39 days down, 61 to go

Hi all!

So we’ve been back in the city for about two weeks now and in only one more week we’re heading back to the villages for our long stay!  Life here has started to seem normal, which in itself is kind of weird.  One day last week a friend and I were walking in our neighborhood.  Usually on walks around the neighborhood it is normal to be stared at and to have the little kids yell “nassara!” – which means foreigner – and run up to shake your hand.  On this walk, however, my friend and I were walking down the side of the road when a tour bus drove by filled with white people, which is an extremely weird sight here.  All of a sudden, we were the ones doing the staring, instead of observing like tourists!  In that moment I felt a little bit like an insider and a part of the neighborhood (an extremely rare occasion, seeing as I stick out like a sore thumb as a white American).  Other random things, such as having soda can labels written in Arabic or having an armed guard outside an ATM, now seem normal.  Also, everyone in our group has started to get the hang of taking taxis here, which I wrote about a little bit before.  Taxi drivers aren’t with companies and while our group sometimes catches taxis on the large goudron (paved road) by our house, it is sometimes simpler and safer to call a taxi driver directly.  Lucien, who is the taxi driver that found my cell phone and accidentally talked to my parents, is now a friend of everyone in the group.  He knows all of our names and is very kind and protective of us.  One night this week we all went bowling – which was an experience in itself.  It seemed as if a miniature sized bowling alley had been shipped straight from the US, new bowling shoes, funky bowling paintings on the walls, automated pins, electronic scoring, etc!  Anyway, after Lucien dropped us off none of us were quite sure where the bowling alley was and we started walking down the wrong street.  He started calling after us telling us not to walk down that street.  Even after we insisted that the bowling place was really close he insisted that he follow us in his taxi until we got to the place.  Of course we headed in the wrong direction, walking for about two blocks down a not so nice street when we finally realized it must be the other way.  Lucien stuck with us, and because our group of 9 couldn’t all fit in the car, he turned it off and we all pushed it down the street, I’m sure we were all quite the sight!  In the end we found the bowling alley and Lucien saved the day!

After visiting the village of Bereba, Ouagadougou makes much more sense and I can now appreciate it for what it is – a much bigger, more urbanized village.  There are a number of large paved roads in the city, especially in the down-town area, but the neighborhoods have dirt roads.  Sometimes people in the neighborhood try to keep the dust down and even out the road by dumping rocks and broken tiles onto the dirt, paving the roads with what they have.  Animals wander around the streets and green areas in the neighborhood and garbage here is collected by a donkey pulled cart (when it’s not burned in the middle of the street, which is one of the most disgusting smells ever).  While there are some more developed parts of the city, many people who live in Ouagadougou live in very simple and small houses similar to those found in the village.

Our neighborhood is one of the nicer neighborhoods in the city but you still see a bunch of kids running around with distended bellies and dirty, falling apart clothes.  Our next door neighbor is a very nice woman named Germaine.  Her husband is French and stays with their two kids in France as they go to school.  We also live really close to a small neighborhood mosque.  We can hear the call to prayer from our house and our classroom (in a four story! technical college two blocks away from our house) as it marks the beginnings of our meals and our classes.  All of our classes are two hours long and we can have anywhere from one to four classes in a day.  Usually, class begins at 8 am.  We always get a break at 10 am where, back at our house, Absetta, Bibatta, and Sallimata set out fruit, tea, and Nescafe (which is NOT coffee).  We usually have bananas (which are smaller and sweeter here), papaya, pineapple, and apples.  I tried guava for the first time a couple of days ago! During the mid-afternoon everyone pretty much takes it easy if we’re not in class.  The few times I ventured out to walk in the heat I came back with my face literally tomato red, not from sunburn but from the heat.  The dry season has technically started here even though it rained last night.  Many people are saying this is the longest rainy season they have ever seen!  It does, however, supposedly cool off later in October – here’s hoping!

