Friday, November 21, 2008

The Necessities: Food and Sleep

The food. Oh, the food. Well there’s carbs, carbs, and more carbs. Since coming to Burkina Faso, I think about food. A LOT! Past volunteers say that you will never talk more about bowel movements or food in your life than during your service. I can attest to this. There is not a lot of variety, here. The restaurants in Ouahigouya (the third largest city) only serve one of four dishes: spaghetti, rice with peanut/tomato sauce, couscous with peanut/tomato sauce, or rice with beans. I have learned to scout out the restaurants that have salad, brochettes, and fries. On the nights that we stay in Ouahigouya, I will go to a restaurant and spend anywhere between 300 cfa to 800 cfa, which is about $0.60 to $1.50. If I really splurge on supper, I will spend about 1400 cfa ($2.80). They usually use a lot of oil here. Yep, a lot. Yep. Lol. I like to think that I will appreciate food even more when I go back home or into the capital (Ouaga). I can usually find some American, Italian, or Thai(there is a rumor this one exists—I will seek it out) restaurants there. However, in relative terms, they are quite expensive. Ouahigouya has a pretty good outside market where you can find apples, bananas, watermelon, guava, peanut butter/peanuts, eggs, bread, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, eggplant, yams, meat and fish (these two scare me), amongst spices and other things that I am sure I am forgetting. I only head to the market on the days that I come into Ouahigouya for class (two days a week). I usually will head to market and pick up some fruit or veggies and laughing cow cheese to make a sandwich. Other days, I will make peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch. I will pick up some fruit to bring home when I head back to village but as I do not have a fridge, they usually go bad within a day or two. The lack of food choices in village had made me creative in concocting new food combinations. My friend introduced me to frozen yogurt and peanut butter. I buy regular yogurt at one of the marts and will bring it back to ECLA (the center where we have class) and ask them to freeze it for me. After a few hours I will retrieve it and put peanut butter on top. It’s actually quite good. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine it’s a peanut butter frosty.
In village, my host mom will usually give me one of the following: rice with peanut sauce, couscous with peanut sauce, spaghetti, or salad. I am actually pretty lucky because my mom will give me salad a few times a week. In Burkina Faso (for the locals) vegetables and fruits are expensive and I feel quite blessed that I get salad. Especially when one of my village mates only gets macaroni—every night. Every time my mom brings me my salad or any other dish I just have to laugh. She brings me enough food to feed a small army and probably all of their mothers. I usually will get one huge cauldron of just salad, another pot dedicated to onion and tomatoes, and another cooking pot dedicated to cucumbers. I usually mix all of the veggies together and put a little bit of oil, vinegar, and salt on top. So, so, yummy. She also insists on bringing silverware to me for every meal. The nerve of the women! Lol. When I arrived, I asked her if she eats with silverware, she responded no. I then told her that since her family did not eat with silverware, I would not either. Although, to this day, one month later, I still get served my supped with a fork and spoon. I have stayed strong and have not used them. I only eat about 1/4-1/3 of my food and usually ask my brother my join me. However, I feel bad because I usually have about 15-20 hungry kids around me. In the beginning, I did not know if it was appropriate to offer my family’s food to the children since I assumed most of them were neighborhood children(still could not tell you who is in my family and who is not). But now I try to offer the food to the children (when my brother is not around). Most of the time my brother will just take the food and just eat it for himself or share it with all of his brothers/friends? Even if I tell him to share it with the children. When I am done with my supper plate there may be a couple pieces of tomato or salad that I did not eat and one of the little boys will eat it like there is no tomorrow. It is kind of frustrating to watch my brother eat the rest of my food, even after I tell him to share. The Burkinabe people, especially those in village, like to eat to (pronounced toe). They have it for every meal. I believe it is ground up millet that it cooked with water. It then cools and has a consistency of malt-o-meal/cream of wheat. I tasted it once and it wasn’t very good. Well, no. It didn’t taste like anything. Here, the sauce makes or breaks the “to.” “To” is just like a filler. It has no nutritional value but it is cheap and abundant. During the first week I asked my brother what he was eating for dinner and he said to. I then asked what he ate the night before and he said to. I asked him what his favorite dish was and he said to. I then responded…. no, seriously. What is your favorite dish and he was like to. Even though the foods found in the market are less common than those in the city, people still do not eat them. They eat to for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Here is a list of some of the foods that I day dream about: CHIPOTLE! Potato salad, chili, cabbage salad, dad’s guacamole/hamburgers/lemon chicken, banana bread, cookie dough, ice cream, dried fruit, brown cinnamon oatmeal, and monkey bread. Seriously, the list could go on and on…. No, really. It could. However, in about a month when I get to site, I will be able to cook for myself as I will have my own kitchen. Today we had a cross-cultural class on maintaining good nutrition in Burkina Faso. We also received a cook book made up of recipes from past Burkina Faso volunteers who have had to cook without a stove, microwave, or fridge. Everything looks so good in it. If you haven’t figured it out already, I like food.

