6 Dec. 2012 and 7 Dec. 2012         

This post in Clip Art:

Been a while since I’ve posted in this thing. I apologize, but considering I have Internet about as often as most of you have… cuscus, it is extremely challenging to get to it. Also, I think the amount may considerably cut down after next Friday.  I officially move to site next Saturday. I don’t know whether to be excited or nervous. I guess I’m little bit of both. I’m definitely ready to be with training. People have started getting really testy around each other, which is totally understandable after over two months of seeing the same people everyday for multiple hours a day. Still, we will all miss each other immensely once we hit the true isolation of being at site. It will be strange to no longer hear any English, and if I cannot communicate a point, I should as hell better have my French-English dictionary nearby.

I have received a couple care packages from mom, and apparently have two waiting for me in the bureau in Ouagadougou when we go there next week for swearing-in. Thank goodness too, because if I didn’t have some beef jerky I was going to go crazy. It’s amazing how things you totally take for granted are so amazing when they are in front of you again. I got beef jerky, Slim Jims, Sour Patch Kids, Swedish Fish, and non-food items like a mirror. I needed the last one, but probably could have gone without it in retrospect. Almost two months of not shaving and never looking in a mirror do strange things to a man. I am excited to have an electric razor again when I get these next two packages, which will inevitably be useless soon after getting it when it runs out battery. I have not yet figured out how I am going to finagle electricity yet. I think I will buy a car battery and solar panel strong enough to power my phone, computer, and maybe a light. That means I can easily charge my razor on it once a…year? Most importantly though are the phone and computer. We are now on the flotte, which is the interconnected Peace Corps calling system. We can all call each other for free, which is absolutely awesome. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go for texting, and it doesn’t pay for anything interaction-wise with people in America. Oh well, at least I can call a fellow trainee when I’ve had a rough day. Apparently the full electricity (solar electricity that is) deal will cost me around 100,000 CFA, which is equal to $200.00. Fortunately, I get 270,000 CFA (200,000 move-in, 70,000 living allowance) and may be able to get that going almost immediately. I will definitely buy a stove for roughly 30,000 CFA, and probably a mattress for 10,000-20,000. After that, the money will go to eating amazing American meals in Ouaga and drinking beer most likely.

I also received a package from Morgan that was pretty awesome. It had lots of newspaper articles that I am saving for when I arrive at site, as there will be absolutely nothing to do, alongside a DVD with the Louisville vs. Pitt football game on it, which was awesome. With the game, the DVD had a couple episodes of South Park, and a couple episodes of Modern Family. It was a pretty badass little gift I must say. I must make note, I put in a previous blog post that I need a big hard drive. My mother is sending me one, so please do not send me a hard drive, unless you really want to, or really never want me to run out of space. Those of you that have written me or sent me stuff, your letter is definitely on the way; it is just very difficult to actually mail stuff from here, especially when you have no idea what the hell you are doing ¾ of the time.

Money here seems like Monopoly money. Living in the US for so long completely screws you up when it comes to international money. I mean seriously, 10,000 CFA is only $20? How can anybody take that seriously? Giving me 270,000 CFA is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life, though it actually is a significant amount of money that I better make last. Ouagadougou is actually pretty darn expensive as well. I was there from Sunday-Wednesday for my counterpart workshop, which I will get to in a minute here. The first night, I actually had the cheapest meal I’ve had since I’ve been in the country, but that is because it was at a little crappy hole in the wall. I got acheke, which I thought was cuscus but is actually finely cut ignam, or the African big-ass potato, with cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions on top. I hated tomatoes for my entire life until I got here and have been since deprived of all vegetables and especially of fruits. Considering tomatoes are considered both, both of those were appropriate. Don’t believe me? Wikipedia it. Anyways, it was incredible, and it only cost 250 CFA, or fifty cents. I got a second one because it was cheap, and then proceeded to blow another almost 4,000 (or $8.00) on beer. That isn’t that challenging because beer is 650, so it adds up… In retrospect, that is still a lot of beer. I then returned to the hotel across the street and conked out in my glorious bed with air conditioning and a fan. I awoke at 4 am and checked the Internet in the hotel, which was awesome. It was the fastest connection I’ve had since I’ve been here, and that is because everybody was asleep, which is completely reasonable at 4 o’clock in the morning. I checked what was going on the sports world and then went to sleep. By the way, since then I learned Louisville is going to the Sugar Bowl (awesome) and the Redskins beat the Giants and actually look damn good.

The next day I met my counterpart, who was very shy. His name is Pima Bawar, though here it is the other way around. We had a lot of trouble communicating at first, but things got better with time. After the initial conversation it was a lot easier, but the language barrier has officially reappeared for me. That night, we went to a place called Bar-K. Pronounce the K as “ka” so the name is Barka. That is how you say thank you in Mooré, the most spoken language in the country alongside French. It is an excellent play on words. Tricky Burkinabé. Anyways, to get there we did something that seems ludicrous, but seems to be extremely common in this country. We crammed eight people (and the driver) in a four-passenger car. We stuffed two in the front, three in the back, and three across our laps in the back. It was horribly uncomfortable and for the first time in my life, I felt extremely claustrophobic. The ride sure was cheap though.

When we got there after what seemed like forever but was actually like ten minutes, I got a freaking cheeseburger and a draft beer. It was unbelievable. I was with a large group, and we proceeded to get a few draft beers. When everything you drink comes from a bottle, it is amazing how good anything on draft tastes. You could bring me out cold moose piss; if it were on tap, I’d drink it . That was a damn expensive night, totaling like 13,000 CFA, or roughly $26. We concluded by jamming ten people in a car this time… I sat in the trunk… sorry Mom. I’ll try not to do that again.  

