People People People

As my time in Burkina comes to a close, I've been reflecting on everything that I'll soon have to leave behind (somethings more willingly than others...). More than anything else, I'll miss walking to school every morning. I usually leave my house at about 6:45, and every few steps there is another person on the road to greet. My neighbor, giving her baby a bath; her husband setting the chairs out at his maquis. He greets me almost everyday in a huge, booming voice, saying "ne y yibeoogo" (good morning in moore), after which we exchange asking if the other person slept well and is in good health (it's cultural). Then when I get on the main road I walk with a cluster of students to the school. They move along the road in khaki-colored packs (they all wear khaki uniforms), saying how hard the last test was and asking, "will you please please please give us bonus points this trimester Madame?". If I'm lucky I'll get to greet the security guard at my village's caisse populaire (it's a credit union where people can keep their money), and I'll pass by the commisariat (police station) before they do the flag raising ceremony. If they blow whistle while you're passing on the road alongside the building you have to stop until they're done raising the flag. Even people riding bikes and motos stop. Then it's a straight shot up a gentle slope to my school. Usually I greet my collegues if they're at the administration building and then walk to the classroom where I'm supposed to teach. One of the students usually runs out to carry my bag for me (a sign of respect), and those walking behind me start running to get into class before me (you can't go in after the teacher). I try to pause for a few moments to let the running students get into the classroom. When I walk in all of the students stand up (a sign of respect-this one was really hard for me to adjust to at first) and then sit down after I say "bonjour, assiez vous". This is what I'll miss more than anything else when I leave here: seeing every student in the classroom and hearing their responses when I ask how they are doing. Some of them are unforgettable and feel like old friends, simply because we've spent so much time together. There's Abdoulaye and Abel, who, though they ALWAYS talk in class (I occasionally kick them out), ask the best questions and push the class's discussion forward. There's the "smart kid", Inoussa, who knows every answer to every question because he's already learned all of the day's material before coming to class. There's Lilli-Estelle, who repeated a grade last year, but is now motivated and empowered, raising her hand to answer almost every question (I think she just might pass her national exam last year after looking like she'd rather be anywhere else at the beginning of last year).

So, to everyone who will ask, "What is Africa like?", there's your answer. Africa is people.

CRUNCH!

This week my whole training group came to Ouaga for a three day close of service (COS) conference where we received information on finishing our time in Burkina. It suddenly seems like there's so much to do: materials to return, resumes to write, reports to turn in...it all makes for a very stressful last few months. Not to mention that I just happen to becoming out of the Peace Corps during a giant recession. Thanks economy. Thanks a lot.

On the bright side I finally know when I'll be coming home. The official COS date is July 23, so I should get back to the states July 24th or 25th (I won't know until they give me my ticket). I'm going to fly to PK's house in Minn, then we're going to drive my car across the country to Mom's in CA. I'm really sad to leave Burkina after having created a whole life here, but there are some things I'm looking forward to in the US. I stopped craving US food a while ago, or at least I thought I did, then the other day I was sitting in my courtyard and suddenly had the strongest craving for a Cinnabun. "CInnabun?", I thought..."I've only eaten one of those two or three times in my life, how could I possibly be craving it?"

Anyway, the readjustment back to the states is going to be filled with lots of ups and downs. I'm already worried about walking into a job interview and having the person think I'm a bum and didn't do anything for the last two years because they don't know Peace Corps. They talked to us this week about how to deal with different reactions from people not caring at all, to people making assumptions, etc. Ugh...it's just a lot to prepare for...but as the Burkinabes say, ca va aller (it will go or it will be okay).

