"America is good. America is really good."

A few days ago I had a conversation with Olantine, my sister, that was a pretty defining moment of my Peace Corps experience thus far. After a dinner of to, my sister, my mom, and I were relaxing out in the courtyard. Olantine was talking to her mom in Bissa while I was looking up at the stars. My sister turns and asks me, "Brittany?" This is usually the way she starts out her questions. "Yes?," I respond. "Do they have stars in America?" I laughed. Not at her question but at my family's knowledge of my weird obsession with the African night sky. My family always seems to catch me looking up at the stars in awe. I tell her that in America there is way too much pollution and lights too see the stars,let alone to appreciate them. As we were looking over head, I noticed the lights of a plane in the distance and pointed it out to her. She asked me if one could eat in a plane. I tell her yes and she gasps in surprise and quickly tells her mom in Bissa the exciting news. I then tell her I had to take a plane to get from America to Burkina Faso. We sit in silence for a few moments and then she says, "Brittany?" "Yes?" I answer. "America is good. America is really good," she states in a definitive tone. I take a few seconds to think about what she has just said. America is good in lots of respects but we do have problems. Lots of problems. Ranging from pollution to the deepening economic recession(and everything in between). I chuckle, nod in accordance, and then ask her, "and what do you know of America?" Olantine gasps like she had not been expecting the question/I do not really think she knew anything herself. I was both interested and amused to know what my 15 year old sister, who had probably never left our small village of 3,000 people, had to say about American culture and/or American values. In about 90% of Burkina, newspapers, journals, magazines and televisions are non-existent and even radios are a rare commodity. When I talk with some of the male doctors in my village and the bigger district village they usually just say phrases like, "Obama. Bush. Americans love war." With the latter I usually try to dissuade them from having that mentality but with our track record, it is hard to make them think anything but. I return to looking at the sky and we sit in silence for a few more moments. Olantine then says, "Brittany." "Yes?", I respond expecting a question to follow. Olantine repeats herself, "Brittany. I know Brittany."

Cooking Up A Storm

Ahhh...food. Since my arrival to site, I have been a cooking fiend. I have been both experimenting and using the "When There Is No Microwave/Fridge" cookbook that was provided to me by the PC. Some of my favorite recipes are eggplant parmesan, chili, eggplant-lentil stew, and lemon pepper veggie pastａ....mmmｍｍｍ. I think they all turn out pretty well considering for the last couple of years I have survived on Ben and Jerry's and Chipotle. All three have been incredibly good to me. While my access to vegetables/fruits is quite limited, I have learned to make due. In my village market I can find tomatoes, onions, African eggplant, eggplant,oranges, rice, beans, and "scary meat" amongst a few other things. I can also find organic peanut butter---I eat this like it is my job. Imagine a person eating cheese whiz/whip cream from a spray bottle, but me, with peanut butter--minus the bottle. In the bigger market in neighboring Zabre, I can find a few more things like papaya(seasonal), bananas, green peppers/hot peppers, bread, lettuce, and cabbage but other than that everything is pretty limited. I am pretty excited that I am in the capital so that I can buy actual super-market(Marina market) items that I can bring back to site. Marina is the closest thing you will find to an actual super-market back home. The items at the market are super, super expensive but def. worth it. I am stocking up on baking supplies this weekend--when I get back to site I am doing to build a dutch oven so I can make banana bread, brownies, granola, and other wonderful yummies. Because I am just starting to learn how to cook, I really do not know how to gauge proportions. Hence, sometimes when I make something like eggplant, lentil stew, I make way too much. Therefore, I know that I will not be able to finish it before it spoils. Here, without a fridge, I am lucky if my left-overs last one day, one and-a-half days, max. So about once a week when I make way too much food I will usually share it with my host family. The first time that I shared with my family I made an eggplant and bean stew. So after lunch I brought out a heaping bowl of the stew, gave it to them, and they thanked me for it. Well since I eat (to) with my family every night, I thought that it was quite strange that for the first time since my arrival I was eating in one corner of the courtyard with my aunt and the rest of the family was huddled in another corner. I also thought it was rather odd that that night we had something different other than to(every night, we have the same to with the same sauce). In fact, I thought to myself, this food tastes oddly familiar. I was like this food has eggplant, it has beans, it has tomato paste. The only difference was that their food was more of a pate than a stew and it had piment (pepper). I could not really look at the food because I prefer to eat with my family by the light of the moon. Normally, we all eat together. Then it hit me, I was like, they did not just reject my stew, mash it up, put pepper in it, and try to give it back to me. It's like, I know I just started cooking but if I am living in the second poorest country in the world(second to Sudan), and if even they will not eat my food, what does that say about my cooking skills. I was beside myself. I ate in silence for the rest of the meal and felt kind of depressed about my cooking skills(or lack thereof), I did not stick around after dinner to converse with my family. As I was heading back to my courtyard, I thought I just had to know if they we were eating something different from what they had served me. So I took out my flashlight and peered into the bowls of food that my moms had prepared. And what was in these bowls? Eggplant and bean pate. I do not know what I was more relieved about...the fact that family was actually eating something nutritious(to has no nutritional value) or that they had not rejected my original bowl of stew. I would like to think that my great cooking skills inspired them to make something similar to my stew.

