Football (soccer) - The Bane of My Existence

I have never liked soccer - I quit playing as a child and as an adult I find
it painful to watch on TV. The only time I have ever enjoyed watching a
game is when my younger sister is tearing up the field or the
occasional World Cup match. However, as soon as I accepted my
invitation to serve in Burkina I realized soccer would be a consistent part of my life.
It became a daily part of my life this past Christmas when my sister
graciously donated a soccer ball to the kids in my family. I thought I
knew what I was getting into...but boy was I wrong! I instead have
inflicted a daily migraine on myself that is the soccer ball. I
decided when my family brought the ball that I would be responsible
for its survival. The last time I gave my village family a ball (I
brought back a small ball from Ireland) to do with as they wanted, it
ended up not just deflated but completely ripped apart in less than 24
hours. So, I made the decision that I would keep the ball and the kids could
check it in and out like a library book. I thought that this was the
best way to keep the peace and ensure that the ball made it past New
Years. Every day since, sometimes starting at 6:30am, I have children
banging on my door asking for the ball. Recently they have discovered
that if they stand under my bedroom window and scream my name, it will
wake me up as the window sits right over the head of my bed. Needless
to say the ball has turned me into a grouch. They seem to have learned
that they will not get the ball until I come back from work in the
early afternoon, but there are still mornings I wake up cursing that soccer
ball.

When I do give the ball out in the afternoon, it usually goes to a
young boy. I constantly go on my tirade about sharing the ball,
playing nicely together and including the young children and girls.
However, even though I have given my speech about a hundred times, no
one seems to understand. Every time I give the ball
out, it somehow ends up going to a gang of older boys in the
neighborhood. When this happens I have every young kid in my family
coming up to me and repeatedly asking for the ball. At first this
annoyed me - obviously I didn't have the ball, I gave
it to the other kids - and then I realized that they weren't asking me
for the ball but asking me to get the ball for them. So every once in
a while I kept the ball back from the older kids and held a supervised game
in the evening with only the girls and little kids. The first time
this happened it went great. Everyone but the boys were happy, because
they think the ball is their given right. They sat on the
edges of the game and kept trying to weasel their way in. This ball
has amped up my "Grouch" factor. I yell at the boys for jumping in my
baby game, I scream at the gang of older boys for taking the ball away
from my kids, I scold the little kids for throwing rocks at the other kids when
they get frustrated (yes, they stone their opponents and get indignant
when I make them stop) and I become totally frustrated when I've been asked for the ball
20 times in one hour. Being the soccer police is driving me nuts.
Ensuring that everyone gets a chance with the ball and that no one is
taking advantage of having the soccer ball is a full time job. I am sure I have made
enemies and friends as I play god with the ball, but I cannot see
any other way to handle this situation. There are times when I am denying the ball to
make a point and I feel awful because I am denying these kids their
one real toy, but I also have to maintain some semblance of control in
order to keep my sanity and the ball in one piece. The ball already is
ruined (in the first two weeks) because the kids pulled the plastic
nub out of the pump hole, but I am trying to keep it going for as long
as possible before retiring it and asking my family to send another. 

And at that point we will have come full circle and it will start all over again.
 But sometimes when everything is going right, the look
of joy on my little shoeless children when they get to kick the ball
is pretty good ... I guess soccer isn't so bad after all.

