Well, the
seemingly inevitable for the past four or five months has happened. I have up
and moved out of Bouldie and have been living in the transit house for almost a
week and will be there for another few days before up and moving to my new
village. As anybody who followed this blog knows, I was not having a
particularly fantastic time in Bouldie. The community was seemingly unmotivated
to get much done, and I did more sitting in my house and read than I ever could
have imagined. It was frustrating, infuriating, and depressing. Finally, due to
some really crappy road conditions and a lot of conversations with the bureau,
they decided to get me out of there.
My new
village is called Dialgaye (Dee-AHL-guy), and is located east of Ouagadougou by
about two-ish hours. There is a fairly large city called Koupela en route, and
when you arrive there, you turn south and continue for 30 km. It is 15 km
before you hit Tenkodogo and is the road to Togo, which should hopefully come
in handy at some point or another. I have found out a few things about the
house I am living in, and a little bit about the organization I am going to be
working with and thus far, it seems like a great opportunity, especially
compared to where I’m coming from. The company (though I don’t know the name)
is associated with OCADES, a Catholic mission that does trainings on water
sanitation and helps to build wells and pumps nationwide. There are many
subsidiaries of it, and this is where I will be.
My house is
just off the main, paved road, which is fantastic. I have electricity and a
spigot at my house, but no shower. This is an INCREDIBLE improvement on
Bouldie, where I had just a solar panel and a dirty well about half a kilometer
away. I will have lights and be able to charge everything I need to whenever I
need to. They also told the Peace Corps bureau that they are going to cover
expenses of the water and electricity… basically I won the lottery and I
couldn’t be happier about it. My neighbors are friends from my training group
and we have fairly easy transport to get to one another, which is great.
Hopefully this new site will be more what I envisioned when I joined Peace
Corps. I have shifted my expectations of my life here completely, and the whole
“change the world” mentality is all but gone. However, if I can make some sort
of a difference in the lives of people in my community, I will be happy. Just
getting through Peace Corps is a challenge and rewarding for the rest of your
life, but it would be nice to get out of here saying I’ve done something to
help people. While I taught the people in Bouldie to make soap, this is not
quite what I envisioned before I came here.
Along with
the move comes learning a new language and understanding a different culture. I
live with the Guaransi before, and will now be living with the Mossi, the
largest ethnic group in Burkina, occupying 49% of the population (or it did a
couple years ago). They are also the sassiest and many say the meanest, but I
think I’ll be all right. I have to learn a new language called Moore, which is what I expected to
learn before I got here, as the population of Mossi is so large and while the
official national language is French, much of the country speaks Moore. I have already started my Moore lessons and the language is
interesting, there are many similarities to the Lyele that I learned before, such as conjugations are not really a
thing and it is a very simplistic language. However, it is still like learning
Chinese because none of the words are remotely the same form anything I’ve ever
experienced and the grammatical rules are all completely different. As they say
in French, ca va aller. I can’t wait to arrive in my new village, set up my
house, learn about what I can do in the new place, and of course, have a housewarming
with some of my friends who can make it. Unfortunately I should be moving in
right before Halloween, so no costume parties for me (though apparently there
is one Saturday in Ouaga, so I may attend that).
It was a
mixed group of emotions when I left Bouldie. It had been a long time coming, so
I was prepared for it. However, sitting in a circle with the people that have
taken care of you and been there whenever you wake up and telling them you are
leaving was a surreal and uncomfortable experience. They understood the
reasoning, which we put mainly on the road more than anything, but it was still
awkward and sad to say goodbye. They frustrated the hell out of me, but they
were very nice people and they always treated me well. They washed my clothes
and brought me water. They greeted me sixteen times a day. They gave me food
even when I said I didn’t really want it ten different times (I can’t say how
many times I ate to after telling
them no thank you because they just don’t quit!). So while I’m glad to be out
and about to experience something new, I’m still sad that I won’t get to see
those people anymore, despite being able to say about ten words to them!
