Time for Dolo!

     Happy New Year!!  It’s hard to believe its 2013 now.  I celebrated the New Year in Ouaga with a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers.  This is the first time I haven’t been home for the holidays.  It’s really interesting to be abroad and see how other people celebrate.  It’s also really weird to be in such hot weather during Christmas time.  Currently it’s about 80 degrees, however this is considered cold season for Burkina.  Some people even walk around in huge winter coats which always makes me laugh.  For Christmas, my two closest Peace Corps neighbors came to visit my village.  Emma biked about 20km to visit and Fynn traveled about 70km.  On Christmas Eve we made mac and cheese, salad, garlic bread and a canned ham that Emma’s grandma sent her.  The head nurse also came over for some food and brought us some beers.  After dinner we found the Catholic Church in my village and went to the Christmas mass.  We thought it would be a good way to see how the village celebrates.  The mass started at 9:30pm and when we arrived the room was packed and there was even a live band with big African drums.  About every five minutes they sang songs, clapped their hands and danced.  They got so excited for the songs and a lot of the women started screaming at the top of their lungs.  It’s a distinct scream that I've heard women do before.  The mass was awesome and we were really happy we went.  We couldn't understand any of the service because it was done in the local language of Bissa, but it was really interesting and I was able to recognize some of the Christmas tunes they sang. 

Christmas eve dancing at the church 

The Catholic Church in village on Christmas

     On Christmas Day most of the Catholics in village drink dolo.  Dolo is an alcoholic beverage that they ferment locally in village.  It tastes kind of like really bitter cider beer.  There are several spots in my village called dolo dens where you can go and drink.  We found one and met some of my village friends there to drink.  Later we went to one of the bars in my village and had some beers.  Christmas night we also cooked a bunch of food. One of the village butchers that I usually can get grilled goat for lunch gave us a hind leg of a goat as a present.  We also found squash at my market that we breaded and fried along with stuffing, gravy and mashed potatoes that I brought from the states.  Two of my village friends also came over and brought spaghetti and mutton.  We had plenty of food and we were all stuffed after dinner.  That night we watched the movie Elf and pretended we were in the states.  I made small stockings and we made some ornaments for my small, fake, silver Christmas tree.  It was really nice to have company over and it made it easier to be away from home.  

     On the 29^th we met up with two other volunteers in Tenkodogo, which is my regional capitol.  It’s about 40km from my house and the city was having a Traditional Music Festival.  We went and listened to a bunch of cool music and saw really interesting wooden instruments.  There was also a dance group from my village who came and performed. At night we went to this restaurant that is known for having awesome garlic chicken.  My head nurse was also passing through the city and stopped to eat with us.  The next day we headed to Ouaga to celebrate.

Some of the musicians from the festival

Weird man on stilts at the festival

      Tomorrow I’ll head back to village and continue working on integrating in the village.  It’s been 3 weeks since moving to village.   Finally I’m starting to get a good routine down but it’s still hard to figure out exactly what I should be doing.  Most mornings I go to the CSPS, the local clinic, to help out and observe.  Most patients that come in get tested for malaria and about every other person tests positive.  There are also a lot of malnourished patients that come in and get hooked up to an iv.  The clinic is a lot bigger than the one from my original village.  It has solar panels that provide the clinic with electricity; however they broke about 3 months ago.  For now they just use flashlights at night.  There are also murals on the outside of the building that the volunteer before me did.  

The dance group from Komtoega, my village

     On Friday mornings the clinic has baby weightings.  About 100 mothers walk or bike to the clinic to have their babies weighed.  I usually help record their weight, their height and measure their arm fat.  If the babies are malnourished, which a lot are, they are supposed to be enrolled in a malnutrition program.  However, this doesn't always happen.  One of the babies I weighed last week was 12 pounds and ten months old.  It’s really hard to see these things and watch how the nurses at the clinic react.  They are so accustomed to it that they just tell the mother it’s baby is malnourished, give it some special formula to make it gain weight and then they move on to the next mother.  Hopefully I can start to work with these mothers and teach them ways they can prevent their baby from getting so malnourished.  Last week around 1 pm there were still 15 babies left to be weighed.  The clinic helper who was working the baby weightings decided she was too tired to finish.  The mothers travel pretty far once a month for this so I couldn't believe she wanted to stop early.  The mothers couldn't either and they started getting mad and trying to all put their babies on the scale at the same time.  The nurse just kept saying she was tired and that they had to come back another day.  She started to tell that I was feeling uncomfortable about this and asked if I wanted to stay by myself, but I explained I would need help and this was not an option.  She kind of laughed and then parted ways.  It’s pretty frustrating when the people you are supposed to work with act like this, and the worst part is that my clinic is pretty motivated when comparing them to other clinics.  I’m looking forward to the schools reopening from break so I can start going most afternoons to the schools.  I also need to find a tutor in village to help me with local language and French.  We’ll see how the hunt goes.  Happy New Year! N