Family Planning with Marie Stopes

When I first got to my village a little less than two years ago, one of the first thing they told me is: “Drew, we need help on family planning.” And it was true, roughly 12% of eligible individuals used some type of family planning tool. There were a couple of reasons for this: 1) there are a lot of misconceptions about family planning in my village such as, if you start family planning you can’t stop. If you use family planning you won’t have enough people to work in the fields come rainy season. It’s too expensive. It’s dumb, etc.

Since this was clearly a problem we started trying to tackle it- by informing people about the misconceptions of family planning, of the dangers of having a family that’s too big, and of the changing stereotype that yes, a big family is good  but a smaller more well nourished and educated family is better.

Some people took the message to heart and our numbers climbed a bit. Other people didn’t hear the message and some just ignored it- such is life. Along the way though, I was luckily enough to meet someone (Adolphe) who works for Marie Stopes International- a non-governmental organization (NGO) that works exclusively with family planning. Their plan is pretty simple- they give family planning methods for a reduced fee and they go to different villages to teach people about them, and then do the procedure.

I started calling Marie Stopes (about once every 10 days) to see if they could get a team to my village and just look around to see if we qualify. Even though they kept saying, “We’ll call you back” and I never heard anything I kept calling because my nurses were getting kind of excited about it.

My new buddy, Adolphe and I started talking and I kept impressing the fact that family planning isn’t something my village does well. While we were at a training called Men As Partners together we decided that we would do a project together and that he would come to my village to talk about family planning to students- because we had done it with another volunteer a few times and it had turned out to be pretty successful.

The day finally came and I had scheduled to do everything at the school- they had actually said that they wanted me to come to the school for a while and that, even though I asked every other week when I could come and help, they still had not been able to find a date. Despite the fact that I had confirmed the date and time 24 hours before at 8AM the director called me to tell me we had to cancel. Apparently there were tensions regarding a family planning talk among the teachers so we could not go. Adolphe and I were super bummed out over this new development especially since he had come all the way from to village to make it work.

Never fear though, everything is useful in some way and I used this failed class as an opportunity to show how much help my village needs in family planning. Adolphe toured our facilities (not so shabby by village standards) and saw our numbers (very shabby) and talked to the nurses. As he was leaving he said he would make sure a family planning team came to my village because we really needed the help.

A few weeks later Adolphe came back with awesome news. It was great to see him even though we were in the middle of a mosquito net census. Even with the unfortunate timing, this project was important to my village and to me so I was able to do both projectsThe Marie Stopes team would be coming in a week. We informed all the important people including a lot of religious leaders who all were incredibly supportive of our endeavor and agreed to round up some women (and men) so we could talk to them about family planning 24 hours later.

The next day we spoke to roughly 75 women about family planning and Marie Stopes, we spoke to some  in the chief’s courtyard (thus helping to convince him that I actually do things) and some at the Imam’s courtyard. The pastor promised to mention us during his sermon too- all in all- some very good press.

When the team finally did come we didn’t get the numbers that Marie Stopes. Only 30ish women showed up. But now Marie Stopes comes and does this every month and they keep pushing our numbers higher. And, any improvement is a good thing.

While I had very little to do with the implementation of the actual family planning aspect of this- I was very excited to have laid the groundwork through my work with Marie Stopes. It allowed an NGO that already operates in Burkina Faso to do more sustainable work in my village. There may be a volunteer after me, and they may be really interested in family planning. Or, they might not. If they were not, any positive behavior changes might not continue if a volunteer created project fails. But, with Marie Stopes; they are an organization that has proven their competency and is unlikely to go anywhere.

It also serves as a lesson that staying at site all the time might not be the most beneficial way to go about a Peace Corps service. This is a common debate among people actually. Some people say that on order to be trusted by the community you need to be there and you need to be integrated. I agree with this statement. However, I also think that getting out of site from time to time is extremely helpful because it allows you to make connections that you wouldn’t have made otherwise. Peace Corps is partly about making connections. Group 1 has problem x. Group 2 has the skills and resources to solve problem x. PCV knows both groups and can put them in contact so they can solve the problem together- and create sustainable change.