The next day was another sort of awkward one, but I did get to draw out a map of what my community is going to look like, though it is an extremely rough estimation of space. I also was able to talk to my counterpart more extensively about the community, the groupement (organization) he works with and leads and what goes on activity-wise in the community. Hopefully I can hit the ground running because many of the things I’ve learned are not done in this community. For example, I can teach them how to make hard soap. They know how to make liquid soap, but not the other way around. I think cheese could really take off in this country, as it is so unbelievably hard to come across, yet so easy to make. Neme Cream is a natural mosquito repellant, necessary in a country where Malaria is the biggest health concern. None of these things are being done, and I think they would be an excellent way to build credibility, as well as actually getting something done.

The next night we went to a restaurant called… Verdevoyen? That is most likely wrong. Anyways, the owner is Italian and makes his pizzas as such. I actually ate a pepperoni pizza that tasted like it was straight out of Italy. I got more beer on tap, which was again glorious, and spoke to my brother who told me that my fantasy team will unfortunately not be in the playoffs this year. How horrible. Oh well, I have bigger fish to fry at this point. That same night afterwards, we took a cab, in comfortable fashion, to a bar called Tip Top. It was the same bar we went to the first time in Ouaga after being in the country for about 40 hours. It was fun. Somebody took the liberty to invite my counterpart to the bar. I was not very appreciative of this as I enjoy drinking and did not want to make a bad impression. By the way, I should note that when I say bar, I mean outdoor, horribly dimly lit, with a dance floor of about 15’ x 15’… with mirrors, that Burkinabé dance in front of… They really enjoy watching themselves; it’s hilarious as an American. We stayed there until they shut it down, and I went back and went to sleep.

The next day was standard. We had two sessions, ate lunch, and headed back to Léo, and on to Zoro. We did stop for ice cream before we departed Ouaga, which was nice, and not expensive at 600 CFA for one scoop. That’s another thing I didn’t eat in the states but absolutely appreciate now that it is few and far between. Fast forward through yesterday when I began this blog post, and onward to today. We began the day with more sessions…whatever. After lunch, we biked back in the midday African sun (yeah, thanks Peace Corps) and met with the people that we’ve been working with for much of stage. The man that my group worked with is named Ouadraugo Adama. He’s a farmer that honestly really has it together. He farms basically every crop you can think of, but we were assigned to help him with his honey production, and really with his retailing. The thing is, he really does have it all together. What we were able to do was show him how to keep a simple, and yet effective book of what his expenses and revenues are. W=Burkinabé have a knack for not writing things down, and also never taking into account their own labor costs. He works his ass off, day and night, and never takes this into account when he makes his pricing. Another thing he didn’t take into account was his cost of travel. The company he sells to covers his one night in Koudougou and his transportation costs, but ignores if he is forced to stay another night, and whatever meals he incurs when he is stuck in a city like Ouaga.

It was really nice to feel like he was very receptive of the idea. We went through how to do it, and wrote an example page for this month. He understood the idea, and said that he will do it. We made sure that he understands the point of this is to see when is an appropriate time for him to pay off more, or less, of the debts he owes the company he buys modern beehives from. Once he pays off all of these, he will be able to either buy more, or sell his honey when the price is its highest, the season we are in right now. In March, prices drop significantly as everybody will be harvesting their honey. Right now, the price is through the roof. He can’t even keep it in stock long enough to get more before he sells out, and this is the best time for him to be paying off his debt. Whatever, the moral is, it is nice to finally have a positive interaction where it seems like we may have actually helped somebody in the long run. Whether or not he uses it consistently is to be seen. If we come back to Léo for IST (In-Service Training), we will check up on Mr. Ouadraugo and see how his honey books are looking. Hopefully things will be going just swimmingly.

Anyways, I’m ready to go back to Ouagadougou. I’m ready to move to site, and I’m ready to get this whole adventure really rocking. Thanks again Peace Corps for forgetting that Monday and Tuesday are holidays and it is impossible to get our money. Oh, and yeah its totally rational for all of us to go to the bank at the same time, when we don’t have ATM cards, to try and get 200,000 CFA. Then we can go shopping, because there will totally be enough time for that after four hours in the bank. We totally appreciate it. Oh, in case you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm, because apparently we’re saying when we’re doing that now (line from Archer). No, but seriously, they really dropped the ball on this one… which I am totally used to by now. At least on Tuesday I will be able to sleep, and sleep, and sleep. After that, I will watch a movie, on a projector, in an air-conditioned room, and I will love every second of it. Meanwhile, its freaking freezing in the US, and you are cold. But, at least you have a way of constantly regulating temperature…lucky.

Oh, I should definitely mention that it has seriously cooled down here. Its still like 90+ in the day, but at night it is actually pretty chilly. I have switched over to wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt to bed. It is absolutely glorious. It also makes it damn near impossible to get up in the morning, but it’s worth it considering I don’t wake up 400x each night from sweating and wanting to die. I still don’t sleep under a sheet or anything, it hasn’t gotten that bad; but it will be comfortable all the way until apparently late February, which is amazing. Then it will get hot… hotter than I can actually imagine. When I was on demyst, as I posted about weeks ago, my host told me his thermometer read 138°F. Oh well, maybe by that point I’ll just melt and die. At least I have something to look forward to. 

