Marriages and Preschool

Good evening: Ne zabre!

How is your evening? Zabre kibare

It is fine. Yaa laafi

How is your family? Y zaka ramba?

They are fine. Yaa laafi

I have been terrible about keeping up my blog! I am so sorry. Luckily, that means that I am extremely busy (which Dad always thinks is funny).

Just to set the scene for you: it is about 115 to 120 degrees at around noon every day. Yes, it does cool down at night (thank you Sub-Saharan region!) and it is dry, but it is still quite toasty!Most people take a little 'pause' at 12 to 15 here to sleep and hide from the heat. Gardening projects are wrapping up. Gold miners are starting to look pretty rich. People say rainy season will start any day now (what they mean is in about two months). What is the fun in this season you ask? Well, it is also party season! All the funerals that took place in the past year get celebrated now. All the marriages happen now (I just went to my host brother's wedding yesterday).

So backing up, work wise, life is really good. I have not been working at the local health clinic since they have four full time interns (that are in different health programs to become nurses and midwives). It is hard not having that because it gave me a good morning routine, but now my morning involves mainly running and trying to get little things done at the house.

My big project now that I talked about in my last blog post as well is my critical thinking club! It looks like people in my village want to start up a preschool, which I think is awesome. So I am trying to focus on kids between three and seven (but others still come) and see what kind of things work for them. I have also been trying to find people to work with me to teach the kids – which has been a lot of fun. Did you know that 'if your happy and you know it clap your hands' is in French and Moore? How cool right? Also, when everyone starts saying that I am the 'mother of their children' and when they ask me how are my kids (which I then get irratited because everyone knows I do not have any, they now smile back and say, 'the children of Silmidougou are your children') it can be easy to get excited.

With other volunteers we have started a working group that focuses on early childhood education and childhood literacy. We have a big translation conference coming up to translate stories we collected at our sites to be put into four national languages. There will be ten stories in all the languages, which will then give us a good idea about what people want and what people like! I am super excited about it and people in Silmidougou are really excited to see the books. Our other projects look like they are going to be a book of games and activities, a book of how to make toys, recording songs and other fun things. This is my big project since my community is excited about it and so is Peace Corps. We will be having around ten preschool volunteers coming in June!

I'm still doing a little bit of agriculture – not very much though. I am working with some people on how to do rock lines (which are a very big tool here to reduce water erosion). I also have been working with people that have a big interest in growing soy (Sophie really wants to start making tofu). So that should be fun!

The reason that I am in Ouaga right now (AKA with internet) is because I was just at a conference on women's health and leadership. I brought a lady in my village named Sophie who is really involved in the community and works all the time. It was my first conference and it was awesome. The volunteers running it did a good job. Sophie and the other counterparts learned things about family planning, HIV/AIDS, malaria, leadership, woman’s rights, nutrition and hygiene. It was great and I see it being possible for us to bring back some of the information to Silmidougou.

I had a great visit on Saturday with my host family from training. It was a really good boost for me since they were so impressed with how much Moore I have learned (I did almost all my interactions in Moore) and how much they love me. One of my older host brothers got married which meant there was a good party – no dohlo (local beer) just zoom koom (flour water). We danced a lot. We ate a lot. The kids (who have gotten so much bigger) were so excited to have me back. We practiced writing and math while waiting at the pump for water. It was so wonderful and it was so nice to see them again. I am hoping that I will be able to see them a little more often now!

I had some really funny stories to share but I misplaced the paper, I think I just left it at home. I will look for that and hopefully next time I will be able to talk more about the people I live with in Silmidougou and what we get up to instead of just about work. I am so happy here and while there are a few tough and trying moments, overall without question I have been happy. I don't really know how I could be more happy without having all of you come live with me in Silmidougou (though most of you then wouldn't be too happy!).

Much love to all and hopefully next month I will have some pictures to add and better stories to tell!

The Holiday Season

Ne windiga! (Good afternoon!)

Windig kibare (How is your afternoon?)

Response: Laafi bala (It has been peaceful)

Y zaka ramba?

Response: Laafi (In health)

To those of you I have not communicated with since my last post, I hope the holidays were wonderful and that you are all doing well. Happy 2013!!

I have been overwhelmed with work and life in the past few months which has been terrific! I am busy almost everyday now. I work at the health clinic five mornings a week and have a critical thinking club that meets during the lunch break everyday. I am going running in the morning as well! By the afternoon comes around I am exhausted and happy to just hang out with people in my market.

Hamadou on the alphabet wall!

