PST (again)

This time last year I was at stage (the French word) or PST (the Peace Corps acronym- which stands for Pre-Service Training). This year I’m at the same training but in a different capacity. I am a PCVFP (Peace Corps Volunteer Facilitator Permanent) for this new training group. Basically this means that I helped design the training calendar and figured out what the sessions would look like, etc. I also get to spend three weeks with the new stage working with them and helping them as they go through nine weeks of training.

I guess it’s best to back up and start at the beginning. Sometime in the middle of September I went to Ouaga for three days with two other PCVFPs (we’re three in total) and met with my direct supervisor, and the technical trainers to go over the health program. A week or so later we went to Leo (a village in Burkina Faso and pronounced lay-oh) with all of the PCVFs (Peace Corps Volunteer Facilitators), tech trainers, language trainers, and all the supervisors of the programs to participate in a week long training about Peace Corps policies, what and what not to do/ say around the trainees, and to plan the actual sessions- who would say what, how long each session is going to take, etc.

The process, while straightforward and not conceptually difficult actually was slightly challenging. First of all trying to follow standards set by somebody in a country 4,000 miles away- who isn’t actually in the country is difficult. Also knowing what you’re going to say and the supplies you’re going to need sometimes two months before you need them is tough too. Also, the lesson plans are being standardized but they’re still supposed to be unique and reflect the situation in that particular country. Not that those are inherent contradictions but still, it can require some finagling and creativity because you want the sessions to be informative but also entertaining otherwise people aren’t going to listen and take something away from the session.

Perhaps the best part of the TOT (training of trainers) was seeing how invested the members of the bureau (Peace Corps office) were invested into the program. Everybody wanted the trainees to succeed but just seeing how above and beyond the staff were willing to go (especially the language trainers and the technical trainers) was amazing, and really energized me as well.

This is the first time that PST will be in Leo. I did my training in Sapone (as well as the stage before and after me). Needless to say I think the Peace Corps got pretty comfortable there. Leo is a little bigger than Sapone with more widespread access to electricity. At the same time there are more material items that you can buy which is a bonus for the trainees. Also, there’s a pool. You can imagine which one I’m most ecstatic about. 

The bad news is that you don’t get paid a whole lot during training so in reality you can’t often enjoy all of this- especially when you’re in class from 8AM to 5:15PM. But it makes the weekends nice I’d imagine.

Right now, you’re probably thinking something along the lines of, “If the trainees have all of these amenities, won’t it be more difficult if they get affectated (posted) to a small village where there isn’t such easy access to such things?” And yes, but the trainees aren’t living in Leo- they are split up into three smaller training villages (for lack of a better term). Two villages for the health and one village for DABA (think agriculture and kind of/maybe/sort of business). They live with host families in this village and then bike the 10 or 14 kilometers into Leo almost every day. This might seem daunting at first but hopefully gets easier as time goes on. For a point of reference I biked roughly 7 kilometers to get to my training center and that was one of the longer bike rides for the trainees in my group.

So, now I’m in Leo again. A month after that training (TOT), a month after the trainees arrived, and right in the middle of things. All in all, it’s a good place to be. 

Fonctionnaires

Burkina Faso has civil servants just like any other country- and the professions encompass nurses, doctors, teachers, etc. Usually, any profession requiring some type of special higher education is going to be a fonctionnaire profession and the individual will most likely be employed by the government. The civil servant system is very much like the Peace Corps system- you go where they send you. They call it “affectation” or, an appointment/ posting.

The way the system was explained to me was that somebody is posted to a region, the region then sorts through the candidates and decides who goes where. That decision is then brought to the mayor of the commune (county-ish)/ village and if the person is okayed- the process moves forward where the mayor tells the district, the district tells the old district that was responsible for the person, and then the note gets posted that they have been reassigned.

If you’re talking about a new fonctionnaire- someone who hasn’t had a post before it’s really easy- they just pick up their stuff and go. But, if you’re leaving your old site to go to a new one that means that your replacement has to show up, before you can leave, and that could take a while. And, that creates some issues as well because as a fonctionnaire you don’t know when your replacement is coming so you pack up your house and get rid of your stuff bit by bit but you don’t want to get rid of too much because what happens if your replacement doesn’t show up for two months, but you don’t want to send too little because what happens if he/she shows up tomorrow? Just food for thought.

From the perspective of a Peace Corps volunteer this is a double edged sword in almost the truest sense of the word. Say for example there’s someone you have a difficult time working with- if they get reposted you don’t have to work with them anymore and there’s the potential that the next person will be easier to work with and, if they’re difficult to work with- the status quo hasn’t really changed. However, if you have an awesome person to work with- someone who speaks local language better than you do for example, or someone who knows everybody in the village, or somebody who is just really good with people, is open to new ideas, and is willing to expand their own horizons- well that can be kind of sad. Because you don’t get to work with this awesome person anymore and it’s tough. So you can hope that the process gets delayed and the replacement doesn’t get immediate permission to go because their replacement hasn’t showed up yet but, once the reposting assignment is posted well, resistance is futile.

As you might imagine, my CSPS is losing three people. One is going to Ouagadougou, and two are going to Koudougou. And, I’ll just have to wait and see if any of the nurses who are coming in are as cool as the nurses that are going out. But, maybe it’ll be the same thing for them when I leave next year.  

Bike Tour does Poa

A few weeks ago (and by that I mean the middle of September) bike tour came to my site. This begs the obvious question of, “what is bike tour?” and well it’s a tour, of Burkina Faso, on bikes. More specifically, it’s a fundraising opportunity for the Gender and Development Committee.  They biked all around Burkina figuring out what sunscreen SPF works best, what type of roads are harder to bike on than others, and which volunteer has the best latrine.

When my site figured out they were coming they got really excited about it. They decided that they would convene all the village leaders to welcome the other volunteers. We also decided to do a sensibilization with them- which I decided was going to be neem cream. Neem cream is a skin cream made from soap, shea butter, and neem leaves (which have a natural chemical in them that repels mosquitos). And, there’s a group at my site who wanted to learn how to make it (and then sell it) for a while but every time I would set up a meeting for them to learn, they wouldn’t show up. I figured the chance of them showing up would be higher when there were going to be other volunteers around…and I was right.

Anyway, there are lots of things you can predict in Burkina Faso- the heat, the fact that it probably won’t rain again until next June, and that’s just to name two. One thing you can’t predict is when a group of volunteers biking from the opposite side of Ouagadougou will make it to your site. That’s why it’s good to know people. When the time that the bikers were supposed to show up came…and went I stopped by the bus station and asked the guy who runs the station (Wad) to call down the road and see if anybody had seen the bikers. He did, and he actually had to call quite a few people before he found them. Each conversation kind of sounded like this (translated of course), “Hey, what’s up? It’s Wad, yea, Poa. Anyway, have you seen 8 foreigners biking through your town wearing funny helmets? No, alright well when you see them call me.” So, after we found them, we were kept informed by a steady stream of phone calls saying when the bikers had passed certain villages.

Once they reached Poa we went back to my house, everybody dropped off their stuff, and we went to meet the CSPS staff and the village leaders. They decided to speak only in moore so that I could translate for the volunteers (they really like doing that when other people are around).

After that the neem cream demonstration actually went really well and now the organization that is responsible for paying the CSPS bills will be able to supplement their income and will not be in danger of having to declare bankruptcy anytime in the near future.

The chief (chef) gave us a goat, and then we ate some rice- and everybody was pretty tired so we all just kind of went to bed after.

The next day it actually decided to rain so the departure of the bike tour was postponed a bit but in the end, they made it out alright and they biked the 55km to the next village.

Yippee ki-yay

Life is all about balance. Work and play, exercise and rest, speaking French and speaking English…Well, it’s the same about life at site.

Spend too long at site and your productivity drops a little because you get a little tired of village life, or no one is around to work with you because their all in the fields, or because you run out of ideas for projects and you just can’t think of anything.

However if you don’t spend enough time at site people there might think you left, might have forgotten about projects you were doing, might have forgotten that they were supposed to do something for you- or all of the above.

It might sound hard to believe but after a hiatus from site, it’s actually really nice to be back. Everybody knows you, your house is there (hopefully), and after spending time with volunteers (or away) you’re ready to accomplish something.