Taste of Burkina

     So, depending on how you look at it, I’m either winning or losing the Peace Corps. I haven’t washed my hair since the day I left home, October 6^th. I haven’t shaved since a week after arriving in village; or a little more than a month, and I think I’ve lost at least ten pounds of muscle since I’ve been in this country. In retrospect, I’d probably call that losing I guess… But not washing my hair has been a choice, and it has been wonderful. Maybe I should delete this paragraph… nah.

      In the six weeks I’ve been in this country, I’ve watched every episode of The League (3 seasons), all but one episode of The Walking Dead (Seasons 1 & 2) which I will finish tonight, a whole season of Blue Mountain State (for the ninth time), almost the entire first season of Archer, and almost a whole season of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. This does not bode well for my continuation of entertainment for the next two years. Luckily I have enough movies to leave my computer running for an entire two years and then some. Also, whenever you think you have a ton, somebody else has others and trading is encouraged… sorry MPAA. Unfortunately, I do not have electricity at my site and have not quite figured out how I am going to charge things. I am really considering installing solar panels on my roof, which hook up to a large battery that can charge everything, along with one light I can use to cook… that’s right; I’m going to learn to cook… or I’m going to die. Also, I guess I better start reading because having a charged computer all the time just does not seem like it is going to happen. That said, anybody that wants to send me a kindle, it would probably get used a lot. Since I’m requesting preposterous things that nobody will send me, my external hard drive apparently decided it is no longer going to work. An extra 500 gigs or even a terabyte sure would be awesome, especially when my computer crashes in about a month from dust inhalation and I lose the 430 gigs of movies and TV I have on here. I do have a birthday coming up in less than a month…

      After stating that, I thought I’d throw in a little list for all of you if you feel really generous about sending me stuff. You cannot get protein in this country. I was eating omelets basically every day for the protein, but two days ago I had one that apparently was not cooked all the way, and I threw up about two pounds worth of eggs, cuscus, and bodily fluids… Needless to say I am going to take a break from the omelets for a while. Instead, I’d love as much beef jerky as humanly possible, as it is a great source of protein, and tastes delicious. Powdered drinks such as Crystal Light and Gatorade are awesome, as well as any sort of candy. You have no idea how much I miss sweets. Every time candy comes around is like the greatest day of all time. Taco seasoning is really nice because it goes with basically everything. Maybe some dried fruit as well? Surprisingly, tuna fish is a good thing to send. Preferably, it should not have oil because it will probably go bad. It is extremely healthy, and delicious as well. Cheese that doesn’t spoil would be great, such as Parmesan or taco cheese. You cannot get cheese here. The closest you can get is the Blue Bell that is shaped like cheese, but don’t be fooled, it isn’t. Snack food makes my heart flutter. Oreo’s are pretty much a Godsend. Is it possible to send a 6-pack of Budweiser? I miss American beer.

      Since we are on the topic of food, I thought I’d talk about the wonderful idea that my friend Amber had, that we ran with since the idea emerged. When we return to the United States, after making millions from investing in Airtel (look it up, it is an Indian cell phone company that is taking over Western Africa that jumps 8-10% per year in sales), we will open up a restaurant in each of our regional capitals. This would mean openings in Washington D.C. for Amber and I, New York City for Kelly, and Chicago for Abdul (Larry). I will need another restaurant venture after I buy a Chipotle and run it into the ground after a month because I ate the entire product. The name of this wonderful establishment will be, Taste of Burkina. We will base it off of the business plans of all of the restaurants here. It will take about 30-40 minutes to get you your food, no matter what, regardless of the fact that we have a pot of it prepared in the back. There will only be five things on the menu, including Rigra (rice), Rice with Peanut Sauce, Rice with Vegetable Sauce, Acheke (cuscus with fish usually), and omelets. At all times we will be out of two of these options, though it will vary which two. We will also have a hamburger on the menu, but that will never be available. It will however be spread around that it is the best burger in town to attract you in. We have drinks, but it is a guarantee that we will run out of Coca-Cola before all of you get one. Too bad, good thing we have a constant supply of Fanta. 12 ounce? 24 ounce? It doesn’t matter, you’ll pay the same price and we choose what you get. Lucky for you, we will always have a constant supply of Brakina, the largest standalone company in this country. That’s right, a cheap, crappy beer is the biggest company in the country. Oh wait you wanted Rigra? Sorry we ran out of that earlier. You ordered 45 minutes ago? What… you expected us to tell you? Not a chance bud. Ever heard of customer service? We haven’t. At least if you are really lucky we’ll screw up our math and you’ll get away with a free omelet… That will turn around and bite you in the ass when you get home and puke from food poisoning. Then the next time you come we’ll be sure to overcharge you for last time. Remember those drinks? We have a fully functional fridge, but that doesn’t mean we keep drinks cold. We prefer to keep them around room temperature, which is about 95 here. You’ll come back, where else can you get five star Burkinabe cuisines? That’s right, nowhere. Suckers.

Bus Crash and Site Announcement

OK, the pictures aren't working, so I'm going to upload them when I can actually connect to WiFi... I don't know when that'll be.