Depending on if I go to the cinema or not, I usually head to bed anywhere between 7:30 and 10:30. The first night I slept in village I thought I was having pre-menopausal hot flashes. It was over 90 degrees in my room. I kid you not. Since then, it has gotten considerably easier to sleep at night. Heat wise, anyway. Now, it is winter so it may get down to 60 degrees at night. I usually sleep with a pagne (a fabric that triples as my towel, blanket, and skirt). I usually have a chorus to hum along with during the night. And by chorus, I mean the animals. There are goats/sheep which sound like crying babies, roosters—oh, the roosters, chickens, orgasmic donkeys, and the praying/singing men. The goats usually wake me up around midnight, then come the sheep, and around three the roosters start. Some mornings the roosters start around 1:30. Oh, Lordy. Normally, the donkeys have no set time---they usually make their orgasmic noises all throughout the night. The first couple weeks I thought there was a sick baby living in my compound because all it would do was wail. I really wanted to go ask the neighbors which family had the sick baby so I could ask to see if it was okay. I never really did that though because at that time I could only say, “My name is Brittany and I am hungry/I like to eat.” Turns out, no baby--just the sheep and goats. Because I live in a Muslim region, there are four calls to prayer throughout the day. One of which is at 4:30 in the morning. I usually wake up to them singing but I’ve grown accustomed to them. In the beginning I was deathly afraid of sleeping in the dark. I suppose it was mostly because after 6:00 it gets dark, and since, there is no electricity, there are no lights anywhere in the village. I used to leave my lantern all the way on during the night but now I dim it so as to not to waste petrol. However, I swear there is a large animal that roams around in the room adjacent to my bedroom. The first night I woke up to rustling in the adjacent room. I thought someone had gotten into my room and was going through my suitcase. I almost peed my pants. I was so scared to say anything for fear that they would come into my room. I like to think of my mosquito net at my safety blanket. It surprisingly makes me feel safe. My house’s ceilings are lined with black garbage bags and I think the animal walks around up on them. That’s at least what I told myself…the farther away from me the better. However, on the nights that I wake up and have to go to the bathroom, I usually hold it until dawn breaks. Last night I had to go to bathroom around 1:30 but the noises in my houses were so loud that I held it until 5:45. I do have a funny story, though. During one of the first nights when I got to village, I had to go to the bathroom (this was during my three week long diarrhea fest). My screen door to my house can be locked on either side of the door. For some reason, my mom locked the outside so I couldn’t go to the bathroom in my latrine, which was located outside. So I had to go to the bathroom several times during the night in my shower bucket. I thought it was funny at the time--still do. Even with the chorus line and creepy animal, for some odd reason, I still wake up and feel refreshed. I guess it is because I go to bed so early. I never really feel the need to nap here.

I Run In Circles

So a few days a week, after it cools down in the afternoon (around 5), I play soccer at the school with some boys. One day I decided I wanted to play soccer so I showed up to the field and said I was playing. No questions asked. I am the only girl that plays with the boys and I think I am probably the only girl in the history of the village who has played soccer with the boys. On the field I am quite the sight. Even after playing soccer for nine years, I am still being schooled by boys about 1/3 my age. Their ages range from about 7 to 20. I mostly end up running around in circles—mostly chasing after the boys. I’m pretty positive I am the most watched person on the field. Not only because I am the only girl/ white person on the field, but also because compared to them, I am really awful. However, I do attack the boys and try to steal it away from them. Sometimes they will even pass the ball to me. Every other kick is a head bunt and these kids chase after the ball like no ones business. It still impresses me that about 90% of the kids play without shoes. And it’s not like they play on grass…they play on some sort of gravel/dust field. It’s hard to explain. I wear my Chacos sandals and when I get a rock in between my foot and shoes, I have to stop everything to take the rock out. But when I say stop everything, I just mean stop running in circles because I usually don’t have the ball. This happens a lot. Sometimes, a donkey cart will cross right in the middle of the field or a woman herding some goats. It is really funny because you think they would stop playing until the donkey cart or the goats have gotten off the field, but they don’t. They just play around them.

A Typical Day In Training (In Village)

A Typical Day in Training (In village)
5:30-5:45: Crawl out of bed. I am usually up before then as explained in my sleep blog. I will usually hear my host mom sweep my courtyard around this time.
6:00-8:00: Take a bucket bath and get ready for class. Bucket baths are not so bad--I actually really like them. Here, its currently winter so in the morning time it’s usually around 65 degrees and I am usually shivering as I take my bucket bath. However, in the afternoon it usually gets up to 85-90 degrees. Usually when I get up I will see my host family and neighbors all in their winter jackets. After I take my bath I am usually in a tank or a tee and my family is baffled as to why I am not cold as they are all bundled up. My host mom will usually bring me tea and I will sit outside and read a book. During this time, my other host mom, dad, and siblings will come and greet me. The neighborhood kids will usually come and peek into my courtyard to see if I am up. If I am up, they will usually sit with me as I read my book.
8:00-10:00: Language class. Usually pretty boring but my Language Placement Facilitator (LCF), Konfe, usually tries to make it fun by playing games.
10:00-12:30: Training Development Activity (TDA) or maybe another language class .
12:30-2:00: LUNCH! Usually, one of our host moms will make us lunch. Lunch usually will be rice with beans, rice with peanut sauce, or if we are really lucky, we may get salad or plantains. We usually have to ask for the later two in advance because our families will have to head into Ouahigouya to get these. Normally, after lunch we may just chill and chat in my courtyard as it offers the most shade during mid-day. Yesterday, during the lunch hour we took a little excursion to the river near our village and looked for crocodiles. We never saw any but one of the locals told us if we wanted to see them we should come back at dawn or dusk.
2:30-3:30: Health technical class. In the beginning these were tres boring as we talked about the theory and structure of the Burkinabe healthcare system. Lately, these have improved as some classes are about malaria, AIDS, malnutrition, or first aide.
3:45-5:15: Personal study time. I usually chill in my courtyard and read an English book and think that I should be studying French.
5:15-6:00: When I am in village at this time, I usually will head to the school and play soccer.
6:00-6:15: Bucket bath time! I am usually greeted by my mom at my courtyard. After she greets me in the local language, she then tells me to go shower.
6:15-8:00: My brothers and sisters/neighbor kids (I still don’t know which ones are mine) help me take out my desk and my mom will bring me tea and supper. I have about a 30% chance of guessing what I will have. I will read or study French while about 15-25 kids watch me. I’ll often try to speak French with my brothers or the little kids (about 80% of the kids don’t speak French). I am usually tired around 7:15 and want to go to bed but I make myself stay up until at least 7:45-8:00 so my family doesn’t think I am incredibly dull.
8:00-10:30: A few nights a week I will head to the cinema. The cinema is a small shack with a TV (run by a generator) and about four rows of benches. They play some really strange movies—sometimes, it will be a Thai boxing movie where the main character just kills people, bollywood movies, or European movies with three headed dogs. Aside from the Bollywood movies, the common thread is that someone is always getting killed. Since my French is still pretty bad, I usually just make up a storyline in my head. It is especially fun to do this with the Bollywood movies.
10:30-5:30: “Sleep”….I use this term loosely.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

A Little Burkinabe Adventure---To The Infirmary..