And this was most definitely the case with me. Call it a “game on” mantra, or a “yippee ki-yay” type thing. But I was definitely ready to get stuff done.

My first two days back at site included a lot of music and a lot of cleaning. Because I wasn’t there to fight the good fight- termites had succeeded in sealing my doors to their frames and starting to make a go at the walls. Luckily me and my can of insecticide (technology) shifted the balance of that particular skirmish. All in all, the results of me being away from site weren’t that bad. Just some dust to sweep out, some laundry to wash, and some buckets to bleach.

There was also some difficulty in getting to my house because the weeds, herbs, millet, a bit of corn, all blocked the way down my path because, well, I hadn’t been there in a while to weed it (or to encourage others to weed it). Luckily, the COGES president (and my moore tutor) came by that afternoon with a really sharp machete and took care of it. Along with a pretty amusing anecdote: in rainy season people have to tether their animals so they don’t ruin all of the crops. But, they have to have food around so that they don’t get hungry. Well, some enterprising child saw I wasn’t there and left his bull in my courtyard so he could eat the weeds and such, and because there was a wall, he wouldn’t be able to get out. My neighbor saw this kid and apparently said, “Hey! Get out of Andre’s courtyard! If Ablasse (my moore tutor) sees you there, oh boy is he gonna be pissed.” I thought it was funny and pretty creative on behalf of the child.

He also introduced me to the most interesting mossi proverb I’ve heard so far. Translating it, it goes a little like this, “If somebody leaves, you shouldn’t clean his courtyard when he’s gone because you never know when he’s going to come back, but when he does come back, you have to go over and clean their courtyard.” It really does make a lot of sense as far as proverbs go. Why clean someone’s courtyard if you have to go back and do it every day because they haven’t come back yet? Or, why do it if all the weeds are just going to grow back and then look like you didn’t do anything at all? Although, I especially liked the part about their being a responsibility to helping your neighbor make their courtyard tidy when they returned.

Going back to work was much as I had left it- though quite busier with a higher incidence of malaria. All the nurses had (basically) the same reaction, “Andre! You’re back. Boy, it’s not been easy without you!” Not the best thing ever but, it meant that I most definitely wasn’t bored those first few days.

In short, it was awesome to be back at site- with the desire to see my friends, some ideas for projects, a lot of motivation, and a “game on” mantra. 

Science Camp

The first week in September I participated in a Science Camp that was held in Koudougou and was organized by Peace Corps volunteers. And yes, I do realize that I’ve fallen a little behind on blogging. The camp had a focus on the scientific method, creative thinking, and problem solving.

Now, why might volunteers want to do this? The education system in Burkina Faso is based around copying (from the board or dictation) and memorization. It’s very “know-what” oriented. The other skills such as “know-how”, “know-who”, and “know-why” aren’t emphasized at all. This makes it hard to take an example and extend it to other situations in life such as doubling a recipe.

My role in science camp was a bit hard to define. First of all, I was the community liason. It was my job to know where to go to get certain things, it was my job to talk to people and make them like us, and it was my job to get things that other people wanted.

I also taught the Astronomy classes at the camp. Unfortunately most of the nights were cloudy and rainy but, one of the nights we were able to get a hold of a telescope and spent an hour and a half staring at stars with 40 kids. Someone asked a question about the apocalypse, someone asked if you could really slingshot around the sun to attempt time travel (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), and if going through a black hole really meant that you would go back in time. We also talked about the North Star, the importance of stars, and being able to navigate by them, why the moon changes frequently, and what makes a celestial object a celestial object (planet vs. star, star vs moon, planet vs star, etc).

And last, but not least, I worked with a nurse to take care of the sick and injured kids at the camp. I was also able to use this opportunity to teach the kids about health things like what a pulse is, how to take it, and the same thing with temperature and how a thermometer works, etc. Very interesting time.

For the camp, volunteers and their homologues planned sessions around: chemistry, physics, biology- anything that involved being able to touch, feel, see, hear, and above all think critically about. The kids were then tasked to plan their own science fair. Another volunteer and I helped with a group of kids who wanted to examine water under a microscope. They examined filtered water, pump water, and regular water from a barrage to see which had the greatest quantity of microbes and bacteria in it. Luckily, I had scooped some seriously gross barrage water and the bacteria was everywhere! And the kids said, “people drink that?” Which, was super cool because now the kids know what lives in barrage water and how there is so much less bacteria, microbes, etc in pump water and filtered water (what PCVs drink).

The camp culminated in a science fair where all the groups presented their experiments and their findings, along with how they used the scientific method along the way.

It was interesting to see how Burkinabe kids reacted to a new way of learning- because the reception was so overwhelmingly positive. It was the same with the Burkinabe teachers reacting to a new way of teaching- most received the information and skills in a positive manner and really wanted to try it at their own skills with different experiments to help explain different concepts.

Hopefully, the science camp will continue to be a part of the summer activities for Peace Corps volunteers.  

Parking

Parking is a hassle, finding a space, making sure your car can fit into the space, and then making sure it’s reasonably secure so that no one will double park you or park too close to your car. Invariably one of these fails and you end up getting into the driver’s seat through the passenger door or something equally inconvenient.

How could it be worse, you ask? Well not finding a parking spot could be an issue. But, I think that having to pay for parking takes the cake. Parking meters, parking attendants, those little automatic parking scanners that act sort of like a Fast Pass all help make sure that nobody forgets that parking is no longer free.

One of the things I never considered when coming to Burkina Faso was parking. I figured well I’m going to be on a bike, in Burkina Faso- who would charge for parking there? Oh boy was I wrong.

As it turns out, parking attendant is one of the most popular jobs in Burkina Faso. You show up at a building, and somebody takes your bike, and gives you a piece of paper, then “protects your bike”. This usually involves sitting on a bench, drinking tea, and chatting. Then when you leave you have to give the guy 50 FCFA (10 cents) for guarding your bike. There is no choice because even if you don’t give the guy your bike he will STILL charge you for the parking. But, all in all, you do what you have to do, and when you get back you know your bike is going to be there. It’s not too big a deal unless you don’t have change; in which case, it becomes a huge issue.

What gets me is that the attendants also want to be paid for the work when they’re not there. When I was working at the American Language Center, this exact situation happened to a friend and I. We had gone to a bakery to get breakfast one day and since we had been going there for a while we knew the parking guy. He wasn’t there so we just left our bikes, walked inside, ate breakfast, and when we came out we grabbed our bikes the parking guy comes running up and told us to pay him for the parking. We explained that he was not there so we shouldn’t have to pay for the parking, and yes we knew he wasn’t there because the entire front of the bakery was made out of glass. So he told us all about how he had something happen at his house and he couldn’t get there on time, etc. We didn’t want to feel like jerks so we paid him- told him that if it happened again we wouldn’t pay him (because why would you expect to get paid for a job you didn’t do?) and we continued on our way.

A couple days later the same thing happened. He asked us to pay him, we explained the situation to him again, and we reiterated that if it happened again we wouldn’t pay. We strongly considered not paying but part of the Peace Corps mission is to prove that Americans are cool, awesome, benevolent and we thought to squabble about 20 cents would be a little ridiculous.

A few days later we went back to the bakery and the same thing happened. Again. This time, however, he came running up, saw who it was and just said, “See you tomorrow, right?” He then explained to us that he wasn’t there to do the work so he didn’t really expect to get paid, but he thought it was really nice how we talked to him each day and that tomorrow he would be there on time. And he was.

It was pretty awesome seeing that much behavior change within the span of four weeks. If only all my planned projects went that well. 

ALC

I’m spending the month of August working at the American Language Center (ALC) in Ouagadougou, the capitol of Burkina Faso. I’m working with 20 kids or so by helping them learn, and practice English. The program is organized kind of like school where there are 7 classes that meet 5 times a week between 8 and 12:30. The 7 classes mean that there are 7 Peace Corps Volunteers helping out and each volunteer is assigned to a class which meets between 8 and 10 everyday. Our roles vary by class but I pronounce words (so the students can learn how an American pronounces things), correct grammar exercises, explain tricky grammar rules, and occasionally translate French words to English and vice-versa.

The PCV’s are actually in charge of the “camp” portion of the program- which runs from 10:30AM-12:30PM. This is supposed to still have the general idea of learning to speak, and practicing English but is more camp oriented- songs, games, etc. We have designated this month to be the English Olympics and it’s built around pillars that are similar to those of the actual Olympics. They are: excellence and individualism, respect and diversity, teamwork, and community engagement. So, all of our ideas are tied into those themes which all relate back to the Olympics. Is it the most original idea? Nope. But, does it work? Yep.

ALC is a really interesting experience in that it’s really the first thing I’ve done in this country that has been mostly in English. All of the other teachers speak to us in English; the idea of the camp is to speak in English and to use a minimal amount of French, and the type of kids I’ve been working with is different than the type of kids I normally see in village.

First of all, the emphasis on English makes it more difficult to bring in Moore when I find myself in a situation that requires it (which isn’t that often here). But I will go back to my site at some point in time where I will definitely have to put in a lot of time practicing and studying (before I leave again).

Also, the grammar mistakes that the teachers make (various tenses, etc) create kind of an awkward situation, especially in front of the kids. Do you stand up, and say, “That’s actually not right”? Or, do you just let the mistake go and risk the kids picking it up? Either way it makes for an interesting conundrum.

The next huge difference is the kids. In the past, I have worked with kids who really want to be there, and are incredibly interested in learning what I have to teach, and usually it’s in a pretty fun medium (say for example, water). The first mistake is thinking that these individuals are actually kids. My class ranges from 13 years old to 21 years old (almost as old as I am). So the normal things that kids like don’t really apply here. They don’t really get into the games; they just care about winning- though to win, you have to get into it. They also don’t really want to be there, and who can blame them? It’s the equivalent of summer school. And, speaking English isn’t very high on their to do list- so about 100 times a day I have to remind them to speak English and that speaking French, contrary to popular belief, will not help them learn English. These are primarily wealthier kids who have laptops (including one with a macbook air, several with iphones, and a ridiculous amount with their own motos), and the differences between the socio-economic classes are staggering. Here, a wave will not make a kid’s day, and kids will not want to follow you around while you run, they will not be quiet when you talk for the sole reason that you are talking.

But I am learning things about teaching, about what I can do, about what appeals to kids, and how to handle a ridiculous range of maturity levels in a single classroom. And, am I having to think about why certain English rules are and why you never, ever end a sentence with a preposition? Oh yea.

Good way to spend a month? Most definitely. 

Camps and Other Extracurricular Activities

Seeing as how it’s rainy season, there isn’t a whole lot to do at site. Most days, most people are in the fields working hard and don’t have time to listen to me prattle on about health topics. Also, it’s summer vacation so kids aren’t really in school. This is the optimum time to do kid oriented projects such as camps (which is something we are mandated to do as part of Peace Corps: Burkina Faso).

Here in Burkina Faso, we have lots of camps: coaching for hope (playing soccer and learning about HIV/AIDS), G2LOW (Guys and girls leading our world), ALC (American Language Center), Science camp (this is in September), and I’m sure there are a lot more.

Camps are a nice change of pace and a way to interact with other volunteers and pick up their styles of doing things- basically a group learning process, and a much coveted opportunity to speak in English. Also, they’re a great change of pace and activity style. For example, education volunteers can help with health projects, and see how health volunteers give a health sensibilization. Health volunteers can teach students about astronomy or English and see what it is like to manage 40 kids at once while trying to stick to an agenda. And, everybody can enjoy playing the role of camp counselor. So, camps are awesome, right? 

Well, the answer is both yes and no.

Here’s the catch-22: doing a camp is a great way to share skills and help out the country. But you’re not in your village- and the village is the entire reason that you’re here. This means that there is an incredibly fine line between doing camps and such to enrich your service, while still being at site enough to be productive in your village. A lot of the weight of finding this balance is placed on the individual volunteer.

My problem is this: I love my site, and I would actually prefer not to leave. Now that’s not in the I’m-a-shut-in-and-just-want-to-sit-in-my-house way but more of a I-feel-most-effective-at-my-site-and-I-have-a-good-working-relationship-with-everybody way. I’ve been at site for 8 months now, so it’s a very interesting thought to think that I’m going to go an entire month without being in Poa (my village). Hopefully, my absence will inspire people to want to act because I have been there helping out with things for a while and now I’m gone- meaning that they can have a clearer idea of what I’m there to do, what I can help with, and other things like that.

Now, the opposite problem is this: there are some people who absolutely hate their sites. This can be due to any number of factors: people, bad workplace relationships, bad living situation- you name it, I’m going to guess it’s happened. This means that the chance to do camps offers an escape from site. While this isn’t exactly bad- but, it is hard to get stuff going in your village, if you’re gone for two weeks, come back for three days, gone for a week, back for a week, gone for two weeks, etc.

I guess what I have to say about camps and other extracurricular activities boils down to this: they’re awesome. Learn as much as you can, and enjoy it as much as possible. But don’t forget the reason why you’re here- take everything you learn, see, and accomplish…and bring it back to your village and share it with everyone else. 

Rain

Whenever I think about rain I think about the Family Guy episode where Weatherman Ollie Williams says, “It’s gonna rain!” or “It’s raining sideways”. So here we are in rainy season and I find myself looking up at the sky and thinking, “It’s gonna rain!” Let’s just say that working at a beach has given me a very acute sense of when it’s going to rain.

Anyway, the rain brings big changes to Poa (my village). First of all, everything is starting to get green. The trees and bushes that have been dead-ish for the past 7 months are most definitely not dead now. There are little rivers that trickle during the day, and right after it rains are somewhat reminiscent of the flash flood scene in 127 Hours.  Also, it’s really awesome being able to sleep comfortably at night.

Another one of the big changes is that everyone is in the fields. The way it used to be was that everyone was around all the time (again with a village comprised of for the most part subsistence farmers, when it’s too dry to plant, what else are you going to do?). Now, it’s almost like a ghost village in the morning (CSPS patient numbers are down at the moment), it slightly lightens up during the repose (nap time), and then drops slightly during the evening, only to pick up again (slightly) at night.

It also messes with attendance at things like baby weighings, and other meetings, and if it was a consistent change that would be okay and easy to deal with but it’s an inconsistent change. Sometimes people show up, and sometimes they don’t with little rhyme or reason, and the pattern is expected to continue throughout rainy season (which will go until the rain stops where it will start being cold season again).

This year the rainy season came a bit late (and by a bit I mean a solid month). Put together with the past two rainy seasons being less than spectacular this had some people worried, but now that it is solidly here people are cautiously optimistic and are saying “ca va aller”. It should be pretty smooth sailing unless the rainy season ends early.

But rain means, things are green, things get wet, things leak, and it is awesome. 

Success?

How do you define success?

Let’s say you do something by accident, you didn’t mean to do it but it worked out anyway, that can be a success too, right?

You can spend weeks planning a project and have no one show up. You can organize a meeting to help people make some money- something that people always profess to want or need; and no one shows up.

This is all kind of frustrating. But this can mean one of many things. Among them are: something came up and the person was legitimately busy and couldn’t come (why they didn’t call is a mystery), they forgot (also possible though forgetting something like that in less than 24 hours is hard to believe), they’re not interested and this is a way of expressing that, and so on and so forth. But because your job is a facilitator you say no problem, if you still want to do it let’s reschedule. And because you’re a representative of the United States you can’t show anger, or annoyance, or anything like that.

Now you go about dealing with the frustrations.

Since there are no pools here (or beaches) I’ve been running daily. It helps a bit with the frustrations of people not showing up or just anything.

While I was running these kids showed up, and started running with me. So we ran, and we ran, and we ran some more. The kids sat down and took breaks but since I was running in circles anyway (I found a 400 meter circle so it’s like running on a track), they were able to rest, catch up, and then repeat the cycle. The kids then started emulating the push ups, crunches, and pull ups I was doing too so we did that together. And then, we discussed the importance of hygiene and such. So something totally unplanned, turned into an educational experience.

So how can something with no planning whatsoever, be more “successful” than something I sat down and actually planned?

Then it started raining and the kids disappeared, but it was nice while it lasted. I’m sure once everything is done being planted they’ll come back though.

Motivation

People have different reasons for engaging in activities. Those reasons can be selfish, they can be selfless, they can be resume building, altruistic…you name it it’s a reason.

The first time I brought up a project idea here the response was, “what’s the motivation?” Having just arrived at site I responded, “If they want to (do the activity).” My counterpart looked at me as if I didn’t understand the question and then said, “If people are going to come to this project (I think it was when I first had the CPR project idea) then they’re going to want money to come.” I explained that the course is actually quite costly in the US (maybe a slight exaggeration) but we would be doing it for free and that should be the motivation in itself. He gave me this dubious look that said, “I see where you’re coming from but I’m not sure other people will.” So we decided that if we got the support of the higher up agencies (those responsible for the nurses, teachers, etc) then maybe the motivation issue wouldn’t pose that much of an issue.  Since then the project has been shelved indefinitely until I can find another way to approach the entire idea.

But the underlying problem remains the same. Being a volunteer without financial resources making an effort to work without financial resources in a capitalistic society built mainly around subsistence agriculture is a tough job. The way I see it is this, if I’m giving two years of my time to be here, and not make any money, then you can give up an hour of your time to learn a skill that will help you for years down the road.

To get people to do what you want them to do usually involves some ego stroking, telling them they’re special, and that they can really help. For example, for my exponential hygiene project (30 people teach 10 families each about personal hygiene) I worked with the centers of alphabetization (teaching people to read and write in moore) because well, these people can read and write to some degree, and the lessons covered in the moore books (yea, I read them too) deal with hygiene (like don’t pee in the well you get your water from). So I went to the groups, told them that everyone in the village respected them because they could read and write and because they were motivated, etc. It was most definitely true, but it also helped to get my point across. I also mentioned that because I’m a foreigner if I go around saying things people will listen but not necessarily adopt because I’m different and I don’t know how life really is here (and it’s true I’ve been here for 9 months- not 20 years). So by telling people that I can’t do this but they can- really helps people get going.

On the other hand, you have the incredibly altruistic people who will help you out no matter what you ask them to do, whether it be gathering people for a meeting, helping dig a 130 meter long trench, or coming along as a translator.

I guess it breaks down a little like this:

In different societies you have the same types of people. You have mean spirited people, you have nice people, you have motivated people, you have lazy people, you have happy people, you have depressed people, you have altruistic people, you have selfish people, and the list goes on. They might manifest themselves slightly differently but anyone that says people in the US are way different than people in Burkina Faso or vice-versa has to look harder because deep down, they’re not. Sure, they might have the whole not rushed, everything will work out mentality that the US doesn’t quite have but I don’t think that defines the people that defines a way of life.

So if this rule is true, can you count on the volunteerism and altruism of the people you’re trying to work with to aid with your projects (without overusing the same people and creating a burn out effect)?

Campaign Season (no, not that one)

As things in France cool down (Hollande won) and things in the US heat up (will Obama get a second term?) it has stayed ridiculously hot here in Burkina Faso.

Also, on the health side of things, we’ve been doing a variety of campaigns against various health related things.

We did nutrition: going door to door to find out how many kids are malnourished in Poa (my village).

We did Polio: going door to door to give polio vaccinations to kids.

We did Mebendazol and Vitamin A: going door to door to give kids a deparasiting agent and vitamin A.

Now, we’re handing out albendazol and mictazine. Albendazol is a deparasiting agent (chemically the same as mebendazol but it’s a higher concentration and thus, for adults. Mictazine is a drug against filariose and hydrocele, more commonly known as elephantitis.

Next week looks like it’ll be trachoma but we’ll see what happens.

My role in all this is relatively simple. I plan. I divide the community health agents into teams, and help divide the village into manageable areas for each team. I then divide the medicines into which group gets how many pills, then I help explain how to give the medication and explain that if someone refuses to call the Major or myself and we’ll come out and figure out what the issue is (side note: this is where the color of my skin is actually a benefit).

Anyway, not the hardest job ever. Important? Kinda. Fairly straightforward? Absolutely.

The people who do all of the actual labor are the community health agents who are easily overlooked in the healthcare system here and play one of the most important roles. So they most definitely win the unsung hero award. I’m a foreigner. The nurses and doctors are civil servants so while we’re both here and they’re actually Burkinabe none of us really belong. This is where the community health agents come in. They belong. They live in the village, they were (more often than not) born in the village, and they’re well known in the village. Some can speak French, some can’t- but it’s really no big deal. People in the village know the community health agents and because they are actually part of the community (not just integrated into it) people invite them into their houses and they don’t feel self conscious or anything like that.

The thing about this though, is that these community health agents are just normal people. Some went to school, some didn’t. And all of them have other things to do. Most people in Burkina farm. Some people raise animals, some do both. All of which can be a full time job, so where do they find the time and energy to help out the health center?

So these people are a huge resource but with almost five weeks now of consistent campaigns each weekend (lasting for four or five days), I’ve got to wonder, is there a line where there are just too many campaigns and the people that help us out so much just say, “sorry, we’ve gotta plant our fields, or take care of our animals”?

Or is the sense of doing things for the greater good and that giving up a couple hours each day to hand out medications for the betterment of all is totally worth it really that strong here?

Of course, everyone who helps out is paid for their work but in a village of subsistence agriculture time doesn’t necessarily equal money.

I guess what I’m trying to say comes down to this:

1) The fact that we have campaigns like this every week is awesome. I’m not quite sure who donates everything we give out but I think if they came to visit they’d see that, in Poa at least, their resources have been well used.

2) The fact that there are people who rain or shine (usually shine) show up and do what needs to be done is a standard that more people all over the world should try and emulate.

3) When you have a resource of people who will give up their time to go door to door to hand out medications, don’t take it for granted- and don’t overuse it.

4) The little things count. I’m not rich. I probably will never be rich. And, that’s okay. But it’s not like I can give everyone who helps a ton of money to say thank you. But what I can do is go and buy water for everyone to give out when we visit people as they hand out medication. I can smile and say you’re doing awesome, thank you for helping us out, and give some moral support.

We don’t do vaccination campaigns like this in the United States but, I can’t help wondering if we did: would we find people like this to help out? I certainly hope so. 

All it takes is One

I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations over the past few weeks- and they’ve all revolved around what it means to be a leader, what it means to set an example, and how much good all of that can actually accomplish.

Let’s backtrack a bit. I was watching the French election with a few people here and we discussed politics, what a democracy was, and the relationship between Burkina Faso and France. Needless to say, it’s interesting to see what the perception is versus what I imagine versus what probably is the actual relationship.

When we first started talking a democracy was used interchangeably with utopia which, while that would be awesome, isn’t quite right. But, it certainly contained interesting ideas such as: while a democracy is fair and just for everyone- who decides what is fair and just? For example- a conservative Islamic leadership style might be exactly what a country wants, and is it necessarily bad just because it’s not what we have? And no, someone who is not Islamic is not by definition a member of the Taliban, although that was something I did have to clear up.

So this talk about democracy brought us to France/Burkina Faso relations which, admittedly I know very little about; and, is also an incredibly grey area. Our conversation reflected that we didn’t know for sure how much influence France has over Burkina Faso and how often it is wielded. But, if Burkina Faso as a whole is unsatisfied with the status quo, then it’s the responsibility of the country to change it. It’s one thing to talk about changing something, it’s quite another to get off your butt and actively change it.

Fast forward a few days and we had a staff meeting talking about practices that work at our health center, and things that we could do better, that kind of stuff. And the point that I brought up concerned that ambulance and, more specifically, how we (and other health centers use it). As it stands now, the ambulance is like a giant taxi- with a cool flashing light, the ability to speed (though speed limits seem optional here), and the word ambulance on the side.  So when the ambulance takes people out, there’s no one actually giving care. I tried to point out that this probably wasn’t the most prudent idea ever- and, they just laughed at me. Not the response I was looking for but, that’s life. The doctor and the Major actually did step in and say stop laughing, he’s right- but, that didn’t help anyone take the idea any more seriously.

I decided that I was right about this so kept pushing. I said that sometimes there’s hours between when someone refers a sick person to the hospital and if there was someone in the ambulance they can track changes in vital signs and even perform CPR if needed (I have to train them in CPR first but that’s coming).

The response to the idea was something along these lines: it’s the sick person that pays for the gas of the ambulance. And the gas is: from Poa to the village, from the village to the hospital in Koudougou, and then back to Poa. This means that if any village to the east of Poa (Koudougou is to the west) refers a sick person and if they send a nurse with the ambulance the nurse will only get as far as Poa on the way home unless they pay for the rest of the gas. So, then it became a question of, why should we put extra work on ourselves when other villages don’t. My response to this was simple: it’s your job. You have a responsibility to the sick people- it doesn’t matter where they come from. This isn’t my American imperialness speaking- some of the medical professionals that I’ve met in Burkina have expressed this outlook on more than one occasion.