My new interest has been in early childhood education and critical thinking projects that can go along with that. This is all thanks to Mom sending me a Highlights magazine that is the most loved magazine known to mankind. It is very well-worn but I just received another package from Mom so I have my fingers crossed that there are some new ones in there!

Karim and Asseta having some fun drawing

I've also been collecting stories so that we can translate them into a variety of languages and then are some other people that will illustrating them. The stories though are always incredibly morbid. So far I have collected four from some teenage girls I know. Here is an example of one (it is the most extreme in how depressing it is, but I love it).

The Dangerous Family

By Ramata Ouedraogo, the daughter of Amado and Zenabo Ouedraogo, 15 years old, in 6eme

This is Ramata while she is at work

One morning, a man and a woman went into the wilderness to go look for honey. They left their children at the house. After a bit of time in the wilderness, they found a beehive. They decided that they did not have enough time to take the honey from the hive. So they took the entire beehive and headed home. When they arrived at their house, they gave the house key to the kids and told them, “lock us in the house and throw away the key.” The man and the woman went inside and the kids locked the door with the key and threw it away. After a few minutes, the children heard noises from inside the house. They started laughing because they thought that their parents were happy after eating so much honey. The children were wrong. Actually, the parents had opened up the beehive inside the house. The bees had come out of their hive and attacked the man and the woman. Eventually, the children realized that their parents were trying to get their attention. The children searched everywhere for the key but could not find it. The parents died in the house with the bees.

So now on to happier things, the holiday season!

Christmas was wonderful and spent in Silmidougou. With three pounds of pork tenderloin for four dollars on Christmas Eve we ate well and celebrated the holidays. On Christmas, my Uncle Boureima (who is Muslim) gave Zach and me a chicken. So Zach got to kill and gut a chicken while I washed dishes. It was a pretty quiet day, but it ended up being a three day long celebration with one day of every Christian in my village being very drunk. It was a lot of fun, but I really did miss Christmas with the family – my first one without Mom, Dad and Luke - so that was a little sad (guess I have officially left the nest).

A Merry Christmas meal!!!

Zach doing a great job cooking the pork!

New Years was a fun event in Kaya. I was with Zach and Jason where we ate some great chili from home (thanks Mom!) and drank an assortment of liquors. Thanks to those two boys, I stayed up until midnight, the villageois in me is unwilling to be up after sundown.

I then had a bunch of Peace Corps visits to my site. The first was to help Zach move out of his site and so I am now fostering his two cats (it looks like he will be PC/Burkina's first nursery school volunteer and still be in our region). The second was a very nice visit from my PC Medical Officer, Jean-Luc, who knows Mom and Dad well from when we lived in Tanzania so it was fun to catch up with him. Along with Jean-Luc came Dr. Barry Simon the director of PC Health Services from Washington, DC. We had a nice lunch in Kaya and got to show off my site. The third visit was from Siaka, the man that ran our cross-cultural and language sessions in PST, came for just an hour but it was not to chat with him and him to also get to see my village.

One of my foster kitties, her name is Probot

In case you have not heard, Burkina is going to the World Cup! I watched all the games in village and was the only girl in the crowd. I brought my Burkina flag to each game. Second in Africa!!

The chief's brother and me ready for the Africa Cup final!

The last holiday that has taken place is the biggest and most exciting: naaba fete! This holiday in celebration of my chief and all the former chiefs took place for over a week. He had all of the large government officials come to village, there were dance-offs, competing dance parties until 6am, animal sacrifices, traditional dancers, a man on stilts, and all kinds of fun things! It was a great time for me since I got to dress up a bit and gave one of my rabbits to the chief. He gave me two thumbs up, which for the regal man he is, was quite awesome! I really enjoyed it and I will hopefully be adding some more photos on facebook soon if you want to check them out!

Zach, my chief, and me

The traditional dancers

The last note for this post is a bunny update! I left you all hanging on a terribly sad note last time so I think it is good to give you some new information. I got back from in-service training to find myself with three new baby bunnies, two that are white and one that is almost all black. They are now almost as large as the adults! While this was a big plus there have been some failures since then. The first being that after another litter came to life, a few dogs broke in and ate my male and the new litter. I later found one of the new babies still alive but his leg is broken – I think more because he has an abusive mother than dogs attacking him. I then gave my white female to my chief as a present for his party, which was a big win. The next day, Zach got to kill his first bunny when I realized just how terrible this mother was being (she pulls out her babies' hairs and steals their food). While Zach was cleaning her up I gave myself a pedicure (thanks Grandma for the stones!) and sang, “Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead” (which is the only part of that song I know). She was delicious! The four bunnies that are still around have gotten much fatter since their mom is gone, so I'm thinking I am going to come up with a party right before rainy season to eat them all! I really want my garden!