Marriage Proposals to Date: 95...ish

Market days are always fun/interesting to say the least. Because my market is such a small one, I normally have to travel the larger one in Zabre, a neighboring village. And since only a small portion of the population speaks French, it is always quite difficult to find certain items. When I got to site I was so excited that I could cook for myself that I was bound and determined to find eggs so that I could make a veggie omelet. For the first couple of weeks, every time I went to Zabre I kept forgetting to learn the Bissa word for . Hence, a very fun game of charades would ensue. For example, I would ask someone where I could find eggs and they would either look at me with a blank stare or motion over to someone to help translate. When that did not work, I would put my hands under my armpits and bob my head and kind of walk like a chicken. Afterwards, I would then attempt to crack open an imaginary egg, point at it, and “try” to explain that was what I was looking for (in “Franglisa”=Francais+Bissa). After a few times of making a fool of my self, I thought I would try to limit my social awkwardness/ embarrassing myself and make a cheat sheet of popular words. Turns out, there is a season for eggs, and outside of this season it is nearly impossible to find eggs outside of the big cities. Hard to imagine there is a season for egg laying but there is. So I will just have to wait another five months for eggs. On market days, besides planning on making a fool of myself in that respect, I can always count on multiple marriage proposals. This comes from both drunk and sober men. Here, market days are huge dolo drinking days. Men, young and old, insist on proposing to me multiple times even after I tell them, "No thank-you. Have a nice day." If they keep asking, I usually say, "look, I already have four husbands and to take on another husband would be too many men to support. So no, I cannot marry you." I have gotten pretty good at saying this. They are usually, normally confused because in Burkina polygamy is only allowed for males. Sometimes, before I have a chance to walk away, some might say, "You mean you have four children?" to which I respond, "No, I meant four husbands." Then, I try to make a quick exit. I think it is quite funny that about 98 percent of my marriage proposals come from me who do not know me. They usually meet me on the street and after saying hello, they ask for my hand in marriage. If only dating in the States was this easy! However, while they are asking me, I always think to myself....”hmmmm, I could be this nagging, clingy, back-stabbing, cheating, manipulative, and lazy wife and they would have no idea what they were getting themselves into”(for those who do not know me, I am not these things, btw). I know I have an dazzling personality, but not enough for someone to propose to me after three seconds of conversation. When they see me, I think they just see green.... Green for money. Green for green card.

Best Part Of Waking Up Is Dolo In Your Calabash

Dolo. What can I possibly say to describe dolo? Dolo is the local beer. Upon first taste, the words warm cat pee come to mind. While I have never consumed cat pee, I am thinking that this would be a euphemism for dolo. However, like most things here, the more you try it, the more you like it. Now, I actually really like it. I have started to think that it tastes more and more like a funky, diluted apple cider. There are two types of dolo: the fermented kind(alcoholic) and the non-fermented (non-alcoholic) kind. My first actual morning at site my three moms were like, "come on, Brittany, we are taking you somewhere." I was thinking to myself, "great! I am going to meet some neighbors, to the market, or something of the like.” Where do they take me at 8:30 in the morning? Why, to a dolo bar of course! Here, the best part of waking up, is not Folgers in your cup, it is dolo in your calabash(a wooden bowl). Now the next day, a neighbor comes over after breakfast and they of course bring dolo. I assumed they had brought the non-alcoholic dolo over that morning because I saw one of my moms give her baby some. Sharing dolo is a big custom here--and you normally offer it to the people around you/ offer it to visitors. As they say in Rome, do as they Romans do, I thought I would carry on this philosophy in Burkina. So I offer my dolo to my 8 year old and 15 year old sisters. They both decline and I thought hmmmmm...okay. A few minutes later I thought to myself, I wonder which of the two dolo's I was drinking (they both taste pretty much the same). So I say to my sisters, "Just curious, would this happen to be the alcoholic dolo?" to which they reply "yes." Of course it would be. Nice, Brittany. Real nice. Note to self: check to see if I am consuming an alcoholic drink prior to offering it so small children. I guess they must have brought over BOTH types of dolo over that morning. Whoops.　But then the next day, much to my dismay, I definitely saw one of my mom's offer the alcoholic dolo to her two year old! While witnessing this event did not make me feel any less guilty about my accidental attempt of trying to corrupt the future of Burkina, I did not feel as bad about the "little" mix-up. However, after seeing this, it definitely made me re-think the mix-up and think that　the neighbor had only brought over one type of dolo that day.