “work,” but I think it’s crucial to my effectiveness as a volunteer and my personal happiness. I have two whole years in my village, so there’s no rush to jump into projects right away.

I will also be spending a lot of time with my Jula tutor in village so that I will be able to give sensibilizations on various topics in the local language of my community. This is extremely important since a significant portion of my village, especially women, doesn’t speak French. Really, only the government employees who work at the health center and the primary school speak French fluently. I have a great counterpart who works at the health center who is related to the village chief and who I can bounce ideas off of and have introduce me to important people.

I hope all is going well in the good old U.S. of A! Keep the letters coming and let me know if you want to skype at any point since I’ll be riding into Banfora at least once a week to visit the market and check my email. Love and miss you all!

I'd Like to Give the World a Coke...

Picture this… Four Christian village leaders and a nun coming to eat at the home of the president of the Muslim’s on the Muslim holy day celebrating the end of Ramadan. After serving them food and conversing, the president of the Muslims brings out a Coke for everyone.

No, it’s not a Coke commercial. This is the reality of religious tolerance in Burkina Faso and I think the whole world could learn a little something from it.

Surprisingly, a country with 160 different local languages, several different ethnic groups, and a 50/50 split of Muslims and Christians manages to live up to its hype as “the land of upright and honorable people”. I’ve concluded that they really just love a good party and more religions means more parties, with the Christians celebrating the Muslim holidays and the Muslims celebrating the Christian holidays. And you can’t forget traditional animist beliefs which pervade both of these major religions in Burkina.

Since my host family is Muslim and my host father is president of the Muslims in our training village, I’ve been especially privy to Muslim beliefs here. I was fortunate enough to experience Ramadan with them, the annual month of fasting that Muslims undertake each year as one of the five pillars of Islam. During Ramadan, my family did not eat while the sun was up. As soon as the sun set, they would eat their first meal of the day and then we’d get ready to leave for mosque. I would wear a long dress and a scarf to cover my face, shoulders, and neck. (Unfortunately, this doesn’t hide the fact that I’m white so I just end up looking like an extra weird Muslim nasara.)

At the mosque, everyone is positioned outside facing the front of the building. It is a white building with one archway entrance and two large columns on either side with a crescent moon and star at the top of each column. The prayer starts just after sunset so the backdrop is a picturesque dark blue sky lit up by the moon and the stars.

Before the praying, they bring out a giant loudspeaker with a microphone and chant the call to prayer into it. They repeat a phrase in Arabic over and over again which means “may peace be with you.” In fact, this is what you are supposed to say to all Muslims upon greeting them. (Next time you think that Islam isn’t a peaceful religion think about that). The men have mats on the concrete floor right in front of the mosque while the women sit in a row behind the men on the ground. Verses of the Koran were read in Arabic by a man in the front as we sequentially put our hands on our knees while standing up, dropped to the floor and put our heads on the ground in front of us, and then stood back up. I was simultaneously frustrated that because I’m a girl I automatically get second-rate seats and thankful that I could mimic what the men were doing from behind, since I’m an Islam novice and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing at any given moment.

At the end of Ramadan, my courtyard held a big party and most of the village attended. My family killed many of its chickens to make soup, shredded coconut to make little cakes, and made fresh ginger and hibiscus juice. I got to help make the hibiscus juice, which involves boiling dried hibiscus leaves and then adding sugar and mint leaves before letting it cool.

It was a fun game watching the kids corner the chickens in the courtyard and then tie them up. I would have loved to avenge the french fries I lost to those pesky animals one morning but, unfortunately, women aren’t allowed to kill chickens in this culture. I did, however, get to look on with gratitude as my host dad killed a chicken. He explained that we had to face East while killing a chicken just like we have to face East towards Mecca while praying. Personally, I don’t think these awful creatures deserve such consideration. I much prefer to see them saran wrapped or in the frozen aisle.

It felt a lot like Christmas, with all of the kids getting new clothes and running around annoying their mothers who were trying to cook. Some things are universal, like little kids making their brothers or sisters cry and men sitting off in a corner talking about man stuff.

The first guests to show up were the Christian leaders in the village. They brought Fanta as a gift and ate what my family had prepared. And yes, my host father really did bring out Cokes for everyone. I started humming the jingle “I’d like to give the world a Coke…” to the amusement of some nearby nasaras who also thought this was a perfect commercial opportunity. But the funny thing was this wasn’t a commercial, it was real life. Somehow, religion had brought people together instead of dividing them. I wondered how the Burkinabe, many of whom suffer from extreme poverty and little to no education, had learned how to regard religion as such an integral part of their lives while simultaneously respecting the beliefs of others. 

