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.