    Now that you’ve seen that nice little gem I took a couple days ago, I can get into what’s really happening in my life. I’ve been in the this country for a little over a month now, and things have gone up and down quite a bit for me. I have not stopped sweating since I arrived here; the Internet is non-functional at all times even when you’ve already paid for it, I was struck by a motorcycle, I’ve had some decent beer and some really bad dolo (fermented red sorghum that has quite a kick and is served warm), found out where I’m going in a month which I’ll get to in a bit, and oh yeah, almost died when our bus careened off the side of the road and should have flipped. Yes, life is interesting here in Leo, and there is never a dull day. If I’m not stretching my legs by perfecting my latrine usage, I’m throwing up in a grouping of weeds. If I’m not eating tô, which is either mashed up corn or ignam (which we don’t have in the states), then I’m eating some strange mixture of spaghetti alongside macaroni alongside rice… in the same dish. There is often some mystery meat, which is always suspect if you ask me, and usually has hidden bones that will do anything they can to cut your tongue or chip a tooth.
     We have finally found a couple decent restaurants, one of which carries beer from Ghana, which is a nice change. In a month I believe I’ve gathered a few hundred-bottle caps to add to the collection. No, I don’t drink that much, but I do gather everybody else’s when they finish them. Here it is important to hold on to your cap until you finish the beer because if you don’t re-cap it, a hundred flies that just left a pile of donkey crap will drink your beer. One more thing, I said before that I believe we get overpaid in training. I have since rescinded this remark. They don’t pay us jack. They barely pay us enough to eat, let alone have free time. Plenty of people constantly run out until the next time they pay us. Luckily I transferred some money over when we got into the country and that has held me over. I’d like to transfer over the rest of the USD that I brought, but you can only do that in Ouaga and we are not going there for at least another few weeks. Anyways, time to get into the crazy stuff that happened recently.
 
    I took a bunch of pictures of this crash because it was nuts, so please, enjoy.

    So that happened. As you can see in the second picture a roadside water drainage ditch stopped us, which was unbelievably lucky because if it were not there we would have rolled at least once. We probably also would have taken out somebody on the side of the road, as there were plenty of people around. It was pretty much a miracle that no windows busted on the left side of the bus, as that would have really injured some people as well. The locals were extremely quick to surround the bus, open the windows, and help get people out of there immediately. They were very nice to us and made sure that everybody was okay and there were no real injuries. It really was amazing that nobody got seriously hurt, minus a few small bruises. Once we got out of the bus is when the real problems started. Everybody was in shock of what just happened, but we all sort of calmed down for the two hours that we awaited the arrival of cars to pick us up to continue our trip into Ouaga. We were on our way to Ouagadougou to have a meeting with the country director and another with the ambassador at the American embassy. We were also going to visit the Rec Center for lunch, which is pricy but has delicious American food. Everything got thrown for a loop pretty quickly.
    The driver claimed that the steering on the bus locked and that she could not do anything about it. What we have since found out was that there was nothing wrong with the bus and she did not really know how to drive a bus of that size. With that much weight in tow, the slightest jerk of the wheel alongside too much speed will send the thing flying, and that is exactly what happened. That said, we get it; accidents happen. What ensued afterwards was grade A bologna. We waited, and when the caravan arrived with the logistician/mechanic, the same driver that just crashed a bus jumped in and drove a car full of people two hours into Ouaga. Now, I’m no Stephen Hawking or anything, but common sense says that somebody who just crashed a bus and almost killed everybody should not be the one who drives those same people immediately afterwards. It was also preposterous that we were just supposed to take her word for it that the steering locked up, on our new awesome bus that had no previous mechanical issues. For all we knew, her vision could have gone blind for five seconds and that was the reason. Ipso facto, Peace Corps really blew it there.
    The next issue was the chain of communication was nowhere near followed appropriately. When there is an accident, the driver is to call the Country Director, the PCMO (medical officer), and the Service Duty Officer. Instead, she called the guy who is the logistician in Leo. Now Paré is awesome, but he is not eth one that was supposed to be contacted. This lack of communication made the rest of our day a freaking nightmare. When we finally arrived in Ouaga, after five phone calls from Jeff Eastabrook, the previous Assistant Country Director, telling us to hurry up because we were late, we were greeted with a, “Hurry up and eat and then pay because you are late and the ambassador is waiting on us.” Again, I’m not Einstein, but when somebody gets in an accident the first thing you do is make sure that everybody is alright. Instead, Jeff treated us like cattle and acted like our lateness was an inconvenience to him. He found out before we arrived that something happened, but did not know exactly what happened. Regardless, he was a dick, and did not act like a human being should. So I ate my 5,000 CFA meal, which consisted of a double cheeseburger, fries, and a coke, which all came out at different times. I said this before, but I’ll do it again. Lunch usually costs between 300-1,000 CFA. If you spend 1,000 you better have a damn good lunch and a soda. To spend 5,000 CFA on lunch is like going to the Palm in this country, it is ridiculous. The food was damn good, but I did not enjoy any of it. I was too pissed off with what was unfolding, as was everybody else. We sat at a table of twenty in almost complete silence.
    After we “hurried” (not really because we all decided he could suck it at that point), we paid and left the Rec Center to head to the American Embassy. I waited for everybody else to pay and of course they left without me, so I was forced to ride shotgun right next to Jeff. It was so pleasant, in that I want to jump out of a moving car kind of way. We got to the embassy, which did not look like much from the outside at all. All I could think was we just had a consulate killed and two embassies burned to the ground and this is was we have? I would have taken a picture, but they tend to frown on taking pictures of government buildings. It makes sense; it is a lot easier to plan crimes with pictures. One girl tried; they did not like that. They went through her phone and deleted it, very promptly. We got through the heavy security, and when we actually got into the embassy, I was very impressed. It was a lot bigger than it seemed from the outside, and there was a very thick, very large fence around it. Imagine taking an American government building, putting it on a big boat, and depositing it in the middle of Burkina Faso. That is what happened. They had some badass satellite TV, CARPETING which I haven’t seen in a month, and somehow there was no dust or sand anywhere. It would have been really cool if we weren’t all angry.
    The ambassador did not know about the accident, nor did anybody else in the embassy. He actually apologized to us when he came in because we were early and he was late. Thanks for that one Jeff; I might have actually been able to enjoy my burger after all. We listened to a bunch of babble that really was not necessary, but we enjoyed the air conditioning.
    We thought that maybe because we were running so far behind we might stay in Ouaga for the night. One thing I’ve learned in this country is do not ever get your hopes up, because they will be shot down; it’s a guarantee. Instead they cancelled the meeting with the CD, and we jumped into cars and were sent back to our villages. It was one hell of a bad day, and I am genuinely shocked that nobody ET-ed (Early Terminate) after it. The fallout from it could be good, but it really seemed like they did not immediately figure out what to do. The reason I say this is because the next day a bus that was two seats shy of what we needed to fit everybody from Sanga and Zoro picked us up. This means we had three people without seatbelts… one day after our bus flipped. Again, way to go Peace Corps. That day we cancelled a session to discuss what happened and how everything went so wrong. I actually feel bad for Thierry, our host country program director for training. We really let him know everything that was wrong with it, and he does genuinely care about us, enough to shed a tear or two, which was nice of him, and threw a bit of guilt our way. That lasted for about two seconds until we remembered how screwed up it all was.
    Anyways, Jill Zarchin, the CD, came the next day and again Friday to have individual interviews with everybody about the accident and the way it was handled. She was genuinely apologetic and let me know everything that was being done to fix the problem. She let me know the driver was let go for her lack of following the rules, and also that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the bus. She was really reassuring that this will not happen again, and told me she gave Jeff a hollering as well, which was nice to hear. Now we’ve moved on; c’est la vie. If you spend all your time here thinking about why things are screwed up, you’d be miserable all the time. Hopefully some good will come out of this in the long run, and again it was wonderful and incredible that nobody got hurt.
    Ok, now that I’m done with the complaining section, here is a nice picture to turn the mood around. This was taken right before a storm hit (or didn’t hit really, Ghana took all our rain), and it is in Zoro near the mosque.


