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 I have since rescinded this remark.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…