Settling in in Kongoussi

Quick update -- my address has changed. Packages should be sent to the Peace Corps office in Ouagadougou:

Chris Wilson, PCV
s/c Corps de la Paix
01 B.P. 6031
Ouagadougou 01
Burkina Faso
West Africa

Letters and small stuff can be sent directly to Kongoussi:
Chris Wilson
s/c URCBam
B.P. 150
Kongoussi
Burkina Faso
West Africa

And now...

October 22, 2005

I arrived in Kongoussi this morning, my first day as an actual Peace Corps Volunteer. It’s been a pretty good day, hopefully setting a good pace for the next two years. It looks like I haven’t written anything since I arrived in Ouaga - obviously, quite a bit has happened since then. The week in Ouaga was, in general, pretty good - it’s always nice to eat pizza, have a milkshake, and hang out at the Embassy Rec Center swimming pool. My health has improved - I feel almost entirely healthy now - since about the third day in Ouaga, I’ve been eating plenty. My digestive system still clearly has some problems, and I sent a MIF kit (a fecal specimen) to Sylvie on Wednesday - my third in the past week - and still haven’t heard back, but am guessing I’ve got some parasite or something. But I’m feeling fine, and am back to full energy (well, as much energy as I ever have…).
There was a lot of drama in Ouaga, and there’s a lot of tension now between all the new volunteers (and the old ones) and the Peace Corps bureau. The main reason is because the bureau decided to send Esmeralda home - they said she "wasn’t a good match" for Burkina - I think her plane leaves Ouaga today. This pretty much all grew out of the incident with the chief, which I think I described in a previous post, so I won’t explain it again (scroll up if you’re really curious). The jist of it is that she was deemed culturally insensitive for trying to give book-bags to three kids who lived by her who had to walk 20km round-trip each day to go to school. In the end, she managed to resolve the situation just fine, but apparently no one at the bureau quite noticed that. By the middle of this week, after a talk with the country director, she was told she had to write a letter explaining why she wanted to stay. She did this, but apparently they didn’t like the letter, and decided to administratively separate (the PC euphemism for firing someone) her. Everyone was pretty pissed at the decision - we all love Es, and she would make a great volunteer. I’m pretty pissed, too - we Minima folk were pretty close. At any rate, this all went down during the two days before swearing-in, and pretty much destroyed everyone’s morale.
And for those who morale wasn’t destroyed by the bureau screwing over Es, there was plenty of other drama. Two GEE stagiaires nearly got sent home, too, but managed to avoid it. There were also four stagiaires who weren’t allowed to swear-in because their language level wasn’t high enough. So they’re going to spend another week (at least) in Ouaga getting some tutoring.
Swearing-in was yesterday. It took place in the large yard in front of the ambassador’s house. They try to make swearing-in a really big deal. There were television crews from RTB - Burkina’s one television station - and some clips supposedly aired / will air on RTB News. There were also a few big-shot Burkinabé ministers there - I think they were the ministers of Health, Commerce, and Education (the ministers working with the Peace Corps Health, SED, and GEE programs). One of the ministers gave a speech, as did Marily, the Peace Corps country director. There were also eight speeches given by stagiaires, each in a different language (none in English). The one in French was about three minutes, the local language ones were about a minute each. After the assorted speeches, we took the Peace Corps oath. Burkina doesn’t have an ambassador at the moment, so the oath was administered by the Charges d’Affaires at the Embassy - the top U.S. official in the country. The oath is pretty straightforward, but a little weirdly phrased - we swore to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution from all its enemies. After the ceremony, we had to sign a written copy of the oath. And the whole event was followed up by a reception, which featured lots of free beer (yay!) and some good food. After the reception, we had a huge party at L’Axe, a club near the hotel where we all stayed, which went all night long.
I left L’Axe around 2:00 in the morning, and then had to go and pack my bags to come to Kongoussi. I was asleep by about 3:00, and then woke up at 5:30 to start hauling my bags down to the Peace Corps van and begin the drive to Kongoussi. For affectation, Peace Corps drives all of us to our posts, which is really nice, since it means we can buy large items in Ouaga and not have to worry about carrying them (along with all our luggage, bikes, giant water filters, etc.) on public transport. But since there are only a handful of Peace Corps vehicles and 40 people (well, 36 because of the language thing) being affectéd, they stagger the affectations. Unfortunately for me, I got stuck in the first group, leaving at six a.m. this morning. A lot of the people in the southwest get another day or two in Ouaga, then three or four days in Bobo before actually going to their posts - I think I got screwed by the proximity of my site to Ouaga. After dropping off another new volunteer about 60km away, we ended up in Kongoussi around 11:00, and unloaded all my stuff.
After doing a little unpacking and setting up my water filter, I headed out into the city - my first day in Kongoussi as a volunteer, all by myself. (Mike, the Volunteer I’m replacing, is in Ouaga at the moment. He’s coming back to Kongoussi tomorrow, and is, I believe, staying here until Friday, when he’ll leave for good.) The first place I went was a buvette by the Rond Point (a giant roundabout that forms the center of the city) to have a nice cold Coke. While sitting there, I was surprised to have someone come up to me, saying "Mister Chris!" It was the guy who runs the cyber-café at Rond Point - Mike had told him all about me, and he was really excited to have me in town. He sat down with me, had a beer, and we talked for awhile. Throughout the day, I’ve encountered several people who already know me, by name, which is pretty cool, although a bit daunting. I’m looking forward to walking around town some more tomorrow, and just meeting people.
I did a bunch of shopping in Ouaga. The big thing I bought was a real mattress - those are hard to come by here. Most mattresses in this country are nothing more than large pieces of foam - this is the kind of mattress that Mike had in Kongoussi. Several current Volunteers have said it’s worth investing in a good mattress - otherwise you’ll end up with back problems sometime. I don’t yet have a bed frame to put it in - I’m going to visit a carpenter sometime this week and place a huge order - bed, dresser, desk. I also bought some computer speakers, so I can now listen to music or watch movies when I get bored. Having the computer here, although very nice and convenient, is a bit of a liability. I’m going to have to keep the laptop (and the whole desk) in my bedroom, so that it’s not visible from the front door. I don’t plan on telling anybody in Kongoussi (except Mike, of course) that I have this laptop - it’d be pretty foolish to do so. I also bought a lot of food. Marina Market is the nicer of the two real supermarkets in Ouaga - there are only two places to go if you want to buy western things like cereal, Kleenex, or M&Ms. They had a huge sale of two types of cereal - Special K and Frosted Flakes, so I stocked up on those. I don’t think there’s milk in Kongoussi, but milk powder is everywhere. SCIAC (the other of the two grocery stores) had Petit Ecolier, and had some new variety with rice in it marked down to 500CFA - a buck! That’s cheaper than in the U.S. - incredible! And I picked up a few canned fruits and veggies - things not available in Kongoussi - like applesauce and hummus mix (just add garlic!).
I started learning Mooré in Ouaga - I had a couple classes in it. In many ways, it’s a very simply language - verb conjugations, for instance. The vocabulary is a bit trickier, especially since every noun has both a singular and plural form, which often bare little resemblance. And the pronunciation is really difficult. But I’ve picked up enough that I figured out today when one of the women selling benga asked me if I spoke Mooré, and I managed to respond that I knew a tiny bit.
From my e-mails and comments on the blog over the past week or two, I see that several people are sending me packages - thank you, thank you! Unfortunately, I haven’t received any of them yet - even the one that I know was delivered to the Peace Corps bureau last Monday, almost a week ago. The bureau seems to be ridiculously slow at processing packages - no part of Peace Corps epitomizes inefficient bureaucracy the way mail service does. Unfortunately, there’s no real alternative - getting things delivered directly to Kongoussi via Burkinabé poste takes even longer, I’ve been assured. Unfortunately, for the next three months, I’m supposed to remain at my site, working on my etude du milieu - all volunteers are expected to remain at their posts for the first three months. Luckily, there are a few loopholes in the system - you can go to your "regional capital" to stock up on food, money, etc. every now and then. Although Kongoussi is a regional capital, I’ve decided to make Ouaga my real regional capital, and so I’m allowing myself to travel to Ouaga every few weeks. I’ll be going on November 5-6 for a regional VSN (volunteer support network) meeting. My region only consists of 4 volunteers (the southwest region, by contrast, has about 30) - Michelle, who’s 12km outside Ouaga; Elizabeth, who’s about 30km outside Ouaga; myself, about 100km; and Kara, who’s 40km north of me, and comes to Kongoussi when she needs to stock up on things. At any rate, the point of all this is that I should be in Ouaga on Nov. 5, and the first thing I’m going to do there is go to the bureau and check for mail and packages.
Well, that’s it for tonight. Now that I’m in Kongoussi, and am already on good terms with the guy who runs the cyber-café two blocks from my house, I plan on checking my e-mail pretty regularly - probably every day or two - so feel free to e-mail.