    What a nice rainbow and a picturesque moment!

    Now, on to site announcement! I am moving to the smallest village of anybody in our twenty-six person training. The name is Bouldrié, and there are a mere 600 people that live there. That’s right, 600 people. If I use my latrine everybody will know about it. I’m nervous, but I think in the long run it could be a real benefit because I can actually have an impact on the entire community of things go well. The village is 40 km north of Koudougou, the third largest city in the country, and where most of the violence happens when the country decides to go through unrest. It is in the Sahel-Sudan, or the part of the continent that receives decent rainfall, but nothing like the Sahel-Guinea, which is the southern part of Africa, including southern Burkina. It will likely be dry for about eight months of the year, which is brutal. Luckily, a friend from training is 30 km south of me, only 10 km from Koudougou, so when I go into the city, probably once a month, I can bike to her, stay the night, and then continue on the next morning the remaining 10 km. That way I can avoid taking a bush taxi, hopefully for the entire two years. Also fortunately, Kelly, the girl in Réo 30 km from me, is working with an organization that is connected to the internet, so I will be piggy-backing her internet whenever possible. Koudougou is a mere two-hour-ish bus ride from Ouagadougou, which is also a plus.
   

     Unfortunately, Peace Corps did not listen to my request to have somewhere to charge my electronics. This means I will either be installing solar panels on top of my two-room house to get an actual light and charging ability, or I will be biking the 6 km to the nearest little village where there will be somewhere I can charge things. I’m leaning towards the first option, because cooking with a light just seems awesome to me. The people in Bouldrié are Gouransi, a relatively small ethnic group in the country, and speak Lyélé, which I will start learning fairly soon, potentially tomorrow (Monday, Nov. 12, 2012) if my French language test went well on Friday. By the way, my French is really coming along, I’m pretty amazed how well the program works, and how much I have learned French-wise, so good job on that Peace Corps. Also, my current French teacher speaks the language, which is nice because I won’t have to change my instructor. Learning another language will definitely be tough, especially because it is all done in French. So I will be learning French as I learn Lyélé… interesting. I’m sure when I arrive in village I will have absolutely no idea what is going on and won’t yet be able to speak the language, but screw it, I’ll figure it out eventually. The 600 people are very diverse, with Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Animists (traditional religion). This is nice because I’m not barred from getting a beer, thank goodness.
    My house has two rooms, as stated before. It also has an outdoor shower (bucket bath area with walls), and my own latrine thank goodness. I really hope that my counterpart is cool, because I am living in his courtyard, which makes me unbelievably nervous. I do have my own courtyard to provide more privacy, but this is still a little bit closer than I wanted to be. Hopefully this will make integration a little bit easy… always try to find the positive right?
I certainly did not win the lottery when it comes to housing. Four people won that. Emma has five rooms and a toilet! Todd has five rooms and lives almost in Bobo-Dioulasso, the second biggest city in the country. He also wakes up to beautiful birds and waterfalls… asshole. Kelly is working with Internet and is basically in Koudougou. Gregory lives in a city of over a million and will probably have electricity. I have roughly 400 kids and 200 adults, and nobody speaks French. Now that is Peace Corps!
     I’m not sure of exactly what I will be doing, but I know that we are shifting away from the program plan that we’ve learned. We’ve actually changed the name of the program from DABA (Development of Agriculture Business Advising) to CED (Community Economic Development), which is great if you ask any of us. They are shifting to small enterprise development, income generation, and food security. The program is on the upswing, and for the first time, we are basically all happy to be part of the program. Now if only the training could catch up with that, because it is all agriculture based. It’s alright, planting trees is actually pretty relaxing, and I think we will all appreciate learning how to garden when we have vegetables growing in our courtyards.
One month in and things are changing for the better I think. We’ve all adjusted to being here, and training is becoming a little bit more enjoyable. Everybody is a lot more comfortable with each other at this point, and real personalities are starting to come out, which is really nice. The LCF’s (Language and Culture Facilitators) are awesome, and we all enjoy teasing and laughing with them. Even four-hour blocks of language training are nowhere near as bad as we all envisioned them. All in all, through all of the crazy and obnoxious things that have happened, I wouldn’t say that I’m happy yet, but I’m getting there. I can definitely say that I am glad to be here and I am excited to have an impact on a community. Hopefully we got all of the bad stuff out of the way in the first month and I can avoid blood in the stool for two years. So don’t worry about me my friends and family, life is looking up here in Burkina.
    This was really long, but it was necessary; so I hope you enjoyed it! I saw Louisville lost yesterday and got trounced… that blows. I’m glad that the two web pages that I could load earlier could give me such positive news! Still a great season, and we will probably win March Madness this year, so that’s nice. Go Skins and Go Cards!

