Hey everyone. I was doing my best not to have a blog while I’m over here but alas friends and family and the fact that I have already had some great adventures I want to share with all of you have overruled me. Also I have a huge econ test to study for and all my other potential forms of procrastination just don’t seem as appealing. These are from journal entries I’ve been writing. Photos later.
Let me try to catch up…
September 3, 2009
It took Lizzie and I had a day and a half of travel from New York, including a 15-hour layover in Casablanca, Morocco (sadly spent sleeping and starving because of Ramadan instead of exploring) to reach Burkina Faso. After getting chewed out for accidentally walking past Burkina customs, which just happened to be two guys without a uniform and fold out table, we were met by the two FAVL employees who were there to pick us up, Elisée (swoon) and François, our driver. FAVL stands for Friends of African Village Libraries, which is the NGO we will be working for and studying with here in Burkina. Elisée, the main Burkinabé working for FAVL who we both fell madly in love with at first sight, drove us to our house, which is in the Zogona and more specifically in Zone du bois. Zogona is where most of the NGOs seem to be located and more of the wealthy Burkinabe live. Keeping this in mind, me give you a picture of what our nice house is like. Lizzie and I sleep on glorified cots with mosquito nets hanging over them. Our bathroom has a toilet that requires some skill to work sometimes and the shower and toilet are in no way separate. Africa is all about multi-tasking. The shower has one temperature, cold, which is pretty nice during the humid afternoons. On our first night, since we had arrived around 3 in the morning, we had trouble falling asleep because roosters began crowing at the first sign of sunlight and the first call to prayer was at 4 in the morning. Unlucky for us, there is a mosque right around the corner with really loud speakers.
Also, Lizzie and I got here the day of the most rainfall since 1913. Most of the water had soaked in by the time we woke up in the morning. The houses in our neighborhood as well built but even in Ouaga, the capital, the majority of houses are bricks with a sand base. Because of this, 25% of the population’s houses melted away with the rainfall that rivaled the Bible.
FAVL has employed a housekeeper and a night guard for us, both who we have had some great conversations with. I still am getting used to having someone else do my laundry, wash dishes and cook. At first I thought this was completely unnecessary and I felt bad but after being here a few days, I have learned that there is 60% formal unemployment so having a maid is a good thing. After everyone else came, the two boys of the program, Brian and Yuki, have moved in to the other rooms. It is nice to have some testosterone around because I can only imagine how living like this with 6 other girls would pan out. Our first night together we gathered under our only working air conditioner in the living room with our mattresses and watched a movie on my computer. The other 5 girls are in the other guesthouse, a ten-minute walk away on the other side of FAVL headquarters.
Classes start on Monday so during this week we are mainly touring Ouagadougou with a local writer, Janvier (like the month), who has taken us to see the different markets and main sights of the city. All nine of us students have gotten along great so far. We all have pretty much similar interests and sense of humor.
Its hard to explain Ouaga though. People here are so so poor and its definitely a kind of poverty I have never seen before. When you imagine a city in Africa, that’s probably what Ouagadougou looks like. There are animals everywhere. Outside our house right now there is a donkey grazing, the FAVL headquarters has three goats and 6 chickens and there are goats and chickens roaming even the busiest streets all day. Despite their poverty, this is a peaceful country and the worst crime is usually robbery but even then, they are just looking for cash. The Burkinabé I have talked to know the problems they face and they can always pinpoint them on a different reason. The problem is that an education is hard to come by and opportunities are even more rare.
September 7, 2009
Classes have started and I’m starting to feel more or less settled. We have a developing economics class with Michael Kevane, library extraordinaire and economics professor at Santa Clara. He is also the head of the program and it is hard to convey his amazingness sometimes. We have a French class, which bores me to tears. Since we are all at different levels, its hard to teach us French and I’m not saying that I’m amazingly beret-wearing, baguette under my arm fluent but… I learned passé composé 5 years ago!!!! Our French teacher is Burkinabé but and he teaches the French language with the same vigor and volume as a Baptist preacher. Our Francophone literature class is where I see myself learning the most. We also have a service learning class and a photography class.
Our group has now grown to its full size and our inside jokes are already out of control. I guess we all get along so well because it takes a certain personality to go to Africa for 4 months. I’m also so happy Lizzie is here, I don’t know what I would do without her.
September 14, 2009
Last weekend, our professors broke us into groups and took us to different parts of Burkina for the weekend in order to get us out of the city. I have to admit that I was so happy to leave after being cooped up in our house with school the last week. Did I mention I live at the school house? Its nice to roll out of bed to class but I have to make an effort to leave every day. Anyway, our Burkinabé friend, Dounko, and me, Lizzie and Louise, an amazing SC senior who has already been all over Africa, our photography professor David Pace took the train to the village of Bereba. This is the village where me and another girl, Meghan, will be living and working in the village library for 5 weeks starting October 15.
The train was set to leave at 7:30 in the morning on Saturday. This is the only train in Burkina that takes people (and chickens) to Abijan in Côte d’Ivoire from Ouagadougou. The ride is a two-day trip in total but Bereba only takes 5 hours. But now let me explain to you a concept that I have been learning here. The concept of Africa time. Now I’m not saying that all Africans or all Burkinabé are late to everything, just that, well, they aren’t in a hurry. That said, the train was 4 hours late. Then it took longer to board so we were out of there by 1pm. Also, it was painfully slow. At one point I looked out the window and saw a donkey pulling a cart next to the train… going faster than the train. I kid you not.
The trip to Bereba, that would have taken 4 hours in the car, took 9 hours. As slow and painful as it was, there were definitely beautiful moments. I got to see the traditional family compounds by the tracks. When I stuck my head out the window to feel the breeze, little kids playing by the tracks would run and scream, “Nasarah!!!!” (the word for white in Moore and Dioula). At every stop along the way, women would come up to the train windows selling oranges or bananas balanced on their heads for us to buy. We met a traveling Spanish couple that gave me some Spanish cheese…
The village of Bereba was incredible. We stayed in the house that I will be living in for five weeks. It has no electricity or running water but plumbing and ceiling fans are overrated anyway (I’ll keep repeating that as I sweat to death and pee in a hole). Dounko, who lives there and used to manage the library showed us around. He is one of the happiest lighthearted people I have ever met. One shock that I got while talking to him was when we made a comment about McDonald’s, he asked me what that was. I guess I had never before met anyone who had never heard of McDonald’s. It just felt rare to be around someone so untouched by american culture.
One more anecdote. One that I’m not especially proud of. We were driving in Bereba and we stopped because we ran into the Chef de Terre (the village chief). So Dounko, Louise and Lizzie got out of the car to go meet him but my door was stuck so I joined them after they had shaken hands and all that. To my surprise, instead of offering a hand to shake, he sticks his hand out in a fist. I had no idea what to do. This guy is very important and I am about to live in his village. Does one shake the fist? Does one pound it? In a display of questionable judgment, I go for the latter. Thank God my dearest, lovely friend Lizzie came to my aid as I slowly extended a fist toward the traditional leader and tactfully stopped me from committing this cultural faux pas (I actually don’t know what culture that would be ok in). It turns out you are supposed to shake his wrist... they don't teach you these things.
More soon.
Lafi,
Merry
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment