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.