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.