It was starting to get late and we had a lot of other things to discuss so I let the subject go, decided to let it ruminate in people’s minds and then wait for the opportune moment.

A couple of weeks later, the opportune moment came- and I brought up the subject again, this time coupling it with the argument that all it takes is one person to change the status quo. And, somewhat surprisingly the Major and the Doctor looked at each other and said, let’s do it. So now, whenever our ambulance goes out- no matter whether it goes to the east, west, north, or south to pick up a sick person someone always goes with it. It’s not much. But, it’s a start. And, with a little luck the hospital will notice that when our ambulance comes in, there’s always someone who knows what’s up with the patient and that will then become standard practice.

Because, really, it only takes one to set an example for others to follow. 

Listen man, you're dur-ing.

Life is all about timing. You miss a train by 5 seconds; you make a train by 5 seconds. You get to the counter and grab the last chocolate croissant or someone else grabs it before you can get to it. You get to the pump before someone locks it up for the morning or you have to hope you have enough water in your water container to last you another 12 hours. To cite more examples would be slightly redundant, but you get the point. Timing is important.

And things that take a while often frustrate people or otherwise overly inconvenience those same people. When my brother was little he used to say, “But it takes too long, and you know how I hate that.”

So why do people procrastinate? Some people work better under pressure. Some people have more pressing needs to deal with (a job, money making opportunity, a family). Some people are just bad at prioritizing. And, some people just don’t want to pursue a course of action so they keep putting it off.

In the United States procrastination is seen as something to laugh about especially when you’re in college, high school, or something along those lines.

But sometimes, it’s not funny, and sometimes it can have dire consequences.

In French the verb durer means along the lines of “to take a long time”. You can say, “Man, I’ve really dured here” meaning “I’ve been here for a while”. “That meeting really dured” (Jeez, that meeting took a while). And while dur-ing isn’t always bad, the connotation certainly isn’t good.

The other day I was helping out with prenatal consultations and this pregnant woman comes in because she is having contractions. Gold star- seriously. Sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to get women to give birth at the health center because it’s either too far away from their home, they think it’s too expensive (which is ridiculous because it’s free- the state absorbs the cost), or something along those lines.

So then when we find out more information such as her previous birth had been with a c-section and that our midwives had actually told her to come in a week beforehand so they could discuss plans for giving birth in Koudougou (because of the danger of Uterine rupture after a C-section they like to refer women to the hospital for the birth immediately following the c-section. After that, it’s fine to give birth at the health center). 

Alright, so maybe a silver star at the moment but the woman is at the health center and that’s what’s important.

Now we have to get this woman to Koudougou quickly. And this seems like a job for the ambulance. But, ironically enough, the ambulance is actually in Koudougou picking up our supply of medications for the month of June. So we call the driver and explain that he should probably hurry back. As luck would have it, he was only about 10 minutes away so we waited for a bit and explained that we were going to refer the woman to Koudougou for her own health. So everything’s good the ambulance shows up we get the door open and…

Where’d the husband go? Apparently he went home to get something. What he went to get we don’t know but we’re all sitting around waiting for the husband and finally he shows up…with nothing. So while that was confusing we finally have the ambulance, pregnant woman, the husband, and their entourage. Awesome, go time. So we get the pregnant woman in the ambulance and what happens- she has the baby. Oops. Now it’s truly a debate as to which is more comfortable the birthing table in the maternity ward or the floor of the ambulance but there is definitely more room in the former.

As it turns out nothing ruptured and the mother and child were both fine. But we did speak to the father about how we were lucky and that he should not have spent as much time doing…whatever he was doing. And he just smiled at us and said that everything will work out, and we tried to impress upon him the importance of helping everything to work out.

Later that day all the midwives and I were sitting around just chatting and one of the midwives said something along the lines of, “People don’t like to go to Koudougou. So in the end they make up reasons not to go. They dure at the house, they just continually say no, or they say they don’t have money (again…for pregnant woman the state absorbs the cost (more or less)). And, the end result is dangerous”.

I guess now I’ve found another project to occupy my time here- convincing people about the benefits of care at a hospital and explaining that there are some things we cannot do here in the village and that you can’t really put a price on your health. 

The Polio Campaign

A few weeks ago marked the beginning of the second tour of the Polio Campaign. The goal of the campaign is to vaccinate every child (0-5 years old) against polio. And here’s the catch: you only have 4 days to do it. Sounds tough right? Actually, it’s not.

Here’s what we did: We made 5 teams of two people (each team made up of a nurse and a community health agent), gave each team a section of the village, a ton of vaccines, a sheet to check off how many dosages they’ve given, a marker, and a piece of chalk. And off they went.

Polio vaccines are actually incredibly easy to give: you just give two drops in the mouth of whatever child you’re trying to vaccinate and then you move on: since it’s a quick process, you need to have a lot of them when you leave in the morning (especially cause if the teams run out of vaccines, it’s one of my jobs to go bring them extras).

They bring the sheets with them to check off how many dosages they’ve given because at the end of the day we use that to figure out how many children we’ve vaccinated, how many we have left, and how much vaccine is “lost” along the way. Pretty easy to use system, which is great because being able to read and write is not a luxury that everyone here has. Also, at every house they stop off at the health agents note the number of children in the household and number of children vaccinated that way they know whether to come back to the house later. And, every child vaccinated gets the left pinky nail colored in with a marker (our village uses purple) so we can see whether the child has been vaccinated or not. Apparently, some parents will say my child has been vaccinated when they haven’t and some will say they haven’t been vaccinated when they have. It would be easier if everyone told the truth- but that’s the way of the world I guess.

In order to prepare for the campaign we did a lot of prep work. First we went out and spoke to all of the important people in the village, and informed them of what we were doing. Then, we divided our nurses and community health agents into teams, and then assigned each team an area for each day. This took into account: homes, churches, mosques, the market, the bus station, etc. Then, we told the town crier to go out and publicize the fact that we were doing vaccinations so that everyone would be “in the know”. The day before the campaign started we met with all the teams together, explained what they were doing, explained how to check and make sure the vaccines were okay to use. Then we said the French equivalent of “Have at it.” And, off they went.

The next few days were pretty interesting to say the least. Between people saying, “aw man this is really difficult” to people saying “aw man this isn’t easy” there was a lot of well, you only have 3 days left (or two days, or one day, etc). Then there were the random surveys. This meant that the major and I went out and just talked to people and asked whether their children had received the vaccination, how many kids they have, how they heard about the vaccination, and most importantly- what we were vaccinating against. The last one was potentially the most important question because this led to other questions such as, “why are you letting someone vaccinate your child but you didn’t ask what medication they were giving or what it would prevent against?”

By the end of the four days we had gotten to 99.54% participation rate which was good though not the 100% we had asked for.

Tuesday (the day after the last day of the vaccination campaign) a couple of moms brought their kids in to the health center asking for the polio vaccination- they had heard that it was going on but they were out of town and for some reason didn’t get the vaccination wherever they went. So, we vaccinated them and reached our slightly over 100% quota (the reason we had over 100% is that we vaccinated people from other villages who were either at our market or were passing through on a bus).

All’s well that ends well. 

Let me get this straight

A supervisory team from the state came to visit our CSPS the other day.

They came to check out how we deal with suspected cases of malaria first and foremost. We started off talking about simple malaria cases: we told them that we took vital signs, evaluated signs and symptoms, and then kept eliminating other potential maladies until we arrived at malaria. Awesome, one point for the Poa staff. They then asked us if we used the TDRs (rapid diagnostic tests) to which the answer is both yes and no. When we have them, we use them, but when we don’t we can’t. The supervisory team didn’t really like that answer especially the “run out” part. Then we had to explain that for most of 2011 we didn’t have the test because we couldn’t get any (from the state).