Top Chef Burkina

As most of you may know I love to cook. In this way I take after my father. Although I have not yet attained his level of expertise, I am constantly trying new recipes - even in Africa. Besides the fact that I find cooking a stress reliever, I cook for myself while here for my own health and sanity (I am not positive if it’s safe to eat food cooked by others and it keeps me from going crazy always eating food I am not interested in). With the help of the Peace Corps Cookbook, foodnetwork.com and williamsonoma.com I am continually trying to find new and delicious foods that I can cook in my anti-kitchen, with little or no ingredients and no refrigeration. As some of you may have seen on Facebook, I have already mastered homemade bagels in a PC Dutch Oven (a large pot with three upturned empty tin cans sitting on a bed of sand = convection oven). They are a delicious taste of normality, especially when I smear them with my no-refrigeration fake cream cheese…doesn’t that sound good? After 13 months in West Africa it is actually the best thing ever! I make salad and pasta dishes and even sometimes a curry, but I rarely venture into the meat realm. My life here has been almost completely vegetarian and sometimes even vegan, mainly because I don’t trust village meat and I am not sure how I would cook it. This dilemma arose on the first weekend in November (2011) during my second Tabaski celebration in Burkina. On Tabaski everyone slaughters a sheep to commemorate Abraham almost killing his son for God, so needless to say there is a lot of meat around. My family, very generously, gave me a chunk of “ram”, which I had to quickly learn how to cook. With an unidentifiable cut of meat and only a gas burner to cook with I had to figure out what I was going to do with my ram. With a little help from my dad I was able to braise my sheep into an edible concoction, even minus a few ingredients. It was hard to believe that I had made something fairly sophisticated on my little stove top, but it just goes to show that good food doesn’t require a lot of fancy ingredients and good cooking only requires time, patience and a willingness to eat anything (all of which are skills I learned in the Peace Corps). Still, I can’t wait till I get back to the states to cook again! But until then, keep your eye out for more Top Chef Burkina posts!

Mouse Trap, Baby Weighing and Cement - 12 Hours in the Life of PCV Lene Yoda Anna

It all started at about 11pm on October 6^th. I was attempting to fall asleep, which wasn’t really working, when I hear a loud snap. I couldn’t tell exactly what had caused the noise, but I got a little freaked – you know, weird noises when you’re living alone in the middle of nowhere…not great. So I am lying in bed trying not to freak out when all of a sudden I hear a short tinny banging sound. It starts and stops for a few minutes and I finally figure out what it is  - My Mouse! I have had a mouse wreaking havoc on my house for the last few months, but I finally got mouse traps sent from the US and put one out to catch the little bugger the other night. Of course the first attempt didn’t work and the mouse got all of the peanut butter off of the trap without getting caught. I was so frustrated that I just left the trap on the floor without anything on it – I was sure I was never going to get rid of this mouse. So I realized that the snap I heard last night was the mouse caught in the trap and the banging was the mouse trying anything to get out of the trap. I figured if I let it writhe a bit that it would finally get tired and stop. But the banging just kept getting closer and closer to my bed, so that when I shone my headlamp out into my room I could see it bouncing towards me. It was caught with a front quarter of its body stuck in the trap keeping it mobile but slow. It was at this point that I realized I needed to deal with this situation or I would never be able to sleep. By the time I built up the courage to walk past its bouncing form in my narrow doorway I contrived a plan to catch it. I am not very good with creepy, crawly animals but I built up my courage, grabbed my broom and dustbin and attempted to sweep it up and into a bag. Of course it got a little too close to me and I dropped the dustpan, turning the mouse right side up so it could scamper away. I chased it and finally caught the end of the trap. Mustering all of my courage I picked up the trap, with the mouse dangling from it, and quickly dropped it in a bag. I hung the bag up for the night so that the mouse couldn’t get out, but it still was a little creepy when the bag would occasionally rustle in the dark. After my ordeal my adrenaline was pumping and it took me a while to get back to sleep. 

When my alarm finally went off I felt like I had hardly slept. I had to be up early because I was planning an event at the CSPS (clinic) that was to take place during our biweekly baby weighing and I needed to be there early enough to prep before all of the women arrived. My project for the day was to do a demonstration to show the proper use of a mosquito net and alternative ways to hang it. My plan was to make poles (wood cemented into large cans) that could hold up the mosquito net allowing people to hang it wherever they wanted, inside or outside. The objective was to demonstrate that there should be no excuse as to why they cannot use their mosquito nets such as:  we have no way to attach it to our bed or we can’t hang it outside as it is too hot to sleep inside. So my plan was to make these poles, demonstrate how to hang the net, how to correctly use it and then turn the demonstration into a discussion on other malaria prevention methods. 