Hopefully through continued collaboration, Marie Stopes and my village will be continue to create long term, sustainable change in my village long after I am gone.

Mosquito Net Census

Another month where I did not write any blogs. However, I did manage to accomplish a few things. Aside from the marathon, I led a mosquito net distribution in my village.

Every few years Burkina Faso does a mosquito net distribution campaign with the hopes of getting 1 mosquito net for every two people. To do this accurately you either need to a) have an extremely accurate census of every community or b) go door to door and physically count the number of people in each courtyard and go from there. We used option b. Since my major was going to be out of town and no one at my health center knows the village better than me, I was put in charge. Fun, right? Actually kind of.

The way I see it, I was brought to my village to work and I hadn’t done a whole lot of it, so I really enjoy any opportunity to help out. My major had already come up with a list of people who would help out which made it a lot easier so all I had to do was: divide them into teams, decide where in village they would go, make sure their materials were ready, tally up the results at the end of the day, monitor the results, transmit them to the district, take care of any problems, make sure all of the forms and maps were drawn correctly so that the district would be able to understand our plan if they were to supervise, and visit every team everyday to make sure they were doing what they were supposed to.

Since my village is a rather large place, I knew this was going to mean a lot of biking for me- which I was really looking forward to because it would be my first physical activity since the marathon a few weeks beforehand. We decided that the groups would leave at 6AM so I had to get to the CSPS at 530 to make sure all the forms were put together properly, that they were labeled properly, and that each group was supplied with a pen and some chalk. Then I would go back to house for a bit, eat some breakfast, and then grab my bike and see 6 teams in a few hours.

The registration process was very simple. Each team had a registration spreadsheet and a ticket book. Each family would get a ticket and each ticket had a number. The ticket would read the name of the head of the family, the number of nets they were getting, and where they were going to get the nets. The spreadsheet had the same information but the teams had to write down the ticket numbers and there were spaces for the supervisor to verify the teams’ work.

I really enjoyed the biking from team to team. I got to bike through the parts of my village that I don’t usually see and interact with people who might not come to the health center very often. I think the volunteers who got to help out with this during their first year are lucky because it allows their village to see them multiple times over the period of a few days. During each supervision I had a checklist to make sure everyone was there, had been trained in what we were doing, were counting people correctly, were filling out the forms correctly, and were giving people the correct information. Most teams were doing it right but a few had some small errors that I corrected. Often it was, “Great job! Keep up the good work!”

The real trouble came when you had people who were not home. Usually the census-takers would just find a neighbor and ask, who would find another neighbor and the two would discuss it before answering how many people lived in that courtyard. That had to be considered with cultural norms as well. For example, if a family had 12 people- but one was a teenage boy, they probably shouldn’t be sleeping with their 9 year old sister. So the teams were instructed to make sure nothing culturally inappropriate happened in the survey. Also, since the days were so long, there were routine mistakes that showed up- such as people writing the same ticket number down twice so one was skipped, or the names did not correspond with the ticket we had given them. I was pretty good about catching these errors as I saw them but one or two slipped by me.

The 6 days passed pretty slowly because I was kept so busy. Often I didn’t eat lunch until 1PM and then I had to be back at 3PM to tally all the numbers and to make sure we were on track. But I was really productive, the teams were happy, and the people who live in my village were happy. The district was especially happy, they started asking other CSPS’ why their forms weren’t as well done as ours- which is quite the compliment.

I was incredibly tired each day but with a sense of accomplishment which is always a good feeling- like a workout that hurts afterwards because you know you did a good job. And everyone else realized how hard I was working- especially since I was juggling a family planning project at the same time.

At the end of the campaign we turned all the papers in and were told that we would have the mosquito nets by the end of August- the height of malaria season.

Overall, it was a really good project to be involved in and to lead. I enjoyed collaborating with the teams and the CSPS staff to lay the groundwork for a successful mosquito net distribution.

