Celebrating School's End with a Focus and Work Change

In 15 days I will have been here a year. A year! I cannot believe it. I am officially finished with my first year of teaching. I buckled down a bit with my students and tried to be more strict. I introduced the sentence, “Je ne dérangerai plus le professeur et les autres élèves,” to my students when they misbehaved or talked or whatever during class. I had them write their name on the board and then by 7am the next day they were to give me that sentence written 200 times. If not, I took away a point. If they skipped one number or word, I took away a point and they had to redo it. They did not like that! I had a couple students who correctly pointed out that they stopped talking in class after having to write that, so it did have some effect. Unfortunately, it only helped so much. My 5e kids remained out-of-control, reminding me of D.D.'s advice during stage: start out stern because he found that his worst class was the one he was more lax with from the get go. Come to think of it, many of my favorite and most respected teachers followed that motto. They started hard and loosened up throughout the year. That is my plan for the following year.

After giving my final tests and calculating averages I was free [at least until next fall]. I continued my regular routine of hanging out with my major friend each evening even though M.K., my friend and his wife, has been in Bobo since early April in order to give birth there. She gave birth on May 1st to a beautiful baby girl; I saw pictures. It's funny thinking about it because she's my age and I can't picture having kids right now. I definitely want them, probably at least 3, but I am not ready yet. [Then there are my students, 6th graders (older, 13, 14, still not old enough by any means) who are pregnant. It's disheartening and very sad and unfortunately far too common.] I can't wait to meet my little niece.

My two women colleagues finally made it over to my house when I was there and we spent time together chatting under my hangar. I shared my gummy worms with Mme D.'s little baby girl who loved them. She kept making an almost-mmm sound as she was eating it, perfectly content.

I spent more hours volunteering at maternity. One Friday I arrived to find the acoucheuse alone, because her colleagues had left on a vaccine campaign, possibly for polio. I'm glad I was there to help her that morning, get patient files, fill out forms, hold babies, take blood pressure. I enjoy that work a lot. It is very interesting and again, I feel good knowing that I'm helping, even if only in very small ways. If I can lessen the burden just a little, that's good enough for me.



I spent time with A.S., a 40 year old man who I have become surprisingly close to, surprising because he's a 40 year old man. We have had some great conversations. We've talked about my students, Rastus (the word is not offensive here), homosexuality, adoption, female genital mutilation, sexism, women's rights... He's an extremely bright and kind man. He finished primary school only and continued with self study at a seminary where, I believe, his father was. He speaks French well and has helped me a lot these past few months. He and S.K. are two friends whom I feel comfortable enough with to ask questions about French. I love that they correct me, because that's the only way I can learn and improve my language. I feel like I've improved light speeds in such a short time due to their insights.


I was also blessed to enjoy a few times listening to F. and A. play guitar and sing. Love it.
One day as I was visiting with A.S. under my hangar, we got a surprise visit from another friend, A.S.'s cousin, F.S. I was happy to see him. Sadly, he was there because his pregnant wife, F.S., was having complications and reached a point where she couldn't breathe. Scary. She saw the nurse and was prescribed medication. As the two men were looking for it, I set up my lit pico and let her and her daughter take a load off chez moi. I found the best thing I had for the little girl and brought out paper and pens for her to draw. I wish I had had something else, but I don't think I did. The guys eventually found the generic brand of meds and F. and F. left with mom-to-be much more at ease. She left with some tasty leaves from my courtyard that up until that day I had not known were edible.

Since my buddy, L.S., went back to the states for a month (after 2 years in away from friends and family back home, she deserved that time) I decided to visit her best friend and boyfriend in the city 25K from me. I chose to catch a ride with the PC car the day our doctor came for a visit. I was so excited to see him and one of our drivers in our region. I love having visitors. He stayed for a couple hours mostly talking and having great conversation. He told stories about his time in Cameroon and Gabon. He has great stories, and he always makes me laugh. We're lucky to have such genuine caring medical staff on board here. So that Thursday I quickly packed my bags and headed 25K away. I spent the night and the following day there. I had planned on spending two nights before I received a call telling me I needed to be in Ouaga for training that coming Monday (after they had originally told me I had to be there and recently called to tell me I was not going to attend – gotta love Peace Corps!) So I divided my trip having needed to return to my village to gather my things for the following week.