 I got to the CSPS early and sought out the Major to find the last minute materials I needed, but he was busy trying to get a pregnant woman evacuated to the district hospital for a C-section. I waited around for an hour before finally seeing the wood the major had had cut for me. As it turned out the wood was too thick and heavy to be held in the cans I had collected.  With only the packed sand I had put in the cans they would fall over taking the net with them. In addition the wood was too long and the four pieces were not of equal length. After we found someone to cut them down for me the major sent our chauffeur to get cement so we could better ground the poles into the cans. Throughout all of this troubleshooting I was running back and forth to help with baby weighing. As of 8:45 the village midwife had not arrived to start weighing babies and the women were getting antsy and starting to leave. The major became very concerned, because if the women didn’t stay to get their baby’s weighed then they wouldn’t stay to get their kids vaccinated either, which always takes place together. Because we are short handed at the clinic right now (we are down two out of four nurses) no one had time to go and start the weighing so they sent me…to do it alone! There I was surrounded by angry, frustrated women with their tired and cranky babies.  They were yelling at me in Bissa, laughing at how I pronounced their names and upset by how long it was taking me to fill in all the paperwork!  I felt overwhelmed and frustrated. Eventually the village midwife showed up and helped me diffuse the tension, but by that time I had to leave to go help the chauffeur cement the poles. While letting them dry I went back to baby weighing as there were still many women waiting for their turn. We finally finished around noon after weighing 92 babies in all. A successful morning I would say even though I didn’t get to do my demonstration. Oh well, it will just have to wait for another day – probably tomorrow. By the time I got back to the clinic everyone was still running around trying to deal with patients, so I took on the responsibility of registering the malnourished children we identified during weighing. We had two severely malnourished kids and two moderately malnourished who all walked away with packs of Plumpy Nut. I tried to give them the speech to make sure that the packs were not wasted and actually went to rehabilitating the malnourished children – we’ll see what happens when they return next month. So, after a long morning I finally headed out, leaving my poles at the clinic to dry. A quick trip to the market and then finally home to eat and nap, thus ending my 12+ hours of chaos. Hopefully tomorrow will be less hectic!

The Electricity Saga

So, when I accepted my assignment to come to Burkina Faso as a community health volunteer I knew that the amenities would be slim. I had prepared myself to live in the most basic circumstances for the next two years of my life – most likely without running water, electricity or internet. However, when I got my site assignment my plans changed.  I found I was going to one of the few villages wired for electricity. What luck! What chance! Actually, I requested it if at all possible (knowing myself too well) but I didn’t actually think Peace Corps would listen! So here I was, moving to a village with electricity and bound and determined to get it set up as soon as possible. Before the former volunteer left in early December I asked her to put our house on the list to be “hooked up”. I thought I was being so proactive. There would definitely be electricity in the house before I moved in on December 17^th. I had already been in the country long enough to be a little skeptical about a time frame for anything to happen, but I hadn’t been here long enough to know to NEVER hold my breath. So I got to site and through the emotional torrent that is your first few days I soon realized that there was in fact no electricity in the house (not hard to catch once I got out of bed long enough to finally notice I needed my headlamp). But there was hope. The power lines were already strung all around the village and there was an electrical pole already directly across the dirt road from my house. So to me it appeared that things were already halfway done and I would just need to edge toward the end product – electricity in MY home. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I know I can live without electricity; my first two months in training assured me of that. I was one of the select 6 of my training group of 31 to be placed with a village homestay family. So practically from the word “GO” I got to experience village life, and you know what, I survived it. So I figured that if I could live two months like that, then I could live the next two years the same way. However, when electricity is an option and it is literally staring you in the face from across the road, all I can say is that you want it, bad! So the next 10 months became my electricity saga, my attempt to try and get my American demands to turn into Burkinabe actions. Not an easy task.

As my family can attest, I am a girl who knows how to get what she wants. I can be persuasive, argumentative, persistent as hell and probably downright annoying – but I usually achieve my ends. I know this makes me sound like some kind of manipulative psychopath, but for the most part this trait has been used to get an unfair grade changed or stay on someone’s good side, nothing crazy! But this should also explain why I approached my electricity dilemma with such confidence. I was certain that I would get what I wanted and fast. Oh Anna, you are not in Kansas anymore. 

As a good volunteer I employed the help of my counterpart, my Major, or the head nurse at my clinic. Even though I was confident, I knew that two heads are better than one and that I would probably need help with the translation (god knows they didn’t teach us electrical installation vocabulary during French class in high school). So I walked into the mayor’s office with my Major shortly after arriving at site and asked when the electricity would be available in my house. It started off as a conversation with one guy, that then included another, and then another until one of them bluntly told my Major that it was just not possible. You can imagine my shock. Not possible? What do you mean not possible? One thing that you do not tell an American is that something is not possible. Everything is possible, the real question is how much will it cost? Again, my American brain was still too in control. My mystery mayor’s office guy told me that the reason they couldn’t connect my house to the electrical grid was that the pole was too far away from my house. I almost laughed out loud, because my house is about 15 yards from the aforementioned pole. In addition, because of the “road” (dirt path to be more precise) in between my house and the existing pole another pole would have to be put in so that the wires would be high enough for a car to pass under. Ok, so I see a ray of hope – all we need is another pole and then we are back in business. So my Major, smart man that he is, asks how much it would be for me to pay to put in the extra pole. Again my mayor’s office guy says that it is not possible. What is with this guy and this phrase? Does he not know how much he is pissing me off? So I ask why is it not possible? I have to wait until they (the state, electrical company, the powers that be…I don’t really know) come and do the grid extension and put in more poles. When will this happen? Within the next two month. So now I am optimistic. I have a time frame and my “not possible” turned into a “wait a while”, so I was determined to be patient. Good thing I didn’t start holding my breath!

Low and behold, a few months later the poles were still not installed. Every time I went into the Mayor’s office to ask about the ETA on the pole extension I would get a vague brush off – in a few months, in a matter of weeks, soon. After 4 months at site I decided to try another tactic. My boss, the head of the Peace Corps health program and a very powerful woman in Burkina in her own right (she’s a doctor and married to the 4^th most powerful man in Burkina), was coming to conduct her initial site visit, which she does with every new health volunteer during their first few months at site. My plan was to use her influence to push the process along. I knew that they may not listen to me but they would probably respond to her. And Oh did they respond to her. Almost every public official seemed scared of her and ready to do anything she asked, including my Major. She put the responsibility on his shoulders to get my electricity situation figured out and he took that seriously. As soon as she left he started working on my behalf to get this done. 

By the time I got back from my first round of training and my family vacation in Ireland ( June 2011) my Major had discussed the electricity matter with my family and got a plan in the works. The plan was that the village would finally let us pay to put in our own pole on our side of the road. Since the pole would service our whole family compound we split the cost of installation 50/50, me paying half and the family taking care of the other half. I paid my family for my share and let them deal with the details of getting it done. For the next few months I was in and out of site, mainly going to Ouaga to plan the Peace Corps 50^th Anniversary Fair. Each time I came back a new small step was accomplished. First the hole for the pole was dug, then the pole arrived, then the small cement block house for the electrical counter was built, then the pole was up and finally the wires were strung and the counter installed. By the time all of this happened it was early September. The last step would have been to install all of the internal fixtures in my house, but unfortunately my measly monthly salary did not allow me the funds to accomplish that last step before I had to leave for the bike tour and the fair. When I finally got back to site it was early October, almost 10 months after I had started this process, and I was determined to get everything installed and hooked up ASAP – I had waited long enough for my electricity! So within days of getting back to site I bought all of the necessary materials, had the Major contact the electrician and got the installation scheduled. The “electrician” came on Sunday morning, October 2^nd at 9:30am and was done by 1:30pm. When that first light flickered on and my surge protector lit up it was one of the most exciting moments I’ve had in village since arriving. It has been a little hard to tear myself away from my electricity during this first week but the novelty will wear off soon. Life will go back to normal but with the added convenience of a light at night, a fan during hot season and an outlet to charge my electronics (which keep me sane). I know, I am no longer a true “roughing it” volunteer, but I still think I get some credit for moving to West Africa. Enjoy those amenities people! They are a privilege and you really do miss them when they are gone! But for now, I am so glad to have electricity back in my life!

Catch-Up

Ok, so let’s play catch up. I am not sure if everyone is on the same page with my life here in Burkina so I will begin with the background information so that you can understand where and how I am living!

I am currently a resident of Burkina Faso, West Africa. Many of you probably had never heard this name before I left a year ago, and many may still not know anything about the country. So, let me enlighten you. Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in Francophone, sub-Saharan, West Africa. To give you a better idea without a map, Burkina is north of Ghana, Togo, Benin and Cote d’Ivoire, southeast of Mali and southwest of Niger. It is a relatively unknown country because it is peaceful, impoverished and has virtually nothing that the outside world would want (diamonds, gold, oil, etc.). Unfortunately in the US people tend to only know those African countries who make the news – those in conflict, those with natural resources and those with wealth (also unfortunately, in Africa those seem to go hand in hand). However what Burkina lacks in resources it makes up for in other ways. It is one of the most stable countries on the continent (exception, last spring) and it has one of the most accepting populations of different religions and ethnicities. Burkina has natural resources, including mangoes and cotton (Burkina is actually the largest cotton producer in West Africa), however they have not quite figured out how to make these exports profitable for the country. So in the mean time the democratically elected government is still reliant on foreign aid from Europe and the US. 

Most of the country is arid with the exception of the southwest, which is more tropical like its neighboring coastal countries. Burkina can be very hot and dry, but the northern Sahel region is the most affected where water can be scarce and temperatures during our hot season can go well over 120°F. Burkina is known for its road system, made possible by our centrally located capital. Unlike coastal countries whose major cities/capital is often on the water, Ouagadougou (Burkina’s Capital city) is located in the center of the county. Meaning – all roads lead to Ouaga. This principle has created a fairly extensive road network across the entire country, linking almost all inhabited regions with our major city. Thus Burkina’s location and widespread road system makes it a highly trafficked country for goods and people going from the coast inland and vice versa. 

Burkina is dominated mainly by the Mossi ethnicity(60% of the population), however there are several other ethnicities regionally spaced throughout the country.

Now back to me. I live in the Bissa region and with people of the Bissa ethnicity (and guess what, they speak Bissa!). I cannot put the exact name of my village here for security reasons, but I am 45km west of Tenkodogo, the capitol of the Centre-East region. This puts my village 160km southeast of Ouaga. It is a large village, with a central population of 6,000 and an overall population of 12,000. My village is the seat of the commune, meaning that we have all of the administrative offices including the mayor that service the surrounding villages within our village center. My village has been afforded several luxuries that are uncommon in village life because of powerful former residents. For example, electricity has been strung to my village even though we are 5k inland from the national road and there are many villages with better access to the power lines that have none. We have a large market every three days which is attended by practically everyone in the commune. For my work I am partnered with the village health clinic (or CSPS). My CSPS is fairly nice, set back on a walled in property across from the market. The CSPS grounds house the clinic, the maternity, the pharmacy, and houses for the staff. We currently have three nurses at the clinic, including the Major (or head nurse), and a nurse-midwife and village midwife at the maternity. Although my CSPS is fairly well staffed (as far as village clinics go), 4 registered nurses for 12,000 people is not a lot – leaving the staff overworked and tired. I help out in any way I can, often filling out paperwork and keeping records as well as helping with daily maternity services such as baby weighing and community vaccination campaigns. With the start of the New Year I will hopefully have a few projects of my own off the ground, which I will update you on later. 