The Marathon

Last year my buddy, David, and I decided that we would run the Burkina Faso marathon. After all, it’s a physically grueling race that takes a while to prepare for and in a country where Peace Corps Volunteers lack things to do- it helps pass the time. It is also a solid goal to work towards and then when you actually do it you know that you actually accomplished something. So we found a marathon plan online, and started training. In February we ran a half marathon (see blog post) and then kept right on training for our race in June.

Unlike the Boston marathon which is run in the spring, or other marathons that are not run during the hottest part of the year, the Burkina marathon is not like that. It’s run towards the end of hot season. So, it was hot.

As the preparation went on we found out that we would be joined by two other PCVs: Tim and Natalya. Plus a few Embassy workers as well. Some people had run marathons before and were well acclimated to the stresses of running 26.2 miles. Others had read a book about how marathons are about getting to the finish line and how it’s really a combination of mind, body, and spirit. David and I just decided to download a marathon training program, follow it and see how it went.

Surprisingly it went pretty well, for a time. We started well in advance and we even had time to run half of a marathon along the way which really bolstered our spirits (see related blog post). And then we got busy. Between projects, volunteer responsibilities and the like we both stopped running religiously and unfortunately, during the month of April we barely ran at all. Tip for anyone hoping to run a marathon: don’t take most of a month off. It doesn’t do anything positive for anyone.

Once May hit we realized that we probably should be running and making sure we could actually finish the marathon. My village saw me training again and started getting excited and cheering me on. Predictably May flew by and we soon got to June.

As we got closer to the date we found out that people were planning on biking with us to bring water, snacks, and keep an eye on us. In total there were about 5 bikers with us, including Christina. The day before the race Christina and I came into the city to pick up the running shirts and where I told a bunch of people that I was going to win the marathon (I was just joking but it was kind of funny to see how people reacted).

The night before we had a pasta party of sorts and talked about pre-race questions: Is it okay to walk? Should you wear a watch? Do you run with a buddy? And then we retired to a hotel and went to bed.

The race was due to start around 630 AM so we woke up at 430 in order to be picked up by a taxi on time and get to the race a little bit early (we had watched Run Fat Boy, Run recently and were scared of showing up late). We got there in plenty of time, warmed up a bit, and all of a sudden we were off. The course started easily enough, and just as last time all the Burkinabe took off very quickly. But after 2 miles they started dropping out. The PCV group started spreading out as well.

The race course took us around Ouagadougou a bit before sending us straight up the road to a village called Laye. Taking turns and stuff and seeing people was pretty cool because we knew we were going to be bored once the course straightened out.

After a few miles (6 or so) I realized that I was pulling my pants up with alarming regularity and, being in the middle of an extremely grueling activity I didn’t react very well. My shorts elastic had been ruined by the washing techniques of Burkina (handwashing) and the elastic had stretched to the point where it no longer fit. So rather than say something logical like oh let’s use a safety pin to pin my shorts together I said something along the lines of I need a new pair of shorts (I had brought 2 but the other pair was across Ouaga). So, Christina, being the amazing person that she is said she would bike back and get my other pair of shorts and I would stop and change somewhere when she met up with me again.

For a little while I was running with another volunteer who was biking but then we got separated so I ended up running without food or water and only getting 1/3 of a liter every 5 kilometers (not as much as you need when running in an almost desert).  But, I kept going and kept pressing forward. I found another running buddy who had done the marathon before and we kept each other company for a bit. Then, the volunteers who were handing out water decided to leave because the leaders had already passed. So, the further along I got, the less water there was.

Eventually it got to the point where I was walking, had extreme tingling in my extremities, had stopped sweating, and was seeing double. I collapsed by the side of the road and realized that I should probably take a rest because someone would come past me sooner or later with water and some form of snack because I thought I was severely dehydrated. As luck would have it, Christina found me not long after and gave me fluids and bananas. I felt a bit better but not enough to keep going so I got put into a minivan and driven to the finish line. All the other volunteers finished and they were very happy.