Camels, World Map and a Visit to My Village

Wow! A lot has happened since I last wrote on here. Over the Christmas break I went way up north to Gorom-Gorom with An and her friend Meghan, a PCV from Uganda. We hired a guide to take us on an over night camel trek into the desert. Riding a camel was really strange because unlike riding a horse, you have to keep your feet on the camel's neck the entire time. It was also really high up (camels are big!). We rode about 10 km outside of Gorom to a village where we slept in a sand dune. The guide made us a delicious dinner of chicken and rice which we shared with villagers. Unfortunately it was really cold. We brought mats and blankets, but we should have brought more. Now I really understand why people who live in the desert dress the way that they do. One of the villagers who came out to greet us in the morning started counting how many layers he was wearing in Fulfulde. Five! Then we almost couldn't find transport to get back to Dori from Gorom that day, but luckily we found a car and arrived just before nightfall in Dori (after waiting on the side of the road for an hour while the driver got a ride to Dori to get a spare tire-we got a flat). It was a fun trip though, and I'll try to upload the pics if I get a chance.

Then at the beginning of January a group of american college students came to my village from the University of Illinois. Their professor, Richard Akresh, was a volunteer in Togo and now studies economics. Every other year he has a "study abroad" program for two weeks in Burkina to allow students to see development projects. He contacted me a while ago to organize the visit, and I couldn't refuse. We went to my school just to give them an idea of what I do, how few resources we have, etc. Then we had lunch with the chief of my village, the mayor, my school director, and some of the other teachers (including my counterpart). After eating, each group got to ask each other cultural questions. I think that both the Americans and the Burkinabes enjoyed the opportunity to discuss with one another.

This trimester I started painting a world map mural with a group of girls at my school. It's a project that many PCVs have done all over the world, and there is even a manual on how to do it. You paint a rectangular wall space light blue and draw grid lines on it. The resulting squares correspond to squares on map section sheets in the manual. The map makers then copy square by square the map design in pencil onto the wall and paint/label the map. We're almost done. It's just to label the countries and have a ceremony to present it.

I chose a group of girls to do this project because they are so underrepresented in Burkinabe secondary schools. I have at most 30% female students, but the levels drop off tremendously in the higher classes. This allowed us to sensitize students and even other teachers who would come and watch what we were doing. Hopefully the map will become a resource for the community at large, as most people in Burkina never go to school and have never even seen a map. Even my students didn't recognize the basic forms of the land masses. Again, I'll try to upload photos.

Yay! The upload worked! The first pictures are of us makng the world map. After that I included two photos from Richard Akresh's visit to my village with his students. There's a photo of us all having lunch and a photo of the chief of my village and the mayor. The chief is the one wearing the green boubou and his special chief's hat. When the students asked him about why he wore that particular outfit, the mayor responded by saying, "so people know he's important, so they know he's the chief". After that you will see two photos of our camel trek. One with me and our guides, and another of the back of An and Meghan as we made our way out to the village.

Pictures

Delphine and I with her neighbor's baby last spring.






















Reading magazines in the transit house (you really get to like In Touch as a volunteer, and no they're not posing, no really!) Pete fooling around with his super stylin' sunglasses and safari hat.


Here are some pictures from a while ago. Everybody always asks for pictures, and I've got them; it just takes a really long time to upload here or I lose the connection.

Frustrations

I just looked back at the last blog entry I wrote. Sometimes when I write a really optmistic update like that I feel like I'm not doing the experience justice. As volunteers we try to keep it positive when talking about our host country (they are hosting us for two years after all), but being a volunteer can be trying at times. There's a reason that they call it the toughest job you'll ever love. I've definitely had days where I feel like tearing my hair out or maybe curling up in the fetal position in the corner of my house.

