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

   

YOU MAY NOW KISS THE BRIDES

     On Sunday, while many of you were anxiously waiting for the Super Bowl to begin, I was watching another very important match, Burkina vs Togo.  About 15 Burkinabe and I were crowded around a small tv about the size of a desktop computer.  I made popcorn and everyone claimed it brought the team good luck.  Burkina won, advancing them to the semi-finals!  Soccer is the main sport in Burkina and the African Cup started a few weeks ago.  On Wednesday, Burkina will play against Ghana and I plan to make a lot of popcorn!

     On a day to day basis it doesn’t seem like I do a lot, however, when I sit down to write a blog post, I realize I’ve actually done more than I think and have a lot to write about.  I guess that’s a good thing.  Last time I went to Ouaga I bought a cool fabric (called a pagne here) that has elephants on it.  I wanted to bring it back to village and have the local tailor make me some pants.  After asking around to see which tailor was considered the best in village, I dropped my pants of at one close to my house.  A week later I went to check and see if the pants were done however he was running a little behind and hadn’t started them yet.  He said he would start today and asked if I like reggae music.  Now as most of you know, I love reggae music, but how random of a thing to ask!  When I asked him why he was asking me that he said my fabric was a rasta fabric and that he loves reggae music.  Go figure, I pick the one fabric that is related to reggae music.  Long story short, many afternoons, I now head over to the tailor to exchange reggae music.  He shows me Burkina or Ivory Coast reggae and I show him some stuff from the states. 

Me wearing the pants and holding some chickens that were given to me as a gift. To the right is the Head Nurse at the clinic

The Bride getting showered with money 

     Last weekend the midwife at the clinic, Sore, was getting married.  A friend asked if I wanted to tag along and travel to my regional capitol, Tenkodogo, for the celebration.  I said yes and invited the other volunteer close by, Emma, along too.  We were informed it was a Muslim wedding and it would start around 10am.  When we arrived, we greeted the bride, told her congratulations, and commented on how pretty her dress was.  Now, if you are picturing a white long dress, think again.  And if you are also picturing just one bride, think again.  Since it was a Muslim wedding, there were two brides getting married to one husband on the same day!  This obviously isn’t the case with all Muslim weddings, but I was totally shocked.  The two brides were wearing matching brown dresses, and the celebrations were going on at two different houses, one party for each bride.  Emma and I were served chicken, salad, and plenty of Cokes (no alcohol since everyone was Muslim).  After the food, everyone started dancing and singing.   People crowded around the bride, who danced alone in the center.  During some of the songs the bride’s friends stuck money on her face and chest.  I’m assuming this was some Muslim tradition to ensure a prosperous marriage?  Sore changed outfits 4 times, each time into a very colorful dress.  The party was held at Sore’s house where she grew up. The house was awesome with electricity, air conditioning, a tv, a real bathroom, tile floor etc.  There was also a big picture of her dad after he travelled to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia.  He is an entrepreneur and spoke a little English.    

The two brides and  my friend Emma and Eulodie

      After the wedding, Emma and I went back to her village.  I had only seen her village when the Peace Corps car dropped her off on the first day.  I was excited to meet her friends and family and tour her village.  We biked from the district capitol and arrived at her village in the late afternoon, only to be greeted by 12 foreigners!  It was the strangest thing biking into her village and seeing white people!!!  They were all French tourists who were coming to tour Burkina Faso, stopping in Emma’s village for two nights.  It was really cool to talk to them and realize that they were coming to tour a place that we are living.  Looking around the village, we have gotten so used to things like the women carrying water on their head, or the call to prayer each morning at the Mosque.  But for them, they were paying money to tour Burkina and see these things.  It was really fun talking to them and they were super nice and impressed with our French, local language, and just the fact that we were living there.  Apparently, in Emma’s site there is a small camping ground that hosts French tourists from time to time.  I’m excited to see who the next group is.  Maybe they will be our age, since this past group was all old couples.  Anyway, I’ll keep you posted!

     Later in the week, school sports started in my village.  By sports, I mean soccer, and by school I mean the boys teams.  My village has 13 primary schools and each school has a boys’ soccer team.  This past week was the start of the matches, so they had a little celebration before the match started.  Each team got to march around the field while an announcer introduced each team and school.  Since I attended the ceremony, they had me shake all of the players hands and wish them good luck.  I also got to meet all of the school directors and members of the school board.  Everyone from village came to watch.  The sidelines were filled with kids all cheering for their school.  The teams were both really good and apparently everyone here plays without shoes!  I couldn't believe everyone was barefoot running around on dirt.  When the match was over, the fans from the team that won rushed the field.  I’m excited to see how the tournament plays out, and I plan on trying to see most of the games.  There is apparently a girl’s handball team that plays as well, so I’m going to try to figure out when those games are.  I asked about a girls soccer team, but apparently there isn’t one.

   
      I’ve also been going to the preschools a lot to hang with the little kids.  There are two preschools in my village, and both of the buildings were donated from some organization called Borne Fonden.  They are an NGO from Europe that used to work in my village.  Apparently, when they did work here, they paid for families to send their kids to the preschool, however, now that they are gone, the families have no way of paying, so there are way fewer kids in the classroom.  The preschool is basically just one room with a chalkboard.  There are no toys, games, books, stuffed animals, etc.  The kids learn songs, play outside (on a broken playground) or learn letters on the board.  I've been trying to teach the kids simple English songs like “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and they seem to be enjoying it.  Little kids come up to me in village now and “sing” the song.  It’s basically unrecognizable as an English song….but hey, it’s a start!  An old volunteer from another village created a bunch of French songs to the tune of American songs, so I've been trying to introduce some of those as well.  One is about the importance of washing your hands, and it's to the tune of 1234, a song by Feist.  The preschool costs $10 a year and most families in the village can’t afford to send their children.  Primary schools start at about age 6 or 7 so if you can’t afford the preschool, the kid just tags along with the mother until he/she is old enough to go to primary school. 

