September 24, 2009
Last weekend was my first weekend in Bobo since affectation. I stayed with a friend, R., who generously opened her home to me. I definitely enjoyed the free WiFi, electricity, and sense of comfort that trip brings, but concurrently worried weekends like that only hindered my progress in village and made me an unsuccessful and poor volunteer – that was the over-achiever in me talking (I can't seem to drown it out, but then again, I'm not sure I want to.).
Filled with pride after making sure my bike was loaded onto the bus, I found my seat on the first bus trip I've taken in Burkina alone. I kept busy eating peanuts my friend M.T. from village so kindly keeps replenishing and reading Lord of the Flies. I have to be honest, so far, I'm not impressed and I am now more than half-way through with the book. Upon arrival I biked my way to PC's free internet, electricity, comfort, and safety where I would enjoy most of the day relaxing, surfing the net, and visiting with a small group of friendly and welcoming women volunteers.
R. showed up at one point and by 16:00 we were on our way to Marina Market after a stop by the poste. I haggled with some venders outside the post office while R. picked up her package. The same men I had been haggling with were apparently “friends” of R.'s. They had been bugging her for weeks to look at and purchase necklaces (that's how it's done here in BF) and R. used all the techniques we learned in training: la prochaine fois, je n'ai pas d'argent aujourd'hui, etc. etc. But to no avail. In fact, they were rather upset with her this day and it only infuriated and frustrated her more, because those were the types of interactions she had with people and it seemed that everyone wanted something from her, so she had no real friends. That's one of the drawbacks to living in a big city, but the positives include electricity, running water (having her own sink and toilet! not to mention lights), easy access to a post office, a constant variety of fruits and vegetables, access to other things not found in village such as olive oil, certain spices, yogurt, ice cream (if you're lucky), and a variety of restaurants and facilities and shops.
That night we met back up with our new volunteer friends who shared what was left of their Mexican feast (amazing salsa recipe requiring nothing but fruits and veggies: tomatoes, onions, piment [hot pepper], pineapple [key, mango would be good, too], and green peppers) before we watched the film, Lost in Faith. I enjoyed being enveloped in familiarity and a comfort level that seemed like a pastime. After 23:00 came and went, R. and I decided to make the 20-30 minute bike ride back to her place. I wasn't feeling very well and neither was she. I wonder if it was the Mexican food or the place we ate brochettes and rice with sauce for dinner. Either way, my stomach was in knots and I ended up being sick outside the boulangerie where R. bought bread for the following morning and again in the middle of the night. I have to say, thinking back on it, it was nice to have a toilet during such circumstances. By morning I was feeling significantly better. I planned to go easy on my stomach for most of the day and relax and enjoy internet time and skyping with my baby and my parents. I cannot tell you how wonderful that access was; I felt so spoiled. After skyping one last time with my partner I made the ride back to R.'s place to rest one final night before heading back home the following morning.
Up early I had bread and tea again for breakfast while hoping the rain would stop before it was time to leave. By 6:40 I was on the road biking back, trying to find the gare for my bus. After getting slightly lost and sent in the opposite direction (I asked a few people and since Bobo is so large, I believe there is more than one gare for this bus, but only one going to the city I needed to reach), a man walked me and my bike the 3 or so blocks to the gare. I knew I was close at this point, I just couldn't pinpoint exactly where it was. Never take street signs for granted, please. Once at the station I learned that my bus wasn't running today due to the holiday, it was Ramadan, but there was a van prepared to leave. I arrived before 8 and was told they were leaving right away. So, naturally we didn't leave until after 10: welcome to Burkina Faso and African WAIT time.
I was oddly excited to be slightly packed in with a group of Burkinabè all traveling with a purpose. Thank God for my attitude, I suppose. By 11:30 I made it back into the city that was only a 25K bike ride from home. I wasn't feeling up to the ride due to a lack of sleep for the previous two nights, but I made it anyway. I stopped for 20 minutes when I was a mere 5 minutes from village to try and fix my bike chain. The derailler was hitting the chain and keeping me from shifting into 3rd gear or it knocked the chain completely off the track. I couldn't fix it then, but was lucky enough to be able to keep it in 2nd gear and fair just fine.
Exhausted I returned home, unlocked my gate and door and unpacked. Instead of sleeping like I wanted to, I forced myself to go find some friends to celebrate the fête. It's important culturally to spend time with people, especially when there's a celebration going on. Plus, I like being around people anyways. I didn't find my friend M.T., but I did find some women who were headed to the CSPS (the medical facilities in village, a step down from a hospital). They motioned for me to follow along, so I figured why not, while secretly wondering why they'd be going to the CSPS that day. We entered one of several buildings to find a woman sitting up on a bed next to a piece of cloth. The women who brought be motioned me closer to the cloth that I soon learned had two new-borns nestled underneath. I witnessed a ritual of rubbing the babies with a lotion and black ash and sat next to two women who got the privilege of holding the babies. I figured out that the new mom had fraternal twins being that one child was a girl and the other a boy. What a happy occasion and a great day for a fête!
We left the CSPS after some of the women helped clean up and gathered together the new mom's belongings and trekked back to her home. I wondered what happened to the babies until I saw one woman unwrap one from behind her back. That's how babies and young children are carried here: a woman or teenager or young girl leans forward, props the baby on her back, piggy-back style, then wraps a piece of cloth or pagne around the baby and ties it off in two places in front around her chest.
After spending some time with mom and the new borns I followed some women to nearby courtyard where I was given rice with a fish sauce. I'm glad I had eaten fish like that before during stage, because otherwise I think I would have been much more awkward. I was bad enough as it was sitting there with a bowl of rice on top of a bowl of sauce just staring at it looking confused after a couple women told me to eat. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to share, to use my hand, or what the protocol was. Luckily, a woman brought me a spoon this time and my friend C. spoke French: il faut manger. Then M.T. brought me more rice and another sauce and walked me to my house to transfer both dishes into my own pots before returning to their courtyard. First, we stopped in to visit the babies and I was blessed being given the opportunity to hold each one. They were so precious. It's interesting holding someone so new to the world and wondering what they'll be, what they'll do, what her or his life will entail. It was definitely a smiling moment and one worth remembering. I spend the rest of the afternoon and early evening helping some women remove leaves from a pile of branches in order to prep for making another sauce.
The next day I decided to have a look at the bike manual the PC gave us and try to fix my bike. First, I needed to fix the 3rd flat I've gotten since affectating to village. I'm glad it didn't get flat like that until I got home: it's much easier fixing them with a bucket of water and it's much nicer not being interrupted mid-trip to fix a flat for 20-30 minutes. After that I set to work on my derailler. And what do you know, I managed to fix it! I felt so good afterwards. My front gears wouldn't shift to 1 or 3, but I figured out what I needed to change and alter in order to make it work as good as new. Ah, the little victories. Then, I moved my bike seat forward where it belongs (it had been wobbly, but I didn't realize it slid back like it did) and after realizing I did have the right size tool, I tightening my seat back in place. Self-sufficiency is enough to leave you feeling good for the rest of the day.