One thing that I've been wanting to talk about here is how difficult the situation is for women in Burkina. Most of the situations that really have gotten under my skin have to do with the differing gender roles here. Women still play a very traditional role in Burkinabe society, so I guess we could say things haven't really "arrived" here like they have at home. Whenever I tell people (especially men, it's always the men!!) that I teach, they looked so shocked to find out that a woman could be teaching math and science. "Oh, but women usually teach literature, languages and history", they tell me. Luckily I have a female colleague who also teaches math science. One day we were sitting in the teachers room at school, and then out of the blue she asked me, "Lara, est-ce que les personnes parlent mal a toi?", which means do people say mean things to you, or literally, do people talk bad to you? (African french anyone?). "You mean like male students?" I asked. "Yes." "Does that happen in the US?", "No, not like it does here". Then she smiled and had a look of relief on her face. I used to feel like all of my frustrations as a volunteer came from the fact that I was a white american. But it's really that I'm younger than anyone else who works at the school (some of the upper level students are even older than me!), and I'm a girl. Even though women are starting to pursue upper level education and professional positions, it's sort of like they can do it if they want to, but they are always expected to fulfill their foremost role of marrying and having children. And women often aren't taken seriously by their male colleagues. I find that almost all of the male teachers at my school have either stared at me during meetings, made comments about how "jolie" they think I am, etc. When I told one of them that I didn't like it when they did that, he said, "Oh but you have to say things like that to a women from time to time, or else she won't feel good". This is one aspect of the culture that I will never accept. I go through it over and over and over again in my head, why it's like that, that marriage is important, collective society...blah blah blah, and I'm sorry, but I will never like the place that women currently occupy in the sociale fabric. I refuse to accept objectification!

On a lighter note, it's finally cooled off here, which means I can sit inside my house during the day and get work done, without finding myself in a pool of sweat after five minutes. Woo-hoo! Yay cold season! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone too! I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet. I had planned to meet up with some volunteers, but I don't like the idea of traveling two weekends in a row, so I might just stay at my site...maybe I'll make an apple pie in my dutch oven and share it with some village friends.

Back to School

October is the start of the school year in Burkina Faso so I'm back to waking up early, getting dressed after a nice bucketbath, and running down the road to teach rooms full of kids packed in like sardines, four to a desk. I really am happy with my job though. Even though its tough sometimes with the lack of resources (chalk, chalkboard, and umm....me), the students are great. They're still kids, so when they come late, I have to make them wait outside, tell them not to talk in class, etc. But knowing how profoundly education will change some of their lives fills me with hope (not to get to idealistic and sentimental because very few of them will actually pass through the system to university). The handful of students who do make it through to get their BEPC (exam after middle school) or BAC (exam equivalent of a high school diploma) do have a chance at finding a job as a civil servant or something with a somewhat regular salary. Contrasted with the cultivating lifestyle that most of their families lead, it's not too bad. One of my best friends in Burkina says that growing up in her village was hard, and that she suffered (she actually uses the french verb to suffer). Mais maintenant, ca va un peu, au moins un peu. (But now, it's a little bit okay, at least a little bit.) Oftentimes there is only one child out of a family who makes it through to university to become a teacher, nurse, etc. They become the head of their family and support the other children and relatives to go to school, as well as providing a financial cushion for their families in hard times. I love to think about my students being able to support their families like this if they can through the system.

If it wasn't for this, and their enthusiasm I really don't know if I could have made it to this point in my service. It truly is inspirational to see them waking up at five in the morning to do chores, then walk to school for seven o'clock classes, back home for lunch, and then back to school in the afternoon. Then finding a way to study at night...if they're lucky and have electricity, then they can use a lightbulb until the power cuts out at 11 pm...if they can't then their parents buy kerosene for a lamp for them. I've even heard of students lighting small bonfires in the bush with remnants from the last millet harvests to have light to study. It makes everything that I did to get my education in America seem so much easier. I had a fantastic free public education through high school and then went to a university with libraries, laboratories and resources beyond imagination.

I sometimes wish that I could give all of my students an educational experience like the one that I had. How many more of them would be engaged during class if they weren't worrying about where their next meal was coming from? Or how they were going to buy paper to take notes and study? How much richer would their understanding of biological concepts be?