Above is the song created by another volunteer that I wrote on cardboard and taught to the preschool in village.  Below is the teacher teaching the song about hand washing while demonstrating with a student 

    I've also been doing some work at the high school.  I met one of the English teachers who is really excited that I’m here and wants me to help teach his class.  I went one day when they were doing a lesson on fruits and vegetables.  Since I taught English in Colombia before coming here, I was able to give out a few pointers.  It made me remember how much I love teaching, so I am going to try and go back to help each week.  Along with teaching English at the high school in my village, I’ve been asked to help teach English at a private school in my district capitol.  The school is a technical school so after the kids graduate, the goal is that they will be ready to work in certain specific fields.  I went one day to observe an English class and the youth seemed really excited and motivated.  I’m not sure how often I will be able to go, since the city is about 20km away, however, I do want to try to do some work with them.  The director of the school has lived in Colombia before, so it was fun to chat with him about Bogota, Medellin and Manizales! 

     Next week we have another Peace Corps training.  It is one of two that will be going on during the next couple of months.  During February, we have language training and during March we have technical training.  For language training, I will be going to my district capitol, along with the other two volunteers in my region.  We will study our local language, Bisa, for a week.  Then in March, my entire group, 26 of us, will be in Ouaga and/or Leo for two weeks.  I’m really hoping we get to go back to Leo so I can see my old host family.  We also get to pick someone from our village to come with us for a week to Ouaga.  We are supposed to choose someone that we are going to do projects with and I think I’m going to bring Saibou, a director from one of the primary schools.  I hope he can be a liaison between the health and education sector by helping me organize projects with the clinic and schools in my village.  He is originally from the Ivory Coast but has lived in this region long enough to know even the local language!  I’m excited to start actually doing some projects and real work!  Hope all is well back in the states.  N 

That Time the Nassara Cried

     Before leaving Ouaga on the 3^rd, I decided to check out the Artisan Village with some friends.  It was really awesome and filled with small stands selling jewelry, masks, clothes, paintings, and other cool handmade stuff.  It’s a huge maze filled with little stores and in the center is a small park-like place where you can grab a drink or snack.  I wound up buying a shirt and some cloth paintings and I can’t wait to go back next time I’m in town.  I was so happy to find the Artisan Village and realize that things like this do exist in Burkina!!  I am definitely going to show this place to anyone who comes to visit me (hint, hint family)! 

The entrance to the Artisan Village 

     The trip home from Ouaga took about 7 hours because we had to switch transportation in a couple of different cities.  Emma and I got up early to try to catch a bus back to our area, however, by 8am they were all full.  So, our second option was to find a taxi-van-thing called a bush taxi.  They usually are old vans from the 80’s or beat up station wagons with holes on the floor where you can see the road.  These cars cram anywhere from 5 to 10 people in them along with some goats or chickens, and our bikes on top.  We found one headed to our area and inquired about the price.  It’s always important to ask about the prices here before agreeing to get on transport.  You can almost always negotiate the price.  Usually they see foreigners, or “nassaras” as they call us here, and assume they can jack up the price.  The man selling the ticket told us the ticket was 3,000 CFA per person.  This is about $6 and sounded kind of expensive for Burkina.  I wanted to double check that this was a good price so I called another volunteer from my area.  She said the price is usually 2,500 CFA and that I should try to get that price, but if not, definitely don’t pay more than 3,000 CFA.  We tried for a while to get him to drop the price down to 2,500 CFA but it wasn’t working.  Finally, we gave in and they loaded our bikes on top of the bus.  As we were going to pay, he said the price is actually 3,500 CFA per person because its 500 more for the bike.  We knew this wasn’t true, so we began round 2 of negotiating.  However, about 20 minutes later, when he still hadn’t budged, I decided to ask some of the passengers inside what they paid.  Unfortunately, the man selling us the ticket quickly followed me and started speaking to the passengers in a local language.  I’m assuming that he was telling them not to talk to me, since none of them answered my question. 

     After that I was really fed up and decided to tell him I wanted my bikes off the bus and I was going to find another van.  This usually works as a technique too and if you walk away they will give you the price you want.  He proceeded to tell me that if we wanted our bikes we would have to pay 1,000CFA a person.  This was incredibly ridiculous, annoying and frustrating.  We had been trying to negotiate the price for about a half hour now and a crowd was starting to form around us.  When he told me he wouldn’t take my bike down unless I paid, I began to cry.  In Burkina, nobody cries. It’s really weird and awkward and Burkinabe never really know what to do.  So, everyone was now standing around looking at two white girls trying to negotiate a price, one of which was now crying.  I began to walk away but Emma stayed.  The guy got really confused and asked Emma why I was crying.  She explained that it was because he wouldn’t lower the price and he immediately said okay 3,000 CFA, and please tell her to stop crying.  And so we were off, back to village, on a bush taxi that cost 3,000 CFA. 

     When I got back to village everyone at the clinic was asking how my trip was.  I told them that Ouaga was great and that I really enjoyed my time there.  Later I told them about the bush taxi incident and that I started crying.  They found this story hilarious and went around the village to tell people.  They would quickly tell the story of the man raising the price, and about the bikes, and then fast forward to the part where I cried and everyone around would start laughing.  They would all just laugh and chant “they were all standing around looking at a nassara crying” and then continue cracking up.  All day, anywhere I went with my head nurse, he would tell people and they would all just laugh and laugh.  Yesterday, I went to my district capital, Garango, and we met the staff at the Ministry of Health.  The head nurse even told the staff there and it was the same reaction!  I guess I found two things out from this event, one, if I want to get a decent price, I can always resort to crying, and two, if I want to make Burkinabe laugh, I can always tell them a story about the time I cried in public.    

     After arriving back in village, I learned that the church was getting a new priest.  They were having a mass on Sunday and then a party at night to celebrate.  I decided to go to the mass so I could meet people and show my respect for the new priest.  The mass was 4 hours long and the room was so full, that there were more people outside on benches and chairs than inside.  After church I ate lunch with one of the nurses at the clinic.  Her kids made the typical Burkina dish, To (of course) and we ate it with a slimy green, spinach like sauce.  That night I went to check out the party and meet the new priest.  I met 3 priests that night from different areas, and I’m not quite sure who lives where, but the 3 men were super nice.  One lives in Garango, the district capital, and teaches English at a school.  His English was really good and we decided I would come to Garango some days to help teach his class.  The rest of the night involved dancing, a lot of eating, and drinking some beers and dolo.  It was a great way to meet a lot of the community and I’m really glad I went.