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

Ne windiga! (Good afternoon!)

Response: Windig kibare (How is your afternoon?)

Response: Laafi bala (It has been peaceful)

So for my second blog post in Ouagadougou for training I am going to talk more about my wonderful home! Recently, home has been extremely dry and very hot during the day. Everything has become brown and all of the crops have been harvested, which means that the landscape has changed drastically. Luckily, we have just started 'winter' so it is cool at night. I am not sure how people deal with their hot season here, I think everything must just stop.

When I left Silmidougou people had just finished the harvest and were starting to do some construction on houses and making bricks. It has been very interesting to watch, but I am certain all the houses get rebuilt every few years since their bricks are never cooked so the rain tears them down. Everyone in the community seems to be extremely pleased with how the harvest came out this year and said that this is extremely rare (I thought there was no rain, I was very, very concerned for the community's ability to feed itself this year – silly me).

My housing situation has been great. I have my two houses and I have gotten some repairs done so it is starting to be very comfortable! I am hoping soon I can paint the walls and that will add a whole new layer of fun! As of right now I have the lyrics of Amazing Grace making a full tour of my wall – look up the whole thing, I only know the first verse, it goes on forever! I also have quite a few 'friends'. I have mice, lizards, carpenter bees and termites in my house. Luckily the termites seem to be leaving which is a relief since they were starting to have an extreme effect on my sleeping since they can fall into my mosquito net. I would wake up literally covered in dead termites – it is a gross way to wake up. It has been great but it sure is a change in living conditions! I guess the house pets will be much better than the heat my friends in metal roofed houses will be in during hot season!

One thing that has been cracking me up in village (and everywhere in my region) recently has been that all the kids here yell 'bye, bye' when I come up to them. At first I was impressed they knew how to say goodbye but now I know that they believe it is a salutation, so now I start singing 'you say goodbye and I say hello'. Maybe one day I will try to teach them the difference between hello (and teach them the word) and bye, bye, but as of right now it is a great source of entertainment for me.

Tabaski was wonderful. I spent the morning in village, Asseta took me to pray and then hung out for some of the festivities. Sadly, unlike my Tabaski story in Dakar (look for the blog post about it if you want to hear about that wild experience) where my host family was able to kill a goat for each family member, including the children, my entire community in Silmidougou killed roughly three goats. Everyone was still so excited and everyone looked beautiful but it was harsh reminder of the poverty that is a part of my community.

Thanksgiving ended up being a lot of fun. Zach and Mariko came up to celebrate and help with cooking. I had invited a few of my close friends in village to come 'fete' with us, of course this quickly meant that everybody in my community wanted to be invited and so I quickly realized that there had to be quite a bit of food! I bought four dollars worth of potatoes (which was WAY too much for 50 people – if that tells you anything about how cheap food is here), four ducks, six papayas from Omar, two dollars worth of rice, and four dollars worth of bread. Everything I can find in village to make mashed potatoes, stuffing, papaya salad, rice pudding and roasted duck! I had fifty people arrive and eat lots of food. There were kids everywhere and the only thing that upset people was that I didn't have local beer ready for them (it was a market day so I just told them that if they wanted to drink they could use their money and drink all they wanted, but they could eat all they wanted at my house). It was a lot of fun and a lot of food. I sure missed the family dinner at the Segelhorst's but it came close, since we were smiling, laughing and drinking wine (from a box, so not quite the same, but close)! I am so thankful to have a wonderful community and a great job here in Burkina while also having such a loving family (and loving friends) just on the other side of the ocean.

Bunny Drama

On a different note, I just realized that I may not have brought up my bunny situation recently. So you all knew about baby Stew. One day Zach came down from Kaya with fencing so that I could keep him outside. The next morning I went into my kitchen and found him with a stroke – he couldn't move an entire side of his body. After a few hours he was looking a bit better and was moving a bit. That evening I went into my courtyard and found him dead. Luckily, Zach was around and gave him to Remi (the son of my neighbor, the former Peace Corps counterpart). The next morning Remi walked into my courtyard with the box Zach had given him (that last time I had seen it, held a dead bunny). I was so grossed out because I thought there was a day old bunny in the box! Thankfully Remi had eatten it the night before so there was no problem. I also sent around some 'funny' notes to friends and family about the death of Stew. Here are a few of the best: Stew woke up floppy, by noon was hoppy, then was dead.