October 29, 2005

Well, after one week in Kongoussi, it’s starting to feel a bit like home. It’s been a long week, though - a pretty good introduction to Kongoussi and what my life’s going to be like here.
I arrived in Kongoussi on Saturday (see last entry) and Mike, after taking care of some COS (close of service) business in Ouaga, came up on Sunday. Since then, he’s been saying goodbye to people, packing, and partying. He left yesterday afternoon - although during my site visit a month and a half ago, he was very eager to leave, this past week seemed to be hard on him - he said several times that he didn’t really want to go, or that leaving this place was a lot more difficult for him than he thought it would be. He also told me during site visit that he was one of the least well-integrated Volunteers in this country - but judging from the number of people saying goodbye to him, he certainly made himself at home here.
So, what have I been doing during my first week in Kongoussi? Let’s start with URCBam, the credit union where I’m working. The way Peace Corps works is that every Volunteer is matched up with a host organization, URCBam in my case, and at that host organization, each Volunteer has an official counterpart (homologue in French). My homologue is André Ouederago, the Chef de Credit at the bank (caisse in French - I’m slowly slipping into worse and worse Franglais, so I’m letting you know in advance what French words I’ll probably be using). I’ve mentioned him before, back when I wrote about Counterpart Workshop and Site Visit. The counterpart is a Volunteer’s main contact person for getting settled and integrated. André is a nice guy, and has been one of the more helpful people at the caisse for Mike. Unfortunately, he was out of town all this week, only returning yesterday (just in time to say goodbye to Mike). So a lot of the things that I was supposed to be doing, such as introducing myself to the mayor, préfet, haut commissariat, etc. haven’t happened yet. In general, André’s absence this week hasn’t been a major problem - I’m a fairly independent person, and am able to get by on my own. And Mike was here to help me out with some stuff. But it means I haven’t done any work towards starting my work, specifically the étude du milieu (background study) that I’m supposed to spend the next three months working on.
But I have gotten some important things done. First, I’ve met a bunch of people. And even remember who a few of them are - even the names of a select few! There’s a lot of people who work at the caisse (somewhere around 30 at the HQ and branch in Kongoussi, I think, plus all the people at the other branches, points of service, etc.) I now know and recognize a few of the key ones - the patron (like the CEO), the Chef de Comptabilité, the secretary (who has the A/C office, and just got a second computer in her office, bringing the bank-wide total to 3), and the manager of the Kongoussi COOPSEC ("What’s the COOPSEC?" you’re probably wondering - the bank has a surprisingly complex hierarchy, which I don’t entirely understand - but the COOPSEC is essentially the Kongoussi branch. Well, one of the two.) I’ve also gotten to know the barmaids at Ambience, a buvette in the center of town, about two blocks from my house, where I go daily for a cold Coke. I’ve talked a bunch to Javier, the manager of the cyber-café closest to my house. And I’ve had a few conversations with Dembele, my next door neighbor, who’s an English teacher at the high school here. I’ll probably follow Mike’s lead and volunteer to teach a few classes with him.
I’ve also met a handful of other nessare (white people). There’s one other American in town - she’s a former PCV (she was in southern Burkina around 1998-2000) named Anne. Her husband, also an American, lived in Kongoussi for awhile, and now she’s here for six weeks working at the hospital (she’s a med student back in the States). There’s a large group - nine, I think - of Canadians in town. Most of them are Quebecois, a few rather militantly so. But I had a nice conversation with two native Anglophone members of the group - they’re part of an exchange program, where a group of Burkinabé spent three months living in Canada, and now the Canadians are here in Kongoussi. They were amazed by my knowledge of Canada ("You know where Saskatoon is?" "Sure I do - isn’t that where the Rough Riders play?" "Whoa!") - thanks to my parents for that. And there’s a Dutch couple in town working with an NGO that we went and had drinks with one night - they’re very nice and have an adorable little kid (maybe six months old?). They’ve been in Kongoussi for two years, and had therein Djibo previously, and are driving (!) back to Europe at the end of the year. So, although there are lots of nessare in town at the moment, they’re all going to be gone three months from now. Oh well, I’m sure there’ll be others showing up, and if not, I can always speak English with Dembele.