It was great to see the bff, S. and the bf, A. I spent lots of QT with them. Chez S. I hung out and enjoyed her cooking and wonderful company. You could tell she missed L.S. a lot by her stories of how they met and several memories of theirs. She also told me about breaking down the night before she L.S. left. Since L.S. is moving to another village, albeit nearby, Sita realized they didn't have much time together and even though they'll have 3 more months, it's during the rainy season, so she'll be spending most of her days in the fields. She was bumming. The two of them have made such a great connection and the nearing of separation is starting to hit. Sucks. We had some lighter conversation, too, as I became more at ease in her hut, playing with my little 5 year old buddy, Z. I had lunch with A. the following day before I had to head back to site for the night. I hung out briefly with my friends after running around and taking care of a few last minute things with the end of the school year. I saw two students for the last time in a few months and I'm glad I got that opportunity. I let one borrow an English booklet and the other my French/English dictionary. When I gave S. my dictionary he kissed it! A.S. and Y.T. walked me to the car the next day when I returned to the same city I left the day before. When I arrived at the gare and inquired about paying the attendant told me not to worry about it. Bizarre. Nice, but weird. Okay. So, I opted to use them to go to Ouaga the following day instead of the other company like I had been planning. More QT with my buddies before bed and an early following day.

The following week was TDE (training design and evaluation) for the incoming trainees. All of the PCVFP's (Peace Corps Volunteer Facilitator Permanent) for each of the four sectors worked with the staff to get on the same page, talk about the basics of the training, especially because it will be a group of 78 trainees, the largest group they've ever had here, write learning objectives and competencies, putting in core sessions into the calendar of training events (COTE), and then planning our individual technical sessions for each sector within our own schedules. It was great seeing some familiar faces from my stage, many of whom I hadn't seen since I left Ouahigouya last August. It was a tiring, productive week. I now understand all that goes into such planning and why changing the schedule is not as easy as we thought it was while we were in stage. There are so many different parts and aspects you have to keep in mind. It's nuts. I'm enjoying working on this. I'm excited to be one of the main PCV's to welcome the new trainees. I think my energy and attitude makes me the perfect person for the job.

TDE ended on Friday. My plan was to go to Bobo for the weekend, visit with some friends, then go back to my village for a few days before having to be back the following Thursday for my next Youth Development Committee meeting. That was before our new country director (CD) explained that we, PCV's, can in fact be on more than one committee, we simply need the permission of the CD. So, my buddy, M.B. and I were bummed because we wanted to be on the Peer Support and Diversity Network (PSDN) but did not know about the 2 committee rule: we were under the impression that only one was allowed. Then, we thought we were too late to join that committee. It wasn't until a current member advised us to ask our nurse if we could still apply; that happened Thursday night. So, early Friday morning I got the go ahead from our nurse, permission to participate in two committees from our CD, wrote my application while working on TDE things, submitted my application before noon as I was told and got accepted all within a matter of hours. I was so excited. The catch was that training started on Monday. So much for my plan.

New plan: leave early Saturday morning, arrive back at site by around 5 pm only to leave early the following morning for Ouaga. I had never made that trip in one day and was about to do it for two in-a-row.

I had around 12 hours at site in between my travel. I quickly put things away, packed my bags for 3 months, emptied out my buckets and water filters, and gave away any perishables. I spent time with S.K. who offered to moto me in early on Sunday so I could take the first car to Bobo. What a good friend. I also saw A.S. who was still using my courtyard. He had since done some landscaping. I now have a few new rows of plants including aloe! The stay was too short, but better than nothing. I got into Ouaga by 4 pm on Sunday with plenty of time to make the dinner our PC nurse invited us to. So good to us. Good food and great company.

The next 3 days were filled with PSDN training: active listening, which questions to ask and not to ask, how to help a peer arrive at a solution and sort through a problem without giving advice or any personal opinions. We talked about the differences in individual values, red flags, how to take care of ourselves. I enjoyed the training very much. It was exhausting, but great. It makes me wonder if I'd like to go into counseling or psychology. Although, there's a fair share of that in medicine, so I think I'm alright. Became an official PSDN member and got voted to training manager/coordinator again with M.S., the same PCV who is sharing the PCVFP position with me. He's right, we do work really well together. And our work will come next may when we're planning and running the training for the next year's PSDN members. It'll be good.

Thursday was my day off so-to-speak. I ran some errands in the morning, biking to the post to take out money and stopping at the bank to exchange CFA for dollars, taking care of another traveling back home preparation. People think I'm nuts to have my 2 checked bags packed already, a month in advance. I'm glad because I don't want to be stressed the few days before I leave. Speaking of, I am so flipping excited to go home at the end of June. 5 weeks with my partner, time with my family and friends. It's going to be great.

I ran Thursday morning with J.B. for the first time in months. It was difficult but I felt good afterwards. I bonded with C.R. and E. over lunch and then spent a couple hours working on the technical training sessions for the new stage with H. Friday, today, was our first Youth Development Committee (YDC) meeting. We talked about the resources we found and where we'd like to go next as in our focus. We're going to help with training sessions in four general categories, starting at first with one. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of this baby committee.

We have another meeting tomorrow and then I'm off until Tuesday when I'll take part in our Training of Trainers (TOT) for stage followed by more preparation for a few days before the new trainees arrive and stage is in full swing. Lots to do. Can't wait!

Be well. Live life to the fullest. Take chances. Don't be afraid to try something new and push yourself. Be the person you want to be, because only you can control that.

Until next time.