Since I was bitter about putting up this fencing in my courtyard, I asked Zach to bring me down a starter pair to start my own bunny farm! Smart decision right? After about a month of my new pair I had my bunny expert, Norm (an education volunteer from my swearing in class), come for a visit and tell me what to fix. His directions were simple: get a male, right now you have two females. After he left I felt somewhat defeated since I had now been feeding bunnies for two full months with no bunny meat! Zach, kindly brought me an actual male rabbit (that is now named Stew). He started building a big bunny hole that was at least five feet deep – that was as far as my stick could follow, but it was likely even larger – but from what I could tell was not getting it on with the ladies to produce offspring (if you want those details I will email you, not appropriate to write about that on this). A few days before Thanksgiving, Zach decided that these bunnies needed to start having babies and he was going to help that happen, I finally agreed that if he didn't think the females were pregnant he could help Stew catch them and get him in at least the right direction for some baby making. He picked up Big Mama
(the one we thought was the male in the first round) and realized that she was extremely pregnant. A few days later Big Mama was going wild because the hole had collapsed (which at this moment we think means that her babies were lost in the destruction because she has still not had babies. I'm now pretty at peace that I will NEVER have baby bunnies. Someday, I hope the news on the bunny front will be better...

So I am going to talk really quickly about some of my favorite people in my community that I see often and make my life at site so much better!

Asseta – is my aunt in village. She has been through the equivalent of 5^th grade but speaks more French than any other woman in my village. She runs a boutique and a food stand. Her husband buys gold from the miners in the region and sells it in Ouaga. Her two biological daughters are 'bandits' that are always having fun and getting into trouble. Her eldest daughter is starting 1^st grade (the first year of school), however the teacher left the school so she won't be going to school this year. I am hoping to partner with the school so the kids do not have to repeat after paying for the school year! Asseta also has taken in kids from our village and neighboring villages. These are kids that are working for their school fees or young women whose husbands have left them (one of them just had her baby on Monday – cannot wait to see that girl!!). Asseta has been really good about making sure I get fed and that if I need anything she finds someone to help.

Madi – he works full time at his dad's boutique. He had just 5^th grade but his dad said that he is not allowed to go to school anymore. It kills me to see such a smart boy working 15 hour days instead of going to school. He sometimes acts like he is my older brother and takes good care of me. One day, he saw me walking down the street trying to hold seven guavas and a bunch of other things from the market and he ran out of his boutique and put all of my things in a plastic bag. He charges my phone for free – which I really appreciate – and sells pasta and tomato sauce! I am really hoping that I can do some one-on-one studying so that he can keep using his brain. He also has a puppy named Bubby (almost all dogs in Burkina are named Bubby) who I play with. He thinks I am pretty silly but I think he appreciates it.

Work, work, work

Ne windiga! (Good afternoon!)

Response: Windig kibare (How is your afternoon?)

I am now in Ouagadougou at my In-Service Training! This means that I have successfully survived my first three months at site! It is really exciting to be able to think about all that has happened in the last few months and know that after this IST that I will be going 'home' instead of last time I finished at training with Peace Corps. The last time I had training I was pretty nervous about going to site but I already miss Silmidougou so much. I have been calling Asseta, Bouriema, and Douada every day to see how everyone is doing and just to remind them how much I miss them! There has already been a birth since I left, so the whole world is going to be different in two weeks when I get back.

So I know a few of my blog posts have already been about work related things but I feel like now I should fill you in all things you have already heard about!

I am spending every Wednesday and Thursday morning at my local health clinic. Wednesday is 'malnutrition day' so we weigh babies, take arm measurements, and have pregnant women whose weight has dropped come in. We then give them food stuffs (I've been trying to see how we can make this more sustainable) for them to take home with them that should boost up their weight quite a bit. The majeur is really wonderful and has been great to talk to about health issues in the area and projects they want. We just got a new midwife who is wonderful. She is so dynamic and hard working. I love working with them and they are really great.

I went one day to visit the midwife just to quickly say hello after the medical staffs at all medical facilities across the country went on strike. She was looking very busy with a very large line of pregnant women waiting to get the prenatal checkup. When she saw me she got a huge grin on her face and she asked me to help her out. Not quite realizing what I was about to get myself into I agreed and wandered into her office. Luckily, I ended up just filling out the information of the women (e.g. their basic information, and then whatever she had me write down), but I was very surprised by a lot of the information I learned. Most of the women were at least twenty, which was a relief, since most men in my village have told me that frankly, I am too old for them to be interested in (I am twenty-two, which I think is pretty young, but it sure makes my life a lot easier at site). I also learned that in my village female genital mutilation is almost one hundred percent. I guess on the bright side it is almost only first degree however, we did have a young women that had third degree excision (the midwife had me look at it, since it is so extreme – I got pretty light headed and had to keep my cool). We had a Fulani women come in that had had a miscarriage that morning and did not understand what had happened and that the baby had been lost. All in all, it was an exhausting and overwhelming few hours and I have officially decided that being a midwife is not a job I would like to have.