One of the more exciting things I did this week was buy furniture. I know, it sounds very middle-aged to be excited about furniture shopping. But Mike’s house was pretty much empty - his furniture consisted of a bookshelf, a table, and a few chairs. As of today, I know have a desk, a bed, and a dresser, as well as two small little end-table-like-things with drawers in them. Burkina, sadly, lacks an Ikea, or even anything remotely similar. To buy furniture, you go to a carpenter, describe what you want, give him some money to buy the wood, and wait a few days. I ordered this stuff on Tuesday, and was pretty surprised that it was ready to go today - that was way faster than I was planning. So tonight I get to sleep on a real bed (with the nice mattress I purchased in Ouaga), instead of a piece of foam on the concrete floor (this is how my guests will be sleeping when they visit - good news, Abby!). Getting some furniture in here is finally making the place look a bit more like home, which is important after three months of never sleeping in the same place for more than a week at a time. I still need to get some more furniture - I might get a nice, comfy chair. And I need some stuff for the kitchen - ideally some cabinets, but failing that, at least a spice rack or something, and maybe another table so I can have a bit more counter space. Unfortunately, Peace Corps only gives us 100,000CFA for our settling-in allowance (about $200), and including the mattress (which just about every current volunteer recommended buying, so as to avoid the inevitable foam-mattress back problems), I’ve already spent about 200,000CFA. Plus another 20,000 for the computer speakers, 40,000 for the cell phone - it’s adding up. And I think I need to buy a new fan - the one Mike bought keeps dying. When Peace Corps asks us at IST (in-service training, three months from now) if the settling-in allowance was ample, I’m going to give them an earful. I’m also going to recommend that they should give us money to buy cell phones - just about every new Volunteer bought one, and we all used our own money for them. But given Peace Corps’s emphasis on Volunteer safety and security, I think it’s reasonable for them to buy us phones.
More exciting news: I cooked myself dinner tonight. And, here’s the truly incredible part: it was pretty good. And I was more or less winging it - no recipes or anything. Granted, it was an easy dinner - pasta with tomato sauce and garlic bread. But the sauce was pretty good (I sliced up some tomatoes and put them in, along with some green onions, garlic, basil, and some other spice that I forget now), and the garlic bread was quite tasty, especially the piece that I added some basil to. I overestimated quantities a bit, so I think I’ll be having pasta for a late night snack, and likely also for breakfast. I spent about an hour cleaning the kitchen before cooking (keep in mind that the only thing in the kitchen is a table with some seasonings and a stove - but the whole thing was filthy), after spending most of the afternoon cleaning out the living room. For the moment, all the dishes are sitting in a bucket with soap, but eventually I’ll have to wash them - all in all, although I thought dinner was quite tasty, the whole process of cooking and cleaning is kind of a hassle, and I might be eating out a lot. Kongoussi has several good places to eat - I’ve been to Espace Watal twice this week (both for going-away parties being thrown for Mike), and both times they had big party platters of chicken and frites - delicious. (Mike gave speeches at both the parties, and at the last one - which was with all the people from URCBam - he asked me to get up and give one too - you all know how I am about public speaking, now imagine me trying to give an extemporaneous speech in French, after a beer or two.) And there’s some good food at the market. In the coming weeks, I hope to try out some other restaurants, although everyone assures me that Espace Watal is the best place in town.
One last story before giving up writing for the night. I spent this morning with a woman named Madame Alice, who runs a women’s group in Kongoussi. One of the key things SED Volunteers do is work with women’s groups like this, helping them find new products or services to provide, as well as teaching them how to set up savings and credit clubs. Mike worked with this group, and did a simboula formation with them, which has resulted in them earning around 50,000CFA, with which they’ve purchased school supplies for a bunch of kids. At any rate, I agreed to spend the morning with Alice, going down to the lake to see the land the women have there. So I showed up at 10:00am, and we spent about 45 minutes walking out to the lake. Keep in mind that it was around 100 degrees and we were walking in the sun the whole time. And that she speaks about as much French as I do Mooré, so we couldn’t really converse. By the lake, she drafted a nearby farmer to translate while she explained which land was theirs and what they did with it. And after about 10 minutes at the lake, we walked back to her house, where she served me some dolo (millet beer) and goat-meat soup. All in all, the whole thing was kind of awkward, and I didn’t really get much out of it. But I guess the important thing is that I did something with the women’s group, and I’ve shown that I’m interested in working with them.

