Greetings from Ouaga!

Bonsoir!

I'm currently in Ouagadougou with the other Girls' Ed stagiares for a counterpart training workshop. We've spent the last two days with our homologues, counterparts in village who will assist us with our work, language, and general cultural integration.

But before I get into THAT, I have many exciting things to report! This has been an incredibly full week of feedback, announcements, and travel! First, I am very excited to report that my language skill level en français has jumped a whole level from Novice-Mid to Intermediate-Mid in one short month! I was very excited to receive that feedback since language is so crucial to our work and general well-being. The Peace Corps uses three level designations (Novice, Intermediate, Advanced) so I'm hoping to achieve at least Advanced Low by the end of stage (5 more weeks). We also received general performance evaluations from our formateurs (language and technical teachers) and mine was really great, which was certainly a nice boost. We've all been working our tails off, often while sick with a variety of parasite and climate induced maladies! Speaking of which, I'm currently experiencing my second round of stomach illness which, happily, is less grave then before.

The day after our evaluation feedback, we got our SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS! Talk about apprehension and excitement. We gathered together the morning before our departure for Ouaga and had a neat little ceremony where we affixed our pictures to a giant map of Burkina on which our sites, and those of the Secondary Ed stagiares, were designated. I will be spending the next two years in Diabo, a large village in the Southeast of Burkina, almost directly north of the border between Burkina, Ghana, and Togo. Apparently it's a rather large village, since it has at least 4 primary schools and a lycee (high school). It also has a CSPS (clinic), a pharmacy, a few telecentres, and boutiques that sell household things and food as well as a marche (market) every three days. This is all extremely reassuring as my current village is really small and it definitely requires a bit of a bike ride to get to a phone, market, or place that sells crucial stuff like toilet paper. I'm also a mere 10k away from another volunteer which is also super sweet since it guarantees an English-speaking reprieve when necessary. One of my current village mates is also only 25k away - hooray for bikeable proximity! Diabo is 2 - 3 hours away from Ouaga and 50k from Fada n'Gourma, one of the bigger cities in Burkina. It's about 20k off the main paved road which means catching a bush taxi or biking to the goudron (paved road) to catch transport to Ouaga or Fada. I'm definitely much more central to other volunteers and closer to a major city than a lot of other people. Happily, Fada provides a nice central location for quite a few of us, so weekend reunions will be a definite possibility.

Diabo is comprised of mainly Mossi and Zaosse people and is Zaosse in origin. The Zaosse speak Zaore which is a variant of Moore but is very similar. I've been told that Zaore and Moore are pretty much interchangeable so I should be able to commincate with most Moore speakers, a very nice thing. It's so great to see the typical Burkinabe reaction when you come out with a greeting or comment in Moore, they don't get too many white folks speaking local languages here, as you can imagine. Though it has been fun to see other expats while we've been in Ouaga. Even in Ouahigouya we see the occassional Nasara, usually a European with an NGO, and last week we had a huge group of French tourists infiltrate our little city! But I digress. So Diabo sounds pretty great and I'll find out for myself in two days when I visit my site after staying with a current volunteer for a night en route. Aissatta, my homologue, described my house to me a bit and it sounds pretty spacious and is conveniently located next to the nearest water source which (drumroll please) is not a pump, nor a well...it's a ROBINET! A real, live faucet!!! And, if my translation skills are good, it sounds like it runs well all year round with little threat to use during the dry season. So, in summation, this all sounds pretty auspicious! I'll have lots to report on my site visit in my next blog entry.

Le Moyen du Transport (means of transport)

Rewind a few days to site announcement and our departure for Ouaga. Our voyage marked the first and quite formative experience with transport in Burkina Faso. On the subject of transport, perhaps shiny new cars initially come to mind...a good old American SUV or an ever-practical compact. Now there are, of course, cars in Burkina, even the odd Benz cruising through the bush (really). But transport, Burkina-style, typically refers to a bus or bush taxi. There are several bus lines that operate in Burkina travelling between the major cities. Some lines are more timely and reliable than others, but all represent the risk of being stranded on the side of the road until the next bus comes along, or longer. Also, an aside, all of the bus line names are acronyms...STAF, STMB, ZST, SOGEBAF...weird. Anyhow, we took the STMB line to Ouaga at 14:00, arriving in Ouaga around 17:00...not bad at all if you disregard the frequent honking at bicyclists swerving to get out of our way, goats crossing the road and other unfortunate creatures in proximity to the road. The bus itself was a formidable machine, resembling a Greyhound with exponentially more miles and less paint. As they say in Burkina, ça va aller (so it goes). It was definitely a memorable experience, for our group and the other Burkinabé stuck on transport with a bunch of nasaras. I had a window seat and enjoyed the now VERY green landscape whilst listening to my iPod. I look forward to my upcoming transport "firsts" including tomorrow's journey by bush taxi to Koupela, where I'll be staying with a current volunteer to check out her site and meet with the regional education official before heading to Diabo to visit my site.

Sejourn in Ouaga

As aforementioned, I've been in Ouaga for three days and two nights, during whih I have enjoyed my first Burkina pizza and Burkina ice cream (the proverbial oasis in the desert, if you will). Our first night here, a group of us ventured to one of the dozen or so recommended restaurants in Ouaga that cater to fonctionaires (government employees), tourists, international types, and Peace Corps volunteers craving Western-style ANYTHING. Let me tell you, it was incredible. Not only did the place have atmosphere, reminiscent of a quaint Italian restaurant, with a huge candlelit patio area, but the food was incredible. I ate an indescribably delicious pizza followed by a bowl of the best sorbet and ice cream I have ever had. Needless to say, I was a happy camper.

In addition to the good eating available around the city, our two-day workshop was held in an air-conditioned room (heaven on Earth) and we ate several meals at our hotel that consisted of more than one basic food group. I've eaten at least 5 different types of vegetables in 3 days...this is a BIG DEAL. I've also enjoyed several real showers and the use of plumbing in general. It's been a nice little vacation for sure. Tonight will be our last flirtation with convenience and modernity until we return for a night at the end of the week before heading back to Ouahigouya and our villages for the last 5 weeks of stage.


I guess that's all I have to report. This Peace Corps thing seems pretty real after site announcements and our counterpart workshop, although I still have to take moment every now and then a tell myself that yes, I really am in Africa and yes, I will probably feel this white the whole two years (albeit with a nice tan)! It's certainly a continual rollercoaster of highs and lows, with lots more to come. I have frequent moments of self-doubt countered by moments of surprising strength and reaffirming clarity. There are so many beautiful and wonderful things about this experience and I am learning to muster courage and fortitude I didn't know I had, but it is HARD. This is certainly no vacation, especially three months of training to be a functional member of a community in a place that is about as foreign as it gets. The more job-related things we learn, the more we know we're up against. Gender inequity here is endemic and, as was evidenced during our workshop, touches each and every woman regardless of education or social status. This battle isn't just uphill, it's Mount Everest during an avalanche.

There are however, inspirational rays of hope in the incredible Burkinabé staff who are so dedicated to our training and our future work, and the principles that drive them. The passion they have for progressive change in this country and the challenges that many of them, especially the women, have faced and surmounted, are reason to hope and to take du courage in the face of a difficult, unreceptive environment. They will have crammed an amazing amount of skill and information into our brains by the time stage is over, preparing us for much failure and hopefully some sustainable success.

As always, thanks for the e-mails.

With Love,

Chrissy