I have been helping a lot in people's fields. I worked with my counterpart in weeding his bean field and then later in the season went back to harvest them. It was very hot so I made a rule that I will not work between 10-2 since I get very dehydrated and also get very badly sunburned! Harvesting the beans made me realize just how much insects ruin the harvest. It means that there is a lot I can work on doing with people in my village but it is so hard to see people only get what the bugs leave for them. I also harvested millet in my village. I have worked on the fields of my counterpart's dad and also the president of the group that is hosting me in my village. It was really interesting to see what people find more comfortable. They cut down the stalks of the millet not just so that people can bring it back for their animals, but also because they really prefer to bend over to harvest rather than harvesting while it is at head right.

For my community study, I have been doing some interviews with people in my community. These are to help me get an idea about what has already taken place in the community, where the level of understanding of different topics is, and what they would like to see take place. The majority of them so far has been with Dominique's family (the man that grows mangoes). When I discussed with him and his family if they would be willing he was very welcoming about the whole thing. When I came back, he gave me a rooster! I, obviously, did not know what to do with it, so Moussa tied it to one of my bunny huts and said that would be fine. The rooster, later in the day broke the line and was running around. At dusk he jumped on my roof and went to bed. Sadly, his sleep schedule and my sleep schedule are a little off – mainly, I do not like waking up at 3 am and then hear him yell for the next three hours. He was gone by the time I woke up in the morning and I have seen him twice since then. I am pretty pleased he disappeared because he was obnoxious but I do feel bad that Dominique did not just keep him. It is nice having so many wonderful people in my community, but sometimes I am not very good at receiving the gifts they give me.

Some students that live in Silmidougou but go to school in Mane (since they are above the sixth grade, so they bike over ten kilometers to school every day) asked me to start a club on Saturdays with them. They brought up that they wanted to learn English, so the first day we met I brought Obama's victory speech (I wrote the entire speech out by hand so I can use other parts of it again later). Only two boys came the first day but they did an awesome job and really impressed me with how hard they worked to figure out who the speaker was. The next time we discussed what other types of topics we would like to discuss based on what kind of careers people want. At first no one said anything but quickly they got really excited about what they could be. There are some that want to join the military, another wants to be a soccer player, some want to teach history, one wants to do scientific research, and others want to work for the government. We then decided what they would be interested in so each week we will rotate with different topics from geography and science to public health and public speaking. It should be a lot of fun, sadly at this moment the club is on hold because the director of the middle school will not let us use the facility in Silmidougou. Hopefully, I can work with the elementary school and use their classroom since these students were so excited and came even on the day they were told they were not allowed to meet on the school grounds.

While in Kaya, Zach and I met with “Projet victoire sur la malnutrition”. The director of the project is a naturalized American citizen from Mali and works hard. He was really excited to hear that we want to work with them. Their work is an amazing collaboration between a lot of the biggest development groups in Burkina. They do everything from agriculture technical workshops to distributing food supplies to health centers. I'm really looking forward to seeing what projects I can help them with and seeing their projects in my region grow.

So that is all for this post. I am hoping to get another few out in the next week or so. Much love and write me a letter if you have the chance – the internet does not seem like a good form of contact for me.

Letters to Mom and Dad

September 11, 2012 Letter #1

Hey Mom and Dad!

                So just to start this out I am so sorry for being so terrible about writing!  I have not been good about writing since I cannot seem to find a good time to do it.  It’ll get better—I promise!

                I’m sitting in my courtyard with five of my normal kids.  Remi is about 7 and the only one I think that goes to school.  He lives right next door and is the son of the old counterpart (he did all three of the health volunteers).  I’m also sitting with my dear new baby bunny.  I just gave him some milk. He is so cute but I’m attempting to not get too attached because I feel like he will die on me.  Right now he has free reign of my kitchen.  He doesn’t cause much of a mess but if he will be around for a while I may need to get him better/more realistic living quarters.  I feel like he will poop a lot—though I have to clean up gecko poop everyday anyways.  Feeding him milk is adorable but a lot of work.  He doesn’t drink out of the bowl but he likes licking me so I dribble it on the arm—he is starting to learn the spoon technique thankfully  A farmer that I work with/may start working with who is growing mangoes in his field gave him to me.  Mousa (my counterpart) was just as confused when I got handed a baby bunny instead of a bunny ready to be eatenl