Thoughts on Being a Type-A American in a Developing Country

“You may not control all the events that happen to you but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. Do not complain. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking.” –Maya Angelou

Sometimes we turn to each other during sessions and joke, “Hey, remember that time we joined the Peace Corps? What the HELL were we thinking?” We laugh, especially when we have giardia and a flat bike tire on that same day. In essence, Peace Corps training is a sick masochistic fantasy world where your limits are constantly tested. You lose all control over your own life- your chosen language of communication, your schedule, and, at some point, your bowel movements. Once the simultaneous diarrhea and vomiting start, you have no choice but to resign yourself to it. (After all, you apparently aren’t a real volunteer until you poop your pants. Check). This is tough on us Americans because there is so much in the states that allows us to feel like we have control: schedules, rules, order, logic, Imodium. But it turns out that all those values which we think are just inherent to living life are actually not all that important elsewhere.  Allow me to explain…

First of all, time doesn’t have the same importance in Burkina. There isn’t even a word for “late” in Jula. The best we can say is that someone was “not fast.” Time is not some other-worldly God that we obey, it is something  that the Burkinabe can manipulate at their discretion to the annoyance of any and all nasaras in the vicinity. It doesn’t really matter what time the bus leaves. It will go when it goes. Ça va aller.

Logic and order are not valued here. This is especially counter-intuitive and frustrating for nasaras like me. Here I was thinking that we should always be trying to increase efficiency and have things just make sense. I guess I never questioned why this was important to me. And why would I question it? In America, everyone else thought that these things were important too so I never had to explain myself.

But this is the best part about living in another culture- you learn so much more about your own culture and in doing so you realize that your way of thinking and doing things is a) not the only way and b) maybe not even the best way. If you never experience a culture different from your own, you miss out on these insights. And, in my humble opinion, I think that this might be the fundamental cause of most problems in the world. If we never bother to consider why people in other cultures behave differently, we never question our beliefs, our traditions, our thinking. It’s as if it never occurred to us that there are reasons why other people behave differently.

It’s easy to notice how the Burkinabe behave differently, but discovering the reasons underlying those behavioral differences is a lot more nuanced and revealing. Like when you are waiting 2 hours for a bus to come, it’s pretty easy to understand that time isn’t highly regarded here. But as you spend more time around the Burkinabe, you’ll find that it’s more offensive to not greet someone you pass than it is to be late for something. And it takes you a lot longer to get somewhere when you have to say good morning to everyone in your family first, then proceed to ask how their family is doing (even though you’re in their family and know what’s going on... duh) and then say good morning to every single person you pass on your bike and ask about their family and their work. I’m learning to do this although I don’t think it will ever feel normal for me, since I come from a culture where not only do you not say hello to someone you pass (especially not a stranger), you instead try to divert your eyes and ignore them. Can you imagine saying hello to every person you passed in the grocery store or on the street? Can you imagine pulling up to a drive thru and having to have 5 minutes of small talk before placing your order? As an American we just want the essentials, namely getting our cheeseburger. Greetings just aren’t necessary for that transaction to occur.

Our logistical Peace Corps tech guy who is Burkinabe and who spent some time in New York City said it best when he said that Americans “flee” when someone says hello to them. “Pourquoi tu fuis?” I’d have to agree. I couldn’t help but picture him standing in the subway and trying to ask for help in the little English that he knows, meanwhile lugging his 3 huge suitcases (he said he looked like Eddie Murphy in the movie Coming to America) with New Yorkers purposely avoiding him. And you’re thinking “well yeah, they’re New Yorkers, of course they’re assholes”, but I couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed of my culture when he told me this story. Why are we so petrified of a little human interaction? I can think of times when I saw someone walking towards me on campus and would purposely play with my cell phone to avoid having to speak to them. And I’m still trying to figure out why this is the case…

I think that maintaining social connections might be more important in Burkina because when you need help your neighbors are the first people that you turn to. In America, we have this sink or swim attitude that people should be independent and fend for themselves. And maybe we become too independent and we forget that we’re social creatures and that we need human interaction. I’m not sure yet if this attitude is a weakness or a strength, though I think it may be either depending on the situation. But maybe America can learn something from Burkina in this respect.