Understandably I was pretty bummed. I hadn’t finished the marathon and I hadn’t crossed the finish line. It was not a fun situation to be in. But, after we got back to Ouaga I was talking to someone who worked at the embassy who said, “I can’t believe that course- it was too long.” I replied, “by how much?” “1.1 miles”, she replied.

And I felt great. Despite collapsing by the side of the road, and throwing a tantrum over my shorts I had still managed to finish the marathon because someone had incorrectly designed the route. Only in West Africa would that happen.

In conclusion, I ran a marathon. It was hot, it wasn’t pretty, and I didn’t cross the finish line. But I made it 26.2 miles. Maybe I’ll try and run the Boston marathon one day. 

Malaria

April 25^th was World Malaria Day which made all of April: Malaria month. Fun fact: 90% of all Malaria- related deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa.

So while Malaria is bad and in everybody’s best interest not to get it- here are some things Burkina Faso does to help get rid of Malaria. They publish flyers in several languages talking about what malaria is and how to best protect themselves. They subsidize malaria medications throughout the country (actually I’m not sure where the money comes from- someone subsidizes it). And, they do bed net distribution campaigns throughout the country every two years or so. The bed nets come from other parts of the world though the government says to distribute them.

Mosquitos love to bite at dusk, dawn, and throughout the night. So, sleeping under a mosquito net seems like a pretty good way to protect oneself. Unfortunately, not everybody sleeps under a mosquito net- some people use it to filter water, some people go fishing with it, some people use it as decoration and, of course, some actually sleep under it. But, to really help get rid of malaria people need to engage in their own health.

The signs of malaria are pretty vague- headache, fever, joint pain, vomiting, diarrhea, that kind of stuff. And there are an infinite number of other maladies that have THE EXACT SAME SIGNS! Of course when malaria progresses and becomes, as they say in Burkina, “grave” (bad.)- it quickly singles itself out through seizures, urine the color of coke, anemia- and other less-than-awesome things.

The vagueness at the outset means that misdiagnosing comes into the equation at some point. Some nurses (not all because that would be generalizing), if they see someone with a fever will automatically say its malaria and will prescribe the necessary medication- and then, just to be on the safe side will prescribe an antibiotic also just in case they were wrong. While covering all the bases is good, it will invariably lead to resistance to the medications.

To aid in this, Rapid Diagnostic Tests have been gifted to Burkina Faso. These tests work much like a pregnancy test but rather than urine it asks for a drop of blood. Then, if the parasite is in the blood you get two lines which mean, “Congratulations, you have malaria!”

The problem with this is that some nurses don’t believe in the test and think that it’s wrong.  One time I walked into the consultation room and saw that they were prescribing malaria medication and…

Me: Oh cool, malaria case?

Nurse: Yep.

Me: So the TDR (rapid test) was positive?

Nurse: No it was negative. But it was wrong.

Me: Huh?

Now this isn’t to condemn the nursing system in Burkina Faso, far from it in fact. The Minister of Health has published a chart which all health centers are required to hang up (and follow). Its steps are: 1) Someone comes in displaying signs of malaria. 2) Do the rapid test 3) If positive then 4) Treat for malaria OR 3) If negative then 4) Look for something else.

Another problem is that the stock of rapid tests is not guaranteed. Indeed, more often than not, the rapid tests are not available in my health center so we cannot use them.

While Peace Corps volunteers typically focus on preventative measures, there are many ways to fight malaria- including more effective detection and treatment of malaria. 

FARNed

Since I last posted in February, I’ve been fairly busy. First, I gave a workshop to 20 nurses from different parts of the district regarding nutrition and a specific model the Peace Corps uses to help stop malnutrition in villages. It’s an interesting problem- the Minister of Health has said that the care of moderately malnourished children is the responsibility of the community and not the responsibility of the state- different from the previous protocol. Also, the current practice of giving children Plumpy Sup/ Plumpy Nut: a peanut butter like substance that comes in a shiny package and everyone calls “chocolate” isn’t working in my village. So the MCD (medecin chef de district- head doctor of the district)used something I had said during a presentation I gave to another doctor within our district, and set up a training to teach other nurses how to do it with the expectation that they would implement the model in their villages. The pilot for this program was to be conducted in three villages: Poa, Kokologo and, Sabou. The model is called a HEARTH in English and a FARN in French- means the same thing though. So the district supplied the materials, and I supplied the know-how and things were good.

