Goodbye

An artificial sunrise penetrates an otherwise dark night, competing with the moon as the light source of the village. It creeps up on the mango trees and fans its rays behind the pointed straw roofs of the circular mud huts. The children run to the nearby railroad tracks to wave hello to the passengers as they fly by.

The train doesn’t stop here anymore, it just whizzes past, offering a glimpse of the high speed world outside the village. It interrupts the tranquility of the night for a brief moment.

I am reminded of the world that I come from—the world that I will soon return to. I am reminded that I, too, am a fleeting presence in this village, just like the passengers on the train. The train passes through for 1 minute each day; I passed through for two years, a brief amount of time when viewed in the context of a lifetime.

I hope that in those quick two years that I passed through Diarabakoko I looked out the window and away from what I was doing often enough and purposefully enough to learn something from the people who stood at the tracks waving to me: about their culture, their hospitality, and our common humanity. I hope that I wasn’t so eager to get to my destination that I forgot to wave back to them and to enjoy the ride.

I hope that the brief moment of light that I brought inspired hope and not fear. I hope that they learned something about me, even if our perspectives were as different as dark and light, still and moving.

I hope that, when I get to my destination, I can tell others about what I witnessed on my journey.

Selfishly, I hope that my light is not quickly forgotten. I hope that, after I have passed the village, the people stand by the tracks lingering, if only for a few seconds.

I hope that the light of the volunteer after me is met with even more enthusiasm and hope.

I hope that I recognize my own limitations in the knowledge I could have possibly gained by momentarily peeking out a window (not being privy to the underpinnings and subtleties of an entire culture) while still recognizing the value and inherent worth of what I did learn.

So as I pass the last sign in my village before continuing on my journey, I give one last look out the window to my adopted family, friends, colleagues, and children who, as every returning Peace Corps volunteer knows, have given me so much more than I could have possibly given them.

Train passing through Diarabakoko from Cote d'Ivoire

THANK YOU to all of you who have supported me throughout this journey—I simply could not have done it without you. Thanks to my amazing and supportive family, who called me every Sunday (and then some) without fail and who made the trip over to experience my life here firsthand. Thanks to my mom who has become a package pro and who, on my visit home, made every meal I was craving. Thank you to the friends and family who wrote to me and sent me packages: Jasmin White, Liz Alarcon, Brian Roberts, Zach Jobin, Jessica Zucker, nana, grandma, and Auntie Anne. When you’re living a world away, these gifts and words of encouragement seem to shorten the distance, at least temporarily. Thank you to my fellow volunteers, the most amazing and diverse group of people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. More specifically, thank you to McKenna Radunzel, Ashley Geesman, Rachel Taylor, and Sam Gradess. Thanks for sharing in my sadness, laughter, and, let’s be honest, confusion throughout the past two years. I will leave Burkina sharing memories, understanding, and a convenient secret language, with all of you. Thank you to the French classroom in North Carolina who I corresponded with—I loved your questions and enthusiasm! Thank you to the professors and former employers who helped me with recommendation letters as I prepared for my next journey, law school, despite the distance and difficulty involved and my constant harassment through email: Dr. Evnine, Jeff Hensley, Jill Zarchin, Karla Fuentes, and Scott Woodcock. Lastly, but certainly not least, thank you to all of you who have followed this blog and/or kept in touch me with me through Facebook. A big part of my job as a volunteer is to bring this experience back home and help educate Americans about Burkinabe culture—I hope I have been able to do that effectively and honestly through this blog and this part of my job is really just beginning as I make the trip home to America.

See you in England August 3^rd and in America August 11^th!

Marlow

Reflecting on the Peace Corps: Would I do it all over again?

Recently, Peace Corps volunteers all over the world took an extensive online survey which measured work life and personal life satisfaction, areas for improvement, and that revealing question: if you could do it all over again, would you have still made the decision to join the Peace Corps? 90% of volunteers in Burkina Faso, which is notably the poorest country that the Peace Corps serves in, said yes. Including me.

People join the Peace Corps for a lot of reasons. I won’t rehash my own reasons for joining, but if you’re interested you can read the first post of this blog. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Peace Corps volunteers are not slackers on a free vacation. Most are highly ambitious, type-A people (you’d have to be to get through the medical section of the application alone). No one joins for solely selfless reasons; we all seek to gain something personally, professionally, or both from committing two years of our lives to a developing country. At the end of their service, most volunteers feel that they’ve gained much more than they’ve given to their host country.

I’ve been living in Burkina for 23 months now and will be coming home late this summer. Although my service is not yet over, and I’m sure a lot of reflection will necessarily take place when I return to America, I can already witness the personal growth engendered by this experience. I’ve gained patience and perspective that I believe I could not have possibly gained through continued schooling or entering the workforce or starting a family. I understand better what’s important and what’s not. Overcoming the daily challenges of living in a culture so fundamentally different from my own has also instilled in me incredible self-confidence. Just being exposed to a new way of life has made me aware of how my own culture has shaped me, in both positive and negative ways. I’ve learned to keep going even when I fail miserably, because even when I fail I wake up every day knowing that this is an incredible opportunity: to be someone’s first American friend, to help a student who is struggling at school, to advise a mother on how to best nourish her baby. What we do does make a difference, albeit on an individual level which is difficult to measure. I’ve learned to just be with people, without a work-related motive, without any purpose at all.

If this sounds rosy, I’ve witnessed horrific things, too: a woman who was beaten to death by her husband buried while her three-month-old looked on, my own best friend abused by her husband, violence against children in schools, mothers and babies dying due to inadequate healthcare, and forced marriages. But I’ve also witnessed kindness and hope beyond measure: families sharing food with those in need, teachers going out of their way to make sure students succeed, fathers encouraging their daughters to do well in school, and mothers working strenuously to build a better future for themselves and their children. Through all of this, good and bad, I’ve come to the realization that all Peace Corps volunteers come to: people everywhere across countries, cultures, and socioeconomic differences, want the same thing. It sounds simple and it is, but it takes being submerged in another culture to honestly believe it.