I met with my tutor whom my buddy L. helped me find twice this past week. He's a teacher or maître at the primary school in village and he's been a great help thus far. We go over chapters and exercises from Ultimate French to work on my grammar and he brings small textbooks with Burkinabè stories to read aloud, go over any unknown vocabulary, answer the questions following the text, and then use the topic to have a discussion afterwards. Most recently, I learned about how cases (pronounced coz) are constructed. Cases are the round houses here with the thatch roofs.
Yesterday, the moment of the day occurred after I went to find M.T. only to learn she and the others were en Brousse cultivating. Some women tried to explain where the others were and then a man handed me a large bowl filled with peanuts. As I said earlier, I keep getting them – the people here are so nice. As I was leaving to walk back to my house I heard a young teenage boy saying something in French. It was only after hearing anglais said a few times and looking back that I realized he was talking to me and not about me. He asked how you say peanut in English. “Peanut.” “Peanu.” “Peanut.” “Peanu.” The best part was not that he was standing on the roof of one of their huts, but that a smile grew across his face as he made an excited jump in the air upon learning this new word. That was my smile and perhaps happiest moment of the day.
Today I planned to finally after being at site for 4 weeks stop by my CSPS, say hello, and offer my services. The nerves were definitely there, but I fought against them and continued through with my plans. After waiting less than 10-20 minutes, the major came out, said hello, and led me into his office after learning of my intentions and purpose for being there. The major is the head nurse (l'infirmier), he's a l'infirmier d'état, having the highest degree of the at least three different types of nurses here. We talked about my experience and that I hoped to go to medical school after my two years of service here. He explained that it's the season for Palu aka paludisme (malaria) here and that a lot of kids are sick. He talked about the different departments and facilities there including a building where one can purchase medication. I asked if the people could afford the medication and he said they could because they use generic brands. He mentioned VIH and SIDA (HIV and AIDS) and how the biggest problem is people don't understand it or how it's contracted and spread and many don't even come in to be tested. He said he meets with troisième students to have a sensiblization about HIV and AIDS, but he doesn't have time to meet with all the students and there are sixième girls getting pregnant (Reminder: sixième is three levels below troisième). I suggested that I could help with that and do some sensiblizations with the other kids. He said we could go over the topic together and that it's a possibility. We talked about how I'd like to learn Jula when I become more comfortable with my French. He thinks I can learn it in a year and that once I do I could do some sensiblizations with the women here (because many woman don't speak French and have minimal education, unfortunately) and they'd be more likely to come and more likely to listen to me because I'm white. I guess there's a positive that comes with my skin color. I still wish it didn't matter, but I might as well use what I've got to my advantage, especially if it can help others.
After some time we moved outside and the major moved a bench under a tree, so we could enjoy the shade and any breezes that came our way. We continued to talk and our conversation moved to other topics. Around noon we headed back to his house just behind the main building where we shared a meal. Apparently, I like goat, and Madame major is a good cook. I spent the next hour having one of the first real or more in depth conversation than I've had in a while, not including my English escapades the previous weekend. We talked about jobs and how once you choose one in Burkina you keep it and can't change unlike in the US where you can change your career as often as you'd like, so to speak. We also talked about how they don't have debt here which is good, but that also means you can't borrow money and therefore do not have the opportunity to do things you can't afford...The major also gave me an open-ended invitation to come by if I ever wanted to eat. The cool thing about that statement is that here when people say things like that, they mean it.
I hope to volunteer at the CSPS at least once a week provided my school schedule and more notably workload allow it.
So, my integration continues, everyday is different than the last and finishing my 2nd journal today proves that I'm finding things to say and write about, and I'm loving my village and more importantly my community more each moment spent here with them.
Aw bi doni.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Burkina Food Corner
Food in Burkina Faso.
First of all, there is no overly-processed food problem here like in the states contributing to the millions and millions of people with high blood pressure, obesity, increased heart problems, etc. You an find processed foods here: some cookies and crackers and the like, but it's not as commonplace nor are those things what people generally go for first here which I think is definitely a positive.
What is available?
There are a lot of carbohydrates and wheats here which contribute to the ability to find many different types of flour: those made out of millet, maize (Yes, it is a type of corn,however, different; you cannot boil it or cook it and get the same results. No matter how hard you try, you will not get that soft chewy corn you have come to know and love in the US), wheat (although, the supposed wheat flour I bought did not look like any wheat flour I've ever seen, it looked just like the regular white flour you buy at a grocery store back in the states), etc.
One often bakes with flour, no? So, you can also find various baking materials, even though some are easier than others. Sugar is easy to find here and typically comes in one of two varieties: white or brown (And I don't think the brown is like brown sugar, I think it's less processed and comes more directly from the cane); I have found a powdered white substance in the one grocery store that exists in Burkina and that may have been powdered sugar, but the jury's still out. You can find baking soda, baking powder, and yeast as well.
Eggs are available here as well and are often much smaller and browner in color. (I was lucky enough this past week to receive a bag full of eggs as a gift and have thus been able to bake a little and experiment with egg preparation from omelets, scrambled cheesy eggs, to over easy [which ended up being more over hard – I need to practice not breaking my yokes] and hard-boiled.)
Popular treats and snacks found here include a small variety of fried cakes and doughs: small ball-shaped fried cakes (gateaux), one type more solid and grainy, the other the consistency of cake; and galettes are often made when it's raining and it's the Burkinabé version of pancakes (They're smaller than US pancakes and thicker, too. Plus, instead of typically tasting sweet, there's often a spicy kick because pepper or piment (spicy pepper such as an habanero or chilly pepper grown here) has been added. They still taste really good. My host family made galettes with bananas.)
Oil. One thing learned in the past three months is that the Burkinabé love their oil. Usually it's the cheap, poor-quality vegetable oil, but again, if you search hard enough and know of the one grocery store in Burkina (Marina Market) and can get to a big city, such as Bobo or Ouaga, you can purchase olive oil and even have your choice between a few different brands. Oil is plentiful and inexpensive. If you go to the marché (market) where one goes to buy many food items, and other types of items as well, you will find larget metal cans that look like those you've seen carrying a lot of car oil and those cans will have a small pump on the top where the vender will put a sachet (small plastic bag) under the spout and pump as much oil as you want into the plastic bag before tying it off and handing it over. (Most things are sold using plastic bags here from the small black grocery-type bags used to purchase fruits, vegetables, grains, flours, etc. to the small clear plastic bags used to purchase oil, peanut butter, water, juice, etc.) Not only is it easy to find, but many Burkinabé put oil in most of their dishes. Instead of adding salt first as people do in the US, here one first adds oil and one adds so very generously.
Vinegar and salt are easy to find here as well, and salt is a very common spice added to most dishes as well. Luckily, iodized salt is sold here and many people use that. I don't think there is as big of a problem with salt here, because of the lack of processed foods, people aren't consuming massive amounts of sodium that shocks their system and increases their blood pressure among other physical problems.
Vegetables and fruits? Yes and yes, but it depends. It depends largely on one's location and the current season. Burkina has three main seasons: hot, hotter, and not quite as hot which translate to a warm season, a hot season, and a rainy season where temperatures a bit cooler (Each of these seasons is still very warm and during the warm and especially hot seasons, the temperatures rise above 100 degrees F easily.) The rainy season and therefore cultivation season is when the most variety and availability of fruits and vegetables is found.