Currently I
am waiting for my next Moore lesson
to start. I have to do 20 hours of training in five days before I can move to
my site. It is pretty brutal and quite overwhelming, but it’ll be good to
arrive with a base knowledge of the language. I will likely get a tutor in
Dialgaye and continue to learn until I move out next November-ish. I am really
looking forward to the new experience and getting a chance to start over. I
want to be a site rat. I want to love living here and I’m going to try to make
that happen, but I also want to temper my expectations. This country is
ethnically very, very diverse. There are 65 languages in a country roughly the
size of Colorado. However, wherever you go here there are certain things you
cannot escape. I hope that this new village will bring with it challenges, but
one’s that can be overcome and will just frustrate the hell out of me like I
have felt for the past year.
No matter
what I’m going to stick it out. At this point I’ve been here for over a year
and am almost on the downhill slide. I am going to try to enjoy my last year
here, though I do very much look forward to jumping on a plane and coming back
to Americadougou. While the government in the US is unbelievably dysfunctional,
I still love my country and this experience has really made me understand just
how lucky I am, and how lucky you are, to be Americans. We really won the
lottery on where we were born, and you should thank your lucky stars (and
stripes) for that.
UofL blew
their perfect season on Friday night. I stayed up until 3:30 AM live-streaming
the game. It was really, really frustrating to watch and I had to resist
screaming and waking up the people around me. There goes our shot at the
National Championship and Teddy Bridgewater’s chance at a Heisman! At least we
still have a chance to make a BCS bowl, and basketball is right around the
corner. According to Rick Pitino, UofL is on the verge of a “mini-dynasty”. We
have that going for us, and that’s pretty cool. NBA is about to start, which is
awesome, and the Redskins look like they have a chance to save their season.
Good stuff. I hope everybody is well in America, take care everybody.
I’m just going to go ahead and
update this now, as I’m still in Ouagadougou and the last one wasn’t all that
long… especially compared to the books that I have been writing in my previous
few posts.
I’m still in Ouaga for about
another week. Originally I was supposed to leave tomorrow, Tuesday, October 29,
but that apparently is not going to happen. My latrine in Dialgaye is not yet
finished, and apparently Peace Corps does not have a car that can take me out
there anyways, so I am for another week. Honestly, that is perfectly all right
with me. In Ouaga I can go to the gym, eat good food, and watch an unruly
amount of shows like Lost and Boy Meets World (that’s right, I have the whole series).
However, extended period in Ouaga can get pretty obnoxious. This city is far
more expensive than the rest of the country and seeing as how we get paid less
than a fourteen-year-old lifeguard, it is challenging to make ends meet if you
don’t eat cheap. Hence, I have been eating an unruly amount of tofu brochettes.
They only cost 50 FCFA per (10 cents), and they are delicious and filling.
Gotta love that exchange rate! It has also been amazing to frequent a gym
almost every day. I am feeling healthier and in a better state of mind, and
ready to take on the new challenges.
Today was my last Moore lesson,
which means I have absolutely nothing to do for the next week until I move in.
That just means I’ll go to the gym a lot and can you guess? You got it, watch
more TV shows. Notice what there isn’t a lot of in there which is a massive
shift from how this blog usually is? There isn’t a lot of drinking! Whilst I
will have a glass or two of horrible $4-a-bottle wine pretty often, I haven’t
been cramming beer down my gullet on a regular basis, which is great. I feel
good and I think I’m starting to look decent too. This extra time has also
given me an opportunity to keep my hair clean and fairly neat looking, which is
nice. It has never been this long and I don’t really know what I’m doing… On the plus side, the two guys that were in
my “hair-growing contest” both cut their hair. One cut it short and the other
got it “shaped” when he was on vacation in America. He says that doesn’t count
as cutting it, but considering it is an inch shorter than it was, that is
absolutely cutting it. Does this mean my hair cut is right around the bend?
Absolutely not. I am committed to keeping this growing until I come back to the
US next November. Here’s to keeping the strength to not cut it when it’s 110
degrees in April.