(two days later)

Our group visited the sacred crocodile lakes yesterday in a village not far outside of Ouagadougou.  Our two guides carried thin sticks for protection and three small chickens we bought to have fed to the crocodiles.  (The guides use the squawks of the terrified chickens to attract the crocodiles.)  Stopping on the side of the road by a small pond it didn’t seem like there were any crocodiles around at first, until our guide shook the chickens a little bit (they hold them  by their feet) and all of a sudden a massive crocodile came out of the water.   Almost everyone in the group, including myself, each had a turn to sit on the back of the crocodile!  Walking further along, we reached the edge of a bigger lake.  One of the guides attached our last chicken to the end of his stick and started to swing the poor chicken out above the water.  All of a sudden you could see a crocodile start to swim towards the edge of the water.  The thing came out onto the shore.  Our guide tempted the crocodile with the chicken, placing it above its nose and moving it away every time the crocodile attempted the eat it, eventually getting the croc to stand on its hind legs as it jumped for the chicken!

As for one more story – When out in the neighborhood taking pictures for our photography class, our group ran into a group of women studying Arabic and the Koran.  They had a chalkboard, chairs, and benches set up outside.  There were older women and younger women, and some even had their young daughters with them too.  It was really cool to see and I got some good pictures too!

Talk to you all later!

Caroline

30 days down, 70 to go

We’ve been back from the villages for about a week now and I’m finally getting a chance to post this, sorry it took me so long!  (Internet here is very slow and inconvenient.)  Our week in the village was quite an experience to say the least.  On Friday morning we all piled into the blue van and drove for about five hours until we got to Hounde, which is a large town in the south of the country.  The road from Hounde to Bereba (the village where we stayed) is unpaved and that morning there had been a big rainstorm so huge portions of the road were flooded and very muddy.  We got pretty badly stuck in the mud but we were able to get out with the help of some guys who were driving by on a tractor.

            In the village I lived in a small house with two other girls.  We had a common room and each of us had our own room with a bed.  We had a couple of roosters who liked to wander around our front yard as well as a donkey who never left.  We also had a couple of mice, lizards, and even a bat who liked to hang out inside our house during the night!  In the village there are animals everywhere you look – goats, sheep, donkeys, pigs, and bulls are always wandering around of being herded by a young child.  For the first couple of days, we walked around the village with a guide.  Ousman (my guide) taught us a few words in dioulla, which is the local language, and had us practice greetings with everyone we met.  The village, which is fairly small, is actually pretty compact and people live in close proximity to one another. 

            FAVL, which is the nonprofit associated with my program, runs reading camps at all of its libraries and each day a couple of us drove up to Dimikwy to help out with the program.  We sat with kids and helped them read books in French, which most of them sadly struggled with.  At the end, however, we were informed that we would have to tell the campers an American story or read them a book.  Another girl and I picked up a French copy of Sleeping Beauty to read aloud to the kids.  While one might not think that Sleeping Beauty would have any difficult vocabulary, let me tell you – it did!  It was definitely a humbling experience!

            Each village has a griot, a person who tells stories and plays the balafon (like a xylophone) and the tam-tams (drums).  One night we visited the village griot (who is also the weaver) and listened to the music and danced with the kids – who are all much better dancers than anyone in our group!  Each village can also have a masque dancer, which is a traditional dancer who performs at celebrations like weddings or for village events.  On our last day the masque dancer of Bereba performed for us.  He had a large wooden headdress with a big beak that covered his entire head and was wearing an outfit covered with long strands of fiber that swished back and forth as he danced.  Within the first minute of the dance he jumped over to where I was sitting and practically landed in my lap!  While the dance was a little unnerving as you never knew who he was going to be bothering next, it was definitely fun to watch!  Practically all of the kids in the village gathered around our seating area to watch and many adults soon gathered around too. 

            We also went on an ox cart ride to visit a farmer’s fields, visited the mosque of the village, sat down and had a visit with the chef de terre (the chief of the village), and went to a village dance.  Some people in the village have scars that form patterns of lines all around their face.  This tradition, which is not only present in Burkina Faso but all over West Africa, is quickly dying out.  The practice originated when tribes would capture and enslave people and the scars were used as identification to signify your birthplace and tribe.  As one last random tidbit, Obama shirts are everywhere you turn in Bereba.  I probably saw Barack Obama’s face more times in that one week than I did all during the 2008 campaign!  :)

Talk to you all later!