…And go Wizards? We’ll see…

A Weekend in Zogore, and I Got Hit By A Moto

         A motorcycle hit me last Wednesday… so I got that going for me, which is nice. No worries; I’m alive and well. I do however have a nice bruise and scrape on my knee, and my bike is rather discombobulated. After that fun incident, we were whisked off to Ouagadougou for demystification. We spent the night in Ouaga, and I had two hamburgers, that were combined to be about as wide as 1/3 of a McDonald’s hamburger. After that, we headed over to Paridisio; a restaurant that we were told was a bar. It was more a dimly lit outside patio area. The lighting scheme resembled that of a bug zapper, very pleasant in that squint to see five feet in front of you kind of way. They had liter beers, which was pretty awesome. The best part: they were on TAP. I haven’t had a beer on tap since before leaving the states. I had two, and then another half liter. It was delicious. We went back to the transit house, a place with roughly thirty beds, Wi-Fi, ceiling fans, and electricity. In other words, it’s awesome. I spent the entire night drinking some beers with a couple other people, some which were current volunteers, and a couple other trainees. We picked their brains about everything; it was really nice.

            When the morning rolled around, I boarded a bus and went to the STAF bus station. I got some coffee and an omelet, and then boarded another bus. This sucked. It is hotter than hell on the bus, and Burkinabe do not like dust, ironically. This means that when you open the window, they promptly close it. I argued with the man behind me, and compromised to have it cracked a few inches so it would hit me. I slept most of the way. The obnoxious kid I was partnered with made “friends” with a young Burkinabe woman and of course she sat in between us. I wanted to kill him. Luckily, I was extremely tired from staying up all night and slept the whole way to Ouahigouya. When we arrived up North, I realized how hot it could really be, and apparently it gets way worse in the hot season. It was well over 100 and it wasn’t noon yet. We boarded a bush taxi, and traveled the 30 kilometers to Zogore. 30 kilometers is not far. It just isn’t no matter how you look at it… unless you take a bush taxi. The dynamics of a bush taxi are as follows: jam as many people, goats, chickens, bikes, bags of rice and corn and legumes, and motorcycles as you can into and onto one shitty looking truck. Add in stops every five minutes or so to throw on another bike and another person, and continue until you reach your destination. For us, this took an hour and half, to go only 30 kilometers. Again, my counterpart I was with made this SO MUCH WORSE. He’s damn obnoxious. I was miserable from the moment I found out I was traveling with him to when I actually got a chance to hang out with our host, who was also named David. Anyways, my travel partner decided it would be a good idea to dance the entire time. Mind that there is not enough room to breath, let alone dance. I could see the looks on everybody else’s faces as they stared and laughed. I could also tell that they were waiting for me to blow up at the guy, and I was pretty damn close.

            Finally, after his obnoxious singing and dancing, we arrived in Zogore, and were greeted by a lot of locals, and a white guy; this was obviously David. David was a cool guy. He is COSing (Close of service) in December, and had a lot of insight to pass along to me. He also liked to drink. When we got in Zogore, we went back to his house, which consisted of two fairly large rooms, a living room and a bedroom. It is extremely hot up North like I said before, so it was very uncomfortable in his house. I bucket bathed, threw on the same clothes, and we departed for a local maquis (bar) where a nearby restaurant brought us dinner. We got spaghetti, which was excellent, baguettes, grilled chicken, and chicken in sauce… and a beer. It was wonderful! Unfortunately, I believe that the chicken I had this weekend is the reason that I’ve been sick for week straight, but I’ll get to that. After eating, we went back to his place, and I spent the night in my bug hut outside. It was comfortable because it really cools down at night up north. So much so that I had to borrow a ponya and use it as a makeshift blanket. It was awesome to be cold again. Unfortunately, that night was when the diarrhea started, thanks chicken.