The new training group arrived here
three weeks ago. I am yet to meet any of them, but I’m hoping to go down there
to film something for a grant I have been working on with another volunteer,
and to introduce the Information Communication Technology (ICT) Committee to
the new group so we will have some people interested in joining when their
swear-in rolls around. The project I have been working on (because I don’t know
if I’ve ever explained this in here… if I have, sorry) is a nationwide
distribution of hand washing stations. We have about 25 volunteers from all
over the country interested in building these stations at their schools, local
health centers, and community meeting areas. Our job is to facilitate getting
the materials and the distribution, as well as applying for the grant, which is
one hell of an obnoxious process. Once everything is approved and we have the
materials, the volunteers will be required to perform trainings within their
communities on proper hand washing techniques, the importance of keeping their
hands clean, and teaching them how to make soap. The video I will make will be
a video process of liquid soap making. While solid soap is great, it spoils
faster, is less economically feasible, and not as sterile as using a bottle
filled with liquid soap. I am excited to meet all of the new people as well.
It is strange to not be the new
people, even though we haven’t been for five months. There are two training
groups per year. One arrives in June and swears in in August. The other arrives
in October and swears in in December, which was my group. Being the later
group, we were here for eight months before a new group arrived. Now two groups
have come within a few months and here’s ole’ G27, the veteran volunteers whom
have been here for a year. Last night I heard for the first time from somebody
in G28, “Wow, you guys have been here for a year. That’s crazy; it’s so long!”
We proceeded to talk about the first year and how hard it is and the challenges
that everybody inevitably goes through. We talked about how everybody is so
negative in that first year, especially the first eight months. People who have
been optimistic their entire lives get here and go through a massive shift in a
matter of months and find themselves depressed and unbelievably pessimistic. I
found myself encouraging the new group to keep their heads up and stick it out
because while it is always hard, it does get better. I did not tell that girl
to read this blog, as it does not exactly preach the same message.
I guess the point I’m trying to
make here is it makes a big difference. As a volunteer with some time under my
belt and new groups after me, I don’t want to see people leave. I don’t want
people to go through the same things that I went through. The thing is, it’s
inevitable. This is a very challenging place to live and the experience, while
it gets easier, is a challenge each and every day. Having these new people
under me gives me something that I think I can help with because looking back
on the first year, the hardest year of my life, I know that it does get better.
When you’ve learned some of the nuances of Burkinabe culture, things you just
don’t learn in the first six months. When you know almost all of the volunteers
in the country (excluding the new groups I haven’t had a chance to meet) and
can have fun with any group of people. These are things that make being here so
much more bearable, even enjoyable much of the time. Having these new groups
here lets us know that we are almost on the downhill and once we start rolling,
we’ll be at our close-of-service in no time.
Today four people are going back to
America. Two of my good friends from my group are going on vacation, and two
G28 people are leaving early. I’m jealous that my friends are going on vacation
to America, as it truly sounds like the promise land, however I’m glad they are
going to get to spend time with their families and enjoy the glory that is the
USofA. I feel bad for the two G28ers. They’ve only been here for five months and
they are calling it quits. I understand how they are feeling and I guess good
for them for knowing what they want to and doing it. Still, it’d be good to see
them give it a bit more of a go. After five months here, there are not very
many people that are happy. That is the same with six, seven, and eight months
too. After that, things take a noticeable step in a good direction. While I am
negative on here a lot, I can honestly that the last four months have been
exponentially better than the first eight. Hopefully this trend can continue
and by the time I leave here I can romanticize this entire experience like so
many volunteers do when they have one foot out the door. I guess we’ll see.
Only time can tell!
In more sports news, the Redskins
pulled a Louisville Cardinals and blew a big lead to lose a big game. We were
up 21-7 at the half and didn’t score again? How is that even possible?
Louisville rolled, but considering we lost to UCF, our season is ruined.
Hopefully UCF loses and we can get back in a BCS bowl. Basketball season is right
around the corner. I’m pumped. Go Cards!
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