Diabo: Home Sweet Home!

Hi, All and Greetings from the East. I'm in Fada N'Gourma, my regional capital, spending the night at a hostel here to run some errands, visit the marché, and take des petite vacances from life au village.

It's been a week and a half since we left for our sites/villages and things are going better than I could have hoped. I'm so happy with my new home thus far and have already met so many kind, interesting, and welcoming people. I'm optimistic at the prospect of two years here, from the quality of the community itself to the potential to do some really neat things with Girls' Education in collaboration with the school faculties and community members in Diabo.

I arrived a week from this past Sunday after spending a day and night here in Fada with the other volunteers whose sites are in my region. It was nice to have one last night with a smaller group before heading off Sunday morning. My neighbor, Nancy, and I were driven to our sites in a Peace Corps car piled high with our bikes, luggage, and household items we'd acquired in Ouaga and Fada. I was surpisingly at ease as we turned off the paved road onto the dirt road leading to our villages. I was the last one to be dropped off and was immediately greeted by my homologue, several teachers, and the APE (equivalent of PTA) members of the primary school I'm assigned to. They helped me to settle in and made sure that everything was in order as far as my house. After unloading my things, we sat under my hangar (porch area with a thatched roof) and drank some sucréries (sodas) while I was introduced to everyone. The first night was a little overwhelming, but I was so pleased with the warm welcome I'd received and the kind attention of so many people that I immediately felt secure and fairly at ease.

The last ten days have been a great introduction to my village and the people of Diabo. I have so much to report that I'm not sure where to begin, so I'll start with my house. It's much larger than my stage house in Sananga and is made of cement instead of mud bricks. It consists of two large rooms with screened in windows, high ceilings, a tin roof, and a screen door and large metal outter door. Thus far, the only furniture I've acquired is a bed made of petit bois (little wood)which is slightly reminscent of the Flinstones but is surpisingly comfy with my Burkinabé mattress (and mosquito net canopy). I've erected a makeshift table with leftover cement blocks for my gas stove and have a lonely metal and canvas chair on loan from a neighbor, as well as several brightly-colored mats on which to sit. I also have a Burkinabé water cooler (sans the cool water)which consists of my water filter and a huge plastic garbage can next to it, in which I keep my supply of h2o. I did order several pieces of furniture from a carpenter in my village, including a bookshelf and two tables. For now my house is a bit bare, but it's already starting to feel like MY house.

My house is down a dirt path off of the main dirt road just before it reaches the center of town. The director of my school and a teacher at the village Catholic school are my nearest neighbors. My courtyard does include two other houses, one of which is still under construction and the other which is now uninhabited. I'm told, however, that it will host another nasara (!), a woman of presently unknown ethnicity who works with a Catholic NGO. Currently, my house is surrounded by fields of sky-high corn, millet, and sorghum plants, obstructing the view of my neighbors houses and affording an almost lonely degree of privacy (good thing the Burkinabé are big on visiting at ALL hours). My closest neighbors are, in actuality, a mama pig and her piglets who live under a tree just beyond my courtyard wall...and they are a NOISY bunch!

So that's my house, now onto the village itself.  It's quite big for a Burkinabé village, as it is the center of the administrative Department and thus home to many government offices, as well as the local police.  There is one main road that goes through Diabo from the paved road to Fada, 21k north, all the way down to Koudougou, close to the borders with Ghana and Togo.  Lots of smaller dirt paths that are traversable by foot, bike, and moto, head off to the surrounding villages.  On the outskirts of the village are several municipal buildings including the office of the Prefet (political head of the Department) and the Inspecteur d'Education. As you approach centre-ville, there are compounds of mud brick buildings and mud huts with straw roofs on either side, as well as roadside kiosques that sell anything from petrol to soap to rice.  The first major building is a "Centre Des Enfants" which serves as both an orphanage and rehabilitation facility for malnourished babies and children.  After that, there is a large dirt road off to the right which leads up to the huge "Eglise Catholique" and the Catholic mission of Diabo.  The majority of people in Diabo are Catholic, although there are also Protestants, Muslims, and animism that pervades all forms of religion.  The mission is an impressively large compound and includes a monastery with nuns from Burkina and several European countries, as well as a French priest.  Past the church is one of the primary schools and a grove of delightfully big, tall tress.  After that is a small pond and streamwith a bridge, past which lies the path to Diabo's large marché which takes place every three days and has provided the best means of social integration for me thus far.

As it is currently the height of the rainy season, Diabo is resplendant in green, from the crops to the wide variety of trees (baobab, karité, palm, etc.).  It is positively lush in comparison with our host villages up North.   I can best describe the topography as savannah presently, as the land is usually flat, sometimes a bit rolling, with frequent rock formations and boulders as well as tall grass and numerous trees.  This description may not apply during the saison seche (dry season).  I'll have to report on that as I experience it, since I have little concept as to how much the land will dry up after the rainy season.  Our group has been spoiled in our introduction to Burkina during the rainy season.

While I've discussed the physical elements of my village and new home, the people of Diabo, particularly my homologue (counterpart) and school faculty, have made the biggest impression on me thus far.  I hope to get back online tomorrow, since I haven't begun to delve into the barrage of impressions and experiences that have constituted the past ten days.  In many ways, this experience continues to feel like the discovery of a totally new world, so far removed from my life in the States and so fundamentally different.  Despite the radical polarity of existence here, the commonalities of human experience are the defining elements of day-to-day life here, as I adapt to life in Diabo get to know my community.

My time's about up, 'til tomorrow.

Wend na kond nidaare (Mooré benediction: "until next time")

Smiles,

Chrissy