Narsara, Nasara!

Sorry for multiple posts at once - It's a lot easier to type them all at home and then post a bunch at once when I get internet. I'll try to date them all.

July 21, 2010

So one of the bizarre feelings of training is this completely crazy, what the heck am I doing feeling that has this odd calm to it. It’s really weird for such insanity to result in a calmness about everything that I am about to do. I think it just means I’m in the right place, doing the right thing. That it’s scary, exciting, and completely crazy, but that’s the wonderfulness of it all.

One of my favorite parts of training so far has been the conversations we’ve had with health workers and educators here. We’ve had a chance to talk to CSPS (health center) staff members, a CoGES (community-elected governing board of a CSPS), and different community-based organizations around health education. While the language barrier makes the conversations more difficult, one benefit from this is it forces me to listen to the answer to a question. I think Americans have become good at asking questions, but not really caring about or listening to an answer, or only listening to what we want to hear. We’re good at tuning out, whether it’s in a college lecture class or just checking in with a friend. There’s always something to be preoccupied with. When you have to translate mentally what is said, it forces you to listen and understand. It’s been really cool having conversations with organizations here about what the health issues are and how they could be fixed. It’s given me a more defined idea of the challenges I will face as a health professional in Burkina Faso and an understanding of the approach to health in Burkina Faso.

Moved into my host family this week and they’re totally awesome. I have two siblings, ages 2 and 8. My host mom is really cool and she works for an organization that does health education in villages, so we’ll definitely have a lot to talk about. They live in the “suburbs” of the city we are training in. They have running water, electricity, flush toilets, and satellite TV. I was originally bummed out because I wanted the true village experience in my host family to prepare me for my site. But then I remembered I have two whole years of using a hole in the ground for a toilet. It is odd because sometimes an American music video will come on the TV and I will almost forget how far away I am. As a health volunteer, I will be placed “en brousse,” (in the bush), and I certainly will not have these amenities after training, so I may as well enjoy them now. We also have a cat and two dogs, one named Scooby Doo.

Nasara is the Moore (a local language in Burkina Faso) term for foreigner. As we walk down the street, we are guaranteed to hear it multiple times. Often times I hear it in the marche, but usually that means “Hey foreigner. You have money, come buy my product.” That I try to ignore. But it always makes me smile when a kid says it laughing, pointing, and sometimes running after us. Some people are offended by this, that we have names other than Nasara. I find it endearing. It’s more out of interest and curiosity than being derogatory or harmful. It’s so funny how we’ve gathered quite a following of kids. As soon as we leave our training site, we have at least 4 kids following us, usually holding our hands. And they will hang out with us throughout whatever we are doing, even if it is eating dinner. Once you get over the crazy idea that their parents aren’t worried about where they are or that they’re with strangers, it’s actually quite fun. I’ve had so much fun attempting to learn to count to 5 in Moore, which I’m really bad at so we just laughed instead. I’ve also learned that some things transcend language. Like hand clapping games. The fun seems to be universal and you don’t need to speak the same language to play with someone. I’m sure soon the hand holding while I’m walking or being a human zoo will get annoying, but right now, I love having instant friends who walk me back to the training center after lunch.