Some vegetables found here include onions (one can always find onions), beans (in Jula called s)s) [ the ) should actually look more like backward c's, but the shape doesn't exist in my openoffice character list], in Mooré they're called benga and are very common and easy to find), potatoes, patates (which are a cross between regular potatoes and sweet potatoes according to taste anyway), eggplant of the African variety (green and looks a little like a pepper and has a very bitter taste, not very good on its own, best in sauces) and the violet eggplant, corn or rather maize (which is prepared differently here: they often remove the husk and then grill it so the kernels have black in the middle. Then instead of eating it right off the cob, one holds the cob and picks off kernels with one's fingers before tossing them in one's mouth), piment (which as I said is hot peppers, typically habaneros and chilli peppers of the red and yellow variety. Piment is very popular and used in many dishes. It is dried and used as a spice and sometimes mixed with Maggi cubes to tone down the heat and add some more flavor. It is mashed up and made into a salsa-type sauce that can be added to taste to a dish, as well.), green peppers exist here and are often not as ever-present as the other types of vegetables, tomatoes, garlic, gumbo (which is a long, slender, octagonal, green vegetable used in sauces), and leaves (leaves of many different types and varieties are very popular here when making sauces. The only type that comes to mind right now is Baobab, but there are many. I learned of at least two different plants growing in my courtyard that can be used in sauces: one was a little plant with small round leaves and the other completely the opposite, big with large leaves where one leaf could make a sauce for an entire family and then some.)
For fruits, the most common are mangoes, especially around the beginning of rainy season, aloco (African plantains), weda (the Mooré name for this sour orange fruit that when mixed with water and sugar makes the most delicious juice you've ever tasted), and bananas. You can also find applies (imported), oranges, limes (which are actually a cross between lemons and limes if you're going according to taste), pineapple, watermelon, papaya, an oval-shaped bright yellow melon... Other than the few popular fruits first mentioned, one needs to travel to a decent-sized city to usually find the other types of fruit.
It is important to note also, that that the sizes of vegetable and fruits here are typically smaller than in the states. I surmise that is the case because people don't tamper with and biologically alter the chemical make-up of fruits and vegetables here which may make the flavor better. I noticed that onions are a lot stronger here, for example.
As for meat and protein sources of the like one finds mouton (sheep), beef, goat, chicken, and fish. It's important to specify what type of cut you'd like, because here fat is often included and consumed (During my first visit to site, I ate lunch with a group of men and lunch consisted of a plate filled with meat and fat with powdered piment and maggi to dip it in. And there was a lot of fat making it difficult to find a piece of meat without a chunk of fat attached). If you get fish it is of the dried or bony variety and you spend much time picking out or crunching on fish bones, whichever you prefer. If prepared well and if a decent type of fish, it can be quite tasty. (I recall my host family preparing a fish fillet, bones included of course, with cut up cucumbers and onions on top with a light sauce perhaps made with mayonnaise and water.) You can also find sardines in a can which taste good – they're not salty like the sardines supposedly are in the states. They remind me of canned trout you can purchase from Trader Joe's (ah, Trader Joe's...) You can also find tuna here, but it's expensive (hence the reason I prefer to receive it in packages sent from the US!)
I mentioned early that carbohydrates are commonplace here and include rice, couscous, pasta, spagghetti, and most importantly tô. Tô is the staple food here and is often made from millet, but can be made from rice and other sources as well, I believe. Tô is as if someone were trying to make porridge and left it cooking for too long and ended up with one solid mass that is slightly gelatinous. The flavoring is very bland, but one typically eats it with a sauce.
Usually, for a meal here, one prepares a starch or carbohydrate such as tô or rice and a sauce to go with it. Both are kept separate until joined on each individual's plate (I made macaroni and cheese for my host family and kept the cheese sauce separate from the macaroni, so they'd be more comfortable with it). Although there are dishes like rice and beans or riz gras (riz = rice; this is a dish where one prepares the sauce, then adds the rice and cooks it down until no water remains). A big problem here is that people cook their sauces for so long that most if not all nutritional value from the vegetables is gone by the time the meal is ready to be eaten.
What types of appliances are available, you ask? If you're in a village like me, you do not have electricity, so that means no blender, electric can opener, electric stove or oven for that matter, microwave, toaster, toaster oven, coffee maker (for you avid coffee drinkers out there), and while we're at it, no dish washer for afterward. That leads me to the two most missed of all: refrigerators and freezers. You can't keep things cold like you're used to and you certainly can't really chill anything. To counteract this, desert fridges exist. These are constructed in large clay bowls when filled with water use evaporation as a cooling mechanism. I haven't tried this yet, but hope to. This won't keep things refrigerator-cold, but it can cool things down enough and help preserve some produce an extra day or two. One also learns, that food lasts longer than people often think it does in the states. You can prepare a meal and have it last a day or two without refrigeration as long as you make sure to check it and heat it up before consuming again to kill off any bacteria that may have formed.
The appliances we do have available include: cooking outdoors with wood and/or straw (luckily, many have learned how to construct these clay cylindrical ovens that increase efficiency and decrease the amount of wood needed to cook a meal and have made cooking easier, faster, and cheaper), a small gas bottle about 2 feet high and maybe 2 feet in diameter with a round, flat, holey metal piece attached to the top with a long plastic knob used to turn the gas on and off. The upper outside of the gas bottle is surrounded by a thin sheet of metal with pieces leading to the center where the gas comes out, thus leaving space for pots and pans to be placed, a larger gas bottle twice the size of the smaller that is hooked up via a piece of tubing and a metal contraption to a stove top (mine has 2 larger burners and one smaller while others have as many as 4 total burners), and small cylindrical metal contraptions where coal is added underneath and things such as tea are made. Naturally, one needs matches or a lighter to get the fire started after turning the gas on.
So, we don't have ovens here? Wrong! We have Dutch ovens. I like it best using my little gas bottle and that stove rather than the big one, but you can use either, it's only necessary to have a heat source. To construct your Dutch oven, you use a marmite (which is a big metal pot that looks like one a witch would use to prepare a brew), fill the bottom of it with 2-3 inches of sand, not dirt, and then place three empty cans, such as little tomato paste cans (like I used) in a triangle on top of the sand. When you want to bake something you can place the lid on the marmite, but it on top of your heat source and wait for it to heat up. Then you place whatever you want to bake or toast inside the marmite on top of the three cans and watch it happen. Or rather, put the lid on and wait for it to happen. Sadly, marmites with a clean pane in front and a light inside have yet to be invented.