With that said, there’s a lot that I would like Burkina to learn from America for my own sake and for my own sanity. For instance, there is no such thing as a line here- everyone just pushes up to the front. This injustice frustrates me to no end. And no one sits in their assigned seat even though there is an assigned seat written on your bus ticket. So maybe America is doing something right, after all. Next time you’re standing in a line complaining about how long it is, be grateful that you have a line to complain about in the first place. The rest of us have to push past sweaty men with body odor who just arrived even though we’ve been standing there for a whole hour.

In situations like these, the American in me wants to scream. Sometimes it does scream. Literally. And very loudly. Like when I start yelling in English at a bus station in West Africa where no understands a word I’m saying. After venting, I follow Maya Angelou’s advice and change my own thinking…  

Specifically, I adopt the Burkinabe “ça va aller” philosophy. There’s a reason that this is the name of my blog. It literally translates to “that is going to go” in French, but it means that everything will be fine. People say this when I can’t communicate something in Jula (like when I said in Jula “I am dead” instead of “I am finished”), when a bus breaks down, when someone is sick, etc. In Jula, they say “A bena bi,” or literally, “It’s going to be” to signify the same thing. And when you put it that way, it doesn’t seem like there’s much I can do to change things even if I wanted to. So I turn to the person next to me and say ça va aller and laugh. Eventually, we get to where we need to be. Maybe not on time, but we’re there.

Site Visit

Bonjour!

Right now I am using the wifi at a beautiful pool in Banfora eating salt and vinegar pringles and babybel cheese. My site is only about an hour bikeride (or 20 minute bush taxi ride) from Banfora where I can find cheese and cold drinks and cyber cafes and hotels and restaurants, including one called McDonald. I'm slowly but surely uploading pictures to my flickr but they're all on my facebook so you can view them there, too!

I got to see the house that I will be living in for the next 2 years as well as the cat that I will be living with! His name is George and he is the cat of the volunteer who I am replacing. My house is already decorated and ready to go, with a nice outdoor patio area with a hangar and bamboo shades that I can let down if it gets too sunny. I have a HUGE courtyard with my own mango tree, papaya tree, basil bush, small banana tree, and lots of room to plant tomatoes and other vegetables as well.

My town is surrounded by rolling green hills and there is also a lake within walking distance from my house. It is very small with only around 2000 residents but they are all very motivated. I was able to meet with a few of the women in the women's association that the volunteer I am replacing started. They make liquid and hard soap and neem creem (anti-mosquito cream) and sell it for a profit. I will be continuing her work with the women's group, her work doing health workshops on malaria and family planning, and her girls' clubs. I also hope to start a savings and credit program with the women's group so that they can have more power within their families. I will also start tutoring the CM2 girls since I recently found that very few of them passed the exam after primary school to continue on to middle school. As I mentioned earlier, there is an NGO who works with my town that pays for each girl who passes this exam to continue on to high school. I was able to meet the secretary of this organization in Banfora yesterday. I will also be working with the nutrition team at the health center in my town to organize a program where women can keep track of the weight of their babies and attend nutrition workshops.

I went around village with my homologue, or counterpart, who works at the health center. He introduced me to the chief and the chief of development in my village and I was able to visit both of the schools and the health center. I am excited to be replacing a volunteer who has done a lot already and who has given me a few ideas about what to do moving forward. I also think that I have the best of both worlds, since I have a small, manageable village where it will be easier to measure progress and integrate but I am only 20 minutes away from probably the best tourist town in Burkina. I can't wait to move in at the end of September after I have officially sworn in as a volunteer!

I will have a different address where you can send me packages once I move in and I will update that on my blog. I will also put up a wish list of things that I would like for you to send me! As always, I love receiving letters and calls, too!

Hope everything is well!

-Marlow

Site Announcement!

The day all we stagiares had been waiting for since the beginning of training came and went last week when the staff brought out a huge map of Burkina Faso and called us up one by one to announce where we will each be living for the next 2 years! Everyone placed a picture of their face where there village is located while they read a description of it.

I will be living in a BEAUTIFUL village in Southwest Burkina within biking distance from Banfora, known for its waterfalls and lush sugarcane fields and palm trees. I lucked out to be living in easily the most beautiful town in Burkina. Although I can’t tell you the name of my village for safety and security reasons, I can give you the description they read about my village…

The name of my village means “behind the river of the giant lion” and is half Muslim and half Christian. It is a small village with only 2,000 inhabitants and 1 primary school. But, an NGO that already works in this village pays for any girl who passes the primary school exam to go through high school so there is a wealth of opportunities to promote girls education in a meaningful way. There is also a dedicated women’s group who engages in income generating activities such as soap making and neem cream and they are highly motivated to start other projects as well. I have my own private courtyard but no electricity or running water. The market is every 5 days but since I am only an hour bike ride away from Banfora, I can also go to their daily market. My regional capital is Bobo-Dioulasso, the cultural capital of Burkina.

