On to the next adventure....

INDIA!
For the continuing saga of post-Peace Corps life, check out my new blog at: http://chrissyhart.wordpress.com/

Mali: Le Pays Dogon (Dogon Country)

During my last month in Burkina, I made a clandestine 3-day trip to Mali with a few PC friends (I’d already used all of my vacation days). The opportunity to see Dogon Country - a unique 100k-long escarpment that runs parallel to Mali’s southern border, whose sheer face is scattered with centuries-old villages nestled amongst the cracks and crevices – was too good to pass up. So I swallowed my moral reservations, informed many friends so that my whereabouts were known and headed north. I’ve held off on publishing this post in the interest of being divested of my volunteer status before confessing but I don’t regret my transgression for a moment – the trip was more than worth it.

Voici, les photos du voyage:

The Long Goodbye

The things that hurt, instruct.

Benjamin Franklin

Dear Readers,

This is one of the last few blog entries I’ll publish…until I start my new blog to report on new adventures, that is.

I arrived in Ouagadougou yesterday after saying goodbye to my village for good. The last several weeks have consisted of uncertainties, changes, a plethora of emotional highs and lows and more goodbyes than I care to recount. As my last week in Burkina Faso begins, I’m emotionally drained and have begun to feel acutely the weight of two years of challenges and growth. I’m simultaneously sad to leave, knowing that this is not an experience one can ever revisit or recreate, and elated at the prospect of a solid month of relaxing at home and then moving on to explore new corners of the world and, well, get on with life.

After working the last week of volunteer training, I headed to village for four days in order to ready my house for my replacement and to say my goodbyes in the way I wanted – individually, taking the time to visit with friends and their families, take photos and make my exit quietly. Some friends – mostly civil servants – gave me a hard time for not throwing a party or making more of my departure, but that didn’t appeal to me, being beyond my means and the means of the average villager. Instead, my goodbyes consisted of conversation; rehashing funny moments – cultural faux pas and foibles, insect-induced screams, lingual confusion - from my first months in village, promises to stay in touch and to send photos and thanks…many, many thanks.

The hardest goodbyes were with my female friends – the unique, dynamic women whose daily struggles and accomplishments never cease to amaze me – and my babies; the children in neighboring courtyards and my counterpart’s family, whose constant, unwavering affection and utter inability to judge me the way I’m so often judged as a stranger here, has been one of the absolute sustaining elements of my Peace Corps service.

I’m just beginning to realize how challenging moving on from and processing this experience will be. I’m the last of my group to leave Burkina – a few of us are already home, many others are traveling and will be for some time, but I think none of us yet fully realizes the challenges that reintegration and life after Peace Corps will present. I think my time at home and then out in the world again (traveling in SE Asia), will allow me to reflect on these 27 months, on the big questions that I hoped to pursue in coming to Burkina, on my place in the world, and on how I’ve changed; what I’ve learned about myself and how it will impact the choices I make and the path that lies ahead.



I recently received an e-mail from a good friend who had just finished his PC service in Mongolia. He was writing about his post-service travels; relaxing on a Cambodian beach, beyond content with a hammock, a good iPod playlist and some copies of The Economist. He wrote that he was just beginning to reflect on his service and those “big questions” pertaining to development, the efficacy of Peace Corps, the impact volunteers make, and countless other elements of the experience. He said those answers are slow in coming. Right now, it’s hard to imagine having answers to those questions at all – being able to generalize or summarize anything about two years of a life transplanted…it’s hard even to imagine actually being back in the States in six days. That said, I know that I’m tougher, wiser, and, grace of getting knocked down and picking myself back up time and time again, better than I was 27 months ago.

As many truths as men. Occasionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself, but as I approach, it bestirs itself & moves deeper into the thorny swamp of dissent.

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Warlord says he played part in Burkina Faso coup

International Herald Tribune

The Associated Press Published: August 26, 2008

MONROVIA, Liberia: One of Liberia's most infamous warlords admittedTuesday that he had trained in Libya and helped topple the government of Burkina Faso before overthrowing Liberia's president.