I made two batches of banana bread this week because I liked it so much. I used a recipe from a book we volunteers were given and put my own spin on it. I first mixed the dry ingredients: 2 cups flour (I used wheat but as I said it looked white to me), ¾ cups sugar (the recipe called for white, but I used the brown cane sugar instead which after mixing that with the flour, it then looked like wheat), 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp baking soda. Then I mixed the wet ingredients: 2 slightly beaten eggs, 3 mashed up bananas (I used four because I like bananas and they're very small here), 1 tsp vanilla sugar (I found a small bottle of some type of vanilla extract at Marina Market and so used that and I think it made the dish). Then I added the wet to the dry and stirred it up. I'd also like to point out that I don't have any measuring cups or utensils here, so I eyeballed it and did my best guesstimate regarding quantities. Then, since I didn't have butter or a loaf pan, I chose a pot about the right size, oiled it with my olive oil and then added my bread batter to the pot. I then placed my bot on top of the three tin cans inside my preheated Dutch oven, covered the marmite with it's top and waited an hour for it to bake. I kept my heat fairly low to prevent the marmite from getting to hot. Unfortunately, the gas here is not as reliable or consistent as in the states, so my second banana bread batch (made 2 days after the first, because I ate it in two days and even that was hard dragging it out for that long) was a bit darker on the outside because the gas increased and therefore made the flame higher and hotter and I did not realize it right away – I did luckily realize it in time to do some damage control and not burn my tasty treat. And it was delicious.
Another thing taken for granted in the states is water. In my village, I don't have running water, so I need to go to a pump to get it. This has taught me to be very conscious about water use and I've found ways to reuse and conserve water. Sinks with running water and toilets do exist here, but only in the bigger cities and even then, they're not very commonplace. One is more likely to find houses with water spickets coming out of the back of someone's house, like with my host family, than to find a sink.
Regarding spices, as I said, salt is easily available. One uses leaves a lot here to flavor things. Ginger and tamarin leaves are easily found. Spices like black pepper, oregana, basil, thyme, and corriander can only be found in big cities like Bobo and Ouaga.
For utensils, one can find bowls, pots, pans, plates, forks, and spoons fairly easily, but they are often not of good quality. It's difficult to find decent knives here. I bought a set before coming to village and within the first couple days my knife was showing signs of rust. Spatulas are expensive and I have yet to see any baking spatulas or scrapers. If you want a good can-opener, it's best to bring one or have one sent from somewhere else.
Things like ice cream and cheese are only found in big cities and again, obviously, must be eaten right away. The only cheese that is easily found here is vache qui rit or laughing cow and that's a cheese spread that can be left out and lasts a while, so you can make up your mind about that. But when it's all you've got, you learn to love it.
Things to have sent from home include cheese-related products (cheese wiz, easy cheese, nacho cheese, mac n' cheese, Parmesan/Romano cheese), beef jerky, granola bars, special teas and coffees (both are found here, but not in large varieties), gravy, dressings, sauce, and soup packets, kool-aid, gatorade, and drink mixes, maple syrup, peanut butter (again, can be found here, but it's not sweatened and is made from peanuts and oil = still tasty).
One final note: juices. The juices the Burkinabé made are delicious. I already mentioned jus (juice) de weda, bissap which is made similarly to weda only one uses bissap leaves, zoom-koom (made with tamarin leaves, ginger, millet, piment, sugar, and water), and ginger juice to name a few.
So, that's the basics of the food situation here in in Burkina. It's different, but it works, especially once you get used to it. You've still able to prepare a variety of different foods and dishes if you aren't afraid to get creative. Oh, I almost forgot, bouillie!
Bouillie (pronounced bwee) is Burkinabé porridge. It's made with water (best when first soaked with tamarin leaves), millet meal, sorghum, maize, or rice, and I like mine with ginger. You can also add salt They form these little balls of flour and ginger first with water and then add that and the rest of the flour to water, boil it, add sugar and milk if you want, and enjoy. It's delicious. It's like a cross between cream of wheat and oatmeal, but more watery. It's like thickened water with little tiny balls of tasty goodness in it. I'd highly recommend trying it or learning how to prepare it!
Until next time.
First of all, there is no overly-processed food problem here like in the states contributing to the millions and millions of people with high blood pressure, obesity, increased heart problems, etc. You an find processed foods here: some cookies and crackers and the like, but it's not as commonplace nor are those things what people generally go for first here which I think is definitely a positive.
What is available?
There are a lot of carbohydrates and wheats here which contribute to the ability to find many different types of flour: those made out of millet, maize (Yes, it is a type of corn,however, different; you cannot boil it or cook it and get the same results. No matter how hard you try, you will not get that soft chewy corn you have come to know and love in the US), wheat (although, the supposed wheat flour I bought did not look like any wheat flour I've ever seen, it looked just like the regular white flour you buy at a grocery store back in the states), etc.
One often bakes with flour, no? So, you can also find various baking materials, even though some are easier than others. Sugar is easy to find here and typically comes in one of two varieties: white or brown (And I don't think the brown is like brown sugar, I think it's less processed and comes more directly from the cane); I have found a powdered white substance in the one grocery store that exists in Burkina and that may have been powdered sugar, but the jury's still out. You can find baking soda, baking powder, and yeast as well.
Eggs are available here as well and are often much smaller and browner in color. (I was lucky enough this past week to receive a bag full of eggs as a gift and have thus been able to bake a little and experiment with egg preparation from omelets, scrambled cheesy eggs, to over easy [which ended up being more over hard – I need to practice not breaking my yokes] and hard-boiled.)
Popular treats and snacks found here include a small variety of fried cakes and doughs: small ball-shaped fried cakes (gateaux), one type more solid and grainy, the other the consistency of cake; and galettes are often made when it's raining and it's the Burkinabé version of pancakes (They're smaller than US pancakes and thicker, too. Plus, instead of typically tasting sweet, there's often a spicy kick because pepper or piment (spicy pepper such as an habanero or chilly pepper grown here) has been added. They still taste really good. My host family made galettes with bananas.)
Oil. One thing learned in the past three months is that the Burkinabé love their oil. Usually it's the cheap, poor-quality vegetable oil, but again, if you search hard enough and know of the one grocery store in Burkina (Marina Market) and can get to a big city, such as Bobo or Ouaga, you can purchase olive oil and even have your choice between a few different brands. Oil is plentiful and inexpensive. If you go to the marché (market) where one goes to buy many food items, and other types of items as well, you will find larget metal cans that look like those you've seen carrying a lot of car oil and those cans will have a small pump on the top where the vender will put a sachet (small plastic bag) under the spout and pump as much oil as you want into the plastic bag before tying it off and handing it over. (Most things are sold using plastic bags here from the small black grocery-type bags used to purchase fruits, vegetables, grains, flours, etc. to the small clear plastic bags used to purchase oil, peanut butter, water, juice, etc.) Not only is it easy to find, but many Burkinabé put oil in most of their dishes. Instead of adding salt first as people do in the US, here one first adds oil and one adds so very generously.
Vinegar and salt are easy to find here as well, and salt is a very common spice added to most dishes as well. Luckily, iodized salt is sold here and many people use that. I don't think there is as big of a problem with salt here, because of the lack of processed foods, people aren't consuming massive amounts of sodium that shocks their system and increases their blood pressure among other physical problems.
Vegetables and fruits? Yes and yes, but it depends. It depends largely on one's location and the current season. Burkina has three main seasons: hot, hotter, and not quite as hot which translate to a warm season, a hot season, and a rainy season where temperatures a bit cooler (Each of these seasons is still very warm and during the warm and especially hot seasons, the temperatures rise above 100 degrees F easily.) The rainy season and therefore cultivation season is when the most variety and availability of fruits and vegetables is found.