The new malaria directive is this: you have to do the TDR (makes sense), if you get a positive result you treat malaria (makes sense), if you get a negative result you do not treat malaria (again, makes sense). If the TDR is negative- you’re supposed to research other possibilities for the signs of malaria (fever, vomiting, diarrhea, etc). If you find something, you treat that, if you don’t find anything treat the symptoms, have them come back in a few days and see what happens. Once again- this makes a lot of sense on many different levels. There are lots of times in Burkina Faso when a person will come into the CSPS (health center) and say I have a fever. The nurse will then say alright, you’ve got malaria, and they’ll give the medication for malaria, along with an antibiotic (just in case there was something bacterial) and say come back in a few days. The flaw with that plan is this: currently the government here subsidizes the malaria treatment medication- so if people are being diagnosed with malaria just because they might have a fever- then this drives up the cost that the government has to pay. Also, the parasite will develop a resistance to the medication and that’s not a good thing. Same thing with the antibiotic- if you give it and isn’t needed it will become less effective overtime.

Example: today a guy came into the CSPS and said, “I have malaria.” We asked him why and he said that his body hurt. So we took his temperature (it was normal), asked if he vomited, had diarrhea, a headache, anything like that and he said no to all of them. So we ascertained that the guy did not have malaria. So then I asked him what he had been doing yesterday and he said he was building a school yesterday. In the hot sun. All day. So clearly, the guy was worn out- and did not have malaria. So, we prescribed him some rest, and some vitamins as well- but I was proud of our ability to follow a new directive.

So this new malaria directive makes sense- financially, medically, logically- all over the place really.

Here’s what really gets me:

There are these agents called PECADO (deal with malaria cases and aren’t nurses but are authorized to sell malaria medication). And they’re basically tasked with: if someone comes to you and says that they kind of, maybe, sort of, potentially have a fever- then they sell them malaria medication. No diagnostic tests, no assessment of any type- just selling malaria medication. It seems to me that this is somewhat at odds with the new directive (having two groups of caregivers operating in the same general area but following different directives) but then again, maybe there’s something I’m missing.

Not everything makes sense all the time but, hopefully, this will…at some point in time. And I’m still super psyched by our CSPS- and our ability to set an example and treat what’s there…and not what’s easiest. Go team. 

Je suis en brousse

There are about 175 Peace Corps volunteers in Burkina Faso. These range from people who are 6 months in, to those who are 10 months, to 18 months, to almost two years, and to almost 3 years. And while the stereotypical situation of being in a village hundreds of kilometers from another American, with no electricity, no running water, and having to bike 50 kilometers (uphill both ways) to get to anything remotely approaching “civilization” is still applicable in some circumstances- it’s not the rule- but it’s not the exception either. There are some people who are so far out that they have to stand on the roof of their houses to get a (kinda) cell phone signal. There are also people with DSL internet in their houses and can download music, movies, etc. I don’t fall into either group. Which, is kind of nice.

For starters, I can get a cellphone signal. The peace corps subscribes to something which is very much the equivalent of a “family plan” in the United States. All the volunteers can call eachother (and the staff people) for free- for the rate of $8/month- or something really close to that. Couple things though: 1) This is pretty cool. 2) This is really only useful if you’re in a place that gets an Airtel (name of the carrier) signal. And, there are some volunteers that do not get an Airtel signal, so they’re just paying for a service they cannot use. 3) If you want to talk to people you need to have a way to charge your phone (see below).

My village is on a paved road (called the guidron) between Ouaga and Koudougou (one of the large cities in Burkina Faso). This provides a large number of benefits including: 1) car watching 2) a nice landmark and 3) it means that travel is easy. It takes me 20 minutes to get to Koudougou by bus, and a little bit longer than that if I bike. But, all things considered, it’s not that far. Ouaga is around 90 minutes (if all factors are against you). Also, to both cities there are busses every half an hour or so- which means I can leave whenever I want. In villages that are way in the middle of nowhere, some people have to plan their entire day around leaving because there is only one bus that leaves all day and it’s at 5:30 in the morning. I have considerably more flexibility than that.

Next, my village has electricity. No, I don’t have it (yet) but it is in my village which means charging things is pretty easy. I just go to the CSPS and plug in whatever it is that I want to charge. In other villages people charge their cell phones through solar chargers, car batteries, and other things like that. But, not me. And, it also means that I can find ice and cold drinks in my village which is really nice when it’s hot out (it’s always hot here).

So, those are the majority of ways that my village is not way en brousse or “in the bush”.

Now, we get to the part where I get to continually remind myself that I am, in fact, in Africa.

My house is made out of cement with an aluminum roof. Aluminum and cement have a few things in common. 1) They’re both relatively cheap in Africa (so you can build with them and 2) They’re both really good at trapping and retaining heat. Funny how often those go together. It’s kind of an odd feeling to feel the walls of your house and be continually amazed by how hot they are. But, I’ve dragged my cot to the middle of my living room and get a great 4-way cross breeze so it’s not so bad.

I shower with a bucket (and only use 3 liters of water a day for showering purposes). It’s kinda strange to step into your shower and take water from a bucket- but there is something very Game of Thrones about it.

I poop in a hole. I don’t really think I need to elaborate on that one.

The donkeys, chickens, goats, and other animals. Having a donkey braying outside your house is irritating- and while I try and make sure there’s a significant radius between my house and the nearest donkey the sight and the sound says to me: TIA (This is Africa).

The dirt. It’s red. And, it’s everywhere.

Finally: there’s no ocean…anywhere.

All in all, I find I’m straddling a nice line between what is available/familiar and what is different. My village is large enough that I don’t feel claustrophobic yet small enough that everyone knows my name. I can charge things or sit under a fan for a bit but I’m not constantly in that environment. I can leave if I want, but most of the time I don’t particularly want to.

While this works for me, I’m sure that there are plenty of people that this type of situation would not work for. It all depends on the person and what you make out of the situation you’ve been handed.

So now you can decide, how far en brousse am I?

And I Plant Trees

The mission of the Peace Corps is incredibly varied and occasionally has you do things you know absolutely nothing about. For example, I’m a health volunteer so I have to work with the health “high five” (HIV- in the peace corps abbreviation language (and yes I do recognize the incredible irony in that abbreviation)). The “high five” are (in no particular order): nutrition, hygiene, HIV/AIDS, family planning, and malaria. I do know a fair amount about each of these- so it’s really not a huge deal. But, since I’m a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso it means that I also have to work with the other high five (why both programs chose 5 things with varying degrees of overlap is a mystery to me- and then called them both the high five is a complete mystery to me): HIV/AIDS, reforestation, youth development, malaria, and hygiene. The HIV/AIDS, malaria, and hygiene components are really no big deal because they’re with the health components. However, I have absolutely no idea about trees. I’ve never planted trees, I’ve never planted trees in Africa- although I did read an article in The New Yorker that basically said when planting trees in Africa, don’t use the same techniques that you used in the US (maybe I’m paraphrasing a bit- but that was the general gist of the article).

Keep in mind, I’m not sure I have it nearly as tough as DABA (the once business/agriculture program turned, completely environmentally based in a span of less than 6 months). Or, maybe I’m completely wrong and the system works amazingly well for them).

So, that’s what I spent the last few days doing- learning, and then- planting trees. Trees are incredibly important to life in Burkina Faso; they’re used for houses, food, medication, jobs, music. And, if you take trees without replanting them- it’s like you’re a parasite (I can actually say that all in moore, which is why it sounds a little awkward in English- my moore tutor made me right an essay on it). Also, the Sahel is apparently creeping further and further into Burkina Faso and that isn’t good. However, tree planting comes with a lot of potential troubles because if you water them too much, they die. If you don’t water them enough, they die. If they get too much sun, they die. If they don’t get enough sun, they die. If an animal eats them, they die. If a child cuts it down, they die. Sensing a pattern yet?

I brought the president of the COGES (in charge of the management of the CSPS- money, cleaning, etc), who is a farmer, and also triples as my moore tutor. I figured that he’d probably know people who could help us afterwards and he’d also have time to help me out (in short, I followed what I wrote in a previous blog post about choosing a good counterpart). At first, he said, “Absolutely, I’ll go because you asked me to go and that’s good enough for me.” Alright, fine. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right? But, after that all he talked about was trees, how important he thought they were and how awesome it was going to be. Once he started doing this all I thought was… sweet.