The HEARTH model is built off of the philosophy that people learn best by doing and doesn’t take anything for granted. Every day for 12 days a group of 10-15 mothers meets at a central location and make an enriched porridge and talk about a health subject. Our model was going to use 3 groups of 5 mothers in different locations. The first 6 days are led by the group leader while the last 6 are led by the participants themselves. It’s a way for them to show what they learned during the first 6 days. Each day the mothers feed their children the enriched porridge and they start to see what the child likes and what they don’t like. The porridge is actually pretty easy to make. It’s made up of some type of flour (corn, millet, etc.), some type of protein (peanut butter, beans, dried fish, etc.), oil, sugar or salt, and some fruit if it’s available. While there are recipes it’s really easy to mix and match which makes the entire process a lot easier.

When we got back to site, things became a little more difficult. The district had arranged to pay the participants and while that served as a strong motivator to sign up, it didn’t assure that all the mothers would go everyday and it didn’t promote sustainability. So we found the mothers whom we identified as “positive deviants”- women who live at the same socio-economic level as the majority of the village, but rather than having malnourished, sick kids- they have kids who are well nourished and generally healthy. We were essentially looking for people who don’t leave their kid alone at home for long periods of time, know what to feed their kids, know when to go to the health center for treatment, and know/implement healthy behaviors. And then we identified women who have moderately malnourished children and would benefit from this project. We also told them we would be paying them. Of course, they said yes.

After that we informed our community health agents that they were going to go to each of the houses and observe the practices of the mothers at their house. This is so we knew what the mothers did well and what they did not do and then we could pick specific health topics that the women needed to know about. Our topics were Malaria, Hygiene, Nutrition, Family Planning, Pre-natal Consultations and, Exclusive Breastfeeding.

While this was happening we told all the women to come to the health center for consultations- there we gave every kid a de-parasiting agent, iron supplements, and vitamin A. We also asked every mother if there was anything wrong with their kids- and if there was, we treated them.

The point of the HEARTH is that it has amazing potential for sustainability and doesn’t need a Peace Corps volunteer for the implementation. It’s made using locally available ingredients, the education is all about things nurses are supposed to teach people about anyway, and it’s a way to make the community better starting from the base of the community. However, my village seemed almost afraid of doing something without me. So, we would sit down and talk about what we had to do, we’d make a schedule and then if I left for two days to deal with something else I would come back and it wouldn’t be done. So, that was slightly frustrating and more than slightly confusing. This slight issue made it so we had to start after the other two villages had already finished- not the worst thing ever but also not sending a good signal to the district.

Finally, after all the waiting, trying to schedule and, planning we were ready to go. I was fortunate to have Christina, another health volunteer come to my site for the two weeks of the HEARTH which made things a lot easier. As day 1 arrived, we got ready to weigh all the kids. The midwives were going to go to each group and weigh all the kids. However, we did not anticipate that the women would get to the courtyard early, and thus finish early. So, even though we had left earlier than the start time we still got to one group after the kids had already eaten and because of that- couldn’t weigh them. We decided to weigh them the second day instead. Aside from that, the first day went pretty well. Christina and I decided to go to 1 group per day, meaning that we could visit each group 4 times and we would have a chance to bond (in moore because none of the mothers spoke French)with the mothers and the kids. Predictably, some of the kids were scared to the point of tears, and others just screamed, turned and ran as fast as their legs could carry them. Some regarded us with indifference (though those were primarily the malnourished ones).

And for 12 days that was our schedule. Wake up super early, head to a courtyard, hang out with moms and kids, take some pictures, give health advice, leave- and then watch Dexter or Castle (both pretty decent shows). Every other afternoon we had a meeting with the leaders explaining the recipes and sensibilization topics for the next two days.

