ATTENTION: YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS! Its hilarious! STOP! Daba Time!
Blog Post #11, Birthday, Moving to Site, Forest of Baobab Trees (no pictures of those yet, but they'll come)
Blog Post #11, Birthday, Moving to Site, Forest of Baobab Trees (no pictures of those yet, but they'll come)
Remember
the Rafiki tree in the Lion King? Remember that massive, almost ridiculous
seeming tree? Now imagine walking through basically a forest of them. The Baobab
can live to be from 1,000-3,000 years old. That’s right, three thousand years. It’s hard for us to even grasp how long that
is. That means that the oldest Baobab started growing before we actually
started counting time. That is absolutely
insane. I have hundreds of them merely five minutes biking from where I
currently reside.
The village
of Bouldie lies just off the old beaten path; or in other words the big-ass
road from Koudougou. It has a lot of traffic, and is relatively taken care of
for a road in Western Africa… minus the fact that it has never been paved of
course. The quaint little town has approximately 600 inhabitants, but based on
the size you’d never guess that. For 600 people, they sure decided they liked
to walk. The town is spread out over the course of a couple miles, with random
clusters of “houses”. My residence is actually pretty sweet. I have three
rooms. The first is quite large. I put my stove, water filter, huge trash can
full of water, and a couple tables in there. The next consists of my bed, or lit pico, which is just an awful cot I
bought in Ouagadougou. I put my Therm-A-Rest on top of it, and it is just
barely comfortable enough to bear. The last room I have made my closet. I have
clothing hung up, my suitcases on the ground, and a locker that I bought in
Ouaga, which is filled with Zip-Loc bags and food, to keep the evil African
bugs at bay.
The people
are really nice, and honestly the language is not that complicated. When I say
that, you have to take it with a grain of salt. The only reason that it “is not
that hard” is because there really are not conjugations for words. For example,
“I am” in English would be conjugated to you are, he/she is, we are, you are
(formal, does not exist in English but does in French/Spanish), and they are.
In Lyélé,
they are all just wo. À wo, Ń wo, N wo (different fluctuation in the N sound, so it is
difficult), Nè wo, Á wo (another different fluctuation from the I form) and Ò
wo. In other words, there are a ton of guttural fluctuations in everything, too
many accents, and the words sound absolutely nothing like they do in any other
language. If you’ve ever learned Spanish or French, you know that half the time
if a word is three syllables or more, you might be able to put an accent on it,
and pawn it off as that language. That is not possible here. If you don’t know
the word, you’re basically traveling down shit’s creek, and you don’t have a
paddle. Also, while the Peace Corps told me everybody here speaks French, that
was just a blatant lie. The only two people are my counterparts… one of which
left yesterday for Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire yesterday… for between one
and two months. He’s the one that is literate and can give me lessons in Lyélé…
nice. Oh well, as they say in French, ça-va aller… or in English, it will go…
guess that doesn’t really translate does it.
The first
week has been… interesting. Imagine being thrown into a culture you do not
know, with everybody speaking a language you don’t know, and the only person
you can communicate with speaks a language you are not that good at, and
mumbles everything so even when you do communicate you have no idea what the
hell is going on. On top of that, add in that this is the first time you will
be truly away from anybody American, and it is going to last two years. You
want the true Peace Corps experience? Come to Bouldié, it will blow your freaking
mind. The first night was a bit numb. I didn’t really know what to feel. I was
a little lonely, but really I just didn’t know what to do with myself. When I
was in Zoro for the first night, I knew that it was alright because the next
day I’d be with a bunch of Americans and we could get together and laugh about
the ridiculous things we saw, like enormous spiders being eaten by even bigger
spiders (revert to previous blog). This time, I knew when I woke up the next
morning I was facing a new world, with new challenges, and it was certainly not
going to get easier anytime soon. Honestly, it hasn’t really gotten any easier;
I think I’ve just adjusted a little more.
As a
trainee, you hear stories of volunteers running after the Peace Corps car as it
drives away once they finish making sure your stove won’t blow up (wait, blew
that one, but I’ll get that) and your locks are secure (also a little shaky),
but you just think they’re ridiculous stories made up to scare you. When that
car drives away, and you begin to feel the true isolation, it doesn’t seem so
ridiculous at all. The first night there was a small sliver of the moon out,
smaller than a quarter-moon. There was a halo the size of Texas and I could see
everything. That is true isolation.
Since then the moon has begun to emerge and it is truly incredible how bright
it is at night. The stars are amazing, more incredible than anything you could
really imagine in the states. You can see the International Space Station with
the naked eye, as it is the only thing that constantly moves across the sky
(unless they found some new super-star or something, but I’ve only been gone
almost three months so that seems unrealistic). The Milky Way is clear as day,
and there are thousands, upon thousands of stars. Despite the loneliness, when
you see things like that, it makes you happy to be here.