Prince Johnson, a warlord who has reinvented himself and is now a senator in Liberia's U.S.-modeled Congress, had initially refused to appear before the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

His testimony Tuesday before the packed hall was another turning point in Liberia's struggle to make the actors of its brutal 14-year conflict face up to the horrors they inflicted.

Although he is now a senator, Johnson is viewed by many as a warlord-in-a-suit. He is best known for the gruesome torture of Liberia's President Samuel K. Doe, who died in 1990 in Johnson's custody.

Johnson led the assault, taking Doe hostage and then videotaped himself drinking Budweiser beer as he ordered his men to cut off the former president's ears. The videotape was copied and sold on street corners. Johnson's men celebrated by parading Doe's body in a wheelbarrow.

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But since Liberia emerged from war in 2003 and he, along with other warlords, reinvented himself as a senator, Johnson has tried to distance himself from the president's death. On Tuesday he told the truth commission that although it was his forces that captured Doe, others are responsible for his death.

He argued that long before he led the Sept. 9, 1990 overthrow, an interim government had been formed in exile. Its goal was to overthrow Doe, who had become deeply unpopular by favoring members of his ethnic group and allowing government forces to brutally kill his rivals.

"They sat in exile and formed an interim government to replace the Doe government when Doe was still on the throne," Johnson said. "I was only the instrument that they used."

"We all were involved in this Samuel Doe matter," he added. "We all wanted a change."

To overthrow Doe, Johnson said he and the other Liberians-in-exile reached out to Blaise Compaore, the head of Burkina Faso's army and the trusted friend of Burkina Faso's President Thomas Sankara. Compaore helped Johnson and warlord Charles Taylor go to Libya for guerrilla training.

In his testimony, he does not say how or why he helped overthrow Sankara. But in his 2003 autobiography, Johnson explains that when Sankara learned of the planned coup, he refused to let his country be used to destabilize Liberia. So Taylor conspired with Compaore to assassinate the president, Johnson wrote.

The 1987 death of Sankara, who was widely considered one of Africa's hopes, was a blow for the region.

Earlier this year, Johnson adamantly refused to appear before the commission, saying he had already apologized to Doe's family. Doe's family has said that although they accept Johnson's apology, they would like him to show them where the former president's body is buried.

At the hearing, Johnson revealed that Doe was first buried on a beach, and was later exhumed and cremated. "Doe was cremated and thrown in the river," he said. "Let us not open wounds."

Although the country held transparent elections in 2005, Liberia is struggling to knit itself back together. With the exception of Charles Taylor who is now on trial at The Hague for war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone, none of the actors in Liberia's conflict is currently facing charges.

In an effort to heal the wounds of the past, Liberia's new government created the truth commission, where victims and perpetrators are invited to lay the past bare. Many have criticized the commission as toothless, pointing out that numerous well known warlords have refused to testify and even those that have come forward have been less than remorseful.

Resolution

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

Tom Stoppard

Hello, readers. I’m happy to have something definite to report! Due to the difficulties related in the previous entry and after a great deal of reflection, I have decided against continuing to pursue a third year working with an NGO here in Burkina. I will head back to the U.S. at the beginning of September. In many ways, the outcome is disappointing, but I am happy to have some exciting alternatives for the next year. I’ll be home for a month or so to reacquaint myself with la via américaine and hang out with my family before flying to India in mid-October to meet up with two Peace Corps friends, with whom I’ll travel until the holidays. We don’t have an itinerary beyond a few solid destinations and lots of potential ones. We’ll start in India and work our way east, traveling light and cheap and seeing as much as we can. I’m so excited at the prospect of seeing another region of the world and capitalizing on all the skills I’ve gained during my two years of Peace Corps service in Burkina Faso.

Having traveled a bit during my service (to Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Morocco), I appreciate the ways in which I’ve changed as a traveler. Aside from being considerably more flexible, comfortable with uncertainty and discomfort, and travel savvy in general, I’ve also learned to appreciate travel in a new way and to approach my destination and its culture in a responsible and respectful way, perhaps more so than the average traveler. There’s nothing like two years of intense integration in a foreign culture to impress upon you the importance of cultural knowledge and respect for the very fact of being a stranger in a foreign place.