We also found time to plan a mural and tell a guy to cement a wall (picture a condom saying “make it so” with the insignia from Star Trek: The Next Generation), to try to plant trees (we showed up but no one else did), and to try and start a correspondence program between herbal medicine doctors in the states and those here in Burkina Faso.

At the end of the 12 days, we weighed all the kids again and after reviewing the data we found that, on average kids gained 513 grams (roughly a pound). Which means that, mathematically, it was a complete success.

I was recently asked to see if we were going to do the project again- because the peace corps wants to video the whole thing. I would like to do it again, I just don’t know if people will want to be paid again. I certainly hope not because 1) I disagree with paying someone to get involved in their own betterment and 2) Where is the money going to come from?

I ran half of a marathon

No, not a half marathon, half of a marathon. And it came about in a bit of an odd way.

Things here in Burkina Faso aren’t like things in the US (duh) but here it’s common to not know something is happening until the day before or the day of an event. Luckily, I found out about this event a week in advance mainly because I happened to be in the capitol city and saw the flyers plastered everywhere. Apparently Coris Bank decided to celebrate themselves for a week and would finish off the festivities with a marathon that started at 6AM and would lead runners to all of the Coris Bank branches in Ouaga. Since I am already training for a marathon (May) and I was going to be in the city the weekend of the marathon I sat down with my running buddy (David)and asked, “Do you want to run a marathon next Sunday?” To which he replied, “Absolutely!”

And with that, our brilliant plan was born. With David who had run a 100km race and myself who had never run further than 10 miles we thought it would be a pretty awesome idea. So, we looked up important things like, how much to hydrate (a fair amount), what to eat the night before (pasta is good), and whether it was a good idea to take laxatives before the race so we didn’t have to go mid-race (it’s not). But with a week left to go before our marathon debut we were feeling confident, successful, and that the only thing left to do was actually run the race which was more of a formality anyway. 

About 24 hours after our premature feeling of triumph we decided that running a full marathon was not a good idea and that the risk of hurting ourselves was just too high at that point in time. So we decided to run half which is really the perfect amount. Not too far that you get tired, but enough so that you feel accomplished. With the total amount of running that we had to do divided by two, we were back to feeling good.

The next week was a whirlwind of training that involved a lot of running, a fair amount of abs, quite a few push-ups, and not a small amount of biking. The hardest part was putting together a playlist and figuring out where the marathon started (we thought we had a pretty solid idea).

Finally the day before our event came and we celebrated by making some awesome lasagna, garlic bread, and salad. Over the course of this we met another volunteer, Zach, who actually is a runner and when he figured out we were carbo-loading he asked what it was for and once he heard we were running 13.1 miles he immediately said, “I’m in.” Add to this a fourth volunteer who, when we heard what we were doing, promptly saved all of our lives by volunteering to bike alongside us with water, homemade granola bars (we made those), our wallets, and cell phones. Pat was the man of the hour.

At 4:45AM the next morning we were up, dressed, and trying to make sure that we would not have any digestive trouble over the next few hours. Since neither David nor myself knew how long this was going to take or even where we were going we didn’t want any unexpected surprises. At 4:50AM we were outside climbing into a cab with our two new members to the team, and at 5:20 we were pulling up to a Bank of Africa and telling the cab driver, “This isn’t Coris Bank.” We made it eventually though and we registered, went to the bathroom one more time and were ready to go at 6AM on the dot.

However, the race was not ready to go and we hung around making jokes, listening to music, and looking at other people’s running shoes (Nike Frees, boat shoes, tevas, and flip flops). Eventually around 6:40 someone fired the gun and we were off!

All of the Burkinabe promptly took off like a group of collective bats out of hell. And while the seasoned runner on our team took off as well, we had expected that. Finally David and I had been passed by nearly everyone and we were holding at the end of the pack. The logic of this move was that everyone else would tire out after a mile or two and when they did we would slowly and steadily start kicking some butt. And as we pressed on we occasionally passed people who would promptly start sprinting to pass us again. We did start a system of passing people on either side and once we passed them David and I would double high five, a move we called the “Eiffel tower”.