 Unlike the other CSPS staff, I do not live on the CSPS grounds. Instead, I live with a family in a neighborhood about 1km from the center of the village and the CSPS. Families here live in compounds, with immediate family houses clustered around a central communal courtyard. I live at the edge of a family compound containing about 30 people. My house is exactly the same as the others in the compound, a two room cement block house with a tin roof, except that my house is for only me, whereas all the other houses are for families. Sometime one two room house will be for a single family but with multiple wives, making it even tighter than usual! The good thing is that most of life here is spent outside (too hot in what becomes a cement oven!), so overcrowding indoors is really only an issues during the rainy season. My two room house is very comfortable – one room is my bedroom and the other is a kitchen/living room. I have a small private courtyard with a door that locks, which makes doing chores like my laundry much more bearable as I can toil in peace. I just got electricity in my house, although I lived without it for my first year in country (the story of my electricity saga to come). When my house is finally clean I will post pictures (for now there are old ones posted on my Facebook). Although you may not think it is much to look at, I spruced it up as best as I could and it has now become home. 

I think that is it on the details front. Let me know if you have any questions and hopefully things will continue to get pieced together as my posts continue. Until then, welcome to my life in Burkina Faso!

18 Months In Review

So, I figured that I should recap the last year + of my life here in Burkina so that there is a frame of reference for my current stories. I'll do a little month by month rundown of the events of last year - sorry its brief, but it'll take too long to write a bunch of individual entries at this point. So here we go...

October 2010

-     Staging in Philadelphia

·         Left Chicago for my 24 hours of processing before boarding the plane at JFK for Burkina.

-     Arrived in Burkina Faso on October 14^th.

-     Stage/Training

·         Began my two month training in Koudougou, a regional capitol about 2 hours outside of Ouaga. My training consisted of everything from health and language courses for my work, to sessions on how to ensure my health and safety and how to integrate and adapt to the Burkinabe culture. During my two months of training I lived with 5 other volunteers in the village of Ramongo, which is about 25K outside of Koudougou. We were driven in and out every day from the village to the training center.

November 2010

December 2010

-     Swear-In

·         I was sworn in as an official Peace Corps volunteer on Dec 16^th. Fun fact – we take the same oath of office as the president of the United States.

-     Affectation

·         I was affectated (relocated) to my village, which is 45K west of Tenkodogo, on December 17^th. I was surprised at how well I took being dropped off at site…at least I didn’t chase the Peace Corps car!!

-     Christmas & New Years

·         I spent my first Christmas away from home with my closest neighbor, Marina, who is 25K away from me. We made Mexican food, mac and cheese and watched a movie. For village it was a pretty eventful holiday! Two days after returning to site after Christmas I got super sick. After calling our PC doctors they decided that I should come into Ouaga to be treated. So, I spent the week between Christmas and New Years in our Med Unit in Ouaga being treated for a sinus infection. It was pretty lame because I had to spend New Years alone, but at least I got good food, indoor plumbing, electricity and internet!

January 2011

February 2011

-     Unrest Begins

·         In mid-February civil unrest broke out in Burkina. It started with student riots after a university student was killed in police custody and escalated over time as more groups publicly aired their grievances.

               -        FESPACO

·         At the end of February, a friend from my stage and I attended the International Film Festival in Ouaga, FESPACO. It is considered the Sundance of West Africa.

March 2011

               -        Lang IST

·         All volunteers are required to do two sessions of additional training (IST) after their first three months at site. The first training was a week of additional language courses, in both French and local dialects held in late March. My Lang IST was in Koupela, and even though I was with other volunteers I was the only person learning my local language, Bissa.

-     COS Party

·         I attended my first COS party at the end of March, which celebrates whenever a stage prepares for their close of service.