            I woke up the next morning and we went to get some café au lait (coffee and milk) and a baguette. It’s like an African doughnut. It was damn good. Then, we visited the head of one of the competing bush taxi services and the Imam of the village. It was Tabasky (or Ede everywhere else in the world) so it was an extremely holy day. We went where everybody was praying and I “prayed” with them. I was uncomfortable, but it was a really cool experience that I probably won’t get to relive too many times in the future. We watched them slaughter a ram, brutally. We watched them dig through the stomach to get to the liver and fry it up immediately. Luckily they did not hand me a piece. We went and had tofu for lunch after that. By the way, I haven’t talked about tofu at all, and that is the greatest shit in the world. It takes like chicken, is full of protein, and is readily available up here where protein is few and far between. It’s something that I will be pushing when I move into my actual village because we will learn how to make it later on in stage. Anyways, it was really good. Fast forward again, and I’ll explain that on Tabasky it is tradition to kill and eat rams and/or goats, so meat is everywhere. Somehow I managed to avoid those two, but had a lot of chicken. When we visited the Préfé’s house (non-elected official that competes for power with the mayor), we were fed chicken, popcorn, and these shrimp chips that were amazingly delicious. He also had a rooster that was bigger than anything I’d ever seen in the United States, which is saying something when we feed ours steroids.

            We arrived back at David’s house in the evening, and his neighbor Barnaby shows up and basically throws a live chicken at us. It was an excellent gift, but totally took me by surprise. We left for dinner, and when we arrived, I got a surprise when they asked me to slaughter the chicken. They do things differently here. By that, I mean they don’t break its neck or anything smart like that. Rather, they step on its feet with one foot, its wings with the other, and grab the beak and hold it up. Then you take the dullest knife you can find, and shred until you slit its throat. Needless to say this was an experience for me. I can now say I know how to kill what I eat, but I was very confident there are smarter ways to do this. We ate my chicken later that night amongst a couple beers; I was proud. While we ate, we watched the Africans dance at the local bar, where there were roughly 400 people. My fellow staigaire danced with them, and looked ridiculous, but at least he had fun… I guess. The highlight of my night was that the locals danced and drank and got hammered…. on the Muslim holy day. Oh the differences between Africa and the rest of the world.

            The next day another volunteer came from her village 20 kilometers away, and we made our rounds visiting random people including the mayor. He was cool, I guess. It was a standard day, but that night when we finished our work, we went to the maquis and drank under the almost full moon, which is just unreal here. We ate more chicken, including the liver, was really good actually, and the innards, which I avoided. We went to the same bar as the night before, and drank more and then headed back for bed. All in all, it was a very good day.

            We woke up the next day and jumped on the bush taxi. My travel partner puked five minutes in because he didn’t eat with his malaria medicine, which we are directly instructed to do. This ride was much smoother, and we got there in about fifteen minutes less time, which was nice. Unfortunately, when we got on the next bus, he had made friends with another young African girl, and she sat in between us again. This bus had higher windows, and the same deal happened with the cracked window. It was way hotter this time, and I was pissed off. He took his shirt off when we got on, a complete faux pas in this country, and switched to a shirt with no sleeves, another blatant no-no here. Also, I was jammed like a sardine near the window, and THE BUS WASN”T FULL. I was infuriated, but I sucked it up, and made it through. We got back to Ouagadougou after a very, very long two hours, and I went and ate shawarma, and played on the internet in an air conditioned room until we left. It was truly amazing.

            We arrived back in Zoro that night and a storm was setting in. I missed the cool 90 degrees in Zoro compared to the steaming heat in Zogore, and it was actually nice to see my “family” after the long weekend. That night was when my real issues started. I had to get four times, in the pouring rain and lightning, and go use my latrine (which I haven’t talked about I don’t think but is a hole in the ground that drops about six feet) where I dealt with some wonderful explosive diarrhea. I ran out of toilet paper after the second time. Let’s just say I’m down two pairs of boxers. Whatever, I over-packed anyways. The next day was much more of the same, many visits to the bathroom, and a lot of stomach pain…. Whatever.

            Yesterday was Halloween. It was a long day because we had to stay in Zoro all day, which means no seeing the other 21 volunteers. I had much more of the same stomach issues, but that night I checked what was up, and I was shitting blood. Sorry for that wonderful visual, but this is life here, and people should know it! I called the PCMO (medical officer) and she said, “It’s not good, but you probably won’t die.” That was promising. We went to our buddy Chris’ abode and watched the shining projected on his wall. Dude is a G with technology solely because he brought a projector. The locals swarmed us and watched the entire two and a half hour movie, in English, and it was exactly like a joke-stereotypical movie theater in the US. They were loud the whole time, and kind of ruined the scary effect of it. They freaked out with the whole naked young white woman thing. It was actually hilarious.

            Anyways, I’m alive still, and today my stomach is cooperating a little bit more. Unfortunately, my host dad’s “father” died this morning. I put that in quotations because father here is a relative term. He was the oldest man in the region, and there are tons of people from Kayoro, Zoro, Songa, and Beha here to lend their condolences. We were told he was between the age of 120 and 130… so he was probably about 75. They count by rainy seasons here, so if there was a double rainy season. He gets double the years, its very interesting. We canceled all activities for the day and will be attending the funeral today at 14:00. That’s right, I speak in military time now. Here, funerals are joyous, but it does put everything in perspective. Death happens all the time, and if you get down every time like we do, you’d be a pretty miserable person here. Fortunately our first death was a very elderly person, and not a small child. I’m sure I will have a mild heart attack when that happens, but I’ll try to hold it together. Anyways, this is getting lengthy, but a lot has happened. Moral is low currently amongst the group, but hopefully we will all have stage-wide movie night on Saturday, which would raise spirits. It’s the little things in life here. I’ll talk later about why we have dubbed ourselves Seal Stage (or Hardcore Stage, or Sober Stage) as our nickname. I need to get moving and get some lunch before heading back for the funeral, so I hope all is well everybody, as always.