So, the race kept on, we kept Eiffel towering, the sun kept climbing, the playlist kept playing, and… “Wait, was that an aid station?” Pat, David and I were all visibly floored by the presence of water, bananas, oranges, and sponges along with a sign that said congratulations you’ve gone 5km! Well splendid, we quickly found out that we did not need all the water we had bought nor the granola bars. But Pat stayed with us anyway.

Not long after this, a pair of policemen on a motorcycle came up to us and said, “You’re going to want to speed up a little.” We thought we had been doing a pretty good job. We were moving at a comfortable pace, we were passing people, and people had been cheering for us as we ran by; yet, here were these two police officers saying “get your butts in gear.” With a brief look behind us to confirm that we could not see any runners behind us (they had either slowed way down and started walking or dropped out already) we sped up and tried to run down the next guy.

As time went on we ran on main roads, and police officers were there stopping traffic. We often ran by giving them high-fives, cheering at intersections, and motivating the runners we passed. Though something about being passed by two white guys who couldn’t stop cheering “Whoooooooo” at intersections and high-fiving must have been so demoralizing because everybody we passed ended up quitting. We were having a lot of fun though.

Finally we ended up hitting 13.1 miles after an hour and 45 minutes. Zach was already waiting for us but David and I had surpassed our goal time and were feeling awesome that we had actually run half of a marathon.

We then went and played in the annual softball tournament to nicely round out the day.

The marathon in May will probably be a lot hotter but, it’s only what we did plus an extra 13.1 miles. Game on.

What I've Been Doing

I guess a good question to answer is- after being on vacation what does a Volunteer do at the beginning of the second year? And, the answer to that is: much the same as I was doing the first year. The most frustrating aspect is that before I went to go work at PST (training) I had wrapped up all my projects, and then I went home; so, when I got back to site and I started to think about projects again (that took a couple days) my first thought was, “What was I working on?” But seriously, it’s really easy to lose momentum on things you weren’t quite sure what you were doing. But, as I’ve been able to reconstruct my projects in progress so far:

1)      Tree Planting: Ironically, the project that I’ve scoffed at the most seems to be the one I’m poised to make the most progress on. I don’t understand it either. But, my counterpart is pretty motivated to do this (I think tree planting might be part of his yearly quota as well) and we’re already well on our way to getting seeds, dirt, sand, and compost.

2)      It’s Condom Time- and HIV/AIDS mural: This project came as a joke until I figured out that it was actually within the realm of possibilities. It basically consists of the Power Rangers holding different condom brands and saying, “It’s condom time!” I tried to think of something involving Captain Picard but I’m not quite sure if, “Make it so” translates well. This would involve some sensibilizations about preventing HIV/AIDS and using family planning methods as well.

3)      World Map- The principal at the middle school/high school in my village had a peace corps volunteer once upon a time who made a huge world map on a building, and he wants to do the same thing here. I told him that if he found the money (preferably by asking the Parent/student organization), I’d get the mural painted.

4)      Classes at the middle school/high school about health topics- Pretty self explanatory. Those don’t require much planning- I just need a schedule of when to show up. But it’ll probably be talking about things like family planning, malaria prevention, etc.

5)      Classes at elementary schools- like the preceding project idea. Only a little more simplistic. Probably more hygiene and less sex related.

6)      CPR- This is actually turning into an incredibly frustrating project despite its incredibly simplistic idea. It also went from completely free to really expensive in the blink of an eye thanks to a rule that I’m not even sure applies in this case. However, we’re moving along a little bit at a time. 
Every 3 or 4 months I have to write this up for the Peace Corps anyway- but this is a little more entertaining. Copy and Paste: here I come!

Vacation

As luck would have it, the airline confusion did not end with my last blog post and we found ourselves flying into JFK with poor weather conditions and…late. This means that we missed our gate spot and since planes were slow in taking off we spent a lot of time flying around in circles over Long Island. But once we landed, I was pretty much waved through every checkpoint.

