Calling All Comedians

     If you ever want to be a comedian, I promise you, Burkina Faso is your country. Burkinabe laugh at everything and on a daily basis they find most of the things I do really funny. Of course it helps if you are white, or a nassara, as they will call you. Here is a list of some things I do daily that people think are hilarious: run around and play with kids, pick up puppies and talk to them in English, carry a friend’s baby on my back, try to balance something on my head like the women here, attempt to speak the local language, talk about the time I cried at the bus station, explain that I can’t make the local dish to, attempt to get water from the pump, attempt to hand wash my clothes, crack a joke about men always asking for my number or to come back to the states with me, or ask for my hand in marriage (which happens a lot here), tell people my name but use my local name which is Yoda Natalie, get my hair braided cornrow style and complain about how much it hurts, explain to them that we eat peanut butter plain or on a sandwich and do not use it for sauce like here, pretend to give women my hair and ask if I can have theirs (women always walk around asking for my hair), and the list goes on. Even on the bad days in village, I can always find someone that will cheer me up with their laugh.

     One thing I have done pretty consistently during my first two months at site has been baby weighings. Each month, women are supposed to bring their child to the clinic to get weighed. Babies get weighed on Tuesdays and Fridays and usually about 50 mothers show up. The babies get weighed on a hanging scale, measured on a height chart, and their arms get measured to see if they are malnourished. Usually there are two staff members who work at the baby weighings and along with my help we record all the information. Some babies have lost weight, others have gained weight and some are the same weight as last month.  Occasionally I see an extremely malnourished child and they are usually sent to a malnutrition hospital in my district capitol. The other day, for example, a mother brought in a baby who weighed five pounds and was three months old. It was the littlest baby I’ve ever seen.  The next week I saw a ten month old who weighed eleven pounds. I am not a huge fan of the actual baby weighing process, since many of the staff members want me to take over and do most of the work.  That, however, is not my job and it is stressful sometimes to explain that to them.  My job is to talk to the mom’s and ask them about their child’s health.  This is a weekly challenge due to language barriers. 

     The majority of the mothers that visit the clinic weekly are illiterate, only speak the local language, and are not actively engaged in the baby weighings. They usually are unaware if their baby gained or lost weight. The staff doesn't involve the women in learning about why they might have gained or lost weight. The women are not engaged, and are not active participants in their child’s health. There is also no conversation between mothers about the type of food they feed their baby or encouragement between mothers to help their babies gain weight.  Because of this, I decided to try to create an activity that would include the women and help them learn about their child’s nutrition and weight patterns. I found some poster board and used two old peanut butter cans and decided to create a simple activity where the women would put a rock in a specific peanut butter jar, corresponding to if their child gained or lost weight this month.  The women seemed to enjoy the activity and were able to learn if their child gained or lost weight. Everyone could participate, regardless of whether they could read or not. I also really liked how the staff was very open to the activity.  They helped translate in local language how to participate and made sure each mother understood what it meant when they put the rock in the jar.  I mentioned the project to the Director of Health within Peace Corps Burkina and she asked me to share the project with my group at the training because she thought it was a great idea!

     Speaking of language barriers, a few weeks ago I went to my district capitol to continue learning Bissa.  I went with two other volunteers in my area. My tutor from village came to the city too, to teach us. We stayed in a house that had electricity and running water, which was such a treat! We had morning classes of Bissa and then the rest was free time to roam the city. The city, if I can even call it one, is pretty small and doesn't even have an internet café. There is a nice market, every three days, where we did a little shopping. I even found a pagne (fabric sold here to make clothes) that had the Chicago Bears logo on it! I of course had to buy it. It was one of two pagnes in a small store. I’ve never seen another team logo on a pagne and I can’t wait to give it to the tailor.  I might wait for one of my family members from Chicago (hint, hint) to visit and have something made for them.

     Since the district capitol of Garango, is about 20 km from Komtoega, I have some friends who live here and commute each day to village. This was nice because I got to get drinks and dinner with some of them during the week. I also got to watch the African Cup of Nations Final at my friend’s house. He is the director of an elementary school in my village and he invited us over to his house to watch. It was really fun and they made really good rice with peanut sauce.  Unfortunately, Burkina lost to Nigeria in the final, but I think the Burkinabe were still really excited they had made it that far. The country even cancelled work and school the following Tuesday to celebrate!