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| Chez-moi from the outside |
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| The picture doesn't do this justice, it's incredible in person |
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| What will normally be outside of my window at any given time... |
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| View on top of the largest hill near me. The mountain is Reo, about 30km from me |
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| Only in Africa... |
Anyways,
I’m walking around, buying random crap for my house, when I remember I want to
buy one of these bracelets that seemingly everybody around here has. Want to
fit in? Dress and act the same as everybody else; it’s cool to conform. So I
get to this guy, and he tries to charge me 12,500 CFA. That’s equal to $25.00.
I just about lost it on the guy. Nothing here costs that much. A freaking live
chicken only costs 3,000 CFA for goodness sake. I yelled at him about how
ridiculous it was that he would try and rip anybody off like that, and just
because I’m the only white person for twenty miles doesn’t give him the right
to be a jerk. I whittled and whittled at the price, and worked him all the way
down to 2,250 CFA, or $4.50. That is an example of how much people try to get
you here, just because you’re a nassara.
During the argument, a rather large crowd gathered, as everybody knew what the
guy was trying to do, and they laughed as I reamed him. At one point, when he
was at 7,000 CFA, he said in French, “You’re here to develop aren’t you?” I
replied with, “There is a difference between development and throwing money at
people.” Those who understood that got a kick out of it, and the crowd howled.
Eventually I got out of there with a decent deal, and he cadeau-ed (gifted) me
a little bead bracelet with African colors, which I guess was nice.
I’ve made a
couple “friends” here. Of course those who begin as your friends may be the
people that are trying to take advantage of you. Hopefully this is not the
case. There is a guy with a restaurant in Didyr, who speaks English surprisingly
well, and he asks me to speak only in English when I visit him. He seems like a
rather up front guy, but we’ve been warned, the first sign of a faux-type is
somebody who speaks some English, so wary I shall remain. The people at the
Gendarmerie (Police) also dabble in English, but as they are the law and they
take exams and classes in English, I trust them a lot more. The commandant is a
cool guy; very friendly and understanding of what I’m going through… He also
has a Facebook page he tells me. The head of the CSPS (local “hospital”) seems
like a pretty sketchy dude, so I’m really looking forward to being sick in the
future. The mayor was a really nice guy, but he might get replaced at New Years
when the official election results are in (why they take almost a month to be
tallied is beyond me). Other than that, you can really tell who is somebody you
don’t want to be around in the first five minutes of talking to them. They
dress in hilarious fashion, that here I guess is supposed to look sleek, but to
me looks ridiculous, and wear sunglasses at completely unnecessary times. They
also have a tendency to ask for Dolo money, an obvious sign to turn your back.
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| This guy is not a Faux-Type, he's actually pretty cool... and he's wearing one Maryland glove! |
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| Much of the crew in an... interesting photo |
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| My buddy Todd and I. He is down South, near Banfora. |
Did you
notice I messed up at the beginning a smidgeon? Neither did anybody in the
audience because out of the three hundred or so people there, two spoke this language. Either way it
went fine, except nobody I knew I was finished, as again, nobody speaks the
language. Afterwards was a whirlwind of awesomeness. I packed some crap up, as
I was inevitably moving to Bouldié the next day and knew I did not want to
pack feeling like crap, and hit the town. We had discovered a restaurant the
evening before called Moulin Rouge that was just simply awesome. The food was
amazing, and they have a freaking happy hour. The best part of said happy hour
was that liter beers were 1,000 CFA. That is $2.00 for a liter of ice-cold,
pretty good quality Castel Beer in one huge mug. So after almost punching a guy
in the face after he tried to pickpocket my buddy, we went to Moulin Rouge, got
a couple large beers, I ate a true double cheeseburger (Big-Mac style but
actually about 6-8 inches tall, hopefully there’s a picture), and some fries.
We left there and went to another bar called Deniro’s. They have pool tables
there, and I won 1,000 CFA in a game of pool that was obviously horribly lost
when the other team scratched on the 8-ball… call it birthday luck. We drank,
we enjoyed each other’s company, and then we headed to a little nightclub in
Ouaga, which was one of the most fun times I’ve ever had. I bought one beer,
which was American sized but cost almost double what it usually does here, and
actually danced for like two hours. It was a blast. The place is plastered in
mirrors and it’s impossible to figure out which way is out from the dance
floor, but that made the under-sized area that much more fun. It helped that
this was the closest to anything in the US I’ve seen since being here, and you
could fit this dance floor in my basement in the US.
The cab
ride home was filled with tears from the girls, as inevitably the next day we
would all be separated, and go through a very, very rough next few weeks. That
was a fair assessment, as this has certainly been one of the harder weeks of my
life. All in all, it was one of, if not the best, birthdays I’ve ever had. I
had over a hundred people sing me Happy Birthday, I ate pizza and meat on a
stick, we debuted a wonderful film that is hopefully attached to this, drank,
ate amazing food, danced, and reviewed the fun, and terrible times (see bus crash) we’d had the previous two months.
