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.