            

Life Is Tough, First Fun Weekend

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This was supposed to be posted with the others, but internet in this country is questionable at best!

     Well I’ve been in Burkina Faso for two weeks, and in my village of Zoro for eleven days and what I can definitely say is that this entire thing makes an angsty teenager’s mood swings look like child’s play.

     At least five times per day there are extreme emotional mood swings. Apparently this is normal. They (the medical staff) told us that for some people, the stress of the first month in training causes the same emotional distress as somebody who has just lost an immediate family member. That seems intense, but this is significantly harder than any of us anticipated it being. While it has certainly gotten easier, days like today make you reconsider yourself. I have a cold. Who cares right? Well, usually when I have a cold I can have some soup and watch TV until I pass out. Here, its more like sit through another six hours of classes in a room that is roughly hundred degrees, and then go for a few mile bike ride in the hundred degree 5:00 PM heat. Like I said in the last post, it’s so damn hot all the time. Yesterday was 105 with the humidity making it feel like 115. And unlike in the US, when the long hard day is done, you go home to your host family that doesn’t speak much French and no English to eat something that very well may make you sicker than a cow that’s been eating beef. Air conditioning is an unbelievably rare thing in Burkina. My fellow agriculture buddy Chris has been sick (vomiting, diarrhea, fever) for more than half of the days we’ve been in Burkina. Today he went to the infirmary and they tell him he may have an amoeba. Pretty terrible break if you ask me, and I think I’m getting lucky that I haven’t been truly sick yet.

     Ok, enough of that depressing crap. I’m getting ponya’s made finally! A ponya is the traditional African garb that you always see on TV, with all of the colors and the much more temperature comfortable material. I gave my host mom 10,000f ($20.00) for materials and a tailor, and tomorrow said tailor is coming to ma maison and doing the measurements. I’m getting two shirts and two pairs of pants made… for twenty bucks. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. On Wednesday we go to Ouagadougou for the night, and the next day we take public transportation (BRUTAL) to whatever site they stick us at for demystification. I could end up on a public bus for eight hours to get near the Mali border, and then my site end up being in the South in a month. This whole thing makes a whole lot of sense (kidding) but that’s just how things work with the federal government I suppose. When I get back on Sunday evening, I’ll have clothing that doesn’t completely suck for this climate.

     I will now fill you in on the pretty good weekend that I had before crashing back down to Earth today. On Saturday, we had four straight hours of language training. Chris, myself, and our LCF (Language and Culture Facilitator) Adeline, all sat under a tree, on top of some donkey shit, for four hours and practiced that wonderful language I am learning to love (hate) so very much. After that was finally over, we had a group spaghetti lunch, which was great. The spaghetti had an onion in it. It’s the little things in life that put a smile on your face. Best damn onion ever. After that we rode on to Leo, and went to the Interwebz café. Bandwidth was immediately destroyed and the Internet was not an option. I now have an hour saved up to use when nobody is there because I complained. I refuse to pay for Internet if I get no Internet… makes sense. We then all went to a local bar and drank, and drank some more. The beer costs as much as water here, and the quality is pretty good. No, it does not taste like formaldehyde, which I expected. It actually tastes like Budweiser and Heineken, but called Brakina and Beaufort. After four of those big boy beers (36 oz.) and some Dolo (bathtub beer brewed by the locals), I still felt pretty damn sober. That’s what happens when you sweat out everything that goes in. When we left, one girl jumped on her bike, and immediately fell down in front of a large crowd. It was hilarious. Everybody made it home safely and the Zoro crew met up a bit later and watched Superbad, projected on the Chief’s wall thanks to Chris’ wonderful projector he brought. At random times the locals would come out and watch some. We were thanking our lucky stars that the ALL-Muslim village didn’t speak English because that movie is dirty as all hell. Luckily, nobody was out there for the veiny triumphant bastard scene as well. The movie ended and we all turned in.

       Yesterday I went with a couple people to D’hôtel Sissilis… that is way nicer than it should be. It cost 2,500f to swim in their nasty pool, which was worth it for the twenty seconds of being cool before you realized the water was warm from the beaming sun. I got a hamburger and French fries, which you absolutely cannot find here, and paid 3,000f, which is slightly more than the normal 300-400f I pay for lunch daily. I overpaid for two beers, and after a horrendous sunburn and paying way, way too much in the day, we left and went to another bar on the way back to Zoro where beer is reasonably priced. We sat, drank, and talked about what a ridiculous situation we are in.

It is still sinking in for everybody that we are here for another 2+ years. These have been the longest two weeks of my life. One PCVF (PCV Facilitator) told us the days are long, but the two years fly by really quickly. That is to be seen. As for now, frustration takes precedence over everything else. Regardless, too many of you people know I’m here, so I’m going to have to stick it out! In summation, my Redskins are ok, which is an improvement from the usual godawful, RGIII is a beast, and the Cards are 7-0! Thanks to my brother for filling me in on that. Again, I hope all is well stateside. Take care everybody.

EDIT: The Cards are now 8-0! Go Cards baby!