Our travel to Yako (where my buddy Abe lives and the location of the workshop) was filled with some oops moments which, is a first for me- travel from my site has always been pretty smooth. But because we were traveling the day after Easter, every bus coming through my site happened to be full. So we waited at the station for a solid 3 hours before a little tiny car popped up and we hopped in. During the 70ish kilometers between my site and Ouaga we broke down no less than 5 times and finally when we broke down in the outskirts of Ouaga the driver just gave up and decided he needed a beer, and maybe some Gin too. 

Needless to say (because riding with a driver who has been drinking is just asking for trouble), I asked for our bikes to be taken off the roof and we biked the rest of the way to the bus station.

Once we reached the TSR station, the change was magical. I walked up to the counter, got two tickets for the next bus and we boarded it- and went off to Yako. I guess the moral of the story is- don’t ride in shady looking cars for distances greater than 30 kilometers, especially when you might catch a bus.

With the actual tree tour we learned where and how to collect seeds, the best time to plant, and how to best get seeds to germinate. We mixed dirt, compost, and sand to create the best mixture that would allow the tree to grow. Not the hardest thing in the world, but definitely useful to know when you know nothing about planting trees.

What we actually did not spend a lot of time talking about was mobilizing resources, and how to find resources within a community- and this would have been one of the more useful aspects of the tour. Seeds, fencing, people who want to create a garden don’t grow on trees (alright seeds do, but the rest of those things do not). 

First and foremost- seeds do grow on trees but the quality of those is not assured and it’s better to buy from a forestry agent- but those cost money. The person running the program said that if you want a better chance of success you should buy the seeds- but a government official doesn’t seem like he’d have any problems getting seeds from someone else who works in the same department of the government.

Second, fencing is super expensive. There is less expensive fencing but apparently- it’s not very effective. And, if you don’t have any type of fencing then it’s an invitation for animals and children to destroy your hard work. So where does the money come from to get fencing? If someone gives it to you, then that doesn’t help if other people want to replicate your tree garden. 

Third, the whole point of the Peace Corps is to have other people do it and to be somewhat of a facilitator. So, if I go and plant 1,000 trees by myself, it doesn’t do a whole lot of good. So, how do you find people who are interested? Who do you talk to? And, on top of that, where does the land come from to make the garden? The counterpart might know people but how do you broach the subject?

While there are a lot of questions- the information about how to physically plant the trees was incredibly useful- and I’m glad I had the opportunity to go. When I get back to my site I’m going to try and find a way to start up on this tree planting task- and see wherever it takes me.

This leaves youth development…

Counterpart Workshop

One of the last things we’re doing at during IST is hosting a counterpart workshop. Basically, everyone has a homologue come to talk about the peace corps development philosophy, project planning, and other things like that. When I heard this I thought awesome, I’ll bring my major because we both missed the first counterpart workshop (he was in Taiwan, I was in South Africa). Well, remember the golden rule because the Ministry of Health (or maybe it was the District) announced a mandatory meeting for all the Majors about a Polio campaign. Oops. Long story short, my major sent the nurse who went to the first counterpart workshop in his place. Alright, cool.

So the first day we learned about malnutrition and a big nutrition project that in French is called a FARN but in English we call it the Hearth model. Basically, it’s a super intense 12 day program designed to rehabilitate moderately malnourished children. The key word is here is moderately- if the child is severely malnourished there’s not much you can do but send them to a CREN- center for the rehabilitation of infants. Each hearth model can be run with a group of about 12 women- any more than that it just becomes too much and too complicated. The group meets every day and each day they prepare bouille together (usually comprised of some type of flour, sugar, oil, etc) and then talk about a pressing health issue such as hygiene, nutrition, family planning, etc. The possibilities are endless. Anyway, I’m definitely going to do one of these. I’ve only heard good things about them and the message really does seem to stick (cause let’s face it- it’s two weeks long and repetition is key here).

The second day, we talked about project design and management. This is something that in the US we tend to think of as not really worth a thought and easy to do but here it’s not so simple. In order to have a solid project, you need to have a solid base. This is where the design comes in; it is the who, what, where, when, why, and how of your project. If you can answer all those questions- you’re in good shape and you can start moving towards some type of realization of your project.

What: What’s the problem? What is the root of the problem? What do you want to do about it?

Who: Who are you trying to help? Who is going to help you?

Where: Where will you hold this project? A central place is better because if it’s too far, people won’t go.

When: Timing is important. If people are working or they have other duties to attend to- no one will show up.

Why: Why are you doing this? What will it do? What does your project hope to achieve?

How: How will this project realize your overall goal?

And this is just trying to get a general framework. Once you have this, then it gets tough! You have a goal (long term) but what are your objectives (short term). Are they specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound? If the answer to any of these questions is “no” go back to the drawing board. What are the signs of success? What does each of the signs mean? Do you have signs for each objective? Tasks: what will you do? In what order? Who will do them? When will they do them?

That’s actually as far as we got today but here’s my project so far:

My project deals with hygiene. Now, hygiene is actually a huge topic: you’ve got personal hygiene, food hygiene, house hygiene, and clothes hygiene. You can’t tackle all those at once- so we decided to work on personal hygiene with the thought that worst case scenario- people themselves would be cleaner. Best case scenario- they’d carry the lessons on to other aspects of their life and go from there. It’s a win-win really, right?

So Personal Hygiene. What resources do we have to work with? Well with have health agents, positive deviants (a good example of someone that does the behavior we’re trying to promote), village leaders, groups that exist in the village, schools, and alphabetization centers. We also have material resources like soap, clean water, technical skills, bikes and motos to travel, meeting places, and radio stations.

What are the potential strategies we could use? We could do home visits with hygienic demonstrations (with 7716 people- this would take a while). We could go to schools and daycare centers. This would be awesome cause there’s a captive audience. However, kids can be ignored by parents and that wouldn’t convey the message we want conveyed. We could use village storytellers to pass along the message and they might be able to say it’s important but it’s hard to convey through a story how to be clean- without a demonstration. We could also host a demonstration at the CSPS- but maybe people won’t come for that- if they have other things to do. So, we settled on combining a few options. We are going to use the alphabetization centers (where people go who are too old for school but want to learn to read and write) and see if they’re interested in helping us. We’ll then teach them about good hygiene and after that teach them how to teach others. Then, each of those 10 (ish) people will then go and spread the lesson to 10 other people. And all of a sudden, we’ve hit 100 people.

What do we want to happen? Well during 2012 we want there to be a 30% reduction in cases at the CSPS dealing with diarrhea (caused by a lack of hygiene) and waterborne illnesses (also caused by a lack of hygiene). So now you’re saying “Drew, don’t other sicknesses cause diarrhea as well?” Yep. They do. But you can’t control every variable and a reduction is a reduction. We have other numbers that will help track progress as well. Such is the nature of development work. It’s not an exact science.

Our objectives are: 1)  After three months of sensibilizations there will be a 50% increase in women who use good hygienic practices at home. 1.1) 3 months after the formation of the group- 80% of the people who have been trained as trainers will go and teach good hygienic practices at other households. 2) After three months of sensibilizations, there will be a 50% increase in the hygienic practices of the mothers and their children who come to the CSPS for baby weighings and consultations. 3) After three months of sensibilizations, there will be a 50% increase in the number of students at the CEG (kinda like high school) who use good hygienic practices.

The signs of success are all based around an increase in the number of households that use soap, number of people who are clean when they come to the CSPS, and the number of kids who use soap while at school. We’ll be looking at these through both questions directed towards our intended audience and also observations.

It has the makings of a good project (I think) but we still need to refine it a little bit and come up with actual data for our budget (I don’t think it will be incredibly expensive- one of the benefits of doing hygiene is that it’s simple, cheap, and affordable). But, since I came up with the project- I’m a bit biased. Now you have to do a feasibility test. What factors are there that you can’t control but could make the project fail? What could you do to negate this problem? And are the benefits of this program worth more than the cost (labor, time, money, etc)?

If the idea passes the feasibility test, you move on to the Action Plan! This is where you lay out each individual task (envision the steps of the program from start to finish with everything in between), who does each task, and when it needs to be done by. This is actually really important because life in Burkina Faso is like an incredibly large Bureaucracy, and people take their titles very seriously. If you do something without informing the Chief, Imam, Pastor, or any other incredibly important person- they might actually tell people to not go to your project and actively work against you. Don’t make the important people angry. And it’s usually really easy to get their support:

Me: Good Morning Chief!