                So Mousa has been great.  He comes to my house around 8 AM every day and we do things between then and noon and then he is back at 15:00-19:00.  He is really nice and very quiet.  He is getting better about talking and asking me questions but he is awesome about showing me cool things and introducing me to incredible people.  He is extremely Muslim—his sisters are pretty much the only ones I’ve seen that wear the all black flowery garb though luckily they don’t cover their faces.  He is the only one of his siblings that isn’t married and he is the oldest boy—having a hard time understanding that.  He spent about seven years working on cocoa and cotton plantations.  My favorite line from him so far is when we were talking about the fact that once a week they play a movie after the marche.  I asked him if he ever watched them and he replied that he used to but doesn’t anymore.   I then asked why –because he doesn’t talk too much—and he said that movies like that make him question too much and he becomes too much of a rebel.  A rebel??  From watching a movie once a week?  You gotta wonder . . .  We get along well and he is surely one of the fastest walkers and bikers in the village—which means that we go just above a snail’s pace when going places.

                So each time I do the bike ride up to Silmidougou I shock myself with how beautiful it is and how uphill it is!  It is fairly flat for the first 3 km out to Mane proper though part of the road is washed away.  The hills then start and go up a Kili-like slope (maybe a little steeper).  When that starts to tire you out is when the “Mountain of Silmidougou”  appears.  I am getting pretty good about getting up it but it is very steep.  It then falls into a valley-esque village of Silmidougou!  It is about 30 minute run from my house to the base of the “mountain” and back.  So most of the time I am going past it and running further!

                Well, today is marche day so I should probably go there for a bit.  I’m on the search for people I can maybe do some income generating and basic accounting with!

                                                                                                                                Much love, Katie

                                                                                                                                September 14, 2012

Hey Mom and Dad,

                So the kids just walked in with a baby bird they stoned to death.  Sometimes they really gross me out.  They tied a string around its leg so they can fling it around at people and they are taking off all its feathers and stuffing them in their ears.  Ugh, kids here are so gross when they want to be.  There is one girl that lives with the dohlo (beer) family who is about 15 years old and I love her.  Her name is Saphie and she takes care of her family’s goats and is the only one at her house who plays with their adorable puppy.  She is going to school so I am hoping I can get to know her better as her French gets better.

                The bunny is alive and well, though I have decided I’m going to eat him for Thanksgiving.  He should be fat by then, he poops will be bigger, he will be less cute and there will be fewer greens for him to eat.  Right now still feeding him by spoon all day long.  He is so cute.

                So Moussa and I are going to the pyramids to go t meet up with the banana man.  He wanted more info on how to make compost since he has been told that compost is a much more effective for trees than chemical fertilizer.  It is nice to have a convert who just needs to learn how to do something.  The book Lisa’s mom gave me is really  useful since Moussa can get brought up to speed so he can help with the discussions as well!  Hopefully it goes well—we will see.  I also think that the book showed him lots of ways that other communities have made changes so it gave him a little bit of inspiration—which is always good to have!

                The bike ride to Kaya is pretty killer.  It is 40 km away which is pretty far in general but the last 10 kim or so is all up hill (same thing on the way back funnily enough).  So I’m definitely getting tougher by doing it but the first trip almost killed me!  I’m going again on Monday so hopefully this time will be better.  The first time I biked with Zach both ways which meant we were really going fast!  Going to go at Katie pace next time.  I think I will be ready for the Wirth bike trip to Harper’s Ferry when I get back!  I’m still excited about this hike you came up with!!  How far is it?  How long is it supposed to take?  Editor’s note:  I think she is talking about the Incan trail to Macchu PIchu.  I’m still running 40 minutes a day but now that I have the bunny and Moussa comes at 8 AM I’m not sure how I can increase my time.  May just try going faster and then time can be found so I can go on a longer run!  It is nice going running again.  Sadly, unlike both of you when you were PCTs and PCVs, my tolerance has dropped significantly.  I’m telling myself that it is because  I need to be more hydrated.  Hopefully in the end I will be able to drink more than two beers again!  (For those of you who read this and haven’t lived in Africa, each beer is 22 oz.)

                                                                                                                                                September 26, 2012

                Things have been busy here!  Leaving Zach to drop these off at the Kaya post office!  Much love and miss you.  I am already excited to have you guys come see this place!

                                                                                                                                                September 26, 2012 Letter #2

Hey Mom and Dad,

                I am sitting at one of my two favorite boutiques while waiting for a storm to come and pass by.  Today has been a “busy” day.  I had an entire two things on my schedule!  I had my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) come and check on me.  It was great seeing him—he’s a very nice guy.  It’s funny because I’m by the time you get this letter you will have met APCD George in DC!!  He brought me juice that I think I will open up when Zach drops by Sunday with my new bunnies.  He seemed impressed with how I know so many people in my community and that I am so happy here.  I also had a meeign with the “youth group”.  It is all males between 20-35 years old.  I was really nervous about it but I think it went well.  There were a lot of faces in the crowd that I knew so that helped a lot and people wanted to talk about the goals and projects they want to do.  The only thing that really, really shocked me from the meeting was the number of youth that work in gold mines.   Most make their own shafts and work independently.  They are the youth by far with the most money but it is a dangerous job.  I’m still trying to figure out what kind of projects I can do with them.  I think it may be on accounting and saving money so that they can pay for all those tools and things that they want for their work.

                                                                                                                                                September 28, 2012

Hey you guys!

                So I just got done with a trip to a former lake/barrage.  It is sad to think that a source of water for the community is gone now and the closest body of water to Silmidougou proper.  Though it has made the land available to a Peul community that has lived there for ten years—now fixing up the lake (emptying out the dirt that has filled it up)  would mean they would get relocated,   something I’m not sure is right for the Mossi project.  Everyone talks about how the new barrage is starting to fill up as well.  Talking to Moussa—my homologue—he seemed surprised at the idea of mitigating the water problems of the future by starting to empty it now.  It may be a tough thing for the community to think about but I think they all actually know the consequences of not dealing with it—so they may be willing to be proactive about the barrage they have now.  We will see.

                I was just told that my country director will be visiting on Wednesday!  I’m kind of excited because I love my site but nervous because there are no projects as of right now. I’ll let you know how that goes.

                Well, that’s all for now.  Miss you!

And the work comes rolling in!

Ne zabre!

So I haven’t talked too much about the projects I see myself being able to do in Silimidougou so I think I will do a little update on that. As most of you know, I am a rural development agent volunteer which is under the DABA program here. My work is supposed to entail mainly agriculture projects while also doing projects that are environmental based and entrepreneurial based. All volunteers in Burkina are also supposed to do some youth development projects and health projects. So as Dad said, “You can do anything and it will count as a Peace Corps project.”

My agriculture projects I think will be pretty vast. I am supposed to be getting a model garden once the gardening season starts (probably in November). I think this year it will be mainly a tool for people to see new techniques since that is what they said that they wanted. I may be setting up a compost pile there, cover cropping, intercropping and pest protection since those are all activities people have seemed interested in. I’m also working one on one with some farmers right now. Dominique is a great subsistence farmer that has four generations of his family in the fields. He grows millet, corn and has started planting mango trees to have a harvest at another part of the year. He’s a really sweet man and his son is really competent and hard working. It was his ‘brother’ that gave me my bunny – who is now dead (don’t worry I got two more that will hopefully have offspring soon). Omar is my farmer who is actually a businessman in Ouaga but is from my village so he continues to have a field that he cultivates. Two years ago he made half of his land a plantation of bananas and papayas – luckily for me I get a good share of this when I visit so no scurvy for me! So far, everyone has a keen interest in composting and water sources. The composting projects I’m already really excited about because people have a real understanding that their land is tired and needs to have a better soil quality to continue to be productive. Composting seems like a pretty great project that fruit farmers are interested in but also subsistence farmers so can be used with everyone to different levels. On the water front, I did not have a lot of feasible ideas – my thoughts always go to drip irrigation but the problem here is water availability, not water efficacy. Luckily for me, the agriculture agent that lives ten kilometers from me has a very interesting program for building miniature lake-esque that also receives a little bit of government funding so I think the water projects are also pretty possible.

As of right now, the environmental projects are the ones that are not materializing as quickly, very few people see planting trees as a top priority in the community. So I hope to be learning more about the needs and wants of the community before I get too stressed about this. I’ve met a lot of plantation farmers for tree planting – I guess that will count to some extent or another.

On the enterprise side, there is of course a lot of interest in the community. The challenge that I started with a lot is that people believe that the way to business development is to be handed money to start their business. So for a while the discussion was on starting small to build up their capacity themselves. I think there are a lot of people that are really excited to hear from someone that they can actually take the reins and create a profitable business. The word profitable is not a word here that they use very much. Everyone wants to make money but very rarely are people thinking about profits in their business or even breaking even. I have not met anyone in my community that does accounting but people seem interested in the idea of profits and inventory control. So far it seems like it will mainly be with younger men (I’ll be talking a lot more about them in the youth development section) and a few little boutique owners (male and female!). I’m hoping that once my Moore gets better I will be able to have a better relationship with the ladies that work in the marche and then I will be able to work with them too!