I don’t know where else life will take me but I know that Peace Corps was an invaluable stop along the way because it prepared me for everything else that will follow. It has made me more adaptable, mature, self-aware and confident in my abilities. And I have a greater understanding of the world at large than most can claim at 23 years old.

Professionally, the benefits of the Peace Corps might not be so clear. Of course, most employers rightly view returned PCV’s as adaptable and highly motivated. But in terms of having a professional, functioning work environment during their two years abroad many volunteers are disillusioned. Those volunteers who are allied with associations or schools may have more guidance and resources at their disposal, but some work sectors necessitate that volunteers essentially create their own job. This can be difficult when community motivation is lacking and/or community members do not understand the role of the Peace Corps and its participatory development philosophy (the Peace Corps is unlike many other development organizations in that it provides human resources and capacity building, rather than financial and material resources).

Despite these challenges, many volunteers come to enjoy the flexibility of creating their own job and learn to thrive in a cross-cultural work setting. Although they may sometimes fret that the work they are doing is not truly sustainable, they inevitably have a positive impact on at least a few of their host country colleagues. Positive influences such as these should not be discounted when analyzing the effect that volunteers have on local development efforts. These relationships also explain why many volunteers would choose to do the Peace Corps again if they could do it over.

I’ve experienced more failure in my two years here than I have in all of the other years of my life combined; accepting failure is also the best lesson I’ve ever learned. Many of my projects are unsustainable—in a village of only 1,000 people and zero adults with more than a middle school education, the majority of whom are also illiterate and/or don’t speak French, I did a lot of work on my own without the help of a counterpart. For example, my life skills club which taught boys and girls about disease prevention, gender equality, and reproductive health, will not continue when I leave. But after only two years, I’ve witnessed the positive effects that these skills and knowledge have had on the individual lives of my students. Ultimately, the decisions that they make will change their own lives and the lives of their future children, and that is no small feat.

Overall, I feel satisfied personally and professionally and I think many of the hardships are necessary in order to attain the delayed satisfaction which characterizes being a PCV. I also feel that I’ve contributed meaningfully to the development of Burkina and that I’ve served my own country in an important way—by fostering positive American sentiment.

My advice to those considering the Peace Corps: do it. But keep in mind that what you get out of this experience is directly proportional to what you put in. If you feel yourself withdrawing, make a conscious effort to get back out there. Walk around your village and just say hi to your neighbors—you’ll be quickly reminded how much your presence means to them. Two-thirds of our job as volunteers is to engage in cross cultural exchange. This is also the most rewarding aspect of the job, in my own experience. You might be the first, or only, American that someone interacts with so make a positive impression. You’re not missing out on anything at home—trust me. If you visit home this will be confirmed by seeing your friends who are working the same jobs, hanging out with the same people, and doing the same things they were when you left. True friends will keep in touch with you and you will find an incredible support system in your fellow volunteers. Have an open mind. Be aware that, at the end of the day, it will be the meaningful relationships you forge which define your service, not the number of successful projects.

Marlow

Men As Partners

First of all, thank you to those who have expressed concern about the recent events in Mali. We are safe here in Burkina, although some volunteers in the North of the country have been offered site changes due to the increasing influence of Al Qaeda and the influx of refugees. The American embassy continues to have regular security briefings and is keeping us updated on the situation.

Throughout my service in Burkina Faso, the issue that resurfaces daily as one of the biggest development challenges is the severe level of inequality between men and women. It is so deeply rooted in the culture that even talking about making changes in this area is taboo. And the longer I live and work here, the more I believe that this is not merely a peripheral issue. Rather, it is through solving this problem that we will realize greater economic prosperity, educational results, and health outcomes not just in Burkina Faso but in sub-Saharan Africa more generally.

UN studies and global news headlines echo this conclusion. For example, studies have demonstrated over and over again that educated women have fewer, healthier, and better educated children. One of the most effective tools we have for lowering the rate of both infant mortality and maternal mortality is educating our girls. In terms of economic development, women represent more than 50% of a country’s population and are therefore crucial to making a country competitive. And when women do have their own income they spend, on average, 80 cents per dollar that they earn on their family (men put 30 cents towards the family on average).

But most development approaches which aim to foster gender equality ignore the key demographic essential to this effort—men.

In Burkinabe culture, men are the decision makers. The change in women’s status necessitates male involvement because men possess great influence as the heads of their households and communities. It is with this idea in mind that Peace Corps sponsors a “Men as Partners” conference where interested volunteers bring motivated male counterparts from their villages to discuss women’s empowerment.

Over the course of four days, we discussed some of the controversial issues relating to gender equality in Burkina Faso including the spectrum of violence (sexual, physical, psychological, and economic), family planning, and the division of labor in the household. Many of the topics were sensitive, such as “dry” sex as a form of sexual violence and whether or not rape was possible within a marriage. The Burkinabe homologues will bring the importance of gender equality back to their sites and educate their community members on this issue in both formal and informal settings.

To demonstrate women’s heavy domestic burden, we had a relay race with a men’s team and a women’s team. One person from each team had to run over and grab an item that represented a task that their particular gender was responsible for (a cooking pot, bucket, and spoon for the women and a beer bottle and agricultural tool for the men). The members of the women’s team also had to do the entire race with a skirt attached.

 

Acting out a skit for the rest of the group. Here, we acted out the scenario using aggressive communication, as opposed to passive or assertive.