Get Back to Work!!!

I am overwhelmed by America. It's culture shock all over again. I swear I thought I remembered what food stores and malls looked like, but being in them again was like going into the future. Or.. I guess coming back to the future... it has been weird.

So not that I am sick of answering the same questions over and over again.... (that translates to: "yes, I am"), but here is a copy of an email I received from my co-volunteer, Cary... it just about captures the feeling of being in Burkina as a volunteer and it is really on-point. Again, thank you Cary for saving me time and energy in writing and explaning all this myself. Now all you people complaining to me that you having nothing to read while you are at work can waste a few more minutes of company time reading this latest blog entry!!!


I've been through a lot of school in the US - 22 years of it, as a matter of fact, but that didn't teach me much of anything that's useful here in Burkina. Here's Intro to Burkina 101. I believe that I'm passed and I get to enroll in Intermediate Burkina 201.

Intestinal Parasites 105: Getting to know your body and when to identify something has moved in and is throwing a party in your intestines. Tips and techniques to identify and treat giardi, blasto, e. coli, amoebas, etc. Laboratory (1 credit): Learn how to prepare your own stool sample.

Basic Hygiene 111: This all-inclusive course begins with a crash course in how to squat and hover over a hole to crap and pee. A special emphasis is put on actually hitting the hole, even though this does not seem very important to the Burkinabe you are living with.

The second part of the course focuses on basic bathing techniques with a bucket of 6-8 liters of water (less than 2 gallons, guys....think about that. You use that much brushing your teeth) and a plastic cup. Covers how to deal with being buck naked and showering under the clear blue sky and fending off bugs while you are very vulnerable and in the middle of your bathing. Tutorials on boiling your water to bathe in the cold season.

The third part of the course is the transition to eating with your hands. The fourth is importance of not actually touching the children here, unless you WANT ringworm. The last part is a comprehensive survey of diseases you will see in your village, including gout (the old ladies who look like they've swallowed a football), nail fungus, and a variety of open, staph infected sores.

Appreciation 100: This is individually tailored for each volunteer and in an independent-study format. Each volunteer is given time to reflect and think of all the things they took for granted in the United States. Each volunteer will keep a journal where they record dreams of the US (salad bars, ice, family, friends, a real bed) and write letters to everyone in the US to apologize for not being more appreciative of them before they came to Burkina. Will be followed up by App 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, and 900.

Burkinabe Culture 101: We like to call this course 'integration'. We're going to throw you into a French speaking culture in temperatures soaring close to 120 degrees, strip you of all privacy, make you sit through classes 8 hours a day, and feed you bizarre foods (you reserve the right to refuse the fried termites, the hunks of meat with the hair still attached, or the chicken feet-we feed those to the kids). Yes, we know you don't speak French. Isn't it fun?

Burkinabe Culture 102: After you integrate into your host family the first three months and learn passable French, we send you into BC 102. Here, you go to an even smaller village, 60-70 miles away from the next closest volunteer, where no one ACTUALLY speaks French. In this tour de force, your job is to become an active member of a Burkinabe community, even though no one is in the village during the summer (they're all in the fields). Yes, okay, we are sadists and this is for our enjoyment more than anything else. Your grade in the class is based on how mentally stable you are after 3 months. Anything short of trying to net invisible butterflies that have stolen all your clothes gets you an A.

Transportation 210: This core curriculum class is an intricate study of how we get from point A to point B here in Burkina Faso. You will be evaluated by the general ability to not blow up and lash out at your chauffeur for thinking that one liter (quart) of gas will get you 50 miles, or to lash out at fellow passengers, even when their baby pees on you. Or their goat that's trussed up bawling the whole trip under your seat.

Teaching in the Burkinabe School System 213: Previously, this class was named "Making Order of Dysfunction" but the Ministry of Education here asked that we change the name of the course. Here, we give you 100+ students in a classroom, an outdated textbook, and a box of chalk. You will independently learn how to teach the elegant sexual and asexual reproductive strategies of algae, the digestive system of a cow, and plate tectonics to hormone-ridden 12-22 year old students all mixed together in the same classroom. For additional practice, see Herding Cats 303: Advanced Classroom Discipline Techniques and Walking on Water 305: Everyday Miracles.

