No Huggies

I am here in Bobo the entire week to help chaperone a Girls' Camp. This is a program the Peace Corps sponsors for girls from villages surrounding some of the larger cities of Burkina. Here in the Bobo region we have 14 girls, 2 from each of 7 villages in the region. These girls were chosen by their Directeurs (like the principal) because they had the best grades in their class, and the idea of the camp is to give them a week of fun outings, educational sessions, encouragement to continue their education, and some good food (um, relatively speaking of course). They are really sweet and well-behaved girls, aged 14-17, and it is nice to finally feel like I am doing something productive. For most of them it is their first time in Bobo, or possibly even being anywhere that is not the village, so it is really interesting to watch their reactions to everything.. even the simplest things like electricity.

The more time I spend watching other people, the more I realize it's almost like going back in time to live here. Most people eat with their hands, you live off of nature literally (most sauces are prepared from leaves that easily grow in the wild). If they don't grow their food every year they will surely starve, they kill and prepare any animals they intend to eat themselves, and things like computers and electricity are foreign concepts to people who have lived all their lives in a village. I know a girl who is about 15 who was at my house and asked what time it was. My watch was on the table next to her, so I said to just pick it up and look. She had no idea how to read my watch, and this blew me away. Similarly, I was in a meeting another volunteer invited me to, which was for women from a bunch of villages surrounding mine but being held in my village. It was pretty interesting to watch the events unfold. At least half of the women were illiterate and there were 3 languages being used throughout the meeting, as some of them didn't speak French but there was more then one local language represented. The meeting started an hour and 45 min after it was scheduled for, but women came from as many as 20 km by bike and with babies strapped on their backs just to attend. Before starting any business, it is necessary that everyone greets each other and goes through the tedious ritual of asking how you slept, how's the family, how's the husband, how are the kids, how's the health, how was the ride, and on and on and on... this is the typical greeting process in every language here. And if you don't ask in return it is impolite. The meeting was set to discuss a big party that they want to plan for October for an International Women's Day celebration. I don't really know if anything was set in stone by the end of the meeting, as far as activities were concerned (plus I didn't understand anyting half the time), but it was reall progressive to be in a room with a bunch of women who gathered for a women's cause. Very encouraging! Also very different from the rush-rush corporate environment I left in February... oh, how life has changed..

In Padema, I have a new 12 yr old best friend. She's the girl I tutor in math and English, and she comes over usually every morning and night, around her cultivating schedule. She shows up at my house around 7 am, and we usually have tea together before working on some schoolwork for an hour or so. When one of her relatives passes by on the way to the fields, she asks me for homework for her to do while she works, and off she goes to plant seeds and cultivate for the following 8 hours or more. Then she passes by on her way home, usually carrying a stack of wood or a whole bunch of other stuff on her head, and yells out to me that she will drop off the stuff and be right over for more schoolwork. Sometimes I make some spaghetti especially for her, because spaghetti is kind of expensive for villagers, and she absolutely LOVES eating it. Last week, it rained all day one day, and she had come in the morning. Because of the rain, she did not have to go to the fields, and she invited me to her house to chat with her family and do schoolwork there instead. Her family is Mossi, which is the same ethnicity as the family I lived with during training, so how can you refuse family? We even have the same last name - Ouedreogo. Her family was all too excited to have me visit, and the little kids, as usual, were all about sitting and staring at me. I took one of the babies and attached her to my back with a cloth, to see how it feels to carry around a baby the way they do. It was really cute for about 5 min.... until she shit on my back. Great.... so I sat there and didn't let it ruin my mood but was thinking of ways to get out and go home to scrub off. Then they handed me another cute baby, and I started googling and gaagling with here, which was also very cute.... til she peed on my legs. Twice. So after almost dropping her on her head, I changed skirts by borrowing a fabric they had at their house and sat waiting for the opportunity to go home to wash off. In the meantime it started raining really hard, so I was stuck. But after a bit of time and a little less excitement at being surrounded by the babies, I told her I'd go home and come back a little later. The road from her house to mine is like every other one, in that it just lets water sit on it, becomes mud, and is difficult to bike on. So by the time I get home I am soaking wet and covered in mud, pee, and poo. Thank goodness I have an indoor shower now. Pure heaven.

There is a bridge that separates the area where I live from the main part of the village, where I do all my socializing and hanging out. The friggin bridge is falling apart! Every time there is a big rain, it washes away the earth from under the bridge bit by bit, and the concrete has actually begun crumbling into the river below. Being the civil engineer that I am, I inquired about when they planned on fixing the bridge, and went down and was looking at the soils and all - it's sitting on clays and silts that wash away VERY easily and quickly in the torrential downpours of Africa. Not that I'd have any idea how to fix a bridge in Africa when you have a pocketknife and a bucket, but it was interesting (and not at all comforting) to see how little engineering went into that thing. There have been guys periodically working on supporting it and fixing it, but they're around once every few days, so the repairs are slow-going. In the meantime I pray that it doesn't completely fall, or else I will be stuck in no-man's land. What would MacGyver do?

Here in Bobo, I am quite content. Like I said, it feels good to be here for a purpose this time. Oh, I ate caterpillars! Apparently, along with the flying maggot-things (Bibi) you fry and eat, fried caterpillars are also a delicacy this time of year. Other volunteers have told me they taste pretty good, so I thought what the heck! When in Africa... and so I ate a big caterpillar sandwich - caterpillars, cucumbers, onions, and sauce on bread. It was not really tasty, and it actually made me vomit 2 times an hour later. Lesson learned. No more caterpillars for Steph!

Apart from that, my health is great. I have felt really good since I left Bobo the last time. And I just got the most kick-ass packages here in Bobo, so I may even try to fatten up a little on EZ Cheese and crackers... THANK YOU to my care package providers!!!! And I received the USB cable for my camera, so I will hopefully be able to post some pics in the near future to a website like Ofoto or Snapfish or something. I can't wait for you all to see pics!!

Spirits are much better this time around, even though I found out another girl from my group just quit and is back in America :( very sad to see her go..... especially since you don't even get to say goodbye and hear the news by word of mouth. So our group of originally 15 volunteers is now down to 12.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Emmie and Samantha! And HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my parents! 31 years, I believe!!!

The cell phone line is open until Saturday, if you wanna call!!! I hope you know hearing from America is the best gift ever...

I forgot to add, too, that I have been given a new name - POKO!!! .... it's so much cuter than Fatimata, don't you think? I'm sticking with Poko.

All my love,
Poko