October 31, 2005

So, before I write about this morning, I need to explain a little bit about a certain Peace Corps policy. One of the most important rules to which Volunteers are subject is a prohibition on any involvement in political activities in the host country. We’re more than welcome to discuss American politics and criticize our own government if we like. But when it comes to Burkinabé politics, we’re supposed to remain completely neutral. And, I think, this is a very reasonable policy. The presence of Peace Corps in a country is only by the invitation of the host country, and if Volunteers begin to get involved in local politics, especially in opposition to the ruling government, the result could be devastating for Peace Corps. Thus, there are several rules we’re supposed to abide by to maintain our political neutrality here. One of these rules is to avoid any political rallies or protests. Another is, obviously, just to avoid discussing politics. Although I doubt anyone in Burkina Faso reads my blog regularly (or ever), I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from Peace Corps does check it every now and then - the bureau here informed us during stage that Peace Corps Washington has people who search the Internet daily for references to Peace Corps - it sounds very big brother-ish, but if it’s true, then someone from Washington will probably read this. And so, in describing the events of the morning (and the past few days, years, etc.) I’m going to try to do so in a purely historical / journalistic fashion, and not let any of my own thoughts on the matter seep in. You may well be able to guess what I think about some of these things, but in respect for PC policy, I’ll try to remain neutral here.
But before we get to the fun political stuff from today, you’re going to have to endure my story about the power company. Burkina has one, nationalized power company, called Sonabel. It’s a state-run company, and as such, is a largely inefficient bureaucracy. My house has electricity, but when I arrived, the account (logically) was still in Mike’s name. So on Tuesday we went to the Sonabel office to transfer the account from his name to mine. After waiting in line at Sonabel for 20 minutes (at least the waiting room was sort-of air-conditioned), we talked to the cassier, who informed us that we didn’t have the necessary documents to transfer the account. He directed us to the prefet, who could provide us with the documents. So we went to the prefet, who informed us that he could not provide us with the necessary document, but the Haut Commissariat’s office could. So we went to the Haut Commissariat’s office (keep in mind that these are all in separate buildings, although luckily, they’re all in the same area of town). There we learned that although the Haut Commissariat used to be able to provide the document we needed, they no longer could - only the Mayor’s office could do that. Next stop: Hotel de Ville. We were initially relieved to discover that we had finally come to the right place. Unfortunately, the one person at City Hall who could provide the requisite form was a woman named Virginie - you may remember her from some earlier blog posts - she was the woman who managed to take out about 2.5 million CFA in loans from URCBam and never pay the money back. After helping to secure the loan for her, Mike spent much of his service here trying to track her down and get the money back, and then eventually gave up and just tried to avoid her instead. And now she was the only person in town who could give us the document we needed for me to be able to have electricity at my house. At any rate, we found Virginie and explained what we needed. We gave her some paperwork, and she told us to come back around 11:00am (it was around 10:00am at this point, after leaving the house around 8:00am) and she’d have the document we needed. She also told us it would cost 400CFA - Mike gave her a mille to cover it. We left, and came back at 11:00am, only to find that she wasn’t there. We asked someone in her office to come and deliver the document later, which he did, although there was no sign of the 600CFA in change we were supposed to get.
By the time the guy came and delivered the document to us, it was too late to go back to Sonabel. So Wednesday afternoon we went back. We wanted to be there when they opened at 3:00pm (everything closes from noon to three), so we showed up at about 2:45 and waited outside the locked building. At about 3:00, a man came up and put up a sign that had fallen down, politely informing people that, due to a nationwide strike of civil servants, the cassier would not be in today or the next day. Exasperated, we asked the man if the cassier would be there on Friday, and learned that he would not be, as he was taking Friday off. This meant we would not be able to take care of switching the account until Monday (today), at which point Mike would have already left.
So this morning, I left the house at about 9:00 and went to Sonabel to take care of this, as well as to pay Mike’s last electric bill (he left me money to cover it). Of course, today being the last day of the month, everyone else in town was also at Sonabel paying their bill, since payment is due by the end of the month. So I stood in line for an hour, and when I got to the front discovered that due to the crowd of people, I couldn’t do the account transfer today, I could only pay the outstanding bill. So, a week after beginning the quest to switch the account, it still hasn’t happened.
As I left the Sonabel office around 10:30, I decided to head to the supermarché in Centre Ville, near my house, to pick up a cold orange juice. On my way, I small a group of maybe 500 people walking in a big group, carrying several large banners. Assuming (correctly) that it was a political rally, I decided to be a good Peace Corps Volunteer and keep my distance. And now a brief introduction to Burkinabé history and politics. The president of Burkina Faso is a man named Blaise Compaore. He’s been in power since 1987, when his predecessor, the socialist Thomas Sankara, was assassinated. Sankara was unbelievably popular - the anniversary of his death is still a national holiday. Blaise gradually democratized Burkinabé politics, and in 1991 held a national presidential election, which he won. The president serves seven-year terms, and Blaise won again in 1998. And the next election is November 13. Blaise is running for a third term, and has twelve competitors, representing a handful of opposition parties. The election has been a popular topic of discussion, and you can’t go anywhere without seeing a t-shirt, trucker hat, sign, or poster showing their support for Blaise (or, every once in awhile, another candidate). While eating dinner at Espace Watal last week, they had a large TV on, with election coverage. Each candidate was given a few minutes of airtime - they all sat in front of a blue wall, and spoke to their fellow citizens for a few minutes, looking very much like a 1950s American newscaster. And then came Blaise’s time to speak - instead of Blaise in front of a blue wall speaking like the other candidates, his airtime consisted of a lengthy commercial (much longer than the time the other candidates received), featuring the most advanced and professional-looking visual effects I’ve ever seen on RTB (the Burkinabé TV station - yes, they only have one).
At any rate, I wanted my O.J., but also wanted to avoid being seen at the rally, so I followed the rally (which passed right in front of my supermarché) at a safe distance. As I turned the corner on to the main road in town, however, I saw that this small group I was distantly following was part of a much, much larger rally. Centre Ville was packed with people - thousands upon thousands. Depending on who you ask, Kongoussi has between 20,000 and 30,000 residents, and there were easily that many people hovering around Centre Ville. Most were wearing t-shirts or trucker hats saying "Votez Blaise Compaore." Really wanting that cold orange juice (it was probably about 95 degrees), I decided to skirt the outer edges of the throng of people and continue to my supermarché. Just outside the supermarché, I was stopped by a gendarme, wearing his military fatigues and maroon beret. He asked me what was in the backpack I had with me - I showed him it was just some books, notepads, and magazines. He decided I didn’t pose a threat, and let me go in and buy orange juice.
Leaving the supermarché, my next destination was URCBam, where I was supposed to meet with André. However, standing directly between me and URCBam were thousands of Burkinabé, including more police and gendarmes than I’ve ever seen in this country. Also, towering above the crowd, I could see the top of a giant grandstand that had been erected in the middle of the main road through town. Fascinated as I was by all this, I decided once again to be a good Volunteer, and took some small back roads around Centre Ville, avoiding the crowds, and made it to the bank. I met with André, who informed me that Blaise himself was visiting Kongoussi today. Wow, I thought, Kongoussi must be the Burkinabé equivalent of a swing state. After my meeting with André, I got some lunch and a Coke nearby, and around 1:00 started heading back to my place. The crowd was still there. As I got closer, I was stopped by a row of gendarmes who were clearing out the street. About a minute later, a large convoy of about 10 SUVs passed by, one with flags waving on its hood. I assume Blaise was in there - the tinted windows didn’t allow me a good view of the interior. After the convoy passed, the crowd started pouring out of Centre Ville, and the gendarmes allowed me to cross the road.
So that was my morning. I saw the president (sort of, I think) and got stopped by a gendarmes. I found the whole thing fascinating, and would’ve loved to stay and see the rally, see Blaise speak - I doubt I’ll get another chance like that. Oh well.