My plans for 2009 are less concrete, a reality that I am remarkably more comfortable than I would have been two years ago. I’m seriously considering teaching English abroad before beginning graduate school in 2010 and have started exploring opportunities. In any event, I’ve achieved one of the main goals that I set out to in coming to Peace Corps: becoming more in-tune with where my skills and passions intersect and identifying a future course of study that will allow me to utilize and develop those skills while pursuing the things that I’m passionate about.

Despite the frustrations of the last few months and the fact of my third year extension falling through, I am so happy for this experience and the ways in which it has changed and shaped me. I’ve seen and learned so much and, while a lot of the ideas and notions I arrived with have been altered, the idealism that remains is that much more solid for having concrete experience as its foundation.

I’ve spent much of the “summer” in Ouahigouya, a city in Burkina’s north where I am currently, helping out with the 3-month training of our newest group of volunteers-to-be. The training continues until the end of August, so I’ll spend three of my six remaining weeks here and the rest of my time saying goodbye to friends and my village. Due to rainy season flooding that resulted in the complete degradation of the 20 kilometer road to my village, I was forced to move most of my thing out already. As a result, I’ll probably only spend a few days of my remaining weeks in village, especially since my colleagues have all left village to spend the summer holidays with their families in other villages and cities and my closest friends from village now live in Ouagadougou (the capital). As I commence my goodbyes, the weight and significance of my twenty-seven months in Burkina have really started to sink in.

“That’s the tragedy of life – as I always say,” said Mrs. Dalloway. “Beginning things and having to end them.”

Virginia Woolf, “The Voyage Out”

Life is short, but the art is long, the opportunity fleeting, the experiment perilous, the judgment difficult.

Hippocrates

Up In The Air

The most we can achieve here is to know ourselves unreservedly in our earthly appearance.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Any schoolboy can do experiments in the physics laboratory to test various scientific hypotheses. But man, because he has only one life to live, cannot conduct experiments to test whether to follow his passion (compassion) or not.

Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”

Greetings, gentle readers. I had decided that I wouldn’t blog again until I had some definitive news regarding the next year of my life. I don’t really. But that’s news enough, I suppose. The last two months have been busy and fulfilling, but the anxiety I’ve experienced as a result of the next year of my life hanging in limbo has constituted a creeping, underlying stress that has, at times, been a bit unbearable. Ambiguity is inconsistent to my worldview. I work hard to figure things out, to predict, to analyze, to observe and adjust accordingly.

When I applied to extend my Peace Corps service for a third year and was accepted, I thought to myself, “this is a choice I’ve made, this is definitive.” It wasn’t. Peace Corps Burkina requires host organizations with which third year volunteers partner to provide lodging for the volunteer. This can run anywhere from 500 – 1000 USD for the year, a significant amount for any non-profit, especially a local one. Beyond that, a legal agreement must be reached between PC and the organization delineating jurisdiction and responsibility in terms of the volunteer. This has to be approved by PC Washington’s consul before the volunteer can undertake a third year.

Things don’t happen quickly in Burkina. Despite the fact that Peace Corps is an American institution, it often rivals the inefficiency endemic to Burkina. It is a bureaucracy. At this point, I have a host organization interested in taking me on as a third year volunteer, though nothing is certain. Much remains to be done and agreed upon before things move forward. My site (village) will be replaced with a volunteer from the group currently in training at the end of August. I won’t have a home, I want to GO home…to America (third year volunteers take an obligatory month of home leave). If things progress, I will be in Burkina for another year. If they don’t, I’ll be home in early September, after traveling briefly with PC friends. I’ll enjoy some time at home, take the GRE, then take off again to travel until the holidays...probably through India with another PC friend. After the New Year, I may go teach English somewhere or find something to do Stateside. I hope to start a graduate program in International/Intercultural Communication in 2009 or 2010, depending on circumstances.

I’m enthusiastic for the possibilities that lie ahead. The not-knowing is difficult. I can deal with ambiguity to a point, but, as my high school choir director pointed out when I was a senior, I am a Type A. I like structure, assertion, decision, forward motion. While I’ve certainly grown in this regard during my Peace Corps service (structure? ha! logic? predictability? certainly not!), I will always crave direction, knowledge, control…and all the other qualities and elements of efficiency and productivity that make me so very American.