Cute photo of a baby who was attending the mass at church 

Priest who teaches English 

     So far in village I feel like I can actually say I’ve made 3 friends.  Eulodie, Hawa, and Mari are three women that I hang out with on a daily basis.  Eulodie is from Tenkodogo.  She is my age and her husband lives in Italy.  She has one kid from a different man and the 6 year old lives in Ouaga.  Hawa is older, probably in her 30’s and braids hair in the same spot every day.  She has 3 boys, and the youngest boy is terrified of me.  Every time I show up he starts screaming and crying and they all explain it’s because of the color of my skin.  He isn’t used to white people and he is only around 4 years old.  Hopefully one of these days he will stop!  I’ve now tried to bribe him with lollipops but the closer I get the more he cries.  Usually around that area I can also find my friend Mari, who is the oldest of my three friends.

Hawa's son trying to hide from me

Hawa

They are all incredibly happy people and are always very welcoming when I come to hang out.  They help me with Bissa, the local language I am trying to learn, and introduce me to a lot of their friends.  The other day I was asking Hawa about the ages of her sons.  She told me their ages and then continued to tell me that she used to have four sons but one died.  I said I was so sorry to hear this and asked how he died.  She just said he got sick, which I’m starting to notice is a common answer.  She then told me that Mari, my other friend, used to have 7 kids, 5 boys and 2 girls.  However, 3 of her kids have also gotten sick and she now just has 4 boys.  It was really surprising to hear that both of my friends have lost children.  On a day to day basis I see a lot of sick children come into the clinic, and I knew that Burkina has a really high infant mortality rate, but hearing that my friends have lost children really made me realize how much work there is to be done in Komtoega.         

Eulodie

     Later in the week I met one of the directors of a primary school in Komtoega.  I introduced myself to all the teachers and students at the school.  Some of the classrooms had 80 students in one room, while the smallest classrooms were about 40.  The next day I biked to the high school and met with the director there.  During high school the students begin to learn English.  The director expressed interest in starting an English Club, which I am excited about.  I also noticed that there were no hand washing stations at the high school.  The Director also showed me an old computer lab that is currently not functioning.  The building has solar panels that provide electricity to the building and there is also internet available for the computers.  However, out of 20 computers, only one is currently working.  I’m not sure of the exact problem, but I hope to work closely with the Director to get the computer lab up and running.

The Computer Lab at the High School with their 20 computers. 

     After meeting some school directors, I met my new language tutor, Zeba, who will help me learn the local language here.  She taught Bissa to both Anna and Kirstin, the two volunteers who lived her before me.  Anna, I luckily got to meet during my training, but Kirstin I have just heard about from people in village.  Last night, while browsing through a cookbook made by old Peace Corps Volunteers, I found an entry by Kirstin from Komtoega.  Since her last name was in the cookbook I was able to search for her on Facebook and LinkedIn.  Shortly after, I found her and guess what...she went to UW-Madison!! Also, she currently lives in DC!   I emailed her and am really excited to connect and learn about the work she did in my village and what she is doing now!  I think she will be happy to know that her dog, Puppy, is happy and health and still loves chasing chickens and annoying the baby goats.  He now lives with me and is a great companion!  People in the neighborhood thing I’m really weird for loving Puppy so much, because here in Burkina, dogs are just to guard the house.  They are not part of the family and not treated very nicely.  Everyone in the village knows Puppy and they think it’s so funny that he follows me around.

     Next week, one of my bosses is coming to visit my village.  He makes visits to everyone’s site just to make sure things are going well and that we are integrating into the community.  I am a little nervous for his arrival so I am trying to work extra hard this week to meet key community members, continue learning local language, and make more friends!  I’ll let you know how the visit goes!  Wish me luck!  N            

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    

Barka, Barka, Barka?

     Well....it's official. I am now a United States Peace Corps VOLUNTEER! The swear in ceremony was held at the ambassadors beautiful house in Ouaga. The ambassador, the Peace Corps Director, several current volunteers, past volunteers, media, and notable Burkinabe were all present. There was an awesome local baand who played in the beginning and started the ceremony off with the Burkina national anthem. Following their anthem, two current Peace Corps volunteers played our national anthem.  The best part of the whole ceremony however, was that my host dad, one of my host mom's and my host brother all came from my old village!  A bunch of the families in Sanga got together and rented a bus.  They travelled 3 hours and spent a lot of money just to be able to attend!  Our village had the most people attend the ceremony out of the three villages where we stayed during training!  It was so nice and surprising to see their support.     One really funny part of the ceremony was when the ambassador asked the current and past volunteers to stand up and be recognized.  Since he said it in English, none of the villagers understood.  Since they say people in front of them standing, they stood up as well.  It was really funny to see them do that and made me realize that that is what we as foreigners look like half the time when we are attending local events in village. Below are three photos from the event:


The 26 new Peace Corps Volunteers!

My host mom and I at the ceremony!

The band from the ceremony!

     On Saturday morning, after a night of celebrating our new Peace Corps titles, we packed up a Peace Corps car with all of my bags, and the bags of two otehr volunteers in my area, and headed southeast to my village.  Upon arriving, I was greeted by some members of the COGES.  These are members of the community who were elected to help with things at the health clinic.  The head nurse, called a Major, couldn't come say hellow because he was delivering a baby!  We unloaded the car and checked out the house.  My house has three rooms, and the volunteer before me, Anna, left SO much stuff for me.  It's AWESOME!  I even have a double bed.  I also have several lizard friends who seem to live here. 

My new home!

     Later the Major came over to say hello, followed by some girls who brought me a huge bowl of spaghetti and chicken as a welcome gift.  After lunch my Major told me that the local market, which happens every three days, was going on.  We decided to go walk around, browse the food, and meet some people.  Komtoega is really big!  Much bigger than Sanga.   There are a little over 5,000 people who live here and the village has small shops and stores and a bar.  My Major introduced me to a lot of people and explained that I was replacing the other volunteer, Anna.  They kept saying things to me in local language so I was pretty confused and just kept saying barka, which is local lang for thanks.  It seems like everyone knew and loved Anna, so hopefully I can make as good of an impression as she did.  First goal, master French and the local language called Bissa. 

Inside one room of my house...not bad right!?

