Have I Really Been Here For Nine Months?

9 months. I cannot believe I have almost been in Burkina for 9 months. Time really does seem to fly by. Okay, well the first two months of training seemed to take eternity and a day but the rest of my service seems to have flown by. During these last couple of months a lot has happened. There were some problems with the infrastructure of my house so now I have moved houses to live on part of the chief’s compound. He recently constructed a compound (set off from the main family compound) for one of his six wives and her children. However, I guess the Nasarra’s needs trump the wife’s so I get to live in the house. There is another house that is part of the small compound that has not been completed yet. I am not sure if once they complete it, she will move in right away. I am kind of hoping that she will not because I really do enjoy my solitude and privacy. I am thinking that if the completion on the house(there is not much left to complete) in on West African International Time (WAIT), then that will not be an issue because they probably will not have finished the house before my departure next December. Hot season ended about a month ago. Thank God. And now it is rainy season. For the last month and next few months everyone works in the fields from sun up to sun down. The mast majority of the Burkinabes’ income for the entire year comes from cultivating the fields during rainy season. When I walk, families will usually stop me and try to get me to work with them. I pick up the axe looking sort of tool and will do it for a couple of minutes…everyone will laugh and smile and then tell me I can stop. I think they just get a kick out seeing the Nasarra (whitey) do their hard manual labor. One of the times, I convinced an older woman who had motioned me over to help to let me cultivate for a good 30 minutes. After minute five, she kept asking me if I was tired and told me I could stop. I told her I was fine and continued to work. However, after minute 5 is when I started to develop multiple blisters on my hands. I did not show her these until about 30 minutes later. We compared hands. Hers: hard, rough, and deeply calloused from a lifetime of working in the fields and mine: soft and smooth with newly formed blisters. After seeing my blisters she was like oh no, you have to stop working you cannot have a blister. That is unacceptable. I laughed and told her it was okay for me to have some blisters but she would not let me continue. The Burkinabe do not have machinery to cultivate. Everything is down by hand with little axe looking tools or else if you are “wealthy”, you could afford a plow and donkey. Think circa 1800’s and before. Working in the fields is quite difficult and it has given me a deeper understanding of the Burkinabe life and how difficult life is here. To take part in the cultivation is a very humbling experience. On a random note, I finally have made a good friend, Masse, and I will often ask to help her and her family cultivate. She humors me but every fifteen minutes she asks me if I am tired and tells me I can stop if I want to. I help her family cultivate peanuts and millet. Masse, 32, has four children ranging in ages from 3-14. Her family is very loving and giving. I eat dinner with them several times a week. Her family is well off so I eat pretty well when I go over. The mass majority of family in my village can only afford to eat to (pronounced toe-millet dish that tastes like cream of wheat + sauce); however, her family makes spaghetti, rice, and to and often times with pieces of meat). When she feeds me she will always give me the biggest/most pieces of meat/fish and a big heaping plate full of spaghetti/rice etc. Afterwards, she will follow this up with giving me a plate of to. Normally, Burkinabe only have only to. I will eat some but do not even put in a dent in the meal as she gives me so much. She always tells me that I don’t eat but then I follow up that with that she gives me literally two meals (spaghetti + to) and way too much of each. I always am tempted to try to explain to her that I have a love hate relationship with carbohydrates: yummy to eat but not so great for the hips and thighs. They are like my frienemies (Burkinabe live on a carb diet as they eat to for breakfast, lunch, and dinner). While I love Masse and her kids, I tend to try to stay away from the husband. I do not see much of him anyway as he works in Zabre, a neighboring village, and will often come home after I have left. It is not that I do not like the man; he is very nice and a great conversationalist but he is always hitting on me. When I see him at the market or even in front of Masse, he is trying to get me to go out dancing with him or to have me cook for him. I will normally respond and tell him that he can go out dancing with Masse, his WIFE, while I look after his children or that instead of just me and him eating, his whole family can come over and I will cook for everyone. He will usually respond no and tell me he just wants it to be the two of us. I tell him he already has a wife, my good FRIEND, and my answer is no. Sulu, the husband, tells me: “I am Muslim and I am African; I can have 3 or 4 wives (and in some instance 8 wives—the chief of a neighboring village has 8 wives and 63 children—and no, that is not a typo: I said 63 children). Hence, I try to stay away from him. Work wise, I have done a couple of projects but since it is rainy season and everyone is working in the fields it is hard to get a lot of things done. However, I have conducted malaria focus groups with each quartier (neighborhood) of my village and helped with a pre-natal consultation sensibilization campaign in the neighboring satellite villages. I also started a women’s soap making group and where we make two kinds of soap: the hard kind and the liquid kind. They then can sell it in the market or around the village and make a small profit. I have also started an English club where I tutor kids; I really like this because when I pass them on the road or in the market they will try to use the new phrases they just learned on me or else teach it to the parents. The school year is over now but before it ended I started teaching health classes. This last week I spent the week with my friend in a neighboring village helping her with her girls’ camp. This next week I am putting on one of my own so she is going to help with mine. The topics discussed will center on reproductive health i.e. sex, puberty, contraception, excision, AIDS, family planning, and other topics life self esteem and communication skills. I am pretty excited for it to start. I even have boys coming up to me asking when the camp is starting and I usually respond: “you do know the camp is just for girls, right?” I think next year I will do one with boys and one week with girls. Talking about reproductive is always interesting because neither the parents, nor do the teachers, discuss sexuality/reproductive health with their children/students so often times they have no idea what sex is. And I can always be assured that the girls will giggle and laugh when we explain what exactly happens during sex. Last year, Laura my neighbor put on a camp, and asked the girls what caused AIDS and one girl raised her hand and said unprotected sex. Laura was like, “Great! That is correct. Let us continue” Another girl then raises her hand and asks what sex is. Laura then asked the class if anyone knew what sex was, and no one did. Kind of scary because the age range of these girls was between the ages of 11 and 16. Well I have rambled on long enough. Until next time!