The health projects that I can be working on easily are HIV/AIDS projects, sanitation projects and malnutrition projects. An HIV/AIDS project would not be a project that would be at the top of the community’s needs. This is because thankfully Burkina has a relatively low HIV/AIDS rate and my village seems to have an even lower rate. A sanitation project at this moment I think would be because I am disgusted with human feces, not because the community wants it. So I plan on holding off on it for now – though watching people of all ages poop on the soccer field I play on each evening grosses me out and smelling human feces almost every evening is not what I call delightful. Malnutrition, as of right now, seems to be the most important community need when it comes to health. Babies, children, young adults, and the elderly all seem to be in dire need for nutritional attention. I have been invited to work at my community health center every Thursday morning to weigh babies, measure their heights, write it down for the health center (called a CSPS) and the mothers’ personal records, and then help with immunizations afterwards. It is really overwhelming but everyone puts in the time and effort to record all the information so it is doing something! The program could really expand though since right now there is no feedback to the mother of whether or not her baby is in good health. There is also, from what I can tell, a lack of information for the mothers if they are looking to get information about nutrition or other infant health information if they wanted it. I am really excited about being invited to do this and I really think it will be a great opportunity to get the next generation in great health!

The youth development aspect I think will be a great source of entertainment, opportunity but also frustration. The ‘youth’ here actually is defined as 20-35 year olds which then equates to solely 20-35 year old males. Let’s just say the first meeting I sat in on was a bit of a surprise but it does open new doors. About fifty percent of the male youth here ends up doing gold mining – the majority work independently and create their own mines. They are by far the youth with the most money but it is an extremely dangerous job. Most of the youth really want to start businesses and help strengthen their community. I am really looking forward to working with them but it will be a challenge as a young girl that in their minds is marriageable (I’ve been told I’m a bit old but still in the right range) I know there will be some barriers but I’m optimistic all will go well!

I am really excited about all the things I may be able to do. It is nice being in a community that is so motivated in so many directions! I am really happy and cannot imagine doing anything else right now or being anywhere else – though I do miss my friends, family, and food with true sustenance! 

Life in the Big City

Ne zabre m zaka ni m zwa!

I am in Kaya, my regional capital visiting Zach so I thought this would be a good time for an update! Kaya is the big city in my world. There are more fruits and vegetables at one stand than I have ever seen in my entire village. There is also great yogurt and peanut sauce kebabs on most of the street corners. Last night we went to a French restaurant where I had a steak (no cows are slaughtered in village unless they have already died). The restaurant is a partner with an orphanage that teaches the children technical skills. So there are some of the older kids that wait the tables and others that cook there. It is a remarkably brilliant system and when talking to one of the waiters I learned that they get really wonderful jobs in the capital since they have more experience and are harder working than most of their peers. Really shows how projects here can build human capacity to help people get to the things they want to do. There are also all kinds of NGOs and government organizations that I think will be great to work with in the future. I am getting really excited about all the partners that I may be able to find!

I got here yesterday and helped Zach clean up his computer lab. It is a mess and has obviously not been given any real love in a long time. Luckily, the school put in a lot of work in the past to make it a good computer lab so there are nice wooden tables, real glass windows to reduce the dust in the classroom (though it has not been swept in a very, very long time), and a lot of computers. I think it will be great but Zach has a lot of work ahead of him and all I can really do to help is do cleaning – not computer repair – so he will be doing a lot of work there. It was also nice to see how quickly at the school are willing to help out and very quickly we had seven kids with brooms sweeping!

The difference between life in the big city and life in my village is extreme. The people in village love to have me be a part of their life. I am always warmly welcomed by everyone – of every age group – to sit, to chat, and to eat. People in Silimidougou are always respectful and kind. The kids are ‘bandits’ but they mean well, though I wish they would stop going through my trash and started coming at more normal hours.

Life in the big city also means that Zach has electricity and running water at his house. That means that there is a fan and a shower. Still no toilet (just a hole in the ground) but it is such an extreme difference from my life. That being said, there is still the shadow of downfall in the infrastructure. There is still no way to know when the electricity will cut and blow out whatever is plugged into it. There is still no actual promise that the water will be on. The entire city of 50,000 people may be without any water source (all running water and pumps can be cut) for two or three days. This means most people have emergency water sources (40 liters of water in plastic containers that they refill from time to time). The city is booming and vibrant but there will always be more work to be done.

On another note, I have spent the last two days painting Zach’s walls. They look awesome! There is a lot more to do but it will look great when we are done. Hopefully, sometime soon my walls will get done as well.