Ouaga!

September 27, 2005 / October 7, 2005

No narrative to write this time – the days in Minima are all roughly the same. I do have some interesting anecdotes, though. I’m actually writing the various anecdotes in this entry on two separate stays in Minima, roughly ten days apart, so I apologize if things are a little disjointed. I’ll begin with perhaps the most intriguing of these assorted stories. There’s a village near hear called Niessega – it’s one of the three villages where SED trainees are doing their homestay during stage. It’s bigger than Minima, but still only what you would call a large village – or so I’ve been told from the trainees staying there – it’s a good 20km bike ride away, and I’m lazy, so I’ve never actually been to the place. In Niessega, there’s a traditional medicine preparer. They’re called “wa-kos” or something like that – the Mooré word is something that sounds very similar to the English word “whacko.” One of these guys sold a man in Niessega a “contre-boule” pill – bulletproof medicine. The man took this medicine, and then told a friend that he’d taken them, and told the friend to shoot him. Sure enough, the friend did just that, killing the man.
Here’s the kicker – when other people in the village heard about this, they were appalled. But not because the guy actually thought they were bulletproof pills, or that he asked his friend to shoot him, or that his friend did. Instead, the people in the village were upset at the medicine man, because he had failed to put the secret ingredient in the pills. Had he done so, the villagers are convinced, the man would have survived. It’s been a bad couple of weeks for Niessega – in addition to this death, they had a woman fall down a well and die, and a kid (about nine years old) got ripped apart and killed by a crocodile. With all the bad things happening in Niessega, it almost makes us happy to be in Minima. Almost.
In another story that further endorses many of the prevailing western stereotypes about Africa, my host family ate a bowl of roaches the other day. After dinner, they brought in a big bowl, full of roaches (and a few crickets), all black and charred. They started eating them – seems to be a favorite dessert of theirs. They offered me one, and I declined. On the one hand, I was fairly proud of myself, as I realized that this was the first time during my two months in Burkina that I’d actually declined food (as opposed to just not eating what was served to me because it was making me throw up…). On the other hand, I was a little worried, because for a few seconds, I actually considered eating one of the bugs. After all, when else am I going to have the chance to eat a baked roach? And how bad could it really be? And wouldn’t that make a great story someday? And then I realized I was contemplating eating a roach and snapped out of it, politely declining.
Speaking of protein, I’m getting a little worried that there’s some sort of disease going around my courtyard. Until today, I’d never seen any dead (or even severely sick-looking) animals in our courtyard. Today, however, there was a young guinea fowl that flapped around a bit before dying, a dead (but otherwise healthy-looking) chicken, and a dead adolescent goat. This has me slightly concerned, and I joked with Omar and Es that I’d probably be the first Burkina Volunteer to get West Nile Virus. But I wonder what the family does with these dead animals – my guess is that they go ahead and eat them – I’m going to be highly cautious of any meat they serve me in the next few days, if they serve me any.
I’m slowly learning about a rather curious Burkinabé custom, called “parenté à plaisanterie” – I think that would translate as something like “relationships of mockery” – the phrase doesn’t really translate – to be fair, the idea behind doesn’t translate very well either. Burkina Faso is composed of about 60 different ethnic groups. The Mossi are the largest of them, accounting for a little over half the population, although the Mossi are big enough that they have sub-ethnic groups, the Yadega being the people around Gourcy and Minima (and, I believe, Kongoussi). Ouagadougou is a Mossi city, traditionally the center of Mossi culture. The Peulhs are in the north, around Djibo, Dori, and Gorom Gorom. (The Peulhs, unlike the Mossi, only have market days once a week – that’s why the famous market at Gorom Gorom is only on Thursdays.) Among these assorted groups, there is a timeless custom, wherein certain groups are expected to mock each other and insult each other, but aren’t allowed to get irritated or offended by these insults. For instance, our LCF this week, Edwige, is Gourmanche (that’s probably not even close to the correct spelling), an ethnic group from the southeastern part of Burkina. Here in Mossi territory, she’ll often laughingly tell villagers that they’re stupid, that they’re her slaves, etc. They smile and nod, and say similar things in return. This sort of back-and-forth is only supposed to take place between certain groups of people. The Mossi, for instance, are allowed to do this with the Peulhs and vice versa, but not with certain other ethnic groups. While we were in Ouaga for the counterpart workshop, the driver of the PC van at one point, learning that someone in the car was posted to Djibo, casually mentioned that the Peulhs were his slaves – something we thought was an odd comment at the time, but now makes a bit more sense. This custom seems to be an old Burkinabé tradition, going back to long before anyone can remember. Although I don’t entirely understand it, they attribute it to being one of the primary reasons why such a diverse amalgamation of peoples are able to peacefully co-exist in one country. Armande understatedly told us that in many African countries that lacked this sort of tradition, such as Rwanda, ethnic tension often arose.
The French language in Burkina Faso is an interesting phenomenon. There are several different variations of French in the country. On one level, there’s the occasional person who’s either from France or educated in France and who speaks Parisian French. These people form a negligible portion of the population. Most educated Burkinabé – like the LCFs responsible for teaching us French, as well as the entire PC training staff – speak what’s generally called fonctionnaire French. It’s what you might also call Burkinabé French – it’s probably as similar to Parisian French as American English is to British English. And then there’s villageois French. This is, evidently, what’s spoken by villagers who lack any secondary education. This is the type of French spoken by all of our host families here in Minima (or the members of those families who have any education – in my family, my host father and the two oldest brothers). This French is often incomprehensible to me, and even our LCFs sometime have trouble understanding it. In addition to the accent and the absence of some key sounds in the French language, speakers of villageois French rarely perform such tedious tasks as conjugating their verbs.
An interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed is the disdain speakers of fonctionnaire French seem to have for speakers of villageois French – I’ve noticed it between LCFs and villagers, and in Kongoussi between André (very well educated) and Somé (much less educated). In Burkina, more advanced French inevitably indicates a higher level of education. During the counterpart workshop, Peace Corps had to repeatedly tell our homologues that, even though we might not be able to speak French very well, we were all university educated – an interesting disconnect.
The point of this discussion of French is that we (the stagiaires) have a lot of difficulty understanding what many villagers are saying. In an effort to work on that, part of our training today involved a causerie session. Causerie is the time-honored Burkinabé tradition of shooting the breeze. We got together with about 10 people – half of them fonctionnaires, half of them villagers, and just talked for about an hour and a half. Since Esmeralda has her own private Mooré classes, and Giorgio has been “sick” in Gourcy since the weekend, it was just Omar and I, and mostly they asked us questions about the U.S., which we tried our best to answer.