     After the market the Major and I went and got a beer at the small bar/dance area.  Later, we headed back to the clinic grounds. Five families, all functionare families, live on the clinic grounds with me.  Functionares means they work for the government and are wealthier than villagers.  The Major's house has electricity which is nice because I can charge my stuff there.  He even has a tv and found an English news channel for us to watch.  Since many functionares have tv's they have seen the news about Conneticut and have asked me questions about it.  I try to explain what happened but then again, how do you really explain it? 
     Today I went to the clinic to meet up with the Major.  He was going to show me around and introduce me to the Mayor and other staff at the City Hall.  The introductions were pretty awkward because my French is horrible but I managed to get by.  In the afternoon I walked around the village and met a group of women doing hair and selling fruit.  I brought over a notebook and asked if they could help me translate some easy French words and sayings  into my village's local language, Bissa.  It was really fun and nice to start learning some Bissa since everyone comes up and talks to me and I never know how to respond.  One of the women sitting with us however was younger and not from the village.  She married a man from this village who now lives as a migrant worker in Italy.  Since she wasn't born in this village, she also doesn't know Bissa.  We decided we would learn together and I got her phone number and plan to go back to the "meeting spot" tomorrow for lesson numero 2!  I'm still really sad that I am not living with a host family, like I originally thought I was going to, however meeting villagers like today definitely helps!!
     I'm still trying to finalize my plans for Christmas and New Years.  We are not allowed to leave village for a long period of time during the first three months in village, so I have to pick one of the holidays to meet up with other volunteers.  I was also invited to a wedding in a big city in the southwest, called Bobo.  One of the staff members of Peace Corps, a local, invited the volunteers to her son's wedding.  If other volunteers decide to go, I might have to make the long trip to the southwest.  I'll keep everyone posted on what I do!  Stay safe!  N 


One Day Till Go Time

     I can't believe it, but after tomorrow I am officially a volunteer. About 250 people are invited to come to the embassy for our swearing in ceremony. After the ceremony we have a big lunch at our Country Directors house and then we plan to go out with some current volunteers. I'm really anxious to swear in and start my two years in my new village.  In my last post I mentioned my village, Komtoega, and what my housing setup would be. Unfortunately, a little of that has changed. The original house they were giving me is now not available. Instead, I'm going to be living in a house located on the grounds of the clinic. Also, the house doesn't have electricity.  Kind of a bummer but I guess now I'm living the true Peace Corps experience.
     Last week I went to Ouaga for the counterpart workshop. I got to meet the head nurse, my main contact person, and we had sessions to get to know each other, learn how to work together, and plan out the first three months in village. He seemed really motivated, patient and cool and I'm exited to start working.After the workshop we returned to village for our last few days. I was happy to come back to village. It really made me realize how much I'll miss my host family. Everyday they kept asking if I would ever come back to visit. It was hard to explain to them why I am leaving the village but not leaving the country. I definitely plan on coming back to visit though!  Below is a picture of my counterpart!

     Also last week we had committee elections. There are 7 committees within Peace Corps Burkina and they each work and organize different projects. The group I was most interested in was the Youth Development Committee. One of the main projects this committee organizes is something called Camp Glow. This committee organizes camps around the country that focus on women equality. The goal is to work with male youth to stress the importance of women as equals. Both girls and boys attend and they also focus on promoting healthy lifestyles and youth empowerment. A lot of people wanted to be on this committee so we each gave a short speech and then voted. I was lucky enough to win! This means I will get to head into the capital city about every two months to meet with the committee and help organize Camp Glow!
     The last couple days in village were really sad. I spent time with my family and gave them their gift. Burkinabé love getting their pictures taken so during my two months in Sanga I took a ton of pictures. For their gift I printed the photos out and made them an album. They had never seen picture of themselves before and they really loved the gift. That night I decided to show them Human Planet, which is a BBC show similar to Planet Earth. I showed them an episode on oceans. About 20 people gathered around my computer and they were all shocked! Most of them have never seen the ocean before so seeing whales and dolphins amazed them. They talked during the whole episode and looked stunned the entire time!
     On Monday the village had a goodbye ceremony in the afternoon. They got a guitarist and cooked a ton of food. All the kids came to the ceremony during their school break and a lot of the men and women showed up to say goodbye. The Peace Corps presented them with a certificate of appreciation and an invitation to our swearing in ceremony. Each volunteer went up to shake our host dad's hand and snap a photo with the certificate. When it was my turn to go my host dad put his hand over my shoulder for the picture and the whole audience was laughing and cheering. One of my PC friends even started crying. In Burkina nobody shows affection. I have never seen people hug or men and women hold hands. It was really sweet and shocking that my host dad did that and luckily someone snapped a photo of it!

     Then they brought us a ton of food and we all ate and listened to music. At the end I went around to say goodbye to the women, who were standing up around the men who all had chairs. I made sure to say goodbye and thank you to all of my host moms. When I got to my last host mom, the one that cooked all my meals, she said thank you in Nuni and then started to cry. The ceremony had been so sad and I had been trying really hard not to cry but when I saw my host mom crying I lost it! It was really embarrassing for me because they think crying is really awkward and hardly ever cry! I really hope I like my new village as much as Sanga.  I definitely plan to go  back and visit a few times.  After the ceremony we headed to Ouaga, which is where I am now. Next time I write I'll be a volunteer in my new village! Happy Holidays! N

