Highlights From the First Three Months

Okay, so I know I have not posted in about two months but with good reason. I originally was going to post last month but classic Brittany style I procrastinated until the very end of my etude period to finally start my Etude du Milieu. So…instead of blogging, I was writing my Etude. The Etude du Milieu is pretty much a community analysis of my site's health needs. With this, I will have a base for assisting my community in its health development. During this time, I was not supposed to do anything but my Etude. My assignment for the first three months was to just to try to integrate into the community by attending community events and the like. "Try" being the operative word. However, like all things, I am sure my integration will come with time as well as my local language level. At times it is difficult because only like 1% (probably not even that) of my village speaks French. Sometimes, I feel like if I had gone to an English speaking country, it would have been a lot easier for me to have integrated. But then I think where is the challenge in that? And you know, I love speaking my Franglisa (French+English+Bissa). My Bissa level is slowly improving. I have been taking individual lessons for about a month now (every three days). In a lot of ways, Bissa is easier to learn than French or English as there are no verb conjugations. However, it is still very hard and I am rather confused by the sentence structure. If a cavewoman and Yoda, from Stars Wars, were to conceive, I would be the resulting child. For example, instead of saying “I eat bread,” you would say, “I bread eat.” The noun always goes before the verb. When I speak to the villagers e.g. a three or four word phrase or sentence that I constructed in which afterwards I feel proud of myself, I usually wait for some recognition of what I said. If they understand me they will usually respond in Bissa. 100% of the time, I don’t catch a word of it. It’s like; I don’t understand you so just listen to me ramble. The first three months were challenging. Because I could not start any projects, I had a lot of free time. Yep. Lots and lots of free time. My wall and I are like BFF now. However, I did help three times a week at the maternity with baby weighing and vaccinations. It was my job to help put the baby in the slings and read out the weights. It’s a very important job. Sometimes, I would feel a certain wetness come on my feet, and I think to my self hmmmm...what is that???... I look down and the baby peed on me. No biggie, really. I just consider it a perk that comes along with the job. Part-time Starbucks employees get healthcare, I get urine. It all evens out. Even though I enjoy helping out at the maternity, it is really emotionally trying. I see ALOT of malnourished babies who come in month after month with no increase in weight or they just keep decreasing. There are times, when I am weighing one of the severely malnourished children, that I become nauseous. I don't know if it's my giardia kicking in, the smell of urine, or just the site of the malnourished infant in front of me, but I have to excuse myself from the room. I also have been involved in lots of vaccination campaigns: three tetanus campaigns and three polio campaigns. For the tetanus campaigns, the women come to the clinic, but for the other two campaigns we have to go in brousse visiting all of the family compounds. My partner Antoinette (member of the COGES) and I spend anywhere between five and eight hours biking/walking en brousse delivering the vaccinations to the children and women. I also conducted a community survey but I will go more into depth on that in another blog entry. I also go to Church every Sunday. Even though I do not understand a word of it, it gives me something to do and allows me to interact with the villagers a bit. The Catholic masses are two hours and conducted in Bissa; whereas, the Protestant services are four hours and conducted in French. Two hours of not understanding a word vs. four hours of understanding the majority of the mass. Hmmmm...tough decision. Needless to say, the Catholic mass always wins out. Sometimes, a boy will give his French bible and show me the verses for the day so that helps. I also always arrive late. Not that I am a bad Catholic, although I do consider myself a Cafeteria Catholic, but I just never know when mass starts. Here, nothing, starts on time and were always waiting. I will explain that in another blog. So I always arrive late and there never is usually any space for me to sit. However, no worries, the ushers just kick people out of their seats so I can have a seat. The Sunday before last, like usual, I arrive late, and there was no where to sit. So what do the ushers do? They kick a woman who seriously looks like she’s ninety and about eighty pounds (with a cane!!) off of her stool so I could have her seat. The Niscarra has arrived! Make way! You try to say no, but they just don't listen. Mass does have its entertaining parts, though. The ushers always make their rounds and poke sleeping people to wake them up. If a baby starts to cry, the usher motions to the woman to either a) take out her boob, or b) leave. I also have picked up walking. Burkinabe really do not understand the concept of walking just to walk or exercising in general. Many times I will be stopped to ask where I am going. I will respond no where really and that I am just walking to walk. They usually will respond and gesture, “Are you going to Yorko?” for example. I will then say, “No, I am just walking.” They tend to look confused and then say, "But Yorko is that way. You are heading towards Yorko?" I say, “No, not Yorko.” The villager will then say, "But Yorko is that way..." Finally, I will just say, "Sure, that sounds good. I am walking to Yorko.” They will then respond or make a gesture that says, "Well hop on the back of my moto and/or bike and I will take you to where you are going." I then say no that is okay I prefer to walk. Other people in neighboring villages or my own village who either know me or have seen me ride my bike will stop and ask me why I am walking. I will usually respond that I just want to walk. They will then ask, “Is your bike broken?" I will say, no. It is usually followed up with, "But you're walking???" Yep, I am walking. Here, if you have a bike, moto, or car (I never see cars in my village), are status symbols. Hence, if you have one, you use it. That is why they are always confused as to why I prefer to walk. My official counterpart, who lives like 50 feet away from the clinic, I will never see walking. He will moto-it those long fifty steps to the front door of the clinic. I will usually walk three hours a day (an hour and half in the morning and an hour and a half at night). In the beginning, I just did it to have something to do and it gave me a great way to meet the villagers and practice my Bissa, but then I just kind of kept with it. I also am reading a lot and one of my favorite things to do is to listen to the BBC on my shortwave.