     Besides Garango, I also got to travel to Tenkodogo, my regional capitol, to have a meeting with a youth group that I will hopefully be working with.  They help  train youth on various topics and are looking to do collaborations with Peace Corps and the volunteers in this region.  A Peace Corps staff member and a few other volunteers from around the area came to meet the organization and learn more about the work they do.  In the future, we hope that the organization could get partnered with an incoming volunteer who could live in Tenkodogo for the 27 months of service.  It would be nice to have another volunteer close by, so I hope this happens! 

     The electricity has been going out in my village periodically, which means I can't charge my laptop or get cold water.  Because I haven't been able to use my computer, I have been reading a lot.  I read two books, Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao To Now and I'm Njood, Age Ten and Divorced. I  have just started reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.  Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao To Now was really interesting because it talked about China in the 80's under the rule of Mao.  As I was reading I was able to find some similarities between China then and Burkina Faso now. One random similarity was that the author mentioned how dirty China was and that you could tell how bad a storm was by looking at the trees afterward and counting how many plastic bags are hanging on the trees.  I left my house after reading this and noticed tons of black bags hanging in several of my trees, too.  I really enjoyed the book and encourage people to read it!  I also added to my blog reading list.  Feel free to comment and leave me suggestions.   

     When the power did come back on, I was busy writing an Etude de Milieu which is basically a report on my observations at site, the current programs, organizations and projects underway, what future projects I could work on, what are the community’s needs, what are the main health problems and how can Peace Corps and the village work together.  It is a 20 page report and I am just about finished.  I wrote mine in English although we are apparently supposed to translate it into French.  This is definitely easier said than done, and I am looking to find a local friend here who can help.

     We then presented our findings during our In-Service Training which I am currently at right now.  The training is two weeks, one in the capital and one in a city called Koudougou.  The first week was in Ouaga with all 26 of us volunteers. Currently I am in Koudougou waiting for my counterpart from village to arrive.  He is the director of a primary school and we will work  together in the coming months.    

     One of the things I learned while completing the Etude was that many girls at the high school dropout to get married.  The director of the school identified this as a key problem and something that the community needs to work on.  I am hoping to do a lot of work at the school, and was able to finally start this past week.  The Youth Development Committee, which is a committee run by volunteers in the Peace Corps, is hosting a Youth Leadership and Development Conference in May.  The conference will include several volunteers who can each bring two youth from their communities.  The goal is to motivate the youth to be leaders in their communities so that they can motivate their villages, evaluate the needs of their village, learn how to give health demonstrations, and learn how to develop projects.

     Last day was International Women’s Day, which is actually a pretty big holiday in Burkina!  Women and men purchase a special fabric that has a logo celebrating the event and they get clothes made to wear on the day.  There was also an event that took place in my village where women and men gave speeches. Women’s associations from all over participated in a parade, and there was local music and dancing.  There was supposed to be a women’s soccer game and a bike race, but I don’t think it wound up happening.  Many of the women were really excited about the day and asked me several times if I was going to participate.  It was nice to see some of the men participating as well, although I hope in the future more men will partake in the celebration.  

     Last night we went out to celebrate St. Patty's Day.  We went and got dinner at a nice restaurant in town and then went to a dance club.  One of the volunteers got a care package and it included a set of wolf ears.  We thought it was a weird gift but decided to bring it out  as a joke.  When we got to the dance club we made a game and said whoever is wearing the wolf years has to yell out loud like a wolf and then dance.  The game just kind of happened, it wasn't anything formal or planned out.  We all had fun with the idea and then decided to test it out on a Burkinabe.  I decided to pass it over to a Burkinabe and she loved the idea. She immediately howled and went to the dance floor to dance. By the end of the night the whole dance club, volunteers and Burkinabe,  were dancing with us, howling like wolves, wearing the hat, and passing it around the room.  The DJ at one point was also wearing it, and he was using his music and our music -one of the volunteers had an iPod-  and would create mixes using local music and our music.  At times we were all in a group singing together, dancing together, exchanging dance moves, and learning lyrics in different languages.  It was probably my favorite night in country!  I hope everyone had as exciting of a St. Patrick's Day as I did! Sorry there are no pictures on this post, the internet has been too slow to load them, but there are some on my Facebook page! N