Caroline

12 days down, 88 to go

Hi everyone!
We're leaving on friday to spend a week in the villages which means a week without internet, so I thought I'd update the blog sooner rather than much, much later! 
There are a lot of geckos all around the city and our neighborhood so inevitably, one got into our house.  The first time, I wandered into my room, turned on the light, and saw this little orange thing dart along the wall!  I went to grab my roommate Kara and we both just kind of stood there for a few seconds.  Trying to act nonchalant about the whole situation, both of us agreed that, hey it's only a little lizard, what harm can it do, let's just leave it alone.  And then the thing darted across the wall and into kara's luggage.  Both of us screamed and very quickly decided we needed to get this thing out of our room now.  The problem was, he was hiding in all of kara's stuff and moving very quickly, darting into corners and crevices of our room.  So, after moving furniture and bags and backpacks to the other side of the room, we finally found the little guy again, only to have him dart through our legs, into the hallway, and into the living area of our house!  one of our housemates finally trapped him with a pot lid and paper, but the poor guy lost the very tip of his tail in the process!  So last night another housemate called out saying their was a lizard in the bathroom and sure enough it was the same guy!  Same size, same color, and with a little bit of tail missing!  Once again, trapping him and getting him outside the house was a looong process!

And here's another random story - The program owns a big van and two cars to get all around the area for program organized activities.  However, the student coordinators thought it would be a good idea to teach us how to take taxis here.  Instead of having meters that keep track of how much the taxi ride is, you are instead supposed to negotiate with the driver how much you want to pay for a ride even before you get in.  So we all took taxis to a restauant for dinner one night.  On the ride back, I guess my cell phone slipped out of my pocket!  The next day, somehow, the coordinators called the same taxi driver to come get them from the house.  He then told them that someone (me) had left their cell phone in his car (woops) and he would bring it with him!  I felt like an idiot but the taxi driver was really nice about the whole situation.  Of course I immediately checked my history and realized I had received a call from a restricted number about an hour earlier.  Of course, I had just given my number to my parents the day before and I had a strong inclination that the call had been theirs.  When I called them, I asked if they had called my phone recently.  They had, and the taxi driver answered, speaking a mile a minute in french!  Of course they couldn't understand and thought that they had reached a wrong number - sorry guys!

Everything is going well and I'm definitely starting to get used to the rythme of life here.  As a random tidbit, the food here is pretty good.  It's a lot of starch: either rice or cous-cous with some sort of sauce (that's almost like stew) for both lunch and dinner.  For breakfast we always have french bread with butter or jam and tea.  We also usually have a mid-morning snack of fruit: pineapple, papaya, watermelon, and apples so far.  The really nice thing is that all of this food is made for us by three women who work as housekeepers/cooks in the house: Sallimata, Bibata, and Absetta (I'm probably butchering the spelling of their names).  On the weekends though we're on our own for food.  There's a really good retaurant not too far from our house that makes excellent pizzas and has already become a program favorite!

Talk to you all when I get back from the villages!
Caroline

10 days down, 90 to go

Hi everyone!
So I was planning on coming to this cyber cafe yesterday to post a blog but when we got here it was closed!  Actually, a lot of places were closed yesterday.  About half of the population of Burkina Faso is Muslim and yesterday was the end of Ramadan.  Walking around our neighborhood, I felt extremely under-dressed.  All of the locals had on beautiful clothing made of elaborately patterned cloth and all of the kids were playing in the streets and setting of fire crackers - it definitely felt like a holiday!