I couldn’t be happier with my AMAZING site. You can see pictures of my host family and other photos from training so far on the right hand side of this page where my Flickr link is. Pictures of my village and house will be up soon!

In other news, we’re in the thick of rainy season now, so every other day or so we get a heavy rainfall preceded by a sandstorm which kicks up all of the red clay dirt. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to already be in my house, where I can listen to my iPod and write and read and sing and generally relax and bask in the American ideal of privacy for a few hours. When the rain stops, my host mom will bring me heated bucket water to take a bucket bath and I’ll wrap myself in a pagne (the fabric you buy here) and enjoy the (relatively) cool weather that the rain brings. Other times, like when I’m stuck at a restaurant with other volunteers when the rain comes, I’ll hang around and drink and talk with them for an hour or two or three, or in one case four, until the rain subsides. In any case, the rain brings a welcome interruption to the heat here and I enjoy every second of it.

Life here is simple and beautiful and every day brings new and exciting adventures. I’m always learning new words, like the Jula word for butt- “bobara.” I learned that “bo” means poop and “bara” means bucket, so you can put the two together and figure it out. Or the fact that in Jula they have a word for the nonsense language of drunk people. If only English had such a word… As you can see, Jula is a really intuitive and amazing language.

For this week, I’m staying in a hotel in Ouaga and meeting our counterparts for a workshop and then heading to our respective sites to see our new houses!

And, in what has turned out to be the hardest part of training, I’m slowly learning the culture. My family is teaching me how to cultivate the fields and how to make tô. I play soccer every once in a while with some other volunteers and some Burkinabe on a dirt field. At first they seemed really concerned that girls would want to play, but now they just run us over like everyone else. I do laundry with my younger sister and have conversations about life in America with my younger brother and the Burkinabe friends I’ve made here. I’ll be doing model tutoring with 5 children who have been assigned to me so I’ll be teaching French and life skills like hygiene, anti-malarial, and sex education to girls and boys who are in CM1 and CM2, basically the equivalent of 5^th and 6^th grade. 

I’ve gotten into a routine and this has just become my normal life day to day, so sometimes it’s hard to find the funny experiences that would stand out to everyone at home. Enjoy the pictures!

Miss and love you all!

I Have 2 Mommy's! (and other tales of my progressive Burkinabe family)

Hello world!

I can’t believe I’ve been in Burkina for 3 weeks… it feels like so much longer!

First of all, I have been living with my amazing host family. My family is Muslim and polygamous, so I have TWO host mommy’s. Not only is my family Muslim, my host father is actually president of the Muslims in my village so he wields a lot of power. Needless to say, my family is pretty well-off compared to the rest of the host families… we have electricity but no running water. Villagers come to my house with chickens for my father so that he may give them religious advice and pray for them. And boy do they pray. 5 times a day and no less.

I have 4 brothers and sisters (I think, there are always random children around) and two girls that live with us which they call “bonnes” who do the housework. My youngest sister Djamilatou is 12 and does literally everything around my house. Especially for the nasara, me, who is incapable of even the simplest of tasks. It is completely acceptable here to have children run errands for you and although I felt bad at first, I’ve come to accept it. Djamila will take me to the tailor to have a dress made so that I get a fair price and she will run and get me cold water sachets as well. Who knew the fruits of child labor could be so sweet! (kidding)

As soon as I can put up pictures you will be able to see my room, which is blue and decked out with posters of Avril Lavigne and European football players, including the Arsenal team (sorry, Dad). I have my own separate house in the courtyard which is made of mud and brick. Inside I have my own water filter and the latrine that I use to take bucket baths is right next to my house, as well.

Since placing high enough in French to swear-in in September, I have started learning Jula while continuing French for an hour each week. Jula is the language spoken in the Western part of Burkina near Bobo-Dioulasso. So right now, in my head is a mix of French, English, Mooré (which most of my host family speaks), and Jula (which one of my host mommy’s speaks). Or as I like to call the linguistic concoction, Frangularé. Forgive me if my English is slacking.