Some vegetables found here include onions (one can always find onions), beans (in Jula called s)s) [ the ) should actually look more like backward c's, but the shape doesn't exist in my openoffice character list], in Mooré they're called benga and are very common and easy to find), potatoes, patates (which are a cross between regular potatoes and sweet potatoes according to taste anyway), eggplant of the African variety (green and looks a little like a pepper and has a very bitter taste, not very good on its own, best in sauces) and the violet eggplant, corn or rather maize (which is prepared differently here: they often remove the husk and then grill it so the kernels have black in the middle. Then instead of eating it right off the cob, one holds the cob and picks off kernels with one's fingers before tossing them in one's mouth), piment (which as I said is hot peppers, typically habaneros and chilli peppers of the red and yellow variety. Piment is very popular and used in many dishes. It is dried and used as a spice and sometimes mixed with Maggi cubes to tone down the heat and add some more flavor. It is mashed up and made into a salsa-type sauce that can be added to taste to a dish, as well.), green peppers exist here and are often not as ever-present as the other types of vegetables, tomatoes, garlic, gumbo (which is a long, slender, octagonal, green vegetable used in sauces), and leaves (leaves of many different types and varieties are very popular here when making sauces. The only type that comes to mind right now is Baobab, but there are many. I learned of at least two different plants growing in my courtyard that can be used in sauces: one was a little plant with small round leaves and the other completely the opposite, big with large leaves where one leaf could make a sauce for an entire family and then some.)
For fruits, the most common are mangoes, especially around the beginning of rainy season, aloco (African plantains), weda (the Mooré name for this sour orange fruit that when mixed with water and sugar makes the most delicious juice you've ever tasted), and bananas. You can also find applies (imported), oranges, limes (which are actually a cross between lemons and limes if you're going according to taste), pineapple, watermelon, papaya, an oval-shaped bright yellow melon... Other than the few popular fruits first mentioned, one needs to travel to a decent-sized city to usually find the other types of fruit.
It is important to note also, that that the sizes of vegetable and fruits here are typically smaller than in the states. I surmise that is the case because people don't tamper with and biologically alter the chemical make-up of fruits and vegetables here which may make the flavor better. I noticed that onions are a lot stronger here, for example.
As for meat and protein sources of the like one finds mouton (sheep), beef, goat, chicken, and fish. It's important to specify what type of cut you'd like, because here fat is often included and consumed (During my first visit to site, I ate lunch with a group of men and lunch consisted of a plate filled with meat and fat with powdered piment and maggi to dip it in. And there was a lot of fat making it difficult to find a piece of meat without a chunk of fat attached). If you get fish it is of the dried or bony variety and you spend much time picking out or crunching on fish bones, whichever you prefer. If prepared well and if a decent type of fish, it can be quite tasty. (I recall my host family preparing a fish fillet, bones included of course, with cut up cucumbers and onions on top with a light sauce perhaps made with mayonnaise and water.) You can also find sardines in a can which taste good – they're not salty like the sardines supposedly are in the states. They remind me of canned trout you can purchase from Trader Joe's (ah, Trader Joe's...) You can also find tuna here, but it's expensive (hence the reason I prefer to receive it in packages sent from the US!)
I mentioned early that carbohydrates are commonplace here and include rice, couscous, pasta, spagghetti, and most importantly tô. Tô is the staple food here and is often made from millet, but can be made from rice and other sources as well, I believe. Tô is as if someone were trying to make porridge and left it cooking for too long and ended up with one solid mass that is slightly gelatinous. The flavoring is very bland, but one typically eats it with a sauce.
Usually, for a meal here, one prepares a starch or carbohydrate such as tô or rice and a sauce to go with it. Both are kept separate until joined on each individual's plate (I made macaroni and cheese for my host family and kept the cheese sauce separate from the macaroni, so they'd be more comfortable with it). Although there are dishes like rice and beans or riz gras (riz = rice; this is a dish where one prepares the sauce, then adds the rice and cooks it down until no water remains). A big problem here is that people cook their sauces for so long that most if not all nutritional value from the vegetables is gone by the time the meal is ready to be eaten.
What types of appliances are available, you ask? If you're in a village like me, you do not have electricity, so that means no blender, electric can opener, electric stove or oven for that matter, microwave, toaster, toaster oven, coffee maker (for you avid coffee drinkers out there), and while we're at it, no dish washer for afterward. That leads me to the two most missed of all: refrigerators and freezers. You can't keep things cold like you're used to and you certainly can't really chill anything. To counteract this, desert fridges exist. These are constructed in large clay bowls when filled with water use evaporation as a cooling mechanism. I haven't tried this yet, but hope to. This won't keep things refrigerator-cold, but it can cool things down enough and help preserve some produce an extra day or two. One also learns, that food lasts longer than people often think it does in the states. You can prepare a meal and have it last a day or two without refrigeration as long as you make sure to check it and heat it up before consuming again to kill off any bacteria that may have formed.
The appliances we do have available include: cooking outdoors with wood and/or straw (luckily, many have learned how to construct these clay cylindrical ovens that increase efficiency and decrease the amount of wood needed to cook a meal and have made cooking easier, faster, and cheaper), a small gas bottle about 2 feet high and maybe 2 feet in diameter with a round, flat, holey metal piece attached to the top with a long plastic knob used to turn the gas on and off. The upper outside of the gas bottle is surrounded by a thin sheet of metal with pieces leading to the center where the gas comes out, thus leaving space for pots and pans to be placed, a larger gas bottle twice the size of the smaller that is hooked up via a piece of tubing and a metal contraption to a stove top (mine has 2 larger burners and one smaller while others have as many as 4 total burners), and small cylindrical metal contraptions where coal is added underneath and things such as tea are made. Naturally, one needs matches or a lighter to get the fire started after turning the gas on.
So, we don't have ovens here? Wrong! We have Dutch ovens. I like it best using my little gas bottle and that stove rather than the big one, but you can use either, it's only necessary to have a heat source. To construct your Dutch oven, you use a marmite (which is a big metal pot that looks like one a witch would use to prepare a brew), fill the bottom of it with 2-3 inches of sand, not dirt, and then place three empty cans, such as little tomato paste cans (like I used) in a triangle on top of the sand. When you want to bake something you can place the lid on the marmite, but it on top of your heat source and wait for it to heat up. Then you place whatever you want to bake or toast inside the marmite on top of the three cans and watch it happen. Or rather, put the lid on and wait for it to happen. Sadly, marmites with a clean pane in front and a light inside have yet to be invented.