April 2011

-     Consolidation

·         In Peace Corps safety and security protocol there are three stages – standfast, consolidation and evacuation. Between the end of February and mid April, all of Peace Corps Burkina was on and off of standfast more times that I can count, until we eventually moved to consolidation in April. Standfast just means that you are not allowed to move from your current location (ideally your site) but it restricts your movement within the country, which gets frustrating. Consolidation is when all the volunteers get moved into their regional capitols (or another city) so that they are easier to manage in the event of evacuation. Being consolidated does not mean you will be evacuated, but it does make it easier to keep tabs on 160 people. I was consolidated in Manga, a city in my region, as we were unable to be consolidated in Tenkodogo due to its part in the civil unrest. I was in Manga for a week until we were told by Peace Corps that we could go back to our sites. However, I had to go straight to Ouaga to the Medical Unit to receive treatment for 4+ bacterial intestinal infections. Myself and the 12 other volunteers consolidated in Manga went a little crazy during this week of waiting, but we somehow kept each other sane with lots of movies, chicken and beer. There is no way Easter this year can be quite as eventful!

May 2011

-     Tech IST in Bobo

·         The second half of my IST (the additional training after three months at site) was moved from April to May because of consolidation. We initially were supposed to be in the same training site as our stage, but we moved to Bobo (the second largest city on Burkina) due to the continuing unrest in other parts of Burkina. We spent just under two weeks in Bobo learning more technical health information and better strategies on how to plan and complete projects in our villages.

-     Ireland

·         In mid-May (directly after my IST in Bobo) I met my family in         Ireland; it was my first vacation since arriving in Burkina. After 7 months in Africa it was amazing to see my family and enjoy some amenities!!

June 2011

-     Summer Camp in Tenkodogo

·         When I got back to Burkina after my vacation I helped my neighbor, Dylan, conduct a two week boys & girls summer camp in Tenkodogo. Dylan had organized the camp with students at his school, with the girls’ sessions taking place every morning and the boys every afternoon. I came to help out with the girls and to co-teach the health sessions.

-     4^th of July in Kalsaka

·         I got to celebrate the 4^th with a group of my stage mates at a friend’s site North of Ouaga. Lots of cooking!

August 2011

-     Lindsey visited

·         My friend from high school, Lindsey, visited me in Burkina!! She is currently serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. So much fun and what a mind trip to be reunited in Africa!!

September 2011

-     Bike Tour

·         For the last two years volunteers have done a “Tour de Burkina” on our lovely PC issued bikes (similar to the Tour de France, but not a race). For about two weeks volunteers biked from site-to-site, visiting other volunteers, promoting Peace Corps to the locals, explaining our mission and just bonding with each other. It is extremely trying and exhausting but worth the effort. This year the permanent rides biked over 1800km. I only took part in two days of the ride, completing slightly over 100km, or 60 miles between Fada and Tenkodogo. Not bad for a first timer!!

-     PC 50^th Anniversary Fair

·         2011 marked the 50^th Anniversary of Peace Corps – the first volunteers departed in 1961 for their posts – and we celebrated in Burkina with a huge “Country Fair” type event in Ouaga. I was a part of the planning committee and we worked for over three months to put together a huge three day Peace Corps extravaganza that included an appearance from the Prime Minister and the First Lady of Burkina Faso. The purpose of the Fair was to celebrate Peace Corps and to showcase the great work that volunteers and their counterparts have done all over Burkina in several arenas. The weekend was exhausting but ultimately successful, as it was the largest celebration done by any Peace Corps country worldwide! We even got a personalized song out of it, written and performed by the premiere pop artist in Burkina, FLOBY!

October 2012

-       Electricity!!

·         It was almost a year long process, but in October the electricity finally got installed in my house. It made a dramatic difference in my little cement hut – finally being able to see at night, charge my computer/phone and sleep with a fan was the best change that could have happened!

-        Year mark in country

·         October marked my first full year in Burkina! Only 14 more months to go!!

-     Halloween

·         I threw a little Halloween party in village in an attempt to share a bit of American culture with my Burkinabe family. I couldn’t adequately explain costumes and there was no way we could make any in village, so we did face painting instead. I painted probably about 30 or 40 faces that afternoon before cooking chili and cornbread for the whole family. In the evening all of the children came by my courtyard to “Trick-or-Treat” for candy. They were required to say “Trick-or-Treat” to receive candy and it was so funny to hear them try and pronounce it. All in all it was super cute and a great way to celebrate the holiday.