Last weekend, which was our first couple of days here, Monique and Louise, who are our two student coordinators/program assistants, showed us all around the city.  We all piled into a big vw van and drove around.  Driving around in that van is an experience in itself.  Most roads here are very bumpy and unpaved and driving along them in the van sent us all flying up and around (and without seatbelts you really need to hang onto something).  One place we stopped is called the Artisan Village.  They have a store filled with crafts and wares in the middle but then they also have open-air buildings all around with one stall after another housing artisans' work spaces and personal stores.  There were people carving wood, doing metal work, and weaving on a large loom.  During our touring time we also stopped by the city's big park/forest.  They had a small zoo that we toured around - the birds were all walking around near us and the monkeys were separated from us by only a couple of bars - definitely not like woodland park!  When one of the large birds started running towards our group the man leading us around the zoo shooed it away with a stick!  After the zoo, we started walking along a trail in the forest area (almost like Discovery Park).  The clouds were starting to gather overhead and the sky was turning a deep blue grey color.  Of course we turned around because it was going to rain.  As we were getting closer to the van, the wind started to pick up.  Apparently before it starts to rain here the winds get really strong.  So we were walking quickly, trying to get to the van and then the winds started to blow really strongly, blowing dust and dirt all around.  At this point we ran quickly towards the parking lot, through the clouds of dust.  Covered from head to foot with dust and dirt, we all piled into the van just as the first drops of rain hit the ground.  Let me just say that when it rains here it POURS.  We couldn't even see out the windows of the van it was raining so heavily!

We started our classes this week; I can still hardly believe that school has already started!  We have two Burkinabe teachers - one teaches our french language class and the other teaches french lit.  The french language class is relativly easy, and the teacher speaks english which is really helpful.  however, my french lit teacher is pretty difficult, he speaks very softly and quickly and has geared this class to a level way above anyone's in this program.  While we can all understand most of what he says, we are definitely missing a fair amount of detail.  It's as if this class could be taught in english and the content, lectures, homework, etc would still be at the same level as a normal college course taught in english...so we'll see how this class goes.  I'm almost up on time.  Talk to you guys later!

Five days down, 95 to go!

Hey everyone!
Theres so much to share, I dont know where to start!  Firstly, excuse my punctuation, the french keyboard is slightly different from the ones back home and ive been having trouble finding the apostrophe!  At the moment I am sitting inside a small internet cafe on a paved street nearby my house.  Although I should have been expecting it, the very limited number of paved roads here was one of the first things that suprised me when I arrived.  Although our house is in a fairly nice, upper middle class neighborhood (by Burkina Faso standards) the roads all around our house are very bumpy, unpaved, and filled with gravel, rocks, and trash. 

Backing up a little bit, my friend Kara and I spent four days exploring Paris before we flew down to Africa.  It is such an beautiful city filled with famous landmarks and culture.  While I marvled at and appreciated the priceless artifacts and art I am lucky enough to have seen, what really struck me about the city was just how ancient it is.  We had dinner a couple of nights on a street near our hotel called the rue Mouffetard, which apparently was originally a highway leading to rome when paris was a young city.  And here we were, walking down the street, finding restaurants, and eating dinner with crowds of other people however many years later!  We definitely crammed a fair amount of activities into our short stay!  After meeting up at the airport and checking into our hotel, Kara and I found lunch, climbed the Arc de Triomphe, walked down the Champs Elysee (which literally has the biggest Sephora in the world), and had dinner before we crashed into bed.  The next day we visited Notre Dame and climbed the bell tower (which was probably one of my favorite things that we did) and after lunch spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Louvre.  Now neither of us had a watch and three times we asked different guards "what time is it?" or "quelle heure est-t-il?" which is what both of yus were taught in school.  Not one person we asked could understand our french and then we would have to do the tourist thing of pointing to our wrists.  Needless to say both of us felt very stupid.  Wednesday we went to Versailles at the very beginning of the day so it was almost empty, which made it seem almost ghostly and then that night we took a boat tour on the Seine.  The last day we went all the way up the Eiffel tour after having really yummy brioche, visited Sainte Chapelle, and walked around the Musee DOrsay.  My internet is about to run out so Ill have to update this blog about Africa soon!  Its really hot and muggy here but im adjusting, and only three mosquito bites so far!
Talk to you guys soon!
Caroline

I'm Leaving in the Morning!!!

I can't believe that I am leaving in the morning!  I'm getting to the airport really early in the morning and then my flight takes off at 8:30.  I fly in to Philadelphia and then catch another plane to Paris. I'll get there Sunday morning and meet up with my friend Kara.  I've never been to Paris so I'm really excited to do the whole tourist thing and see the sights!  I'm going to be in Paris until the 2nd of September and then I'm flying in to Ouaga.  This will probably be my first and only post for a while.  So I'll talk to you all when I'm in Africa!!!