But this is not the current reality of Burkina...which is exactly why we're here. No, I can't build the libraries, or buy books, or make a laboratory appear out of thin air. In fact the nature of the Peace Corps sometimes frustrates me because I wish I could do these things, but it really is better if it comes from the community. And these things are arriving...we now have a small library at my school thanks to PLAN-Burkina, a NGO. If all goes well, we'll have a garden by the end of the school year too with Moringa trees, Neem trees, and a bunch of smaller plants. I'm planning on taking on this project with the other biology teachers. It should be a fun way for our students to learn botany. If we keep going someday everyone here will have access to a great education. I just know that it's possible. We just have to stay motivated, even though it might seem impossible. My host dad from training likes to say that development is about each and every person making their small contribution to the bigger movement.

Sometimes when people talk about Africa in the West they make it seem like it's a stagnant place that's stuck in the past. In reality, things are changing quite rapidly here. There is now free primary school education for all first year students (started this year). More and more people are going to school. Movements for women's rights and social change are very active, even on the grassroots level. (Each village even has a group devoted to solving problems in the community like forced marriage etc.). I'm not saying that any of this is easy, but it is happening to some degree. It's nice to know that by serving in the Peace Corps I can make my small contribution to development by teaching the next generation of Burkinabes.

Cassandra's Village

Even though I just blogged, I decided visiting Cassandra's village merits another entry.

Cassandra and I trained together last summer (2007) to be Peace Corps teachers. Her site is kind of near mine, also located in northern Burkina. Unlike me, she lives with a host family. After a bumpy, dusty (I turned brownish-red and it wasn't a tan) bus ride we got off at her site. While walking to her house we greeted the guy who is always at her gare (bus station), the pastor from her protestant church who wanted to know why there wasn't anyone in the school office yet, the director of the private primary school, and a couple village kids who wanted to carry our bags (a sign of respect from children in Burkina). When we arrived in her courtyard we said hi to her host mom (well actually Mom #1), host siblings, and her dog.

Her family has a large, traditional style, Mossi compound. Each branch of the family gets its own house or hut, with the family spending the majority of its time in the courtyard area because it's just too darn hot to stay inside here. So, the dad has a house, and each wife also has her own house. Even if there is only one wife they still live separately in the most traditional settings because sex is so taboo in Mossi culture. Parents end up sneaking around a lot at night if they want to conceive a child.

Yes, I did just say each wife. Since a large fraction of the population is in fact Muslim and the Quaran allows men to keep up to four wives, polygamy is not by any means uncommon in Burkina. In fact many of my students have multiple moms, and many of my friends have polygamist parents. The practice is starting to go away in larger cities, as some educated women refuse to share their husbands with another woman, and would sooner just leave than do so.

In Cassandra's case, three of the four wives just arrived because they were formerly married to her dad's brother who recently died. It is traditional for the next oldest brother to then wed them, and treat them as his wives (that usually does include having children with them). In this family's case, the rumor in the village was that the husband didn't tell wife #1 about her cowives, and just started bringing them (and their kids) back to the village after the funeral. Needless to say, she wasn't too happy. Especially with the increasing knowledge of HIV/AIDS, people have become warrier of this type of situation. She demanded that if they were going to live there that they all be tested at the local health clinic. (It makes me excited to know that all that money that goes towards AIDS education really is doing something).

I'm not going to say anything here about being for or against polygamy, but rather just try to explain the situation. I would really love to just say how much it inhibits women's rights, and takes advantage of them, but in the traditional setting this sort of thing makes sense to a certain degree because someone is always looking after everyone. Having lots of kids also makes sense if you are trying to work your fields by hand. But at the same time sharing your husband with someone, or getting shoved aside because you're not as young and pretty as you used to be is frankly just sad. It will be interesting to see how this facet of Burkinabe culture changes as the country continues to develop.

Getting back to Cassandra, this has made things a little bit complicated for her. Her courtyard is busy with people these days, and the tension between her family members isn't always easy to handle. She's going to try to find another house in the village (if one is available). I hope she figures it out. People always say ce n'est pas facil (it's not easy!). They aren't kidding.

So, after a couple days of hanging out in her village, meeting her friends/villagers, I'm back in Ouaga, next stop Bobo. This vacation is exactly what I needed! I'll try to write again before I go back to village. A la prochaine!