I made two batches of banana bread this week because I liked it so much. I used a recipe from a book we volunteers were given and put my own spin on it. I first mixed the dry ingredients: 2 cups flour (I used wheat but as I said it looked white to me), ¾ cups sugar (the recipe called for white, but I used the brown cane sugar instead which after mixing that with the flour, it then looked like wheat), 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp baking soda. Then I mixed the wet ingredients: 2 slightly beaten eggs, 3 mashed up bananas (I used four because I like bananas and they're very small here), 1 tsp vanilla sugar (I found a small bottle of some type of vanilla extract at Marina Market and so used that and I think it made the dish). Then I added the wet to the dry and stirred it up. I'd also like to point out that I don't have any measuring cups or utensils here, so I eyeballed it and did my best guesstimate regarding quantities. Then, since I didn't have butter or a loaf pan, I chose a pot about the right size, oiled it with my olive oil and then added my bread batter to the pot. I then placed my bot on top of the three tin cans inside my preheated Dutch oven, covered the marmite with it's top and waited an hour for it to bake. I kept my heat fairly low to prevent the marmite from getting to hot. Unfortunately, the gas here is not as reliable or consistent as in the states, so my second banana bread batch (made 2 days after the first, because I ate it in two days and even that was hard dragging it out for that long) was a bit darker on the outside because the gas increased and therefore made the flame higher and hotter and I did not realize it right away – I did luckily realize it in time to do some damage control and not burn my tasty treat. And it was delicious.
Another thing taken for granted in the states is water. In my village, I don't have running water, so I need to go to a pump to get it. This has taught me to be very conscious about water use and I've found ways to reuse and conserve water. Sinks with running water and toilets do exist here, but only in the bigger cities and even then, they're not very commonplace. One is more likely to find houses with water spickets coming out of the back of someone's house, like with my host family, than to find a sink.
Regarding spices, as I said, salt is easily available. One uses leaves a lot here to flavor things. Ginger and tamarin leaves are easily found. Spices like black pepper, oregana, basil, thyme, and corriander can only be found in big cities like Bobo and Ouaga.
For utensils, one can find bowls, pots, pans, plates, forks, and spoons fairly easily, but they are often not of good quality. It's difficult to find decent knives here. I bought a set before coming to village and within the first couple days my knife was showing signs of rust. Spatulas are expensive and I have yet to see any baking spatulas or scrapers. If you want a good can-opener, it's best to bring one or have one sent from somewhere else.
Things like ice cream and cheese are only found in big cities and again, obviously, must be eaten right away. The only cheese that is easily found here is vache qui rit or laughing cow and that's a cheese spread that can be left out and lasts a while, so you can make up your mind about that. But when it's all you've got, you learn to love it.
Things to have sent from home include cheese-related products (cheese wiz, easy cheese, nacho cheese, mac n' cheese, Parmesan/Romano cheese), beef jerky, granola bars, special teas and coffees (both are found here, but not in large varieties), gravy, dressings, sauce, and soup packets, kool-aid, gatorade, and drink mixes, maple syrup, peanut butter (again, can be found here, but it's not sweatened and is made from peanuts and oil = still tasty).
One final note: juices. The juices the Burkinabé made are delicious. I already mentioned jus (juice) de weda, bissap which is made similarly to weda only one uses bissap leaves, zoom-koom (made with tamarin leaves, ginger, millet, piment, sugar, and water), and ginger juice to name a few.
So, that's the basics of the food situation here in in Burkina. It's different, but it works, especially once you get used to it. You've still able to prepare a variety of different foods and dishes if you aren't afraid to get creative. Oh, I almost forgot, bouillie!
Bouillie (pronounced bwee) is Burkinabé porridge. It's made with water (best when first soaked with tamarin leaves), millet meal, sorghum, maize, or rice, and I like mine with ginger. You can also add salt They form these little balls of flour and ginger first with water and then add that and the rest of the flour to water, boil it, add sugar and milk if you want, and enjoy. It's delicious. It's like a cross between cream of wheat and oatmeal, but more watery. It's like thickened water with little tiny balls of tasty goodness in it. I'd highly recommend trying it or learning how to prepare it!
Until next time.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Village Life after Swear-In: Ahhhhh :)
September 2, 2009
By tomorrow evening I'll have been in village for one week. That may not sound like much to you, but thinking back, I was sitting at home in my living room with the ones I love, my family, less than 3 months ago. And now, I'm in a small village in the southwest of Burkina Faso, a west African country I honestly didn't even know existed until about 10 months ago.
I survived 11 weeks of training and was happy that it changed significantly halfway through, because I was growing weary of it. Since I'm here to teach secondary education, the Peace Corps smartly worked in a 4 week Model School where we, the future Bukinabé teachers, taught for one hour every day, 5 days a week for the first 2 weeks before trying some 2 hour classes during the second 2 week period. I taught PC, physique et chimie (physics and chemistry) to quatrième (US equivalent to 9th grade) during the first 2 weeks and then switched over to teaching SVT, science de la vie et du terre (biology and earth science depending on the level) to sixième (US equivalent to 7th grade). It was often a struggle, but it was great practice. So, I completed my cross-cultural training, medical training where they focus on self sufficiency and prevention, and safety and security training in addition to the obvious technical training. I passed all of our exams for each section and I felt prepared, but did not want to continue. I had gotten comfortable in my training city, I grew to love the most amazing host family anyone could ever hope for, and I had gotten close with many of my fellow trainees aka stagiaires. None of that mattered, because it was time to move on. I came here for a reason and I just got through the beginning of it, the preparation part.
We traveled as a group to Ouagadougou to spend a few days, attend our final administration sessions, and be sworn-in as official volunteers. The day of Swear-in and those few days in Ouaga for that matter are a blur. Time passed so quickly and before I knew it I was in Bobo for a night and then in my village the following evening. At Swear-in I was honored to give a speech in French, an honor that only became mine after my fellow trainee, MS, was too busy to write it and was more than willing to give it to me. I had never given a speech before and never actually thought myself capable, until now that is. I got a good idea from the person I'm in love with and ran with it. That idea actually helped set the theme of my speech, time. Looking back on it I've already changed, because a few months ago I would either not have wanted to write the speech or I never would have considered myself able. Anyways, I got the idea for the speech and put it on paper or computer, went over it with one of our language trainers who helped correct the grammar and word choice so the right sense came across and then ended up sitting next to trainee J who would be speaking in Mooré the night of swear-in after I started off with French. I was a bundle of nerves, but after stumbling over two words I managed to get myself under control, to speak slowly and clearly so everyone could understand me. Afterall, I had written the speech for my fellow stagiaires, so I wanted them to hear it. It went well. Who knew I could actually speak in public without shaking the entire time, passing our, or stuttering throughout an entire speech. And the best part was that everyone who got sworn in with me, enjoyed the speech, so that made my night.
I forced myself to hang out with the recently sworn-in volunteers and the others who I had gotten to know through their participation with our training because I knew this would be the last time for a while, possibly forever, when we would all be together like that.
The next morning I hopped in a taxi that MF, an amazing volunteer who has helped me more than I can say, helped setup, and ended up at the bus gare to leave on the 7am bus. Five hours later I was eating lunch in Bobo talking to MF about how and where to get housing supplies and what the prices should be. R, another recently sworn-in volunteer, joined us a few hours later and the three of us did some shopping. That day I got a huge bucket of white paint and four little containers of colored paint along with many basic kitchen and housing supplies like forks, spoons, knives, cutting board, clothing pins, strainer, etc. The fun part came the following day after V, our driver, dropped us off at the marché to haggle our way into more supplies. I dropped a lot of necessary money that day getting a marmite for my dutch oven (you put sand and three small empty cans in the bottom of a big mettle bot that looks like something whiches would use to brew up something wonderful and literally use this to bake things), 6 pots (now I didn't actually need 6, but they came that way, so ça va aller), a cantine or trunk, a small empty gas container with a circular metal contraption on top used for cooking, hammer, nails, broom, dustpan, 3 pieces of nice African artwork from the father of the son who helped us out a lot that day, tamis (filters used for straining or drying fruit: they are made of cloth or metal and stuck in between circular pieces of metal or wood; they fit the shape of a tambourine without the bells, just closed off with metal or cloth in the center for filtering)... I also bought a bag's worth of fruit that I hoped would at least last me through the week (pineapple, apples, oranges, papaya which I didn't get to enjoy because it went moldy, and a mango).