The question which surprised me the most was when a fonctionnaire (so a university-educated man) asked us who fixed prices in the U.S. Here, the prices on several basic goods are fixed by the government – the floor for demi-baguettes, for instance, is 50CFA. Most other items – at least the more basic foodstuffs and housewares available in villages and larger cities – have fixed prices (although they’re not set by the government – everyone just always charges the same for certain things). You can go to any vegetable vendor anywhere in the country and, even though the prices aren’t written anywhere, you know exactly how much everything costs. When he asked us this question, Omar and I looked at each other, and asked each other how the hell you explained the concept of capitalism or market forces to someone. I explained that there weren’t fixed prices – the prices go up when lots of people want something and go down when nobody is buying something. This, I think, is going to be one of the major challenges we’ll face in Burkina doing small enterprise development – introducing people to very basic economic ideas like market forces. What seems so intuitive to us is completely foreign here. I think what alarmed me most was that the question came from an educated man, who still had no apparent understanding of basic economics – a little disturbing. Granted, I am by no means an economist or anything close to it, but am rapidly learning that I have more than enough knowledge of business and economics to recognize some of the problems here, and hopefully even be able to effectively point these things out to some people here.
And now the latest news on the TDA front. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, a TDA is a trainee-directed activity, homework that we stagiaires have to do every week, usually involving us going out and talking at length to people in the community, which is tricky in Minima, where almost no one speaks French. Last week, I spent awhile talking to my host father about his business, and feel like I have at least a basic understanding of how it works. He’s a tailor. He regularly goes to Ouagadougou and Ouahigouya to buy fabric, and then, using his foot-powered sewing machine, turns that fabric into shirts, pants, and complets (a shirt-pant combination – kind of the traditional Burkinabé equivalent of a suit). He sells these things to people here in Minima – he sometimes sells at the market, and also has some clients come directly to his workshop here at his house. He also travels to several neighboring villages when they have large fêtes – the principal time villagers buy new clothes is for major religious festivals, such as the end of Ramadan – and he makes a decent number of sales at these fêtes. He charges between 100-250CFA for the work he puts into making each article of clothing – so he turns a 1,000CFA piece of fabric into a 1,250CFA shirt. Assuming his only expense is fabric, he believes he’s making 100-250CFA on every shirt. Unfortunately, there are several costs he doesn’t take into effect. Transport to Ouagadougou to buy fabric, for instance, costs between 5,000 and 7,000CFA. I don’t know what he pays for things like thread and buttons, or if he ever has to make repairs or do maintenance on his sewing machine. Regardless, he sees the fabric as his only expense. Taking into account his other expenses, Es (who also interviewed him for our TDA) and I aren’t even sure if he’s even making a profit – if he is, it can’t be more than 100CFA per item. And since it takes him around three hours to make a shirt, that breaks down to 33CFA per hour – around seven cents an hour. Oh, I forgot to mention, very few people can actually afford to pay 1,250CFA for a shirt, so he sells a lot on credit, usually demanding 750CFA up front. And although he mentally keeps track of who owes him money, he doesn’t seem to have any sort of written list. Or bookkeeping of any sort. Es and I suggested that he might want to start keeping some records — “but this is Burkina!” he responded (well, except it was in his villageois French). For this coming week, our TDA is to do a sensibilization for our host family business. (A sensibilization is, as far as I can tell, a uniquely Burkinabé word – it’s sort of like a training / workshop / presentation — for instance, health volunteers do a lot of HIV/AIDS sensibilizations.) I think Es and I are going to do one on the importance of bookkeeping – how he could use records to improve his business. The other one of us will do one on basic record-keeping, which might be difficult, since my host father is functionally illiterate. I really don’t think these sensibilizations will do much good, which is a bit frustrating. If this were Kongoussi, and I could gradually work with someone over a longer period of time and do follow-ups, it might be useful. But trying to teach someone who’s illiterate and has no interest in bookkeeping how and why he should keep records in one afternoon seems a bit ambitious.
This is the sort of frustration that comes up a lot during training. Peace Corps training revolves around the concept of community-based training, generally referred to as CBT, as regulated by the official Peace Corps “everything must be an acronym” policy. This sounds like a really good idea in theory, but is often frustrating in practice. Part of the frustration is because everything is very regulated and rushed – PC tells us what we have to do when, regardless of whether this is what the people in the community need. It’s taken Lars, the volunteer in Ouahigouya, two years to get his association to start keeping records and develop an efficient system – there’s no way to spring this sort of thing on my host father in one day and expect it to stick. It’s also frustrating because one of the key goals of pre-service training is to learn French. But because we’re in a tiny village, we don’t have that many opportunities to communicate in French, and thus to communicate at all, which makes it incredibly difficult to do these activities. It’s especially frustrating for SED volunteers, because none of us are going to be living in villages this small and with such minimal and stagnant economic activity. (Practically all the GEE and Health stagiaires, however, will live in villages this size. Wow that sucks.)
And one last story, to leave you on a sort of sad and depressing note. (You’re probably asking yourself if this can be worse than the bulletproof story.) Since this is our last week in Minima, we’re all trying to find some gifts to give our families. (Don’t ask me what I’m getting my family – so far, I just have a Wisconsin calendar I brought from home – I’m really bad with gifts.) Esmeralda bought some school supplies for her host father’s three young kids. There’s another family (her host father’s brother’s family) which lives in her courtyard. They have three kids who are high school age, and about to start going to high school in Gourcy (they’ll have to do the 10km to and from Gourcy every day). Unfortunately, they can’t go to school unless their father manages to get them some school supplies – he’s currently in Ouaga, doing whatever he can to get the money to get them some notebooks, pens, etc. Es decided to go and buy the three kids a bunch of supplies – notebooks, pens, chalk, erasers, rulers – probably about 3,000CFA ($6) worth of school supplies, enough to last them the year. She also got each of them a backpack (at 2,000CFA apiece). It’s a very thoughtful gift, and something these kids really need – and for an American, the total cost was almost nothing. Here’s the catch: she can’t actually give the items to the kids. Her host father (the chief of the village) won’t let her. He says she can only give gifts to his family; otherwise, she’d have to give gifts to everyone in the village – giving something to just one other family would be poor etiquette. And she can’t just bypass the chief and give the stuff directly to the kids – when you receive a gift here, the culture dictates that you go and show the chief the gift you received. And if the kids received the gift, their family would be put in a very socially awkward place. So she’s got all this stuff, and doesn’t know what to do with it. Unless their father comes back in the next few days, and has miraculously gotten them the supplies they need, these kids won’t be able to go to school – and there’s nothing Es can do about it. It’s a really crappy situation.
One final note. In letters, e-mails, and blog comments, people often say that they enjoy reading the blog but wonder how I’m actually doing – if I’m in good spirits and that sort of thing. And I must admit that, although there are some depressing stories, this place really isn’t too bad. Despite the conditions here, the people have an infectious optimism. And in spite of frustrations with Minima, with Peace Corps, and with the millions of other things beyond my control, I’m still pretty upbeat about things. I’m really excited to go to Kongoussi and to start working on things there. I can envision a lot of different things I’ll be able to do there, and although I know a lot of them won’t pan out, I’m pretty confident that I’ll manage to get at least one or two useful, sustainable, beneficial projects started there. And the thought of that is enough to make Minima tolerable and maintain my optimism. Despite the complaints, overall I’m having a pretty good time. And one way or another, it’s been one hell of an experience, which is exactly what I wanted.