I am currently in the Peace Corps infirmary in Ouagadougou(Ouaga). I came to Ouaga for the weekend to attend Siao--a West African week long artisan festival. After attending the festival, my friend, Amanda, and I were trying to buy mangos at a street stand. As I was talking with one of the vendors, I stepped back and my whole leg fell through a cement grate sewer-ditch thingy. As I was falling through the grate, I tried to turn my body and put out my hands to catch myself. This was not the best idea as it just twisted my body even more. I fell through the cement grate with my left leg going through one hole and my entire right arm going through the other hole. My falling happened out of no where and surprised both Amanda and the women selling the fruit. They tried pulling my body out of the grate but my leg was crushed between two cement blocks. Because my body was at an angle, every time they pulled I screamed out in pain. My first instinct was to start screaming in English telling them to stop because they were hurting me. Amanda immediately stopped but because the women did not understand me they kept trying to pull me out. By then about thirty people had surrounded me with three more men trying to help lift me out. By then I had remembered the word for stop in French was "arretez"; I was both screaming and bawling this to the people to stop pulling me out. I don't think they understood me or thought they were trying to help me by trying to lift me out even after I told them to stop. Amanda was then screaming "no" at them so they would stop. After a few minutes of trying to pull me out, the men then tried lifting the cement blocks out from around me but the blocks were too heavy. A man then ran to his house and grabbed a crowbar and then used it to pry me out. Still cyring, I grabbed the vendor women and started hugging them and saying thank you. I think they were kind of confused by my actions because no one hugs in Burkina---especially not strangers. Amanda then texted the Peace Corps Medical Officer(PCMO) that I was hurt and to call. About 15 seconds later Jean Luc calls and we explained what had happened. Luckily, we were only two blocks from the transit house(the house where volunteers stay during their travels). It was also lucky that the Peace Corps bureau was about a three minute car ride from the transit house. We hobbled to the transit house where a few minutes later Jean Luc and Doug, the PC Country Director met up with me. They informed me that I would have to go to the PC infirmary until a decision could be made. Jean Luc and a PC staff member carried me to the car and then once at The Bureau carried me from the car up two flights of stairs to the infirmary. Here, I have recieved amazing care. Jean Luc treated my wounds(my arm and leg) and looked at my leg(I have an inflamed bruise-cyst about the size of a large grapefruit on my leg as well as some other bruises). He brought me some yummy bagels and orange juice...never thought I would see those in country. Jean Luc also brought me ibuprofin and a list of restaurants/menus of places that would deliver food to the PC Bureau. Even on his days off, he visits me a few times a day to check up on me. Yesterday, Amanda stayed with me the entire day here in the infirmary. She was a God-send. We ordered grilled cheese sandwiches, fries, brownies, and cookies from the International School of Ouahadougou. It was so good! Today, before all of the health volunteers went back to Ouahigouya, Amanda and Colin stopped by to say goodbye and to drop off my bag. Tomorrow I will get x-rays of my leg and Doug says I should be able to leave on Tuesday. For at least a few days I will use crutches and for at least a week the PC will drive me between Ouahigouya and village. I am unsure as to why this happened to me but I believe everything happens for a reason. If anything, I got to know the PCMO and CD a bit better. I will be excited to get back to village and join the rest of the volunteers. Even though, I am currently by myself for the weekend in the infirmary, the PC infirmary is not your typical infirmary. In Burkina it's like living in a life of luxury; it kind of reminds me of an air-conditioned apartment. It has a tv, couches, about a two hundred movies, internet, comfy beds, magazines, a kitchen with a refrigerator, and a bathroom with a toilet! and bath tub. In Burkina, these would all be considered rare commodities. I will update this when I find out the results of the xrays.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Burkina Is Faso-nating!

