Three Weeks In

I can’t believe I’m finally here! I’ve been in Burkina Faso for three weeks, but it still feels so surreal. I still have moments where it hits me and I can hardly believe what I’m doing because it’s so crazy. I’m going to live in a completely different world and speak a completely different language for 2 years… and somehow manage to do something in health development…

Training has been going great. I am in a stage (training group) of 79 people from four different sectors. There are programs in community health development (my sector), girls’ education and empowerment, small enterprise development, and secondary education. Most of us met in Philly in late June (secondary ed had to come 3 weeks earlier), and travelled here together. I still remember the first night – we arrived at the airport, and the power was off so we stood outside for about 15 minutes. After meeting the country director and being herded through customs like cattle, the chaos of baggage claim began. So you know the conveyor belts they have at most airports, no not here. Basically they start piling up the baggage in a small space and everyone pushes through to find their buried bags. It’s completely chaotic and overwhelming. I think at one point I just gave up and decided to wait until everyone had taken there stuff and mine would be easier to find. Patience is a skill I will develop here.

After a few days in the capitol city of Ouagadougou (Ouaga) and getting four shots in one day, we headed to our training site. Every day we have four classes. We take classes in language, medical (how to not get malaria, the diarrhea you will avoidable get, stuff like that), technical (stuff related to health development), safety and security, and cross-culture. Language is definitely the most overwhelming part of it. I feel like I’m so far away from being functional in French, let alone a local language too. People keep telling me not to worry, that it will come. I really hope they’re right. I really enjoy our technical training, the stuff on health development. It’s super interesting and it’s making me really excited for the work I’ll be doing over the next two years. We’ve learned about the health care system in Burkina, the structure of the CSPS (health center) and CoGES (community governing board of the CSPS), and analyzing community needs. We’ve also learned about malaria and how to make liquid soap.

Village life is a lot easier to adjust to than most people think. It will definitely be harder when I’m on my own instead of with a host family because I will have to do chores completely on my own, but the simplicity is actually quite enjoyable. There’s something really incredible about a bucket bath under the stars.

Since we’ve been in Burkina Faso, everyone we’ve meet has been so incredibly nice and welcoming. It’s awesome the way people here will always go out of their way to help someone, even a complete stranger. Biking is the main mode of transport for Peace Corps Volunteers. As part of our training, we got to shadow a Peace Corps Volunteer for a few days at her site. I went with three other people to a village close to the capitol city. During this trip, we had bike issues pretty much every time we tried to go somewhere. My friend’s bike broke down as soon as we got off the bush taxi (an experience in itself) and within minutes, we had four people around us, helping us try to fix it. It was beyond repair at the moment, so one of the guys (a friend of the volunteer we were visiting), gave us his bike to use while he sat on the back of another guy’s bike. Someone else volunteered to take the bike to the repair shop so we could have it fixed and pick it up the next morning. They are also good at making anything work again here, no matter how broken it seems.

The welcoming spirit is reflected in many ways in the culture of the Burkinabe. One custom here to greet a guest is to bring them a bowl of welcome water. There’s nothing special about the water, it’s a symbol. Unfortunately, because it’s straight from the pump and I don’t have the stomach for that yet, I have to pretend to drink it. Giving gifts is also a big thing in this culture. Despite the fact that they may not have anything to give, when a guest comes, they like to give the guest a gift. And it is extremely rude to refuse a gift. When we went to visit a current volunteer at her site, it’s respectful to go around and greet important people and elders in the village. We went to visit the chief, the imam, the pastor, some elders, and the president of the CoGES (the governing board of the health center). We were given a lot of pintard eggs and three live chickens. Just in case you didn’t know, I have a slight fear of birds. When we were given the chicken, everyone started passing it around. Figured I should start getting over my fear of birds. Better start now when I can quickly pass it off to someone else than when I have to bike it home on the handlebars of my bike all alone. So as the chicken came to me, with a bit of hesitation and multiple reaches, I held it. Everyone laughed at me, particularly the Burkinabe. Being afraid to hold a chicken is not something that happens here. And then we ate the chicken for dinner.

Getting to visit a current volunteer for a few days was really helpful. Because the job of a community health development worker is so elusive and vague, it was really awesome to see what a volunteer on the ground actually does. It was a moment where I could really picture myself doing this for the next two years. While there's definitely a sense of excitement about it all, everything is still really overwhelming. Thinking about language, technical skills, and being able to adapt. But I’m learning to not worry and be patient here. I’m really excited for both the opportunities and the challenges I will have here over the next two years. There’s a saying in French here “Ca va aller.” It basically means, “It’ll be fine” or “Don’t worry about it.” It’s a very useful saying here. It works when I’m frustrated about something, when I’m stressed out about something, or when I don’t know what’s going on. It also works when I don’t understand what people are saying to me in French. I say it and people seem to just laugh. I have a feeling that “Ca va aller” may be a theme throughout my next two years here…