September 3, 2009
Deep breath: I've been in village a week and survived. Today I went through a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts. There is so much downtime in village, especially prior to the beginning of school. Most days consist primarily of sitting and thinking, especially when you don't speak Jula and you spend time sitting with groups of women who only speak Jula and minimal if any French.
To say this has been an easy journey thus far would be incorrect. And to expect it to breeze by without a car would be naïve. I know many question whether they could become a volunteer and stick with it for the entire 2 years of service plus training. Other than with extenuating circumstances pulling someone home and forcing them to ET (early terminate) I suppose it all depends on the person. What are your reasons for being here? Also, expectations play a large role. If you expect it to be easy and simple, you're in for a rocky ride and a big surprise. Like any day in life, you will have your ups and down and I've already learned this being in Burkina for almost 3 months and only 1 week in my village. I don't think it's whether or not you can do this type of service as much as it's can you handle the challenges and surprises and then bounce back from them and react in such a way that only makes you and your impact stronger. I thought before and still feel now that this experience will have a stronger impact on my life than on the lives of others, but I fully intend on doing all I can to make a difference and to change the lives and mindsets of those around me for the better. This doesn't mean putting North American morale into the minds of the Burkinabé; what it means is that I hope to provide tools and skills that will affect and help those around me long after I'm gone by having sensibalizations an AIDS, what it means and how it's contracted, to teach mothers how to make bouillie that actually has a nutritional value so their babies and children are growing up better nourished and thriving, to force my students to think critically possibly for the first time in the education and maybe in their lives, and to force my students and those around me to consider things they hadn't before, such as first to notice that there are major differences between the treatment of males and females here (unjustly I might add) and then question why they exist and maybe even how they can be changed. I may not be able to change the world like many who join the Peace Corps hope to do, but I can make a dent, I can make an impact, and that is why this grassroots method and organization is so powerful.
I'm not sure how to segway our of that, so I'm going to make an awkward transition here. I'm also apologizing in advance for what is probably not very good writing, but I don't have the time to edit all I'm writing, so this is a first draft where my only aim is to get across some thoughts and ideas in a somewhat coherent fashion.
That being said, here goes: I asked a few current volunteers who have been here a year already advice for my first month at site and D, one of my closest neighbors told me not to be too hard on myself. That advice has served me well. This week has both crawled and sped by. Looking back on it, from a North American perspective, one would argue that I haven't done much, but then they wouldn't be looking closely enough. Yes, I too, worry that I wasted time and that I barely did anything and that I feel as though I sat around a lot, slept, ate, and repeated the cycle, and those times I did walk around a bit were short and slow. But, I painted my house (both little rooms to make them more homey and comfortable, because I will be spending 2 years of my life here), I got a start on organizing my things so I am no longer living out of bags and suitcases, I learned how to get bread, eggs, and vegetables in village, I met our carpenter and already plan on having new furniture arriving in the near future, I walked around our marché and learned that it is much larger than I originally thought during my site visit, I met several village kids and made good friends with one little girl, BT, who has taken to me already, I took the time to sit with a couple different groups of women on a few different occasions just to pass the time and get to know them in a way much different than I've ever gotten to know anyone (without a common language and culture, you're forced to look at things and respond to things differently).
When V drove away last Thursday, I didn't secretly wish him to turn around and come back, I didn't get a flood of anxiety and emotion, I went with it. Plus, my homologue, O, was around, so I already knew someone. It wasn't until the following day after he told me he wants me to teach 6 classes, 23 hours a week for at least the first trimester, that he also mentioned he was going to Bobo and wouldn't be back for two weeks – so much for comfort. Did I also mention that 2 of these classes are for troisième students. Now this is the US equivalent of 9th grade if I haven't said that already, but more importantly, after troisième the students need to take and pass the BEPC which is an exam that allows them to continue on to lycée (high school) and hopefully eventually get all the way to college, after taking and passing another exam, the BAC, after finishing terminale (senior year equivalent). The reason this is stressful is because my teaching will have a large impact on what my students will learn and therefore on how well they will do on the exam or rather how prepared or unprepared they will be. Needless to say I want them to do well, so I'm up to the challenge if need be, I'm just a little stressed.
I would like to point out that other than the temperature difference between the north, the southwest is also much prettier with much more greenery. There was a moment today when I was filled with anxiety and I was walking down the main road in my village and I looked ahead to see green everywhere: trees, some hills, absolutely gorgeous and I thought, how could I be anxious looking at this? I'm blessed and I'm very thankful for it.
My job now is to continue to settle in and integrate into my community for the next month. By mid September I will start attending sessions and meetings for school and by October 1st, secondary school will be in full swing and I will be teaching up to 6 classes a week. I will do this for 3 trimesters and finish sometime in May, I believe, but lets not get ahead of ourselves.
Until next time.
By tomorrow evening I'll have been in village for one week. That may not sound like much to you, but thinking back, I was sitting at home in my living room with the ones I love, my family, less than 3 months ago. And now, I'm in a small village in the southwest of Burkina Faso, a west African country I honestly didn't even know existed until about 10 months ago.
I survived 11 weeks of training and was happy that it changed significantly halfway through, because I was growing weary of it. Since I'm here to teach secondary education, the Peace Corps smartly worked in a 4 week Model School where we, the future Bukinabé teachers, taught for one hour every day, 5 days a week for the first 2 weeks before trying some 2 hour classes during the second 2 week period. I taught PC, physique et chimie (physics and chemistry) to quatrième (US equivalent to 9th grade) during the first 2 weeks and then switched over to teaching SVT, science de la vie et du terre (biology and earth science depending on the level) to sixième (US equivalent to 7th grade). It was often a struggle, but it was great practice. So, I completed my cross-cultural training, medical training where they focus on self sufficiency and prevention, and safety and security training in addition to the obvious technical training. I passed all of our exams for each section and I felt prepared, but did not want to continue. I had gotten comfortable in my training city, I grew to love the most amazing host family anyone could ever hope for, and I had gotten close with many of my fellow trainees aka stagiaires. None of that mattered, because it was time to move on. I came here for a reason and I just got through the beginning of it, the preparation part.