Pharmacology 206: Practical Pill Popping This elegantly designed course makes pill taking an integral part of your daily life. We feed you a nutritionally empty diet and you get to find fun and creative ways to determine which deficiencies you are developing. Seminars in "Why is my hair falling out?" "Do you really need calcium?" "I don't need vegetables in my diet", "More vitamin D than you can shake a stick at", and "Millet: the wonder food". The second part of the course covers all the others: psychosis-inducing anti-malarials, allergy meds, and advanced training in antibiotics (see Intestinal Parasites).

Geography 104: Getting Around Your Market Your market is an endless, confusing maze that sucks you up and spits you out in an unfamiliar neighborhood clear across the village, but it is necessary to deal with if you want to survive in village. Basic instruction in foods (what are the suspicious brown balls and the shriveled plant matter), in clothing (how to buy the good fabric and possible pitfalls in buying secondhand clothes), medications (how to dive through a table full of pills and find the amoxicillin you need), and local novelties (yes, some people want to buy a dried lizard and some cow tails). The important role of commissioning someone to buy stuff for you so they can get the real price and not the white person price is stressed.


Now that you are exhausted of reading, I will update you on the somewhat boring details of what the last couple of days in Burkina were like for me before coming home...

The events that I spoke about in my last blog about all the planning I was helping with for March 8th/International Women's Day events went off OK. As usual, there were ups and downs. On March 6th we had planned to have a day specifically dedicated to the village women. Most of them don't speak any French (only local languages), can't read or write, and just know the lifestyle of caring for a family and working the land. So we thought that a day to speak openly about some issues they may not otherwise have the chance to talk about was a good idea. Events were to begin at 9am. We told the women to come at 8 am so that hopefully it would start on time at 9am. Well....everything didn't start until NOON!! Already a great start, right?? We had invited the woman who is the Director of the closest bank to come speak to the women about the value of having a bank account - how to do it and why to do it. She accepted our invitation, but never showed up. Good thing we had budgeted money for her meal that we had prepared to make her feel welcome! Fortunately, our other two guests speakers came and were wonderful. One woman spoke about fighting against poverty and her experiences in development projects around Burkina (she is fabulous). The other woman was a mid-wife who spoke about family planning and general women's health topics.

On March 7th we had a day that was planned specifically just for the female students of the school I teach at - girls aged 13-18. The girls took a huge part in the planning of this day because they wrote and acted out two sketches and recited poems from memory. They were so wonderful and entertaining... the sketches were about an unwanted pregnancy and a forced female circumcision. Two serious issues, and they somehow made them into rather funny sketches, which in turn opened up conversations between the girls and the women who attended. The mid-wife came to speak again about health issues, and we had a whole panel of successful women from Padema, who have great jobs, sitting in front of the girls, open for questions from the girls- about school, life, girl stuff, whatever.... It was really successful, and I think everyone profitted from the day.









March 8th I actually spent in transit from Padema to Bobo. It took me 8 HOURS to get there because I thought I was getting a good deal at first. One of the cotton corporations had sent a vehicle through Padema that day and I bummed ride thinking I'd have a quick and easy ride back to Bobo (think NO SHEEP OR COWS). Well, little did I know that the driver had about 20 stops to make all throughout the north, west and south of Burkina. Literally, I was at the border of Mali two times that day and to the south about 100 miles from Padema. I left Padema at 11:00 am and arrived in Bobo around 7 p.m.

I finally got on my plane in Ouaga on March 10th! I was so excited, and as soon as I tasted even the plane food I couldn't wait to begin my binging in America!!! By the way I have already gained about 5 lbs in my first week. Thank you to all my food providers! :)

Haoua, the woman from Padema who was invited to a conference at Harvard, is currently staying with my family. She is extremely grateful to those of you who contributed to her spending money while she is here, and because of it, she has had nothing but a pleasant and worry-free experience here. Here are pics of us the day we went to the Statue of Liberty:





I will write again from Burkina. I fly out on March 30th, and I'll update again as soon as possible. I am looking forward to going back and finishing up one full year of teaching... but I am also going back just when the ridiculously HOT season is starting.... not looking forward to that so much.

Thanks to everyone who came out and spent time with me while I was here. And thanks for all the wonderful HUGS!!!! I've been missing those.