I can’t
really explain to you what I’m going through here. You really wouldn’t be able
to understand. When you smile, you really smile. The rest of the time thus far,
I’ve felt like the slightest thing will push me over the edge to come home
(though I won’t do that regardless). The other day was an awful day. I woke up
feeling incredibly lonely. I turned on my stove, and the thing actually blew up in my face. There was a gas leak
in it and regardless of what I did, one of the burners constantly leaked gas.
Randomly, it would blow up in a large one-second explosion. I’m lucky that
never reached the gas tank, or I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now
(I’ve since bought a new stove, stupid Ouaga street vendors). After that
wonderful start to the day, I left to go meet the Financier, the Gendarmerie,
and a few other important people. On the way, a moto came up behind us. Instead
of doing the rational thing and following my counterpart to the right, I went
left. I didn’t see the teenage girl coming down the dirt path, as I was
concerned with the moto coming behind me (I didn’t want to be hit again, see
previous post). We collided head-on. We
were both alright, though I broke her brake, which apparently nobody here cares
about anyways as they never go faster than like two mph. I felt absolutely
awful, and was stifling off freaking out when meeting these important
figureheads.
The next
day started out the same, but was changed when we went to Didyr for a ceremony
that I thought was a small welcome to town for me. Boy was I wrong. It had
nothing to do with me, which was nice actually, as I did not need, nor want
that kind of attention. Instead, it was a dedication because the Millennium
Challenge donated $5,000,000 to help pave the road from Didyr south to
Koudougou and then on further south to Sabou. The US Ambassador was there,
along with the Prime Minister of Burkina. After the ceremony, I was pulled
aside, as they recognized the one white face amongst probably 10,000 and I took
a couple pictures with the Ambassador, and formally met him. It was pretty
cool, and helped me with a bit of the stress that I’d been facing. After all,
it isn’t everyday that you can say you meet an Ambassador right?
Everyday I
wake up with sort of the same feeling. What the heck am I going to do today so
I make it to night time and watch some It’s
Always Sunny In Philadelphia or Freaks
& Geeks. That’s a pretty depressing outlook, but every day is truly a
struggle. Once I actually get out of the house, it usually isn’t all that bad,
though that wonderful lonely feeling does set in quite often, until I distract
myself again. I started actually reading, which I didn’t think I’d do much of,
but I was wrong. I see myself reading at least one hundred books while I’m
here. There is so much time to kill. The days are so long, and there just is
not enough stuff to fill the void. Couple that with the fact that I haven’t yet
bought a solar panel so I can’t charge anything, hence why I’m squeezing so
much into one blog post. Once I’ve bought that, I think I will be able to write
a bit more, and shorten these bad boys a bit. I’m also charging my iPhone,
which is what I watch stuff on at night, usually with a nice cup of oh so
classy Don Garcia boxed red wine. Don’t judge, a glass a day is good for the
heart. I’ve also started daily exercise, alongside the constant biking and
walking everywhere. I made a bet with three other volunteers. Whoever gets the
most muscle mass by the time IST rolls around (3 months) wins 5,000 CFA each
from the others. Not only will I get in shape again, I’ll win money while doing
it, so it’s a win-win!
The day
goes as such: wake up with a feeling of dread, drink some Folger’s (running out
very rapidly) and eat some Oatmeal, say hello to some neighbors to the best of
my ability, do the daily tasks, have a beer with lunch if I’m in Didyr buying
stuff, return and sit around twiddling my thumbs or read, work-out to work up a
good sweat, take a cold shower which sucks right now because it’s actually
pretty damn chilly at night until mid to late February, cook my dinner (that’s
right, me, cooking) and watch some crap on my iPhone before falling asleep
around ten. It gets a bit easier everyday, but is by no means easy. I will
continue to work to learn the language, and am fairly excited to actually get
to work. The community is smart in terms of they have gardens to eat and sell
things after the food is gone (there is actually a 2 month-ish long hunger
season here right before harvest time), but there is still room for improvement
in terms of things they can do to make money. Hopefully I can fulfill my hopes
and introduce soap making, which they are intent on, and tofu into the area.
Anyways,
this is horribly disorganized and long, so I’m going to stop. I need to shower
and cook, as it is already almost 20:00 and I’m lagging behind on my daily
routine. I hope all is well, and hopefully by the time you read this I will
know a bit of the language and be a bit more integrated into the community. As
always, Go Cards, Go Skins, and all of you, keep on keepin’ on… I will do my
best to do the same.
I have a couple other great pictures to add on here as well:
I have a couple other great pictures to add on here as well:
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| Beautiful Picture of the Sunset near my house |
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| ...annnnd I found a black widow in my room |
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