We traveled as a group to Ouagadougou to spend a few days, attend our final administration sessions, and be sworn-in as official volunteers. The day of Swear-in and those few days in Ouaga for that matter are a blur. Time passed so quickly and before I knew it I was in Bobo for a night and then in my village the following evening. At Swear-in I was honored to give a speech in French, an honor that only became mine after my fellow trainee, MS, was too busy to write it and was more than willing to give it to me. I had never given a speech before and never actually thought myself capable, until now that is. I got a good idea from the person I'm in love with and ran with it. That idea actually helped set the theme of my speech, time. Looking back on it I've already changed, because a few months ago I would either not have wanted to write the speech or I never would have considered myself able. Anyways, I got the idea for the speech and put it on paper or computer, went over it with one of our language trainers who helped correct the grammar and word choice so the right sense came across and then ended up sitting next to trainee J who would be speaking in Mooré the night of swear-in after I started off with French. I was a bundle of nerves, but after stumbling over two words I managed to get myself under control, to speak slowly and clearly so everyone could understand me. Afterall, I had written the speech for my fellow stagiaires, so I wanted them to hear it. It went well. Who knew I could actually speak in public without shaking the entire time, passing our, or stuttering throughout an entire speech. And the best part was that everyone who got sworn in with me, enjoyed the speech, so that made my night.
I forced myself to hang out with the recently sworn-in volunteers and the others who I had gotten to know through their participation with our training because I knew this would be the last time for a while, possibly forever, when we would all be together like that.
The next morning I hopped in a taxi that MF, an amazing volunteer who has helped me more than I can say, helped setup, and ended up at the bus gare to leave on the 7am bus. Five hours later I was eating lunch in Bobo talking to MF about how and where to get housing supplies and what the prices should be. R, another recently sworn-in volunteer, joined us a few hours later and the three of us did some shopping. That day I got a huge bucket of white paint and four little containers of colored paint along with many basic kitchen and housing supplies like forks, spoons, knives, cutting board, clothing pins, strainer, etc. The fun part came the following day after V, our driver, dropped us off at the marché to haggle our way into more supplies. I dropped a lot of necessary money that day getting a marmite for my dutch oven (you put sand and three small empty cans in the bottom of a big mettle bot that looks like something whiches would use to brew up something wonderful and literally use this to bake things), 6 pots (now I didn't actually need 6, but they came that way, so ça va aller), a cantine or trunk, a small empty gas container with a circular metal contraption on top used for cooking, hammer, nails, broom, dustpan, 3 pieces of nice African artwork from the father of the son who helped us out a lot that day, tamis (filters used for straining or drying fruit: they are made of cloth or metal and stuck in between circular pieces of metal or wood; they fit the shape of a tambourine without the bells, just closed off with metal or cloth in the center for filtering)... I also bought a bag's worth of fruit that I hoped would at least last me through the week (pineapple, apples, oranges, papaya which I didn't get to enjoy because it went moldy, and a mango).
September 3, 2009
Deep breath: I've been in village a week and survived. Today I went through a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts. There is so much downtime in village, especially prior to the beginning of school. Most days consist primarily of sitting and thinking, especially when you don't speak Jula and you spend time sitting with groups of women who only speak Jula and minimal if any French.
To say this has been an easy journey thus far would be incorrect. And to expect it to breeze by without a car would be naïve. I know many question whether they could become a volunteer and stick with it for the entire 2 years of service plus training. Other than with extenuating circumstances pulling someone home and forcing them to ET (early terminate) I suppose it all depends on the person. What are your reasons for being here? Also, expectations play a large role. If you expect it to be easy and simple, you're in for a rocky ride and a big surprise. Like any day in life, you will have your ups and down and I've already learned this being in Burkina for almost 3 months and only 1 week in my village. I don't think it's whether or not you can do this type of service as much as it's can you handle the challenges and surprises and then bounce back from them and react in such a way that only makes you and your impact stronger. I thought before and still feel now that this experience will have a stronger impact on my life than on the lives of others, but I fully intend on doing all I can to make a difference and to change the lives and mindsets of those around me for the better. This doesn't mean putting North American morale into the minds of the Burkinabé; what it means is that I hope to provide tools and skills that will affect and help those around me long after I'm gone by having sensibalizations an AIDS, what it means and how it's contracted, to teach mothers how to make bouillie that actually has a nutritional value so their babies and children are growing up better nourished and thriving, to force my students to think critically possibly for the first time in the education and maybe in their lives, and to force my students and those around me to consider things they hadn't before, such as first to notice that there are major differences between the treatment of males and females here (unjustly I might add) and then question why they exist and maybe even how they can be changed. I may not be able to change the world like many who join the Peace Corps hope to do, but I can make a dent, I can make an impact, and that is why this grassroots method and organization is so powerful.
I'm not sure how to segway our of that, so I'm going to make an awkward transition here. I'm also apologizing in advance for what is probably not very good writing, but I don't have the time to edit all I'm writing, so this is a first draft where my only aim is to get across some thoughts and ideas in a somewhat coherent fashion.
That being said, here goes: I asked a few current volunteers who have been here a year already advice for my first month at site and D, one of my closest neighbors told me not to be too hard on myself. That advice has served me well. This week has both crawled and sped by. Looking back on it, from a North American perspective, one would argue that I haven't done much, but then they wouldn't be looking closely enough. Yes, I too, worry that I wasted time and that I barely did anything and that I feel as though I sat around a lot, slept, ate, and repeated the cycle, and those times I did walk around a bit were short and slow. But, I painted my house (both little rooms to make them more homey and comfortable, because I will be spending 2 years of my life here), I got a start on organizing my things so I am no longer living out of bags and suitcases, I learned how to get bread, eggs, and vegetables in village, I met our carpenter and already plan on having new furniture arriving in the near future, I walked around our marché and learned that it is much larger than I originally thought during my site visit, I met several village kids and made good friends with one little girl, BT, who has taken to me already, I took the time to sit with a couple different groups of women on a few different occasions just to pass the time and get to know them in a way much different than I've ever gotten to know anyone (without a common language and culture, you're forced to look at things and respond to things differently).
When V drove away last Thursday, I didn't secretly wish him to turn around and come back, I didn't get a flood of anxiety and emotion, I went with it. Plus, my homologue, O, was around, so I already knew someone. It wasn't until the following day after he told me he wants me to teach 6 classes, 23 hours a week for at least the first trimester, that he also mentioned he was going to Bobo and wouldn't be back for two weeks – so much for comfort. Did I also mention that 2 of these classes are for troisième students. Now this is the US equivalent of 9th grade if I haven't said that already, but more importantly, after troisième the students need to take and pass the BEPC which is an exam that allows them to continue on to lycée (high school) and hopefully eventually get all the way to college, after taking and passing another exam, the BAC, after finishing terminale (senior year equivalent). The reason this is stressful is because my teaching will have a large impact on what my students will learn and therefore on how well they will do on the exam or rather how prepared or unprepared they will be. Needless to say I want them to do well, so I'm up to the challenge if need be, I'm just a little stressed.
I would like to point out that other than the temperature difference between the north, the southwest is also much prettier with much more greenery. There was a moment today when I was filled with anxiety and I was walking down the main road in my village and I looked ahead to see green everywhere: trees, some hills, absolutely gorgeous and I thought, how could I be anxious looking at this? I'm blessed and I'm very thankful for it.
My job now is to continue to settle in and integrate into my community for the next month. By mid September I will start attending sessions and meetings for school and by October 1st, secondary school will be in full swing and I will be teaching up to 6 classes a week. I will do this for 3 trimesters and finish sometime in May, I believe, but lets not get ahead of ourselves.
Until next time.
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