Soupe de Mutton

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm typing the majority of this blog in village and then once I get to the internet cafe, I can upload it. So, currently I'm lying outside, in my bug hut (like a tent), with a mattress and some kids sleeping outside of the tent next to me. I just saw my fifth shooting star since being here! The stars are amazing because there's no electricity and it gets dark by 6:15.
This weekend I got to try goat head soup. In Burkina, it's extremely rude to turn down food. Even if you don't want it or if it looks scary, you should accept it and try to have a bite. In Burkina, if you are around people you don't know that are eating, they usually say "vous etes invite," which means you are invited. You can usually respond by saying thanks and it doesn't mean you have to actually go over and eat. However, if it's someone you know giving you food, it's culturally appropriate to take it. So...on Sunday my host dad brought over goat head soup- for breakfast.
Also, in Burkina, people eat everything with their hands. Well, actually just their right hand. The left hand is used for things in the bathroom, so it's really bad to eat or do anything with the left hand. Even greeting people is always done with the right!
I tried to eat some of the soup and then looked around at everyone else eating it. They were licking their plates and were thoroughly enjoying it. Meat is expensive here so it's a big deal if they have it to eat. Later, my host sister announced that she found a tooth in the soup from the goat's head. I then realized I couldn't eat anymore and gave my plate to the kids.
After the delicious breakfast I went to my professors house. The dad from his courtyard apparently died before we arrived and they were having the funeral. It only lasted about an hour and then everyone went home to share meals. We had rice with sauce at my professors house.
The professor that lives in my village is my French teacher. Last week, we had our second French exam to see if we have progressed since we first arrived in country. The test was pretty hard and when I couldn't think of the word in French I basically just spoke Spanish. Apparently, this worked! I originally was in the novice low group but now I'm in intermediate low. This is good news because to be able to swear in and serve as a volunteer in December I have to reach intermediate high. So, I only have one more step until I can officially become a volunteer!
Next week we get to go to Ouaga for a three day counterpart workshop. My counterpart is the head nurse from the health clinic in my new village. He is the main point of contact between Peace Corps and the village. I will work closely with him at the clinic and also run project ideas by him. He will be useful and introduce me to the villagers in Komtoèga. It will be nice to go to Ouaga, meet him and prepare for the move in December.
When I talked to Anna, the girl I'm replacing at site, she said she really liked the counterpart and one of the best things about my village is how motivated he is! Anna and I have been talking a lot because she is leading some sessions of training in Lèo, so I have been able to drill her with questions. It's crazy to think that it's only a couple of weeks left until I move there!
The other day when I got home from training I found a bat in my room. I screamed a little and opened the door and it flew out. I went back in to change my clothes and realized there was another bat inside. At this point the door was closed so it was just me, half dressed, and the bat. I started screaming and tried to make it to the door. Finally, I ran out and let my younger host siblings go in and kill it. They didn't understand why I was so scared and they thought it was hysterical that I would curl up on the side of my house and scream because a bat was inside. For the rest of the night I sat outside reading. Every now and then I would hear my name and look over, only to find my host sister imitating me and showing a huge audience what I looked like when I was scared. The next night I got into my tent to go to bed and a cockroach crawled over me. I'll let you imagine how I reacted and what they thought of it!
Today we took two field trips. The first was to a tofu garden where we learned how to grow soja and why it is nutritious and important. We can teach our village how to grow it as well and use it as an income generating activity in the community. Our second trip was to the CREN. This is a hospital for severely malnourished children. We saw a three year old that was incredibly skinny and sick. We learned about the programs the CREN offers and we met with the head doctor.
Tomorrow we are teaching our health clinic, our local restaurant, and my host dad how to make hand washing stations. We are teaching them how to make the station and why it is important to wash your hands and use soap! Since there is no running water in village, hygiene is a huge problem. Hopefully after the demonstration they will start to use the stations and wash their hands more. It's pretty crazy to think the local clinic doesn't even have a sink or place for the doctors to wash their hands! Hope everyone had a yummy Thanksgiving! N

Site Announcement!

     This week has been extremely eventful. It all started on Monday when we went to Ouagadougou for our embassy visit. About 20 minutes into our drive we veered off the road and crashed into a cement ditch. The van and all 26 volunteers on board hit the side of the ditch and almost flipped over. We were extremely lucky that nobody was hurt. Peace corps is currently investigating the cause of the accident. Luckily, my week did get better!
     We visited the United States Embassy and met the Ambassador. He told us about the role of the embassy in Burkina and how the USA and Burkina work together. One interesting thing I learned was that Victoria Secret is a partner with some organic cotton fields in Burkina! While in Ouaga we also got to eat at an American restaurant that had milkshakes, burritos, taco salads, onion rings and burgers. Needless to say we were all super excited. On Tuesday night after our training sessions in Lèo they had a surprise for us. They said they would drive us to a nearby hotel to watch some of the election! Because of the time difference it was only about 1pm in the states so there wasn't much going on. It was still really cool to watch a tv and have some beers. On Wednesday morning at 4:30 am I got a text saying Obama had one. This great news was the beginning to a great day filled with more great news!
    Site announcement!!! On Wednesday all 26 of us found out where we will live for the next two years! They picked the names of our villages out of a hat, read a short description of the village and then had us all guess who they were sending to that village. The first village picked out of the hat wound up being mine!!
      I am going to the village of Komtoèga! It is in the south central/east area of Burkina Faso. The population/ ethnic group is Bissa. This is the description they provided of my village: "Welcome to the beautiful village of Komtoèga! It is located in the region of Tenkodogo and the health district of Garango. Both Garagno and Tenkodogo are easily accessible from your village where you will find such luxuries as internet, restaurants, a large market and fairly well stocked boutiques. Gardening is one of the occupations of many people so you will not have a hard time finding vegetables to meet your need. Your village is a fairly large village with electricity, a great market and lots of motivated partners. The health center is very well attended and will offer you many opportunities to work on a variety of topics. Your predecessor Anna(btw she went to the same high school as my dad) loved this village and is excited to see a third volunteer come to this village. Her head nurse is extremely motivated and is eager to work with you. Your closest Peace Corps neighbor is about 20k! Your house is within a big family compound , though it has its own small fenced-in courtyard. Your house is two-rooms, fully furnished, with a private latrine. The family is amazing and you will be inheriting a wonderful and affectionate dog. The local language is Bissa but Mooré and French are also well spoken. Nyasé and enjoy your stay in Komtoèga! You're going to have a fantastic two years!"  I definitely feel like I got lucky with my placement. I'm extremely excited and eager to start but it will be hard to leave my current family. 
     Last Saturday I went to the dance party in my village.  It was so fun.  Somehow, in the middle of Burkina, in the middle of some tiny village, they were able to get a generator to run.  There were huge speakers, a live band, and tons of dancing.  I went back around 11pm but the party lasted until 2:30am.  I danced with all the kids and learned some Burkina dances.  About halfway through the dance they decided to start charging people to enter.  After a while it was mostly men on the dance floor.  Outisde of the compound, however, was the entire village.  They could still hear the music and enjoy the party, without having to pay.  They didn't make any of us pay and luckily my host sisters were inside the compound to dance with. 
     One cool session that we had in Leo this week was on the different ethnic groups in Burkina.  I learned that there are over 60 ethnic groups in Burkina!  Most of these groups all speak different local languages.  They also have different customs, religions and beliefs.  For example, the Dagari people have a weird tradition when someone dies.  For three days they put the dead person on a chair and have a dance party around the chair.  They dance and cry and then eventually they bury the person.   The clothes that the dead person wears on the chair were specifically chosen by the dead person, before he died.  We also learned about the ethnic group Jula, which is located in the west and south of Burkina.  At this ethnic station I ate a cooked catterpillar, a favorite food of the Jula population! 
     Our group has been working on planning a Thanksgiving feast!  We are hopefully going to have turkey and stuffing.  If all goes as planned, we can stay overnight at a hotel or camp out at our training site.  I am still trying to figure out my plans for Christmas and New Years since I will have just gotten to my site.  It's crazy to think I only have 5 weeks of training left! Also, it takes forever for me to upload pictures on this blog so until I figure out a better method, here is a link to some photos from facebook that I have put up.  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3914047540627.2138059.1562580111&type=1&l=75718e8c53  Miss everyone!  N
     