However, my parents brought a jacket to New York! And, while it was not very cold when we first got to New York, it was definitely rainy which I thought was awesome.  And, what’s even more awesome is how many people made their way to the airport to find me- even two very special friends who had taken a bus all the way from Boston just to be there and, a little puppy too.

Our first stop on the way home was, a diner. I hadn’t had blueberry pancakes in a while so we decided to stop at a place where everyone had something they liked- salads, sandwiches, pancakes, etc.

At home, I have been able to reconnect with friends both old and new and experience meals that aren’t really in Burkina (and drinks too). I also had the opportunity to go to a swim meet to watch my youngest brother race, and then see him at one of his practices too.

Although, I have to say prices here are ridiculous. After Burkina Faso where you can live comfortable on a dollar a day I found myself thinking that paying $8 for a sandwich (even one as good as a Buffalo Chicken wrap) was a bit ridiculous.

As are malls during the holidays; I wasn’t a big frequenter of malls before I left but I have been hanging around with my brother a bunch so we ended up going once or twice and whoa it’s an experience and a half.

But I digress- the weather is awesome. It has been sunny and cold, windy and sunny, cold and cloudy, rainy, etc. And, I’ve enjoyed all of the combinations mainly because they aren’t sunny and 90 degrees. It has snowed twice since I’ve been home and I don’t think anyone has ever enjoyed shoveling more, especially when you accidently throw the snow into the wind and it blows back in your face.

And the holidays were great too. I enjoyed seeing all of my family, and eating dinner with them, cleaning, and yes, a little bit of bickering too. It’s odd to think that next Christmas I’ll be back again with another batch of stories and a year older.

But, three weeks moves pretty fast when you get down to it so on Tuesday I’ll be heading back to Burkina Faso for my last year of service. With health projects such as CPR, family planning, and everything else in between (even tree planting), it is sure to be an activity filled year (I hope).

I'm on a Plane

I decided to take a vacation. After two months of training and 12 months of service I figured that it would be nice to spend the holiday season with my family back home. While the plan itself was simple enough (request vacation days, get aforementioned vacation days approved, purchase plane tickets, and make it to the airport on time) the actual execution was a bit more difficult.

The first step was actually pretty easy, I spoke to my major about how I was going to go home for vacation and he was all about me going to the US (he hadn’t been back to his village for a while either so we were on the same page about wanting to see your parents, family, etc.) So he signed my paperwork saying that I had informed him that I was going to disappear for a period of 3 weeks.

Unfortunately we both wrote in black pen. Apparently this was an error because after you copy a form the ink is…black. Meaning you can’t tell whether a form has been copied or whether it’s waiting to be copied, or whatnot. This did not help in the accomplishment of step 2. But, step 3 went pretty smoothly.

Step 4 is a story in and of itself but suffice to say an activity that I was participating in was pushed back 24 hours while my plane schedule did not. So rather than having 24 hours to go back to site, pack up my stuff, say goodbye to people and tell them that I was, in fact, coming back I only had 2 hours to accomplish the same thing. But I was unable to find my Major or the Doctor.

As luck would have it, I was on the same plane as two other volunteers who had just finished their service, so we all got to hang out in the airport together and ask ourselves, “Our tickets say the plane leaves at 2:35 AM, why is the airline saying it leaves at 12:50AM?” Turns out it was a communication error on behalf of the airline and that we were, in fact, leaving at 2:35AM.

The plane ride pretty smoothly all things considered. As someone with relatively short legs I don’t often find myself in need of extra legroom but it is actually quite awesome in this case. The food was really good though I’m not sure if that’s a result of my standards going down or the airline standards increasing.

And, while there was no in-flight movie (really noticeable on an 8 hour flight), thanks to a friend in the Peace Corps- I was able to watch The Amazing Spider-Man (apparently that came out), and the new Batman movie (I did know about that one).

So now I’m on a plane, flying over Nova Scotia at 34,000 feet, staring at what I think is ice, and hoping that someone brings me a jacket when I get to New York. 

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)?