November 2011

-     Tabaski

·         Tabaski is a Muslim holiday that celebrates Abraham sacrificing his son for God. Each family kills a sheep for their friends and family to represent the sacrifice. This year, I celebrated my second Tabaski in Burkina with my family in village. It was not quite as traumatic as my first in country, but seeing a sheep slaughtered is never pleasant! Only one more to go before I leave!

-     Mid-Service Conference

·         At the half way point of our service all volunteers are required to come into Ouaga for medical checkups and Peace Corps updates. I guess three days of poking and prodding is worth it for air conditioning and internet.

-     Thanksgiving

·         I got to celebrate Thanksgiving in Ouaga with the Peace Corps staff and the rest of my stage, as it was just after our Mid-Service Conference. We got real Butterball turkey and all of the other standard trappings of a Thanksgiving meal. It was just like a real American Thanksgiving, plus it was wonderful to celebrate with friends!

December 2011

-     Family in Burkina

·         My family came to visit Burkina for two weeks between Christmas and New Years. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to show them my life and work here. It was quite an adventure, as only a Callaghan vacation can be!

-     World AIDS Day

·         I decided to celebrate World AIDS Day during my family’s visit to my village. We did an educational talk with a group of women during baby weighing at my clinic and then completed a mural on the wall of our pharmacy. It was a great chance for my family to see an example of one of my projects at site.

January 2012

-     Family left Burkina

·         My family left Burkina to go back to Chicago in early January. It was hard to see them go, but I was so glad that they came!

February 2012

-     FARN in Zigla

·         I went to my neighbor Marina’s village to help her with a 12 day nutritional rehabilitation project. I was there for two days and was able to help educate the women on health topics and teach them different recipes for enriched porridge, which will help their babies gain weight. It was very interesting to observe and learn how to run a nutritional rehabilitation project for when I try one later in my village.

 

-     Softball in Ouaga

·         While I was in Ouaga for a committee meeting I went to an ex-pat softball tournament at the International School of Ouagadougou. It was so nice to go to a sporting event and spend the afternoon around other Americans. I even got a bratwurst for lunch!! So much American-ness, it was almost hard to handle. Peace Corps had a team of volunteers in the tournament, but we lost miserably to the Embassy teams from our neighboring countries.

March 2012

-     FESTIMA

·         Every two years there is a West African mask festival in Dedougou, a regional capitol in the north west of Burkina. I was able to attend this year and see several different cultural dance groups and masks from countries all over West Africa, including Burkina.

-     International Women’s Day

·         The 8^th of March is International Women’s Day and I celebrated it this year in my village as I did last year. The Women’s Club planned all of the events, so for the most part I was just along for the ride. The day started with a presentation from the head nurse at my clinic on the advancement of women in Burkina. Afterwards I conducted a gender-reversal relay with the kids before I played in the womens’ soccer game. All of this takes place in front of the whole village, making it a fairly embarrassing day!!

-     Coaching-4-Hope

·         Coaching-4-Hope is a training program provided by a British NGO that instructs on how to use soccer as a tool to teach health lessons. Peace Corps asked that they train volunteers and their village counterparts on how to use these teaching techniques at their sites. I spent 8 days in Bobo with the president of my village women’s club and a community health agent learning soccer drills and how to apply them in village to teach about topics like HIV/AIDS, malaria and family planning. My soccer was pretty abysmal - I obviously didn't inherit those skills like Natalie did!!

-     COS Party

·         I attended my second COS party, celebrating the close of service of many of my friends and fellow volunteers. Once they leave my stage will be next!! Crazy, only 9 months left!!

April 2012

-     Malaria Training of Trainers

·         I went to a training with two women from my village on how to better educate my community on Malaria and HIV/AIDS. It was three days in Ouahigouya discussing topics from bed net usage, the rapid diagnostic tests and the best communication methods for passing health information. It was a wonderful opportunity for my counterparts (one community health educator and one village midwife) to get better trained on pertinent health topics and how to distribute the information in our village.

OK, can't wait to update on the next year!