So this is where life stands. I don’t know where I’ll be in two or three months. But as soon as I do, so will you.

Thanks for reading,


Chrissy

Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the law of beauty, even in times of the greatest distress.

Milan Kundera

…the gods do not limit men. Men limit men.

Tom Robbins, “Jitterbug Perfume

Girls' Camps

Come, my friends 'tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all western stars until I die. It may be the gulfs will wash us down. It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, and see the great Achilles whom we once knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts; made weak by time and fate, but strong in will; to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses"

Greetings, dear readers! I have evolved from a frequent and enthusiastic blogger to an absentee one, which perhaps reflects how this ever-changing experience continues to...ever change. It becomes harder to focus a blog entry on just one subject or experience as I am busier than ever with work in village, preparing for the new training group that arrives in June, a visitor from home and, eventually, to go home for a month...and come back for another year! My third year details are not yet concrete and thus will constitute a blog to come.

Before I report on recent goings-on, however, an administrative note:

My address will change until I am settled in my new situation next fall, thus, mail should be sent to the Peace Corps office in Ouagadougou until further notice:

Chrissy Hart, PCV
Corps de la Paix Americain
01 BP 6031 Ouagadougou 01
Burkina Faso
West Africa

Also, since Google is LAME (ok, lame in regard to this particular gripe) and doesn't give loyal users more than a Gig of memory per photo page AND blog, I can no longer post pics on either my Picasa site or this blog. So, I have a new photo page and, upon returning to the BF for year three (yikes!), I will start a new blog, so that my entries will continue to be aesthetically AND intellectually stimulating.

Chrissy's Pics (Picasa Page # 2): http://picasaweb.google.com/chrissydhart

Now on to village news. This entry's topic is the recent smashing success of two girls' camps that occurred in my village, Diabo, and Diapangou, that of my PCV neighbor, Orelia (photos from the camp are posted on my new site, link above). With the aid of funding from PC Burkina's Gender And Development (GAD) program, members of the congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Church of East Aurora and many of Orelia's friends, we organized two three-day camps for female students (13-16 year-olds) in each village focusing on decision-making, confidence-building, thinking about the future, as well as a variety of health topics - female physiology, menstruation, reproduction, methods of birth control, STDs, etc.

We collaborated with our village high schools' administration and faculty, the staff of our local clinics and Action Sociale, a government ministry focused on social welfare, particularly issues pertaining to women and girls. We had a midwife, nurses, the director of my village clinic and the AS facilitators explaining menstruation, fertility, reproduction, birth control and STDs, while Orelia and I facilitated the "Life Skills" elements of the camps. We have a great Peace Corps-developed "Life Skills" manual with lots of culturally appropriate activities dealing with an array of issues facing school-age youth in the developing world. We used a few activities from the book to elaborate upon the importance of all the health information provided during the camps by providing strategies for positive behavior and responsible decision-making.

Overall, the camps surpassed our hopes and expectations. Ou collaborators were stellar - knowledgable, patient, and committed to providing as much information as possible - and the 50 schoolgirls who participated were more engaged than we had imagined possible. We had some really frank, productive dialogues which were enhanced by the presence of the Burkinabè women facilitators who were more capable of responding to questions and concerns regarding relationships and sexual behavior in Burkina.

The camps have been one of the most fulfilling projects of my service and a positive note on which to end my work in village. My service won't end until late July, but I'll be spending time up north for 6 of the 11 weeks of training for our soon-to-arrive newbies and well as travelling a bit with my first visitor from America! It's hard to believe that my time in village is up, I have no doubt that it will be incredibly sad to say goodbye. I am, however, ready and excited for the next phase of my West African adventure.

If it were customary to send little girls to school and to teach them the same subjects as are taught to boys, they would learn just and fully and would understand the subtleties of all arts and sciences. Indeed, maybe they would understand them better...for just as women's bodies are softer than men's, so their understanding is sharper.

La Cité des Dames [The City of Women] (1404)

by Christine de Pisan