Green Mangoes

     I can't believe it's already November! This Tuesday will be my one month mark in Burkina! I've decided to include an interesting note about Burkina in each new blog post. Today I learned that many people in Burkina believe that you can get malaria from eating green mangoes. This is obviously false and part of my job here will be educating communities on malaria prevention and treatment methods.
     I've fallen into a pretty nice schedule. On the weekdays I get home around 6 and am greeted by 20 screaming kids yelling "Natalie! Natalie! Bon soir! Bon arrivèe! Ça va?" I say hello and they all fight over who can carry my bag, bike helmet, water bottle or whatever else I am holding. My Peace Corps friends joke that they can hear the kids welcoming me from their courtyards. Once I get home and settled in, one of the kids usually comes to ask if they can borrow my animal cards to play memory. I hand them over and they all cheer. They usually play cards for the rest of the night, the little ones falling asleep on my patio.
    The other night, as I was getting ready for bed, I saw the women from my courtyard carrying in a bunch of plants on their head. When I looked closer, I realized on the ends of the plants were peanuts. They emptied the pots and began to pick off the peanuts and bag them. There were about 6 women, 4 teenagers and 2 little girls helping. I decided to go over and help. I sat on the ground next to my host sister and tried to show her that I wanted to help. She quickly started yelling and moving her hands up in the air. After, a girl came over and brought me a short stool to sit on. I realized my host sister was yelling because she couldn't believe I would want to sit on the ground in my pajamas. After I got my stool they let me help. News spreads incredibly fast in my village and soon after, all of our neighbors were in our courtyard. They all came to see the white girl picking peanuts. They also explained to me that instead of picking the peanuts off one by one, there is a way to get them all off at the same time. I felt pretty stupid but we got a good laugh out of it. Once we finished I took some pictures. Burkinabè love getting their pictures taken because many of them have never seen photos of themselves. They roar with laughter when they look at them.
    A lot of families in Burkina grow peanuts to sell. My family also sells potatoes. Our local market, called a marché, is on Mondays. However, in Léo, there is a market every day. In the bigger markets, like Léo, I can find cucumbers, homemade peanut butter, scary looking meat and some spices. Markets in the capital have a lot more variety.
     This Wednesday is a big day for us volunteers in Burkina. When I wake up on Wednesday I will know who the president is. We'll also find out our site placement!! This will be my home starting in December and will be the place where I'll live for the next two years! I'm so excited and nervous to find out where I'll be placed. I've had two interviews with my boss about this placement and they do their best to match all the volunteers to the type of site they want. Some of the volunteers, who already tested out of French, found out this week the region where they will be placed. This is because they already started on a local language and local languages are spoken regionally. I find out Wednesday and I'll be sure to upload the blog after!
     Tonight I am going to a dance party in my village. The party was supposed to happen last weekend but someone from my village died so it was cancelled. My host sisters keep checking to make sure I'm going to come, and more importantly if I'm going to dance. I can only imagine the amount of people that will come to see a white girl dance. It's way more entertaining than me picking peanuts, and even that drew a crowd.
      I also learned in French the word for fields (champs) so I was able to ask my family if I could go with them to the fields this weekend. They were excited and my host sister told the rest of my family in Nuni that I wanted to come. On Saturday I followed my friend's host dad to the fields. It was about a ten minute bike ride from our houses. Right now in Burkina it's cultivation season so all of the cotton is ready to be picked. Both women and men work in the fields all day picking cotton. Eventually it will get sold to France. One kilo of cotton is worth 50 cents. We helped the women pick cotton. In our section of the field there were about 30 women, most of them carrying babies on their backs. None of the women spoke French so it was hard to communicate. They did manage to teach us a song that they sing while working. Then, once we had it down, they made us sing it on our own. All 30 women stopped to hear us sing and then laughed for the next fifteen minutes.
   This week one of our sessions in Lèo involved meeting with an organization that worked with people living with HIV and AIDS. They are the only organization in this region that works with this population. They provide testing, counseling, family sessions and home visits. They also help financially support people from Lèo and surrounding areas. The organization covers 80% of medical bills if patients need to buy medicine. Many of the people they work with contract malaria or other sicknesses, because people living with HIV/AIDS have weaker immune systems and the amount of medicine they have to buy can be really expensive. This organization also collaborates with a few other local groups that help people living with HIV/AIDS start their own money making projects. The organization currently recieves their funding from a Belgium organization.  However, they informed us that they are stopping the funding in 2013. They said it will be devastating if they can't find another organization to provide funding. The hospital in Lèo only has two doctors that can write prescriptions for HIV/AIDS medicine. Since they have so few resources, these doctors only have time to write up these prescriptions. They can't provide counseling or explain how to use the medication. This is a huge problem because the medicine needs to be taken at the same time everyday, on a full stomach, and there are a lot of side effects. If they don't learn how to use the medicine, the medicine won't work. It was really interesting to speak to members of the organization and brainstorm ways that Peace Corps volunteers can collaborate with organizations like this. At the end of the session they asked us if we knew any organizations from the states that provided funding to these types of organizations. We said we would try to brainstorm and if anyone reading this blog has suggestions, I'm all ears! Hope everyone back home had a good weekend! Be sure to check out my photos on Facebook! N

So Many Kids!