October 16, 2005

It’s been an interesting week. I’m in Ouaga now, and am glad to be out of Minima forever! Last Monday we got some bad news – Kevin, one of the SED stagiaires, was medically separated (that’s the Peace Corps term for kicking someone out and sending them home) for some back problems he’d been having that couldn’t be corrected in Burkina (or Senegal or South Africa, the two regional medevac destinations). We found this out Monday afternoon, and all left Minima and started out for Niessega (Kevin’s village) to say goodbye to him. By the time we got to Gourcy (about halfway through the journey to Niessega), it was dark, and we didn’t want to bike in the dark, especially since Omar and Es didn’t have headlamps (Giorgio and I were prepared). We tried to get a bus down to Niessega, but they refused to take us because it was too short a distance and they didn’t want to deal with the hassle of putting our bikes on and off the bus. So, eventually, we found some guy with a pickup truck, and hired him to drive us and our bikes there – it was a bit sketchy, but it worked.
When we arrived, all the Niessega stagiaires, and two who had come up from Yako, were all sitting around drinking. Kevin had gone back to his house briefly – and he made quite an entrance when he returned – he came flying in on his bike, and had planned on doing a wheelie, but instead went flying over the handlebars. Everyone paused and gasped for a second, and then Kevin laughed and informed us that apparently the brakes on Burkinabé bikes were reversed from those of American bikes. We spent the night in Niessega, and then left at 5:30 the next morning, to give us plenty of time to get back to Minima (although I stopped to eat in Gourcy, and bathed and talked to my host family when I got back to Minima, I was late for class, showing up at 8:30).
The same day we returned to Minima, Tuesday, I spent much of the afternoon at my house, talking to my host father and a neighbor of his. Apparently, one of their neighbors, who isn’t the most mentally sound person in the world, had been missing for several days, and my host father had been among those looking for him. By Thursday, when I left Minima, I don’t know if they’d found him. Anyways, while talking to my father, he offered me some Zoom-Koom, which I accepted. This, I suspect, was where my problems began.
Zoom-Koom means, literally, “flour water.” And that’s exactly what it is: millet flour mixed in water, sometime with a little sugar or some fruit flavor added (not in this case, however). Although it’s not really good, it’s not all that bad either, taste-wise. Unfortunately, the stuff I drank must have been made with well water (and very bad well water, at that – when the stuff separated, the water was a distinctly yellow color). By Tuesday evening, I wasn’t feeling 100%, and wasn’t really hungry – I think it was the first time my family served me corn that I didn’t finish it.
Wednesday was the day of our presentations for our host family businesses. Rose (the SED APCD – the person overseeing my program), Lawson (the SED training director), and Vinny (our cross-cultural training director) all came for the presentations. Sometime mid-morning, while the three of them were at Omar’s house watching his presentation, I was at the school throwing up. By later in the day, when it was time for my presentation, I was feeling much better. My presentation was about the importance of record-keeping. Since my host-father is a tailor, we presented a skit featuring two different tailors, one who kept books and one who didn’t. And then I just discussed some of the ways that bookkeeping could help his business be more efficient. He seemed pretty responsive, and conceded that it really could help his business quite a bit. When I practiced it, the presentation was about five minutes long (plus the skit) – when I actually presented, it was about 30-40 minutes. Vinny translated my French into Mooré, and my host father would make comments in Mooré, which Vinny would translate back into French – thus adding a lot of time. After my presentation, Es gave one for my host father on how to actually keep some records – it’d be interested to go back to Minima in a year and see if he’s made any attempt to start bookkeeping (I would guess not – also, there’s no way I’m going back to Minima in a year).
Wednesday afternoon, with our presentations done, we just sort of sat around – it’s like the end of the semester, when you’ve just finished your exams – a really good feeling. Of course, a less good feeling was recurring in my stomach, and an even worse one in my bowels. Despite having no appetite and eating practically nothing all day, I spent much of Wednesday night frantically running to the latrine. One good note, though: on Wednesday evening I gave my family the gifts I had for them. Inspired by Es, I bought a bunch of school supplies for the kids – notebooks, pens, pencils, rulers, etc. I also gave the kids a Frisbee that my parents sent – the kids loved playing with my Frisbee (often waking me up at 6am to ask if they could use it). And I gave the family a Wisconsin calendar that I’d brought from home, which they seemed to like – I spent a bunch of time going through all the pictures with them and explaining what they were.
We agreed to meet at 7am to bike back to Gourcy. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the road where we agreed to meet, I was feeling ridiculously weak and light-headed (probably from not eating for a day and a half). Instead of biking back to Gourcy, I decided to call Sylvie (the medical officer) and ask her to send a car for me – I think this was a very good idea, as I almost certainly wouldn’t have made it to Gourcy. So after sitting by the side of the road for an hour, a PC van came and took me to Gourcy, where I spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in the med unit. Mostly I stayed in my room, but every hour or two (even during the night), I went next door to the bathroom – usually due to diarrhea, but occasionally to throw up. By Saturday morning, I was very proud of myself when I managed to drink some orange juice and eat an apple. By Saturday evening, the medicine that Sylvie had given me was clearly not working. Sylvie, I should point out, was in Ouaga most of this time – I would call her, tell her what was going on, and then she would have Mohammed (one of the training staff) give me whatever medicine I needed. So, Saturday evening, Sylvie decided I needed some medicine that only came in suppository form, which I would have to self-administer. Which I did, and that’s got to be one of the more unpleasant things imaginable. I think the medicine was the same one I received the one other time in my life I’ve gotten a suppository, which was when I had mono and was throwing up constantly.
The suppository seemed to do the trick. Although I had no energy Saturday night, I was able to eat a loaf of bread and keep it down, and my trips to the bathroom became far more infrequent. I had to wake up at 6am this morning for the PC van to bring me to Ouaga (everyone else, except for Joelle, who’s on crutches at the moment, had to arrange their own transport here). And I’m feeling much better today – the first thing I did in Ouaga, after checking into the hotel, was to go out and buy some orange juice and bread, which I quickly downed. And I’m looking forward to lunch! So it looks like I’ll be fine – my body seems to have calmed down, so once I get a bit more food in me I’ll be more or less back to normal. Which is good, because now we have a week in Ouaga to have fun, eat well, and prepare for Friday – swearing-in.