Almost immediately after we got to our host families we went on a demystification trip to visit a current volunteer to see what they do. I went to a larger town in the Northeast with a few other trainees and we helped to weigh babies at the CSPS (local health center) which was a lot of fun. Basically, the mothers hang their baby up in a diaper-like contraption onto what looks like a meat hook and I write down the baby’s weight in kilograms. They keep track of their baby’s weight once a month when they come in to get formula, vaccinations, etc. So demyst was a good opportunity to get to see some of what a volunteer does and what volunteer life will be like after I swear in in September.

As for my daily life right now during training, I’ll give you a rundown. Most days I am awake by 5am to the sound of my rooster, who sets off the babies, who sets off the donkeys, who sets off the goats, etc. I sleep outside in my bug hut to keep cool because my house traps heat due to the metal roof. After taking a bucket bath, I meet up with another trainee who lives next door and we ride our bikes about 15 minutes to the training center. We have class all day, everything from technical classes about what we’ll be doing as non-formal education volunteers (life skills, tutoring, sex education, etc.) to language classes to medical classes about how to keep healthy. It helps that a lot of the classes are in the community, for instance drinking tea and practicing with some Jula speakers. We finish at around 5pm and then I grab a coke with another volunteer before heading home to study, eat dinner, read, and pass out at around 8pm. Sometimes I’ll play with my host brother and sister for a while. We listen to Akon and play a Burkinabé game similar to Sorry. Or I have some pretty hilarious convos with my host mom about life in the US (really, my family doesn’t cultivate ANYTHING). I’ve also shared with the neighborhood kids only the best of American culture, like the card game “bullshit” (or “tu as menti”, aka “you lied”, the more PG version) and frisbee.

Overall the good days are really good and the bad days are pretty bad. Some days I would really like some control over my own life, but I know that training is the hardest part and soon I will have more freedom than I know what to do with. 

Nasara!

Bon soir!

Good news first... I scored advanced high on my language placement exam which is well above what is required in French to swear in so I will be starting with local language right away! There are 160 different local languages in Burkina and we will not know which language we need until we find out where our sites are in July, but for now I am learning Moore (pronounced moor-ray). Practicing in the marche (market) has been fun because the Burkinabe are always surprised when a nasara (re: foreigner/white person) can speak Moore.

And more good news! Our stage got brand new Trek bikes. As soon as I can I will take a picture of what I will be riding around on for the next 2 years!

We've been waking up for breakfast at 6:30am and doing orientation training activities until around 5pm everyday. By the end of the day we're pretty tired and we're responsible to go out to get food on our own. So far, I love Burkinabe food. Most dishes are rice with a sauce (tomato, leaf, or, my favorite, peanut) with a meat in it (chicken, beef or fish). We've also tried to (pronounced toe), a blob of polenta-like consistency that you dip into sauce. I'm not a huge fan, but maybe it will grow on me.

Right now we're very sheltered in a hotel in Ouaga, the capital, playing frisbee and hanging out with other Americans speaking English and eating French fries. However, tomorrow we will be traveling to a village south of Ouaga called Sapone (sap-o-nay) to be adopted into our HOST FAMILIES! (They are famous for their hats, google it!) I could not be more excited (and nervous) to finally start adapting to life in Burkina. I am glad that I have my French so I will be able to communicate with my family and I hope to get a lot of Moore practice in. There will no doubt be a lot of fun stories to tell once we arrive and training really gets underway.

We have already had a few cross cultural sessions so that we will be able to interact with our host families. Some interesting facts about Burkinabe culture that I picked up:

• you never address an issue with someone directly... you seek out a third party to go talk to that person
• if you ever invite someone to eat or to get a beer it means that you'll be paying for them
• silence in conversations is totally normal and not awkward at all
• before you get up off of a seat you knock on it
• using your left hand for most things is forbidden because it is reserved for the bathroom
• women can't show knees and it's offensive to Muslims to show the bottom of your feet as well

We've also spent time learning more about our assignments and what we'll be doing in the education sector in Burkina. Most of our training is community based and practical, meaning that we will be participating in model school with real students and learning in the community as opposed to solely in the classroom.

Last but not least we've been learning about malaria and diarrhea and all that good medical stuff. And we've had several vaccines as well. Today we had to practice doing our own malaria slides by pricking our finger and properly smearing our blood samples onto a glass slide in case we ever need to bring blood samples to the medical office. For anyone who knows my fear of needles and blood this was tricky for me. Surprisingly, my slide was amazing.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to update next because we will be in a pretty small village, but please keep in touch via letters or cell phone if you'd like to hear from me!

Peace,
Marlow