     So this past week my language teacher told me my French homework was to make a family tree of my host family.  I knew this was going to be challenging for several reasons.  First of all, most of the family doesn't speak French.  Second, my family seems huge and it's very hard to figure out who everyone is.  However, I went back to my courtyard and attempted to do the homework.  I showed my host dad a family tree of my family and then tried to explain that I need to do one of his family.  He called over one of my sisters and we sat on the floor with some flashlights trying to do the assignment.  She was able to write the name of her dad and the names of his three wives.  Then she began to write the names of her 13 brothers and sisters.  After, we were supposed to write the ages of everyone.  My host dad went into his house and a few minutes later came out with a bunch of papers.  The papers were the hand written birth certificates of the kids.  It took me a minute but I realized nobody in my courtyard knew how old they were, the dad included.  After calculating the age of everyone I was able to finish my family tree.  My family has 14 kids, all under the age of 15 and 3 wives.  My host dad is 49 and he is a farmer.  The next day we presented our family trees in class.  Most of the other people in my language group had between 5-8 kids.  I now understand why my courtyard is always loud, busy, and full with kids!
     For lunch this week we found a place that makes omelets.  Everyone was so excited because usually there is just rice with some different sauces.  After lunch I began to feel really sick.  I thought I might be dehydrated but it got progressively worse during the afternoon.  Eventually I threw up and got a ride home to my village.  I tried to explain to the wives that I was sick and that I had thrown up.  I got a pillow and sat outside on a chair.  Later, my host dad came home.  I could tell all of the people in my courtyard were telling him I'm sick.  He said hello and then went to sit on his chair over by his house.  A few minutes later he gets up and brings over his chair.  His chair is more like a lounge chair.  It looks like a pool chair but it's wood.  He brought it over so I would be more comfortable.  This was an incredibly nice gesture because all the women and kids in my courtyard sit and sleep on the floor.  He wanted me to have the chair for the night since I was sick. It made me realize that even if you can't communicate with words, there are other ways to communicate.  I lounged on the chair for a while and then went to bed.  Luckily, I woke up feeling better the next day.  I also spoke to a current volunteer who said that some Americans are allergic to pintar eggs, which are eggs produced by guinea fowl.  So now I know I can avoid omelets that aren't made with chicken eggs. 
     On Wednesday afternoon we traveled to Ouaga, the capitol, for the night.  We stayed at our transit house which is basically a hostel for only us Peace Corps volunteers.  It has fans, wifi, a real kitchen, a bunch donated books, clothes up for grab and some beds.  We went out for dinner to a shwarma place and then found a bar with one beer on tap!!!  We drank beers and stayed up late meeting current volunteers who were in Ouaga.   
     The next morning we got up at 5 to head out for "Demyst".  Demyst is when we split into our language groups and visit a current volunteer for the weekend.  My language group traveled to Sabce, a village 2 hours North of Ouagadougou.  We are staying with a volunteer named Wendy.  Wendy is a volunteer in her 60's and her site has electricity.  She was a lawyer in the states and decided to do the Peace Corps because she felt her life was too predictable.  She is also a health volunteer and she has been here for two years.  She lives right by the CSPS (health clinic) and her site has about 3,000 people.  She is really cool and it was nice to learn about the projects she has done.  One of the projects I found most interesting was her project with the village elders.  She held a lot of sessions with them about getting older, menopause, dental care, and staying active.  I found this interesting because a lot of the younger volunteers work mainly with youth so hearing about her projects with the elders was so new and different!  Wendy has also had a girls group of about 28 teenage girls.  She talked to the girls about menstruation and safe sex.  In Burkina it is very taboo for mothers and daughters to talk about these types of things.  Prostitution is becoming a problem in this village so she talked to them about that as well.  The reason prostitution is increasing in Sabce is because they recently opened a mine close by.  Men from all over the country come have been coming to work here.  This has caused a lot of problems and Wendy said her village has changed a lot in the two years since she has been here.    
     In the mornings we got to go with her to the clinic to weigh babies and watch the nurse and Wendy give vaccinations.  The mothers who came to the clinic today are involved with the Plumpy Nut Program.  This program is for babies who are severely malnourished.  They come in for weekly weigh-ins and if the babies aren't gaining weight, they have to pay to visit the Head Nurse.  Babies usually gain weight from the program and are able to get on a more healthy track.  Wendy says the Plumpy Nut is really popular and tastes like chocolate peanut butter.  Apparently it is a hot commodity and sometimes parents will give it to other kids or eat it themselves, which is why some babies don't gain enough weight.  We saw one 4 month old baby that was 6 pounds.  It was devastating and the baby looked like an alien.  It was completely deformed and unbelievably tiny. 
     Later in the day we got to see the school and attend a session on family planning.  The session was put on by the Head Nurse and it was given to about 70 kids all around 14 and 15 years old.  It was really fun to see their reaction to the different family planning options.  I was surprised that so many kids showed up to listen!  At night Wendy made us spaghetti and salad!  It was delicious and it felt like we were back in the states.  We listened to music and drank some beers and then went to bed outside in our tents.  The rest of the weekend should be fun because today is a Muslim holiday called Tabaski.  They eat a lot of goat on this holiday and the men wear all white.  We are invited to celebrate the holiday with one of Wendy's friends.  She is 13 and Wendy said she is an incredible person.  Wendy has been paying for this girl's schooling because recently her parents cut off the funding.  I'm excited to see how they celebrate Tabaski and will write more soon when I'm back in Leo.  Hope all is well with everyone!  I'm excited to hear about Halloween celebrations! N    

So Far So Awesome!

