Mini Hot Season Means Puppy and Kitty Season!

Yes, it’s me again. I have not been abducted by aliens. Some may think this since I have been MIA, especially with blogging. But alas, I have returned to Ouaga for my mid-service conference. The past few months have seemed to go by so quickly. It is hard to imagine I have less than a year left to go. The last few months have seemed to be quite busy, as well---well for Peace Corps/Burkina “standards” anyway. Let’s see…what shall I talk about first? My work or the scary vampire bats?...Definitely, the scary vampire bats. I now have nightly visitors to my house. Most visitors would be courteous enough to knock and see if they can come in but these “visitors” don’t ask for my permission. They sneak in through the cracks between the tin roof and the mud walls and they fly around and like to make high pitch screeching sounds. Very annoying. At first there was just one bat. Scary but not too scary. But then his friend decided that he needed company so now I have two bats. I always thought that bats liked to hang upside down and sleep. Nope. I was either wrong or I have special bats because these two like to fly around chasing each other. Luckily, I haven’t had to go to the bathroom during their visits. Luckily, I think of my mosquito net as my protective blanket. Sometimes, they will land on my mosquito net and then I will whack them with my big flash light. Often times that will knock the bat unconscious…but only for a few minutes. I am too scared to get out from under my mosquito net because they other one usually is still in flight. I also fear the bat may suddenly wake up and then my life would be a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, Birds. I think we have learned to co-exist with one another…on the stipulation that I stay under my mosquito net. I have told my counterpart that I have bats but his response was something to the effect of “Oh, that’s cool.”
Mini hot season started in October and it was quite hot. However, my tolerance for the heat has increased significantly since coming here. I now consider 90-95 degrees a nice day; anymore than that and I start to feel that it may be too hot. There seemed to be several of those the last couple of months. One day when I was in Zabre I saw a Fan Choco vendor with his cart. Fan choco is like our version of the ice cream but it comes in a small sack and tastes like frozen brownie batter. At first I thought it may have been a mirage because it was so hot. Fan Choco simply does not exist in rural Africa. Granted Zabre is the district capital but it’s more like a medium size village. But then I heard his little horn so I knew it was not a mirage and I ran after him like no other. But now it is cold season. Yayyy! When I say cold season it is a bit misleading because the temperature during the day still gets up to 90-95 degrees but it cools down during the night and early morning to about 55-60 degrees. During the morning and even into the afternoon I will see people wearing winter coats and several layers. I kid you not! During this time I will be wearing a tank top and a skirt and be thinking this weather is still hot but perfect. They just think I am crazy. About every person I have met in the village tells me that they plan on coming back with the states. At the time it is 75 degrees perhaps and they are still in their winter coats. I tell them if you think this is cold, you will die in the states from Iowa winters or pretty much anytime between September-late April. I try to explain to them how cold it can get with the snow but then the locals do not have any concept of Celsius or Fahrenheit so I just end up telling them they would die. Last cold season at night I would lay in bed at night and shiver under my pagne. But then I think to myself, “Relish this moment, Brittany. Relish it.”
Okay, so I caved. I know I said in one of my very first blogs that I did not plan on getting a cat or a dog. But when it’s kitty and puppy season, it is just so hard to resist. I saw it the day it was born and that was the end of my promise to myself to not get a pet. This goes back to other volunteers’ horror stories of villagers eating their pets or their pets mysteriously “disappearing.” It is currently being weaned but I get it the day I return back to village. I am really excited. Masse’s kitten was so cute. Well a more accurate word would be her “former” kitten. She ran over it with her moto. One night when I went to her house for dinner, I noticed I had not seen the kitten for a few nights and asked where it had wandered off to. With a straight face she told me she had ran over it. I was like, “oh my God! Poor thing. Did you have a funeral for it?” She looked at me like I was crazy and told me she threw it out in the front yard. I then looked at her like she was crazy. Her family always thought it was so weird that I play, kiss, and pet the kitten. They see a dog’s purpose to scare off intruders and a cat’s purpose to eat the mice. Having a pet for the purpose of having a companion does not really exist here. Burkinabe do not show affection towards animals, let alone with one another. After the age of one I do not see children hugged or kissed by their parents. Families, husbands/wives, girlfriends/boyfriends do not show affection here. Hugs, kisses, holding hands—nothing. I have tried to get to the bottom of this mystery but I have not really gotten a clear answer. I asked the Mayor of Zabre why this was and he told me that if a man showed affection to one of his wives, the other 2, 5, 8 wives would be jealous. This can also apply to his children. I then told the mayor but “he can show affection to all of his family and then that would not be an issue.” He did not seem to understand my point so I kind of left it at that.