Chief: Hi Andre. How are you?

Me: I’m good. How’d you sleep?

Chief: Very well thanks, you?

Me: Very well, thanks for asking. (This goes on for a bit). So, we (the health community of Poa) would like to do a project about hygiene, and we were just hoping for your support.

Chief: Absolutely, what can I do to help?

So yea, that’s an ideal conversation, but most of my conversations with important people go that way. It’s awesome.

You then compare this with the seasonal calendar (which happens each month in your village) to see if there are conflicts and if there are- change them. For example if you want to do something with women in June, better think again cause that’s when the rainy season is. If you want to do something with students in August, think again cause there’s no school, etc.

Then you have to form a budget, determine where the money is going to come from, and then work from there. You also have to hope that the people in your village like your project as much as you do. But, that’s all in how you sell it, right? 

The Importance of a Homologue

One of the most important things about a project is finding a more than adequate homologue (counterpart). For me, and the majority of my projects it’s pretty clear cut. I have a CSPS (health center) full of staff, a COGES (group that “manages” the CSPS), and other people who are connected to the health center. For other sectors it’s a little bit less clear cut but you get the point. It’s important.

Now, what makes a good homologue? Excellent question.

1)      A good homologue is interested in the material (and already somewhat knowledgeable about the subject matter). This is important for several reasons. First, if the counterpart isn’t interested in the material, they probably won’t work too hard to help you out and make the project a success. If a counterpart is interested in the material, they will be more animated and the group you’re working with has a greater chance of being more animated as well. Animation is good.

2)      A good homologue is respected within the community. Appearances mean a lot in Burkina Faso. If you pick a homologue that spends the majority of the day at the bar drinking beer- chances are they won’t be very well respected in the community. Thus, people are less likely to come to your project, people are less likely to give support, etc. The list of unfortunate consequences goes on and on- but the lesson is thus: pick someone well respected.

3)      A good homologue speaks the language. This one is fairly self-explanatory. Communication is key. Pick someone that can communicate better than you can. If this is moore, find a moore speaker. If it’s not, find someone else who speaks that language.

4)      A good homologue has time to do the project. There are lots of motivated people in Burkina Faso who have the first 3 qualifications but don’t have time, so they’re never available and always busy. You don’t want someone who is going to bail on your sensibilization 5 minutes beforehand.

When you find someone who satisfies the above criteria, you are in luck. You have found your counterpart! Pat yourself on the back, take a deep breath, because you have managed to pique this person’s interest, doesn’t mean you’ll keep it. You’ve gotta really sell it, and yourself now. If you do this, sit down and figure out with your homologue what you’re going to do. If you’re talking about nutrition, what are you talking about? Proper feeding techniques? How to make bouille? When to exclusively breast feed your child? Yea, nutrition isn’t just about eating the food pyramid (though in Burkina Faso it’s the food house) it’s all those little pieces put together that we don’t really think about in the US. Every topic has lots of little nuances that typically don’t register.

The homologue must understand the material as well as you do if you’re going to be successful. Chances are they’re going to be leading the discussion, session, etc and you shoot yourself in the foot if you keep interrupting all the time. And, if they start saying things that aren’t true or head off on a tangent that you really don’t want to start down it’s a waste of time (perdre de temps).

In the Peace Corps, you don’t have one counterpart. You have many. There’s one “point person” who is the Peace Corps’ primary contact person but you’re free to work with whomever you’d like. Though, it is polite to keep the point person informed (professional courtesy) and being Burkinabe they can probably help in some way, shape, or form.

A good homologue can make all the difference between an “Awesome!” or a “WTF was that?”

Choose wisely.

The Peace Corps Philosophy

The philosophy of the Peace Corps is quite different from that of other aid agencies. The Peace Corps doesn’t do, we teach. We facilitate. We motivate. We plan. We arrange. We act as partners and we are told to always, always, have a counterpart with us when we do anything.

 The philosophy is one that focuses on the resources that already exist in the host country and mobilizing people, or changing strategies to solve a problem, as opposed to using technology that the host country doesn’t understand to temporarily solve a problem, or giving money, pumps, etc. to help ameliorate what people have said is a problem.

It starts like this: what are the needs of the community? This may seem like a fairly straightforward question to answer. But, there is a subtle distinction between want and need. For example, two people might tell you they “need” a well. The first person needs a well because the other one is a kilometer away and they don’t feel like walking.

The second person may say he needs a pump because the only water source close to him is a river that’s contaminated by pesticides and chemicals and it brings a lot of sicknesses to the families that use it.

Can you tell which is a want and which is a need? The first person has identified a want. Yea, it stinks to walk the kilometer but the pump is there and it works and most people here have bikes and it’s not bad to bike a kilometer and it’s easy to balance a jug of water on the back that weighs upwards of 40 pounds (this actually is quite easy). So, person one, how’s it feel to want? The second person has identified a need. They need a pump because their only water source makes them sick.

So who do we help? Well, that’s a trick question- we help them both. We work with person one to try and get them to understand that they don’t need a pump- but maybe they need to go to the pump earlier or later so it’s not so busy or so hot when they go- then the distance wouldn’t be as bad. We would then work with the second one to see if we could cultivate connections and joint projects to see if we could facilitate a well in the village.

I know what you’re thinking: wait you don’t give money? That’s weird. Why not? Or you might be thinking: yea I knew that, I’ve read other blogs, etc. Anyway, here’s a brief anecdote that explains why (boe yinga- why in moore).

My moore tutor once asked me, “Why can’t you give us money?” and that’s a hard question to answer in a way that avoids making Americans sound cheap or putting other aid agencies down. I responded to it like this: “Ablasse, if I gave you money, what would you do with it?”

Ablasse: “Spend it”

Me: “And after it was gone, what would you do?”

Ablasse: “Try and get more”

Me: “But what if there was no more?”

Ablasse: “Well, that’d be unfortunate”

Me: “But, what if I gave you an idea that helped you make money. You could keep reusing it, and keep getting more money, and then you wouldn’t run out of money. Wouldn’t that be better?”

Ablasse: “Yep”

Me: “Well, there you go”

The key word is sustainability. We’re here for two, three, or four years and then we leave and do something else, in the states, other places abroad, etc. We don’t spend the rest of our lives here- so if we do things by ourselves, who is going to do them when we’re gone? The answer to that rhetorical question is no one will because they’re built around the volunteer. But if the host country nationals (in my case the Burkinabe) do it themselves, then that’s awesome!

Basically we work with someone to develop a plan, and then implement the plan. We can do the sensibilizations ourselves or we can just sit in the crowd and watch. Being different, we draw a crowd. A friend of mine once told me, “I just go and sit down and even if people aren’t interested in the sensibilization they come and sit because they want to know what I think is so interesting.” In all honesty, it’s an amazing plan- and it actually does work. People in Poa come to baby weighings because they want to see the white guy weigh their kids and they want to laugh when I mispronounce their names- because it is kinda funny- and some names are hard to pronounce.

This focus on sustainability is actually a lot harder than just doing it yourself. When you’re working with someone else you have to make sure they know, and understand the information. You have to have a plan and you have to understand why you have that plan. Where are you now? Where do you want to get by the end of the sensibilization? How are you going to get there? How will you get people to show up? How will you get people to stay? Can you say that in moore? The list of questions goes on and on.

There’s also the golden rule of Burkina Faso to consider: expect the unexpected. You’ve been told that everyone speaks French? Well, better find a moore translator just in case (9/10 cases you’ll need it). Your program starts at 7? Better hope people show up by 9. Your counterpart said “don’t worry I’ll remember”? Better remind him anyway. What I’ve learned here over the past (almost) 6 months is this: if you don’t plan at all: you’re in trouble. If you plan too much: you’re in trouble. So what am I saying? It’s the same thing Odysseus found out- everything in moderation. Have an end point and a strategy but leave minutia to what feels right. Because, let’s face it: the lesson isn’t in the ending. It’s in the journey.  

It could also bounce back the other way. You can be passionate about something and no one will care- and you have to respond to the priorities of the village (within reason), so you have to either convince your counterpart(s) that your priority is really a priority (within reason) or just let it go. I don’t recommend the second one- but, to each his own.

I guess the philosophy boils down to this: If we do it for you, you’re not going to develop. And who wants that?