     Where to begin!  I'm currently writing this post from an internet cafe in Leo.  This internet cafe is pretty new and was created by a current Peace Corps volunteer who is doing his third year in Burkina!  Leo is a "city" in southern Burkina, about 15k from Ghana.  It is a city for Burkina Faso standards, however, it is far from what we would call a city.  There is one main paved road with some kiosks that sell food, small grocery stores and places where you can buy minutes for your cell phones.  There are also a few hotels and they have decent restaurants where we eat lunch when in Leo for training.  Peace Corps has us on a pretty set schedule during our training months, so Monday- Friday we have different sessions all day.  These have consisted of language training, safety and security, cultural exchange, international development, and some health related sessions for us health volunteers.  
     The trip from Ouagadougou to Leo took about 3 hours and we arrived just in time for our adoption ceremonies.  Our group was split up into three villages that all surround Leo.  I am placed in a village called Sanga with 8 health volunteers.  Our big group is also down to 26 because one of the girls actually already decided to leave and go home.  The adoption ceremony was incredibly awkward, funny and awesome.  Everyone got matched to a family that we will live with for the next three months.  I got matched with the chief of the village and I am still trying to figure out how many wives and kids he has!!  I live in my own small house in their family courtyard.  I have two rooms in my house, one with my bed and one with all my luggage.  The first night was pretty crazy and I tried to just soak it all in.  My family mostly speaks their local language called Nuni so communicating with them is really interesting.  I usually just use hand motions with random French, Nuni, English and Spanish words.  Little by little though, we manage.  The first night my family served me spaghetti which was a nice surprise.  I figured out how to shower with a bucket and tried to figure out how to sleep in an incredibly hot mud house.  The bucket shower I managed but the sleeping I did not. So, the next night my host dad and I constructed a bed outside with a mosquito net and the mattress from the bed.  I had a much better night sleep and have slept outside ever since.    
    My week has gone by pretty fast.  I wake up when the sun comes up about 5:30/6.  My family gets me 2 buckets of water and I go take my bucket bath.  I get ready for training, eat breakfast and then bike about 7 miles to Leo for training.  We usually end training around 5 and then we bike back home to get back just before the sun goes down.  It gets dark really early in Burkina and it is usually totally dark by 6:30pm.  The bike ride to Leo is kind of hard because it is uphill but the way home is my favorite part of the day.  On the way home we pass a few other villages and all the  kids run to the road to say hello.  They all yell "nassara" which means foreigner and they love to give high fives or hear us say hello back.  Once back in village I say hello to the family.  Saying hello in the Burkina culture takes a long time.  You have to say hi, ask how your day was, ask how work was, ask how the family is, etc.  And you do this routine each time you say hello.  I've been trying to learn how to say hello in Nuni.  Last night about ten kids and I translated some common phrases or words that I know in French into Nuni.  The women and kids get a kick out of me practicing Nuni and everyone loves to come to my courtyard to hear the white girl try to speak the local language.  After saying hello I wait for them to get my water for my second bucket bath.  The stars here are unbelievable so taking my nightly bucket bath is really enjoyable.  I also live right by 2 mosques so I usually hear the call to prayer during my shower.
     This past Sunday we did a tour of our village and did a mapping exercise to learn where everything is.  My house is really close to two other volunteers.  There is also a small restaurant, 3 mosques, a water pump, and a health clinic.  The village is much prettier than I expected, and has a river and lot of green grass and trees.  We spent Sunday afternoon under a tree hanging out with some local kids.  We did face painting and ate some yummy potato things my host mom gave me.  The face painting was a big hit and even adults wanted to get a small drawing.  I also like to have dance parties with the  kids in my courtyard or play a memory game out of some old maid cards I brought from home.
     Yesterday we had an opportunity to visit the local clinic.  The health care system in Burkina is really interesting.  In the past, the system was run by the Ministry of Health.  They had all the power and all the decisions were made by them.  This meant that small rural health clinics had to follow rules set from the capitol city.  In the 90's however, this changed to a community health approach.  Today, the community has a huge influence on how the clinic is run and who is in charge.  The Ministry places a Head Nurse in each rural clinic but a lot of the other positions are filled by local villagers.  In our village, our Head Nurse is a woman, which is really exciting and pretty rare.  Visiting the clinic was really shocking.  Each room looked like a scene out of a horror film.  The clinic has no electricity so after 6:30 it is completely dark in the rooms.  The clinic had a waiting room, a pharmacy, a maternity house, a malnutrition house, and a few other rooms and houses.  There is also a vaccination program that was going on last night in our village.  When we entered the maternity house there was a woman on a mattress on the ground waiting to give birth.  The midwife was not on duty yesterday so one of the male nurses was explaining that he was going to be doing the delivery.  He also explained that if she has the baby after dark, he will deliver the child using just a flashlight.  He invited us to come watch the birth but Peace Corps doesn't allow us to do that because of security and sanitary reasons.  One positive thing about the clinic was that if there are problems that occur at site, Leo has a free ambulance that they can send!  This is really awesome and usually people have to pay a lot of money to get access to doctors in a bigger city nearby.  The clinic really put into perspective the type of work and projects I will be doing once I get to my site.  It was also helpful to talk to current volunteers about the projects they have done with their local clinics.
     This coming week we get to go back to Ouagadougou on Wednesday!  We spend the night in the city and then we get to "Demyst".  This is when we get to spend the weekend with a current volunteer at their village site.  I'm not sure where I will be going yet but it will be a small village close to Ouaga.  The volunteer will also be a health volunteer so I'm hoping to see what her clinic is like and spend some time at it!  Hope to write again soon.  N

"The Land of the Upright People"

Hello Everyone!

It's my last night in Ouagadougou! Tomorrow we leave for our training site in Leo. So far everything has been going really well! In Philadelphia we had orientation and I got to meet all 27 of the volunteers. Our group is awesome and everyone has an interesting and diverse background. Monday morning we left from JFK and flew to Brussels. On our night flight the captain made an announcement to look out the left window so we could see the Aurora Borealis, which is the Northern Lights. It was amazing and off in the distance the sky was green! I recommend googling it to get the full effect! Eventually, on Tuesday afternoon, we arrived to Ouagadougou where some of the Peace Corps staff were waiting for us! I was so happy because all of our groups luggage made it safe to Burkina! Somehow we piled all of our luggage into two small vans and we were off! Burkina Faso is completely different then anywhere I have been before. The parts of the city that we have seen so far are crazy! It's basically all dirt roads and doesn't look like a city at all. There are no tall buildings and its very crowded with people walking, biking or motorcycling. Our hotel has been really nice and we have been lucky enough to get wifi, a room with a/c, a private bathroom with toilet and shower, and a small restaurant that serves yummy food! We have spent most of the time in the hotel getting shots, having introduction meetings, hanging out with volunteers, and meeting the incredible Peace Corps Burkina staff. The staff is a mixture if locals and Americans and they are really supportive and helpful. Last night we finally got to explore a bit more! First went to our Country Director's house and had dinner with all of the volunteers and staff. We had couscous with chicken and it was delicious! After, one of the current volunteers took us out for some beers. We went to a great little outdoor bar/dance area with fun music and really cheap beers( $1.20ish). We had a fun dance party while all the locals looked at us like we were crazy. I even got to meet another current volunteer who went to UW-Madison!! Today we had sessions about our host families because tomorrow we will travel about 3 hours south to Leo. In Leo we will have an adoption ceremony and I will be matched to my new Burkinabe family. I will live with them for the next three months! We also had some much needed language sessions. My family will only speak French and this is the first time they have ever hosted an American! I'm really excited but super nervous about the communication part. It will definitely be rough at first but hopefully by the end of the 3 months I will be able to communicate pretty well with them. We will have about 6 hours a day of language training and they split us into groups of 3-5 people. Lets hope the training is as good as they say it is. I have to test out of intermediate-mid in French to be sworn in on December 14th. For now, I'm I enjoying my last night with A/C, wifi and a toilet! Hope to write again soon. XOXO N