I have been in Burkina Faso for about a month now. Despite being considered one of the top three hardship countries in the world, Burkina is an amazing place. In my training group there are thirty one volunteers: eleven small enterprise development volunteers and nineteen health volunteers. I live in small village of two thousand, with four other health volunteers, about 10K outside of Ouahigouya. All of the other health volunteers live in surrounding villages around Ouahigouya.
In my village, I live in a family compound but I do have my own place. It is a small cement house with a tin roof. My house has two small, dark rooms and and outside courtyard and adjacent latrine(hole in the ground for pooping---I seem to do a lot of this). I could not tell you who all is in my host family. From what I gather, in my badly spoken French and understanding of the language, I have a host dad and his two wives(the entire region is Muslim). They have lots of kids but I could not tell you exactly who is who. Everyday, my host brothers tell me everyone is either their sister and/or brother. If my calculations are correct, I have about 30 brothers and sisters but I highly doubt that is the case.
Every weekday I bike to Ouahigouya for classes. My days are quite busy and tiring. I usually get up around 5:30 and go to bed around 8:00--yes, I have turned into an old woman. Between biking 20K a day and classes, I am usually pretty pooped by the time I get back to village. No pun intended. Classes usually end around 5:15 and we usually race home to make it home before it gets dark around six.
We usually try to make it home before the bugs come out but that usually never happens. One time while a volunteer-mate of mine was biking in front of me, he swallowed a bug and tried to spit it out. Well, as luck would have it, the wind carried the spit and it hit me in the face. I opened my mouth to scream and I swallowed a big bug. I think I am comfortable in saying that I have gotten over my fear/irritation of bugs. At any point in time, there could be between ten and thirty flies/gnats/crickets/cockroaches around me. While I have gotten used to the idea of sharing my house and latrine with cockroaches, I still haven't gotten used to the idea of scorpions. A friend of mine was stung by one a few weeks ago. I now inspect my house with my latern every night before I go to bed. A villager told me she had been stung by a scorpion a while back and she said the pain had been worse than giving birth.
Speaking of lanterns, after six o' clock at night, the only way I can see at night is by using my lantern. I feel very Oregon Trail-ish out here. Sometimes, I even slept outside under the stars a few nights. The view is quite spectacular and really makes me feel small in the universe. The stars are both countless and beautiful.

Because Saying It In Moore is More Fun

While in training, I am learning both French and the local language, Moore. In Burkina it is customary to greet everyone. And I don't just mean greet them, but also, ask how their day is going, how their family is, and how their work is. Even if your neighbor asks you these questions in front of the other neighbors and they hear your answers, they are still obliged to ask you the same questions. I mostly get laughed at by the locals when I try to speak Moore. But it is all good. I think they find it endearing that the Nasarra(Westerner) from the States is trying to speak the local dialect. Nonetheless, learning Moore is proving to be quite difficult. Most of the time I only speak the few phrases that I know. When the locals ask me a question that I do not know, I just say 'laafi' which literally means health. In Burkina, laafi is everyone's answer to everything. After saying laafi enough times, the locals understand that I have no idea what they are talking about. Well no....I am pretty sure they understand that I have no idea what the are talking about from beginning because I usually have this pained look on my face that looks like I am trying to do a long division math problem in my head.

The following is a list of common Moore phrases:

Ne y yibeeoogo= Good morning.
Y yibeoog yaa laafi= How's it going?
Laafi bala. Y zak ramba= It is going well. And how is the family?
Laafi. Mam your la a Brittany= It is well. My name is Brittany.
Fo yamb wumda moor bii= Do you understand Moore?
Ko-yuund n tar mam= I am thirsty.
Fo rebda yeene=Where are you going?
Yaa tuulgo= It is hot.